This video is brought to you by the fact that
I predicted we would get an Anime Original Friend for Asuna in the Progressive Movie! God, I’m on a roll with these predictions! The second Sword Art Online Aria of a Starless
Night Movie trailer has arrived and surprisingly, it has a whole lot of action, Illbuff the
Chad Lord of Sit-Ups makes his appearance, and a brand new movie original character,
Mito, who will be Asuna’s friend early on as I have literally predicted would happen
in our recent SA
O Wikia Podcast uploaded just yesterday! While the new trailer has most of us Light
Novel readers thrown into a massive wave of confusion with all of its changes, I got a
very solid timeline here for all of you after sitting down a bit and going over the trailer
a whole bunch of times in detail! We are also getting the movie in Fall 2021,
so I’ll just chuck that in there at the beginning so if you were here just for release
date information, that’s as much as we got for now. Welcome everyone, it
’s me Gamerturk, your
best source of Sword Art Online information and this is Progressive EXPLAINED featuring
Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night movie trailer 2! An introduction for all the newcomers with
the Progressive hype, this is our third SAO EXPLAINED series together, following AGGO
and Alicization EXPLAINED. What I do here is essentially provide you
all the vital information on Characters, Events, Action, Lore from the source material, Light
Novels, things that the an
ime did not convey properly or just did not have the time to,
so you can still see the full picture. At least that’s what the usual EXPLAINED
videos are, this is a trailer EXPLAINED video for Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of
a Starless Night Movie PV2, where I’ll be giving some more context to certain scenes
you see in the trailer for you to have a better overview, so make sure to subscribe for more
in depth SAO news and coverage! Reminder that while I’ll keep spoilers to
a minimum, that st
ill means this will be a spoilery video for those with low spoiler
tolerance, although with the amount of Movie Original Content there is in this new trailer,
a lot of what I’ll say in this video will belong under the speculation banner rather
than spoiler, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be sharing a lot of source material knowledge
to tie in what we see into what we have. And if you want to jump to specific events
that you are particularly curious about, timestamps will be in the description, al
ong with Amazon
and Book Depository affiliate links so you can grab the Novels for yourselves. You got plenty of time to grab Progressive
Light Novel Volume 1, which is the source material, not the Manga, and read through
its first half, Aria of a Starless Night. With that, let’s cast away the sly foxes
spreading misinformation and get on with Progressive EXPLAINED! Starting with, a massive disclaimer! If you are active in the SAO Community, you
will see a lot of caution from the Light Novel rea
ders. As mentioned, we have seen massive changes
from the original canon in this second trailer, and a lot of us still have Manabu Ono PTSD
from the Alicization Anime Adaptation, so with this many additions and changes, it suffices
to say a lot of fans are scared. Me, due to having some influence on others
through my channel however, have to be the reasonable person until shit actually hits
the fan. And I also have to add, while the trailer
had a lot of original stuff, all I got from the trailer
is an initial confusion, rather
than any kind of worry. And with a couple hours worth of thought given
to it, all the pieces are falling into their places. Secondly, yeah, most people hate changes,
but I prefer having the mindset of shitting on changes if they end up being a detriment
to the story. Just like I criticized a lot of things in
the Alicization Anime, I praised a lot of things too that the Anime changed from the
main canon. So a “change” in and of itself is not
inherently positive or
negative. How it ends up affecting the story is what
leads to the conclusion. And with the additions we see in the trailer,
it seems to me that overall, we got some great additions that reinforce Asuna’s character
and perspective to the situation nicely. Which I’ll get to in more detail, so let’s
begin the trailer breakdown! We start with a quick cut in the real world,
as we expected we are getting some more real life scenes from Asuna’s point of view and
I do expect us to go as far back as Asu
na’s day at the school before we reach this point,
so the real world scenes are likely going to be a bit longer than a 1 minute introduction
or so. Though I feel forced to point out that boring
ass box art, come on guys… You got Sony as well as Playstation on your
production committee, this cannot be the best box art you can come up with… A simple full shot of Aincrad would make a
better box art… Next up, we got Kayaba’s tutorial with clips
from the first trailer playing out, until we see Asuna
out in the field, with her voice
going crazy upon Kayaba’s reveal. Of course, her voice does not match this scene,
her shock is from back at the Town of Beginnings. But why is she out in the fields like this? I will get back to it in a short bit later
in this video, because that is part of a very clear timeline this trailer puts in front
of us and I need to go over some more scenes before I lay it out for you. The next cut however is absolutely great. We see Diavel going for the final Health Bar
of Illfang the Kobold Lord as you can recognize from his new weapon. What you can also much more easily recognize
is Illfang’s redesign to be a whole lot more intimidating. But oh boy oh boy, Kirito’s line there,
the harsh truth he learned during his first day in Aincrad… “In extreme life or death situations, a
person would do anything to survive. But in a situation like this, there’s no
telling what people are capable of.”, hinting back to his experience with the Anneal Blade
quest in the Firs
t Day side story, where Coper tried to Monster PK him to earn the prized
weapon himself. Remember, Coper was not trying to survive
in a life or death situation. He had already made his choice to kill Kirito,
just to be able to get Anneal Blade slightly earlier with slightly less effort. Despite all the changes this trailer showed,
I am glad we are keeping the First Day related things on the Kirito side. And if you do not know about the First Day
side story, its one of the 3 stories featured in S
AO Volume 8, Early and Late, so you can
get that if you wanna read it, or just wait a little bit as I am currently working on
my Summary video. But speaking of changes, we see Kirito saving
Asuna has been changed from inside the dungeon into this open field against the large croco-boss. It is an interesting change, I don’t particularly
mind it. Not like the location of the event was of
any importance or the monster that was being fought against. And having more original monster designs is
always
good, especially beneficial for Progressive. Having monster variety other than just color
shifts is always nice and keeps things interesting. Next up, we see Asuna grinding against Bees,
which you just gotta pause and look at that incredible detail for a very quick cut, as
the Bee grind does have a lot of importance in the narrative. There are plenty of examples in the trailer
as a whole that shows they know what they are doing with the movie that gives me a lot
of confidence. I will of course
point out the other instances
that stand out as well, coming from the Light Novels. Also, you can see Asuna is only ever using
a single Sword Skill in this trailer, as well as in the first trailer, the one hit thrust
attack Linear which is completely on point. Like, not just the wasp or the linear, look
at the ground, the grasses splitting up with the ripple of that Linear! Everything brought over straight from the
source material has a massive weight to it that stands out. After a quick Kirito
cut from when he saves
Asuna from the big croco-monster, we see a shot of Asuna getting jumped by a mysterious
figure, inside the town of beginnings no less. But worry not, I do have a clear and easy
answer for this tying into the earlier “timeline” I mentioned, so moving on for now until we
collect all the pieces of the puzzle before piecing them together. And would you look at that, another piece
right here, with our new character, Mito being introduced with the words “We need to leave
the tow
n, right now!”, can you remember where you heard that before? I will remind you of course, but we still
have a couple more puzzle pieces to collect, so please do bear with me as I take care of
everything but this new original addition. Though one thing I want to mention, as it's
not directly narrative related, which is the only thing that I really have an issue with
in this trailer, is the design of the new character. She does not look like she fits in with what
the level is currently in the gam
e. She has nice looking armor compared to the
noob half breastplates, she has a fucking scythe as a weapon, where the problem is not
that we didn’t know scythes existed as a weapon type before, but the fact that she
actually has one Day 1, along with a 5-hit Sword Skill for it which is pretty much impossible
to have. I could chalk it up to Anime taking liberties
just to make things look cool, but that argument does not particularly work when she is standing
out so much… Like, if you suffer from
the “Main Character
Syndrome” more than the actual main characters, that’s a sign of something going wrong in
the concept art phase. But anyways, my only complaint out of the
way, we got some quick shots of the boss meeting in Tolbana, but then another piece of the
puzzle regarding our new character. “It’s doesn’t matter whether you’re
a Beta Tester or not. You know what kind of a person she is… You’re the only one who does.” obviously referring to Mito, and this is also
the scene where in the p
revious trailer, Asuna states “We were always together…” Again, continue keeping all of those puzzle
pieces in your pocket. And now that we go back to the boss room,
I do wanna say a few words for Chadfang the Swole Lord, I absolutely love his redesign. Yeah, I liked his original design too, it
was nostalgic and iconic for the series. But there is an important piece of information
that everyone usually glosses over. SAO time and time again states how much of
a psychological challenge it is to fi
ght larger than life bosses in FullDive due to how real
everything is. The way SAO puts you into these situations
is literally your measly body, faced against these incredibly intimidating bosses, so much
so that people regularly run away or get scared shitless that they can no longer control their
avatars. Old Illfang was scary too, sure, it was a
big thing that was doing scary screeching noises waving around a sharp object. But when you looked at it, it did not have
that “intimidating” factor.
It was a big thing that you’d be scared
from but that was it. Look at Chadfang the Swole Lord for gods sake,
now that is a boss that will get you scared shitless. Even looking at this from a distance, damn
straight I don’t want to ever get close to this abomination, I don’t even want to
imagine seeing it from a distance like goddamn… That is beyond intimidating on a psychological
level, this thing will rip you and all your loved ones apart, escape the game and go after
your family and friends.
This redesign absolutely 100% sells that psychological
aspect of having to fight a boss in Sword Art Online and I absolutely love it. This is indeed a boss that only a select few
can actually have the balls to face head on. But yeah, we see some more boss shots, and
Asuna ripping through stuff and the highlight of this trailer for me, Asuna drawing her
Wind Fleuret that is animated masterfully with all the weight you would expect from
such a pivotal moment for Asuna. This is her first proper wea
pon that she gets
attached to emotionally, which appears to be further solidified with the added Mito
narrative, the way she draws it out of its sheath and “Let’s take it down together”
referring to the Wind Fleuret, and yes, this is exactly the point where we bring out the
puzzle pieces. My initial theory was that Mito would be very
similar to Coper for Kirito. Someone who would earn the trust of Asuna
and then try to Monster PK her, leading to her own death and causing Asuna to blame herself
f
or it. But the more and more pieces I collected,
the clearer the timeline became and of course, who Mito is. Let’s start from the beginning, the first
time we see Mito is when she is jumping over Asuna in the Town of Beginnings. You may be asking why she looks sooooooo different
than the other shots, as if she has an entirely different design. Which is a valid question, until you realize
she does indeed have a different design. This scene is right when Asuna logs into the
game, around 1pm. You s
ee her checking her hand, then the camera
turns to reveal she is right in front of the central monolith in the middle of the Town
of Beginnings. And that is exactly where she gets jumped
by Mito, who has a completely different design, because Kayaba’s tutorial did not yet take
place, there is still around 3 hours until Kayaba overwrites everybodies avatars into
their real looks. So at this point in time, Mito retains her
game avatar rather than having her real life body. But then we go deeper. W
hy is she jumping over Asuna, seemingly randomly? There is the ethics code in SAO, you cannot
just randomly jump over someone and expect to not get punished. But Mito knows Asuna will not do anything
to her, specifically because Mito knows her personally. You see, Asuna did not create a custom avatar,
so she appeared as herself, a dead giveaway for any other player who may know her from
real life. So let’s say a schoolmate of hers were to
log in around the same time as her right after school whe
n they got home, that person would
be placed in the exact same area and would easily be able to recognize Asuna at a glance. And that is exactly what is happening here. And that is also why earlier in the video,
I said I expect the movie to begin earlier that day in real life, as early as during
Asuna’s time at school. We will not be meeting Mito for the first
time in SAO, we’ll first get to know her at Asuna’s school. And that is also exactly why Kirito says what
he says. “You know what kind of
a person she is… You’re the only one who does.” Asuna is the only one who really knows the
real Mito from real life, compared to all the other people who may know her in the game. And more than anyone, it is Kirito who knows
people put up a mask and hide away their real self here. But it doesn’t end there. Kirito implies Mito was a Beta Tester, which
easily explains her skill, as well as composure in this scene right after the tutorial, urging
Asuna to get stronger and move forward together. In
the 30 second trailer, there is an additional
line from Mito stating she will never let Asuna be killed, further highlighting her
determination to protect her. However Mito seems to find herself in the
same position as Kirito when he had to abandon Klein. Asuna is a complete newbie to not only Aincrad,
but gaming as a whole, so it appears Mito quickly recognizes that trying to get Asuna
stronger only puts Asuna more in danger than she needs to and parts ways with her to protect
her, which puts
Asuna back into the Town of Beginnings, spending 2 weeks inside an inn,
crying and thinking about what to do, while we see Mito being broken about the decision
she had to make to protect her friend. And again, this further ties into what we
heard from Asuna in the previous trailer, talking about how they were “always together”. If you checked my previous explained, we were
a bit confused when we heard the line back then and interpreted it as a tease for what
would later come in with the Floor 2
story, Rondo of a Fragile Blade. But with the Mito narrative, it’s clear. They were together for all this time, literally,
back in real life as school buddies. Then they played together and had fun for
a bit in Aincrad too, so Asuna was questioning why Mito had abandoned her. And ironically, that is quite the harsh question
to ask to Kirito, which gets me really excited to see his full response. Sure, the part of his answer, probably the
end of it we see in this trailer, but goddamn, that questi
on must have crushed the poor guys
heart at first. He most certainly knows exactly how Mito felt,
as he felt the exact same thing towards Klein and Fuurinkazan. If I bring them along, I’ll cause them to
die. So it’s better to abandon them right then
and there and live with the guilt for years to come. And of course, that is
the exact mirror Mito and Asuna dynamic is going for. And that is why I don’t think the addition
of Mito is a particularly troublesome addition to Progressive, whether she d
ies against Illfang
or continues to be a side character in the series. Because whether she survives or not, she certainly
does not have the face to look at Asuna for at least a couple dozen floors, much like
Kirito couldn’t look at Klein. In fact, if anything, this entire narrative,
drawing a perfect parallel to Kirito’s circumstances is only getting me more excited that makes
me want to see what will become of it. It certainly appears to be an addition that
really goes in depth about Asuna’s pe
rspective to everything that is present in Aincrad. And aside from the initial confusion, pretty
much all Light Novel readers in SAO Wikia have turned to have a much more favorable
and optimistic attitude towards what we got in our hands, which is certainly good to see. Yeah, we did not get to see Argo in the trailer,
but it’s not like we had to. The trailer really had a solid theme going,
to tease this entire Asuna-Mito dynamic and it did a wonderful job at it. I could tell you 50 other scenes
that I would
love to have in this trailer, but with this trailer theme, or more specifically, the narrative
of the trailer, we didn’t need a randomly inserted character who has no direct connection
to the personal struggle here. It was a trailer between Asuna and Mito, with
drawing direct parallels to Kirito’s circumstances. For what they wanted to emphasize here, Argo
had no place. But do not worry, she will have her place
elsewhere, you just gotta be patient. She is indispensable to Progressiv
e, she ain’t
going anywhere. But that’s the end of this EXPLAINED, if
you have questions that you feel like were not answered in the video, do ask them below
in the comments section with #AskGamerturk to be featured in a Progressive Q&A video! If your question is regarding the future,
please add a spoiler warning and give it a couple of blank lines to push spoilers away. And no, I will not answer spoiler questions
for the sake of spoilers like “Is Kirito going to kill Mito?”, if you are that cur
ious
for spoilers, just read the books, Amazon and Book Depository links in the description. And if you made it this far, comment “Sword
Skill Linear” to let me know! But if you enjoyed this Explained, please
do leave a like. If you’re new here, subscribe and hit the
bell icon for more in depth coverage on SAO! My summary video for the First Day side story
that acts as a prequel to Progressive will be coming soon, so stay tuned for that! Follow me on facebook and twitter for the
fastest news pos
sible. 50k subscriber special merch among others
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Members as always and until next time. Stay Cool~
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