New 'Sword Art Online' Anime Updates On The Way

Fans have been waiting to see more info for Sword Art Online, and that info may be coming sooner than you'd expect!

According to Dengeki Online, there will be a fifth anniversary event celebrating the Sword Art Online games, there will be a fan event with new information on Sword Art Online season three and the upcoming spin-off Gun Gale Online.

The event will take place February 5, and fans are hoping this means more info for Sword Art Online: Alicization. Although the spin-off series got a concrete release date, the third season of the main series has yet to be confirmed.

Fans are also hoping the event will bring new footage of the two series as it has been awhile since we were given new visuals. Fans are definitely excited about the third season of the series since it will tackle a major arc in the light novels, "Alicization."

The Alicization arc of the series is ten light novel volumes long, and that happens to be longer than every other arc in the series so far. For example, the Aincrad and Fairy Dance arcs only covered about five novels in the series. Even if the series trims story bits from the novels for the adaptation, there is still a good deal of promised content for the upcoming season.

The next arc covers Volumes 9-18 of Kawahara's light novel series. In 2026, Kirito is offered a job with Rath. He's asked to work for the firm in order to test a new type of FullDive equipment known as the Soul Translator. But Rath had no plans to make a new FullDive gaming console. Instead, the firm is working to make a new military AI.

Bringing Kirito in to act as a human influence on AI, he finds that Rath had already trapped a child's soul in the machinery. When Kirito was brought out of the machine, Rath blocked his memories of his time in Underworld, but Kirito learns there are many who want him to keep quiet about his time with the AI, a child named Alice.

For those unfamiliar with Sword Art Online, the series was originally created by Reki Kawahara with illustrations provided by abec. The series follows a boy named Kirito after he and thousands of gamers get trapped in a virtual reality video game known as Sword Art Online. The gamers must band together to defeat the game's final level to escape, but Kirito and his guild learn there is more behind their prison than they were originally told.

The series began as a series of light novels published through Dengeki Bunko in 2009, and has been adapted into eight different manga series by ASCII Media Works and Kadokawa. The series has been licensed for an English language release by Yen Press, and has been adapted into an anime series by A-1 Pictures.

Its first season aired in 2012 and ran for 25 episodes, while its second season, Sword Art Online II, aired in 2014 and ran for 24 episodes. The series currently gearing up for its next big arc in the light novel series, "Unitial Ring," and the next season of the anime is set to adapt "Alicization."

via Dengeki Online