'Sword Art Online' Season 3 May Be The Longest One Yet

Sword Art Online is one of the biggest anime, manga, and light novel series to release in the last [...]

Sword Art Online is one of the biggest anime, manga, and light novel series to release in the last few years, so fans have been itching to hear any news about its possible return. Luckily for them, not only could the anime series return soon, but also be the longest season in the series to date.

Although not an official confirmation, the series' original light novel author Reki Kawahara has teased that the series' third season and Gun Gal Online series are returning in 2018. If this indeed turns out to be true, and the next season of the anime is set to adapt "Alicization," it could be the longest in the series to date.

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.

So fans worried whether or not the new arc would end after its first cour, much as the other seasons of the series had done, should feel better off with the upcoming season as there seems to be a ton of cohesive story to draw from.

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.

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