Sword Art Online Season 3 Staff Shares Their Most Proud Moment So Far

Sword Art Online‘s third season has been one of the most well received by fans yet, and it’s because the series introduces fans to a compelling new virtual world. This Underworld brought with it a whole slew of new characters and challenges, and even gave Kirito his toughest fights in the series yet. The third season has been filled with several intense sequences, and director Manabu Ono is proud of the work the staff has put into bringing the Alicization arc of the original light novels to life.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Ono spoke about his proudest moments of bringing the third season to anime and he was very happy with how the Underworld translation to the screen.

When asked about what he felt proudest about bringing to life in the third season, Ono reflected on introducing this new virtual world, “Underworld. To show that there’s a very natural environment, because [Sword Art Online] should not be a ordinary and just fantasy story. It has to be virtual, but at the same time I think I’ve been able to show underworld to be as naturally a fantasy setting as much as possible.”

Character Designer Shingo Adachi reflected on this further by wondering what it would be like to use VR in this fashion, “If it’s possible to visit places where you wouldn’t normally be able to go…if you can go on vacation to places, some places that are hard to get to might be possible when you’re still young, but if VR would allow you to visit those difficult places in old age, then I would very much welcome that.”

Ono mentioned some of the work that went into the new season too as initial casting concerns had the staff wondering whether or not the new characters would play off of Kirito well, “Since main characters such as Kirito are continuation from first and second seasons, one of the big concerns is whether the voice actor, the cast members, for the existing characters would have good chemistry with new characters, such as Alice and Eugeo.”

Fans are hoping the series will give the staff a chance to have more proud moments with the second half of the third season, War of Underworld, beginning this October. If you have yet to catch the newest season of Sword Art Online yourself, the original Japanese release of Sword Art Online: Alicization can currently be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu.

Sword Art Online: Alicization is officially described as such, “Where… am I…?” Before he knows it, Kirito has made a full-dive into an epic, fantasy-like virtual world. With only a murky recollection of what happened right before he logged in, he starts to wander around, searching for clues. He comes upon an enormous, pitch dark tree (the Gigas Cedar), where he encounters a boy. “My name is Eugeo. Nice to meet you, Kirito.” Although he is supposedly a resident of the virtual world – an NPC – the boy shows the same array of emotions as any human being.

As Kirito bonds with Eugeo, he continues to search for a way to log out of this world. Meanwhile, he remembers a certain memory deep down within him. He remembers racing through the mountains with Eugeo as a child… A memory that he should not have in the first place… And in this memory, he sees someone other than Eugeo, a young blond girl. Her name is Alice. And it is a name that must never be forgotten…”