Sword Art Online Progressive Film Gets IMAX Screenings in Japan

The official website for the Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Aria of a Starless Night anime film announced on Wednesday that the film will get IMAX screenings in Japan on October 30, the same date that the film opens in standard theaters.

The film will get an advance IMAX screening on September 15 at 5:00 p.m. JST at the T-Joy PRINCE Shinagawa theater in Tokyo. Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Kirito) and Haruka Tomatsu (Asuna) will be on stage after the screening.

The film will open in Japan on October 30. The official English Twitter account for the anime in the U.S. stated earlier this month that "more information regarding the U.S. release will be coming soon!"

Inori Minase is voicing the new character Mito in the film.

Ayako Kawano (unit director on Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic, High School Fleet, The Seven Deadly Sins the Movie: Prisoners of the Sky) is directing the film at A-1 Pictures, and Kento Toya (Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld, The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of The Commandments) is designing the characters. Yasuyuki Kai is serving as action director, and Yuki Kajiura is returning to compose the music.

The anime is based on Reki Kawahara's Sword Art Online: Progressive light novel series. The novel series launched in 2012 as a revised retelling of Kawahara's original Sword Art Online novels. The story depicts Kirito's journey through the floating Aincrad castle from the beginning, floor-by-floor. Yen Press is publishing the Sword Art Online: Progressive novel series in English, as well as two manga adaptations.

Sources: Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Aria of a Starless Night film's website, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web