Sword Art Online The Movie -Ordinal Scale-

Sword Art Online The Movie -Ordinal Scale- (劇場版 ソードアート・オンライン -オーディナル・スケール-) is a Sword Art Online movie that was released in about 1,000 theatres worldwide on February 18, 2017. The movie is set after Mother's Rosario, but before the Alicization Arc and has an original story written by the author, Kawahara Reki. The theme song of the movie is Catch the Moment, a new song by LiSA.

The stage of the movie is an Augmented Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (ARMMORPG) titled «Ordinal Scale» (OS) for an Augmented Reality device called the «Augma». A feature of Ordinal Scale is a «Ranking System», according to which, each player is assigned a rank, indicated by an ordinal number instead of a cardinal number. The game is set in the real world, and players can increase their rank by gathering items that appear in various places of the real world, or by defeating monsters. Higher-ranked players are granted overwhelming power and this is commonly a major factor in deciding the outcome of Player versus Player (PvP) battles.

Prologue
In 2022, the world of virtual reality was upended by the arrival of a new invention from a genius programmer, Kayaba Akihiko.

Called NerveGear, it was the first full-dive system and with it, came endless possibilities to VRMMORPGs.

In 2026, a new machine called the Augma is developed to compete against the NerveGear and its successor, the AmuSphere.

A next-gen wearable device, the Augma does not have a full-dive function like its predecessors. Instead, it uses Augmented Reality to get players into the game. It is safe, user-friendly and lets users play while they are conscious, making it an instant hit on the market.

The most popular game on the system is «Ordinal Scale», an ARMMORPG developed exclusively for the Augma.

Asuna and the gang have already been playing OS for a while, by the time Kirito decides to join them.

They’re about to find out that Ordinal Scale isn’t all fun and games…

Plot
One day on the 22nd Floor of Aincrad, Kirito and Asuna made a promise to see meteor showers in real life. Kirito additionally promised to have a gift for Asuna that day.

In 2026, an Augmented Reality (AR) device named Augma and its games, especially a game called Ordinal Scale, were quickly becoming popular among the masses. Given its MMORPG nature and its idol character Yuna, an AI singer who was announced to hold an AR concert at the New National Stadium in Tokyo. Students of the SAO Survivor School were granted a free Augma and a ticket for said concert.

In a cafe, Asuna, Keiko, and Rika were playing Pac-Man in co-op mode in order to get a random prize while Kirito is sitting beside them watching them playing. Then they obtained the required point to get a random prize, they were given free cakes. After they ate them and exited the cafe inside a mall, Lisbeth baited Silica to sing Yuna's song by setting up a stage for her. Then after she had sung a little part of the song, she ran back to the group. They then talk about the appearance of the old Aincrad's bosses in Ordinal Scale, They persuaded Kazuto to drive them the spawn locations due to the difficulty caused by well-hidden location which only announced in a short amount of time prior to the battle time.

Kazuto then brought Asuna, the winner of the rock-scissors-paper, to the spawn location, where they met with Tsuboi Ryoutarou (Klein) and his guild members, the Fuurinkazan. The moment the clock struck 21:00, Kagachi the Samurai Lord, Aincrad's 10th Floor boss spawned.

At that moment, Yuna the AR Diva entered the scene via a drone. Declaring the start of the battle, she began singing, which provided buffs to the players attended the battle. During the battle, a player fired a rocket at the boss, but the boss dodges the rocket and flew towards Yuna who was behind the boss at the time. At that moment, Eiji, the second-ranked player of Ordinal Scale, joined the battle and deflected the projectile, which then hit the boss instead. Eiji then deals some damage to the boss, which was followed by others attack. As the fight continued, Asuna saw an opening, thus she assaulted the boss. The moment Asuna passed by him, Eiji whispered the term «Switch», a term that was often used in SAO. A moment later, the boss was killed by Asuna's attack. Then, Yuna gave her 10.000 points and a kiss for being an MPV of the battle.

After the battle, a member of Fuurinkazan noticed a pop-up that led him to a collectible in an underground parking lot. Just as he retrieved the item, the man was confronted by Eiji, emanating hostility towards him, thus he drew his sword in preparation for a fight.

The following evening, Ryoutarou invited Asuna to join them for a boss battle near her home. However, at the venue, one of Fuurinkazan members was unreachable, so the guild decided to remain outside the battlefield to wait for him. Asuna then proceeded to the boss fight by herself while waiting for Fuurinkazan to join the battle.

As the battle with the boss and an impromptu Yuna concert began, another boss suddenly spawned near the Fuurinkazan members. Although the guild was faring well against the boss, they were suddenly assaulted by Eiji, who disabled all of Ryoutarou's guildmates with martial arts. At that moment, Ryoutarou took his Augma and attempted to punch him, but Eiji caught him and broke his arm. After putting Ryoutarou's Augma on him again, Eiji offered the injured man to the boss while holding him by the neck, thus allowing the boss to defeat him.

At the venue of the boss fight the next morning, while waiting for Asuna to arrive for their date, Kazuto was convinced by Yui to train for upcoming Ordinal Scale battles. While he was practising, he suddenly noticed an intangible, hooded girl right next to him. The girl pointed to a specific direction, murmuring something inaudible before disappearing. Yui then interpreted the inaudible voice as "search" based on the hooded girl's mouth movement.

During the meeting, Yui reported her research about Ordinal Scale, reporting that the old Aincrad bosses that have been spawned up until then were based on old Aincrad's boss locations, thus enabling them to predict the next spawn location. Silica, Asuna, and Lisbeth were interested in joining the next boss battle while Sinon rejected the offer due to her part-time job, and Asuna mentioned to Kirito that Eiji could have been Nautilus, a lower-ranking member of the Knights of the Blood in Sword Art Online.

In the evening, Asuna, Lisbeth, and Silica joined the boss battle. During the fight, Kazuto came to spy on Eiji. When a dragon similar to Pina appeared from a portal, Silica thought it was Pina and approached it, but the dragon transformed into the Aincrad boss from the 91st Floor. . In the following panic, everyone was trying to get distance from the newly-arrived boss. When Silica tried to get distance from the boss, she bumped into Eiji, who then pushed Silica so she would take damage from the boss attack. Instead, Asuna, who shielded Silica from the boss’s attack, lost all of her HP and fainted. Kirito, who witnessed this incident, was angry at Eiji and attempted to confront him in rage, but was halted when Eiji suddenly entered close range, pointing his sword at Kirito's throat at another boss fight.

At midnight of the same day, Asuna contacted Kazuto to come to Forest House K4 to tell him that she gradually was losing her memories of her time in SAO. Hearing this, Kazuto decided to bring Asuna to a hospital to get her diagnosed. Receiving the diagnosis, they learned that her brain had been scanned for SAO memories, that the scan could affect further brain functions and that similar incidents had also happened to other players, with all victims being SAO Survivors. In order to find out what was happening in Ordinal Scale, Kirito urged the community not to play the game to prevent them from losing their memories.

At the next battle, Sinon met Kirito and joined the battle. During the battle, Yuna appeared and gave everyone a buff except Kirito. Shortly after the fight started, a SAO Survivor was knocked out and Yui attempted to follow the flow of the memory to find its destination but was blocked by the system. On the battlefield, Kirito recklessly tried to defeat the boss himself and was almost knocked out himself, but was saved by Sinon’s assist with her sniper rifle. After the battle, Kirito met with the hooded girl again who pointed somewhere in the distance before disappearing again. Kirito asked Yui to analyze the direction she had pointed and discovered that the location the girl pointed at was Touto Institute of Technology in Ookayama. This location was the workplace of Professor Shigemura Tetsuhiro, Eiji's mentor and the developer of Augma.

Kazuto joined a seminar featuring the cons of VR and why AR was way better than VR, lectured by Dr. Shigemura. During the Q&A session, Kazuto gave his opinion that VR would realize virtual world and AR would virtualize real world and told that virtualizing the real world was an advantage of AR itself and asked for Dr. Shigemura’s opinion regarding his opinion. But the professor avoided the question and immediately ended the seminar. Kazuto then made an appointment with Dr. Shigemura and questioned him about Eiji and Augma's ability to scan and damage one’s brain, but he avoided the question again with the statement that every SAO survivor wanted to forget their experience during the SAO incident and gestured Kazuto to leave. While leaving the room, Kazuto noticed a photo of a little girl on his desk. After leaving, Kazuto called Kikuoka to discuss this matter and discovered that Dr. Shigemura had a daughter named Yuuna Shigemura who was killed in SAO, while Shigemura called Eiji to tell him to dispose of Kazuto. As Asuna's home was near Touto Institute of Technology in Setagaya, Kazuto visited her. While Asuna was preparing tea for both of them, he explored her room and accidentally activated many pieces of automatic equipment, including a drawer that contained Asuna diary. Reading the last entry, he realized the full extent of the ordeal she was going through due to her memory loss and promised to bring back her memory.

Kazuto met the hooded girl again, who revealed herself as Yuna and informed him that he cannot defeat Eiji with a rank as low as his. Following this revelation, Kirito decided to continuously solo bosses to rank up, with the help of training video provided by Kirigaya Suguha and also supported by Asada Shino.

On the day of Yuna's concert, Kazuto, who was already ranked 9 in Ordinal Scale, headed to the stadium's basement parking lot to answer Eiji's challenge mail and to confront him. During the battle, Kirito managed to rip Eiji's equipment that helped him to move and react faster. Shortly after the equipment had been ripped, Kirito was able to defeat Eiji, who was not experienced in AR fights without the support of his equipment. After his defeat, he revealed the reason behind his actions, namely that he was close to Yuna while they were trapped in SAO, and also told that the concert was a trap to gather all SAO Survivors. According to him, Shigemura planned to capture the SAO memories of the survivors gathered there to rebuild Yuna as an AI using the SAO boss monsters and drones placed throughout the stadium, employing wireless energy transfer from the drones to the Augmas of those present to trigger a NerveGear-like pulse that would potentially kill everybody inside. After their talk, Shigemura also stole Eiji's memories from SAO after he deemed him useless to the plan.

When Shigemura started, Yuna, the AI that Shigemura trying to use to revive Yuna as an AI. And rejecting her wish since he deduced that this Yuna is still incomplete. Hearing this, Yuna decided to go to the stadium where everyone was engaged in a battle.

Kirito managed to get into the arena and fought the monsters with his companions. Asuna's condition worsened, as the bosses triggered the survivors' fear needed to activate the microwave pulse when a certain amount would be reached. And as a Fatal Scythe almost K.O. them, Hooded Yuna appeared and shield them with her shield and told them to defeat the 100th Floor of Aincrad’s original boss using Augma capability to initiate FullDive. And before Kirito Lisbeth, Silica, Agil, and Sinon initiate FullDive command, Kirito gave Asuna a ring as promise to come back.

Kirito, Agil, Silica, Lisbeth and Sinon entered the Ruby Palace on level 100 in Aincrad, where they began to battle «An Incarnate of Radius», the true final boss of SAO. As they were about to be overpowered by the boss, Asuna dove in and joined the battle. With the help of Yui, Leafa, Klein, Sakuya, Eugene, and Alicia Rue from ALO and Dyne, Behemoth, and 2 other players from GGO. Yui also restored the saved game data of the SAO survivors and gave Sinon her avatar along with her GGO equipment, allowing them to turn the tables on «An Incarnate of Radius». And as the boss was killed, Kayaba's voice congratulated the players, and Kirito is rewarded a sword that is powerful enough to kill boss monsters in one slash.

Kirito returned to the stadium as his Aincrad avatar and not with his real body, combined his newly achieved position as the number one player of Ordinal Scale with wielding the sword that he obtained as a drop from the 100th Floor boss. The hooded Yuna also start sang to motivate the survivors and the monsters were eventually eliminated. Meanwhile, Kikuoka and his squad moved in to apprehend Shigemura, who was found in Argus' server room.

Hooded Yuna returned the memories of the survivors and, and as she was made of floor 100th boss data from Aincrad and the boss data has been reset due to being defeated, she disappears.

Some time later, Kirito and Asuna fulfilled their promise to see the meteor shower in Ooyama. Asuna returned the ring to Kirito, asking him to put it properly on her ring finger this time.

It was later revealed that Kikuoka did not arrest Shigemura, who was shown to be the mentor to Kayaba and Sugou Nobuyuki as well; rather, Kikouka saw potential in Shigemura's AI system and recruited him to help work on Rath.

New Characters

 * Yuna
 * Doctor Shigemura Tetsuhiro
 * Eiji (Nochizawa Eiji)

Locations

 * Touto Institute of the Technology
 * Yuuki family residence
 * Kirigaya family residence
 * Ooyama mountain
 * New National Stadium
 * Public locations where the bosses spawn
 * Forest House K4

Preview
Teaser=|-| Trailer 1=|-| Trailer 2=|-| Trailer 3=|-| Trailer 4=|-|

Trivia

 * Many of the product that is featured in the movie existed.
 * A text showing "SAO will return" was shown at the end.
 * Despite of Kazuto’s statement that he have never visited Asuna’s residence in Volume 9, an arc that is timed after the movie, he visited her residence twice in the movie.

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