Sword Art Online is a light novel written by Accel World light novel author Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec. Since April 2009, 26 volumes have been published by Kadokawa. It was adapted into several manga but also into a 25-episode animated television series by studio A-1 Pictures between July and December 2012. A special episode was released on December 31, 2013, and a second animated season aired between July and December 2012. An anime movie titled Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale was released in February 2017. The first part of the third season called Sword Art Online: Alicization aired between October 2018 and March 2019, while the War of Underworld, the second part, was broadcast between October 2019 and September 2020. With the movies coming out last year and the most recent season premiering in 2020, we’ll tell you everything we know about a potential fifth season.
The fifth season of Sword Art Online still hasn’t been confirmed yet. The most recent season premiered couple of years ago and the movies only last year, and although there is enough material for further seasons, it’s still too early, and we simply don’t know much about its future. Still, Sword Art Online is an extremely popular series, and based on all the known facts, a fifth season is highly probable. We just don’t know when.
The rest of this article is going to bring you all the known and unknown information related to a potential season five of Sword Art Online. You’re going to find out about its release date, whether there is a trailer, what the story could be about, the basic cast information, and much more about this intriguing anime series.
Sword Art Online Season 5 release date
The anime television series adaptation was announced at the Dengeki Bunko Autumn Festival 2011. It was produced by A-1 Pictures studio, directed by Tomohiko Ito with music by Yuki Kajiura. It aired on Tokyo MX, tvk, TVS, TVA, RKB, HBC and MBS between July 8, and December 23, 2012. The anime is also available on the Netflix streaming platform in the original version with subtitles, as well as on Crunchyroll.
A special episode named Sword Art Online Extra Edition aired on December 31, 2013 in Japan. This episode summarizes the first season and includes several previously unseen scenes. A second season, Sword Art Online II, was announced on this occasion. It aired between July 5 and December 20, 2014. This season adapted the Phantom Bullet, Calibur, and Mother’s Rosario arcs.
A third season was officially announced at the end of the film Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale, which was another hit for the franchise. This season adapted the Alicization arc, and was divided into two parts: the first part, titled Sword Art Online: Alicization, aired from October 7, 2018 to March 31, 2019.
The second part was also divided into two courses, the first of which, titled Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld, aired between October 13, 2019 and December 29, 2019. A recap of the first part, titled “Reflection”, aired on October 6, 2019 as episode 24.5. The second course, titled Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld – Last Season, was originally scheduled for April 26, 2020 before being postponed to July 2020 due to the effects of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in Japan.
This last part officially aired from July 12, 2020 to September 20, 2020. Sword Art Online: Alicization was made up of 24 episodes, while Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld was made up of 23 episodes. A special program aired on April 12, 2020 and a recap of the first War of Underworld course on July 5.
An adaptation of the derivative light novel Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online was announced in September 2017. Produced within Studio 3Hz, it was released between April and June 2018.
Now, in light of all of this, where does this leave us with a potential fifth season? Sword Art Online is very popular, and there definitely is a lot of unadapted material that can be made into an anime series. Taking all of this into account, Sword Art Online‘s future seems very bright.
The original novel series is, as we have said, quite popular, and there is absolutely no doubt that the creators behind the concept want it to continue even further; if we combine this with the fact that the the most recent season and the movies have premiered only recently and are still very hot, it makes us very hopeful. In any case, the earliest we could see a potential second season is late 2023, but we’d have to get some confirmation on the future during 2022 or 2023.
Sword Art Online Season 5 trailer
You know all the facts and our thoughts related to Sword Art Online Season 5, which means that you’ve probably deduced for yourself that there is no trailer for the fifth season of Sword Art Online. This is because we do not know whether there will even be a fifth season of the show, which means that a trailer might not appear at all. But, based on all the information we have, this does not seem like a likely outcome.
As we have said, Sword Art Online is a very likely candidate for a return. The light novel series still has more material up for adapting, and the anime is quite popular as well, enormously so, in fact. Still, we have to wait and see whether there are actual plans for a continuation before making a proper prediction. Be that as it may, Sword Art Online is currently on track with the movies and their aftermath, so we’ll have to wait and see how that ends to make any proper prediction.
Considering everything we’ve said, a proper trailer for Sword Art Online is unlikely to come out this year, but a teaser might. The earliest we could see a proper trailer is 2023, but we would have to get confirmation of a second season sometime during this or next year for that to happen.
Sword Art Online Season 5 plot
At this moment, we do not know which parts of the light novel series will be adapted in the potential Season 5 of Sword Art Online. Namely, due to a lack of information in general, we have absolutely no clue how far the fifth season might go, if it even happens; in fact, with the hectic release schedule and the different narrative timelines, it is difficult to follow up on what’s currently been updated. The only thing we know for sure is that it will continue the adventure of the show’s protagonists. What follows is a general overview of the show’s plot.
SAO officially opens on November 6, 2022, but logged-in users realize it is impossible to log out. The creator of the game, Akihiko Kayaba, reveals himself to be a psychopath and informs them that he has imprisoned them.
If they wish to return to being free, the last level of the game must be reached and passed (represented by the 100th floor of the flying castle of Aincrad, in which the final boss is found), however in the event of a game-over or forcibly removing the NerveGear, the hardware will cause a brain coma to the player by means of electric shocks to the brain. The players are immediately hospitalized and artificially fed.
Among the many players to witness the words of Kayaba, there is Kazuto “Kirito” Kirigaya, one of the 1,000 beta testers who had the opportunity to try the game in preview. Backed by his previous experience, Kirito works hard to complete the game on his own, but over time he will pair up with a player named Asuna whom he will fall in love with.
Two years later, the protagonist discovers Kayaba’s identity in SAO, confronts him, and defeats him once and for all, thus earning both his own freedom and that of the other players still alive. Upon returning to the real world, however, Kirito discovers that 300 SAO players, including Asuna, have not yet awakened.
Following a lead according to which Asuna would find herself imprisoned in another VRMMORPG called ALfheim Online (ALO), Kirito also participates in this other game, in which he accidentally meets Leafa, her cousin Suguha.
With her help, Kirito discovers that the players trapped in ALO are part of a plan devised by Nobuyuki Sugō to perform illegal experiments on the human mind and find a way to control it. In addition, Sugō also plans to marry Asuna in the real world to take over her father’s company, which is why Kirito goes on a rampage and annihilates him both in ALO and in reality.
Once Sugō is defeated in the world of ALO, Akihiko’s ghost program will give him “the seed”, or the world generation program, giving him the choice to destroy it or use it. Kirito will choose, during the party in Agil’s pub, to make it available to the whole world, so that everyone can create their own personal world, and give a new luster to the category of VRMMOs, almost brought to extinction due to Sugō.
A short time later, Kirito plays Gun Gale Online (GGO) to investigate some mysterious deaths that are taking place in the real world. Assisted by a player named Sinon who guides him in this other reality, Kirito identifies and reports to the authorities the perpetrators of the various murders, among which there are also some former members of a guild of assassins that he had faced in SAO.
Kirito is then hired to test the Soul Translator (STL), a cutting-edge machine characterized by a much more realistic and complex interface than those tried by him previously. Unlike the real world, in the virtual reality mainframe – called the Underworld (UW) – of this new technology, time passes thousands of times faster, and Kirito’s memories of what goes on inside are cramped.
However, Kirito is seriously injured by one of SAO’s assassins and ends up waking up inside Underworld not being able to remember how he found himself there or how to disconnect, leaving his real self in the real world in a comatose state.
Sword Art Online Season 5 cast
It’s still too early for us to discuss a potential fifth season of Sword Art Online in terms of cast and characters, simply because we do not know whether there will even be a fifth season. But, seeing how we know that the series is going to have a more-or-less fixed cast, we really don’t expect to see too many changes in the structure of season five, if it ever happens. Now, the main characters that have appeared in season one, likely to return for a fifth season, include:
| Character | Japanese | English |
|---|---|---|
| Kirito | Yoshitsugu Matsuoka | Bryce Papenbrook |
| Asuna | Haruka Tomatsu | Cherami Leigh |
| Akihiko Kayaba | Kōichi Yamadera | Marc Diraison |
| Yui | Kanae Itō | Stephanie Sheh |
| Klein | Hiroaki Hirata | Kirk Thornton |
| Leafa / Suguha Kirigaya | Ayana Taketatsu | Cassandra Morris |
| Agil / Andrew Gilbert Mills | Hiroki Yasumoto | Patrick Seitz |
| Sachi | Saori Hayami | Xanthe Huynh |
| Heathcliff | Toru Ohkawa | Kevin M. Connolly |
| Eugeo | Nobunaga Shimazaki | Brandon Winckler |
| Yuuki | Aoi Yūki | Erica Mendez |
| Alice Zuberg | Ai Kayano | Kayli Mills |
Where to watch Sword Art Online Season 5?
Sword Art Online season five cannot be watched at this time, simply because the season hasn’t been produced yet. Based on what we know from earlier, the show is probably going to air on Toonami and be available for streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu outside of Japan. In Japan, several TV stations have aired the anime.
Will there be a Sword Art Online Season 6?
The future of Sword Art Online is, as of this moment, unknown. At this moment, we don’t really know anything about a fifth season, so whether we’ll be seeing a sixth season or not is still unknown. The series has done well, and there is still a lot of material to adapt, which is a good sign for fans of Sword Art Online, but we are going to have to wait and see how the situation with season five evolves to know more about a potential season six, although it is likely.
