Sword Art Online, otherwise abbreviated as SAO is just another classic rendition of one of Japan’s favorite anime genres; that of virtual reality gaming. SAO has been in the limelight as Japan’s flagship virtual reality anime for some time now for its high octane fight scenes as well as the electric animation and graphics. SAO has had three successful seasons and with the debut of the new movie “Sword Art Online Ordinal Scale”, this gravy train has no real signs of halting.

The first trailer for SAO Ordinal Scale premiered on March 12th 2016 with much acclaim. It sprang up on multiple media outlets such as Crunchyroll, Anime News Network, Goodanime.net, etc. The initial video ran for a little more than two minutes clocking in at two minutes and twelve seconds. The trailer itself was geared towards your average anime fan looking for something fun and exciting to watch. In the trailer they relay to instances of SAO’s success and make sure to highlight all of the accomplishments that have been made as a series.

The trailer taken by itself is somewhat successful in cultivating interest. The trailer looks as if the production team took the most awe inspiring frames from the film that they could and turned it into a trailer. The trailer is glossy and nice to look at leaving the viewer with the same premise that SAO has used for every season that they have aired; “The virtual world that we’ve created is not what it appears to be, let’s use our superior skill to solve the underlying problem and beat the bad guy at his own virtual reality game. The only significant change up in story basis for this movie is the fact that in the film instead of virtual reality, the clincher for this film is augmented reality. There aren’t a lot of breakthrough themes or techniques being used, just what has been working is being exploited.

That being said this isn’t the worst trailer for an anime that I’ve seen. Most anime movie trailers are gaudy and extremely hard to keep up with. What they usually rely on is an overwhelming fan-base that they have built up over the years. When you already have a dedicated audience who will support your franchise and the official release of almost all of your products, there won’t be that great of a need to make your trailers that nuanced or in-depth. In some regards the only thing that you really need when you’ve successfully created an anime brand is a few money shot from your movie, along with some tough dialogue and you’re golden.