Reki Kawahara is a Japanese author known for the 'Sword Art Online' and 'Accel World' light novel and manga series, both of which have been adapted into anime. (Photo : YouTube/AniplexUS)
Little is known about abec, the illustrator of the "Sword Art Online" light novel series. Recently, the mysterious illustrator is in the United States for the premiere of "Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale," the film adaptation of the light novel series.
"Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale" was shown in the U.S. for the first time in Hollywood, California, on March 1. The film premiered in Japan on Feb. 18 and tts theatrical release in the U.S. is scheduled on March 9, Thursday.
The U.S. premiere was attended by abec along with director Tomohiko Ito and writer Reki Kawahara. Also present during the event were Yuki Kajiura and Shingo Adachi, who worked on the film's music and character designs, respectively.
It is said that abec is too shy to appear in public. Rumors claim that the illustrator and Horiguchi Yukiko, a character designer, are siblings and their father is a city mayor in Japan.
In an interview with Dengeki Bunko Magazine volume 41, as cited by tap-trans, abec was asked if there is anything he is careful with when drawing the illustrations. The illustrator said that personal tastes were added but the base designs did not veer from the "Sword Art Online" images originally drawn by Kawahara, including that of the male lead character Kirito.
During the "Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale" U.S. premiere, Kawahara told Nerd Reactor that for him, "Sword Art Online" has the global attention that it is getting because of the diversity of the game worlds that each of the characters go to. Among these places are the elf worlds and the gun worlds.
What abec did for the female lead character Asuna was to put her hair in braids and mussed it. The former symbolizes her good upbringing as the daughter of a high-class family while the latter represents her demon vice-captain side.
Asuna is friends with the Kirito. The latter is a teenager chosen as one of 1,000 beta testers for a new state-of-the-art virtual reality MMORPG called "Sword Art Online."
In the animated film adaptation, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and Haruka Tomatsu voiced Kirito and Asuna, respectively. Viewers will notice that Kirito and his friends go from the NerveGear to Augma in the film. Here is a video featuring some spoilers:
