The magic in Devils' Crest is built on real-world languages, and viewers can decode it if they try. That is one of the details Reki Kawahara, creator of Sword Art Online, shared in a new conversation with chief director Shinji Ushiro on the official site of the Production I.G anime, which streams exclusively on Prime Video. The anime's official account announced the interview on Tuesday. Check out the official post down below:
In English, the post says the special interview between Kawahara and Ushiro is now live, including the story of Kawahara writing plots for the anime's scripts, and that the series is a 2 consecutive cour production streaming on Prime Video.
A Full-Dive Game That Spills Into Reality
Devils' Crest is set in 2031, during playtesting for a full-dive VRMMO-RPG called Actual Magic. A class of sixth graders wakes up to find reality and the game fused together, and they have to survive inside Altea, a closed facility they cannot leave, while also fighting through the game world.
Kawahara said he wanted a more condensed and solid story after Sword Art Online, which mostly took place inside a virtual world on a huge scale, and Accel World, which centered on real life and a secret fighting game. The closed survival of Altea came first. Because that alone felt too suffocating, he added the open virtual world of Actual Magic, so the story could balance survival in a sealed space with the uplifting feeling of adventure in a game.
Kawahara stressed that powers carrying over from a virtual world into reality are common in other stories, so that idea is not the theme. Abilities and weapons that work in the real world are just survival tools, and what matters is how the characters use them and think their way through each fight, and what they gain, lose and become along the way.
Spells Built From Real Languages
Ushiro singled out the 3-stage chant system as something he wanted to bring to life in the action scenes. Kawahara said a single incantation could have worked, but he wanted the magic to feel more systematic. The chant words are adapted from languages that exist, so anyone willing to research them can figure out what the characters are saying and what each spell is trying to do. He encouraged patient viewers to look them up.
Two Worlds With Different Rules
Kawahara asked the staff to make the atmosphere change completely when the story moves between Altea and Actual Magic, and he said the finished anime uses entirely different colors and music for each. Ushiro said Altea's layout was designed to feel claustrophobic, while Actual Magic is meant to feel vast. Even the 3D monsters change between worlds. In the game, damage triggers game-style effects and defeated enemies disappear, while in Altea the monsters look slick and alive, and an injured child bleeds. Ushiro said that while the series can feel like horror, it is closer to mystery and suspense.
An Ending Written For The Anime
The anime will eventually move past the published novels. Kawahara wrote a long plot covering the whole story through to its end, plus per-episode plots that serve as a "0th draft" for the scriptwriter. He joked that the production is catching up with him. The webtoon version has 2 to 3 times as many story events as the novels, and the anime combines the novels with webtoon material he chose.
Kawahara said that knowing the series would stream worldwide made him a little cautious about violence, based on what he learned from Sword Art Online's overseas release, while Ushiro said he goes in at full throttle first and discusses limits afterward.
How To Watch
New episodes arrive every Friday at 21:00 JST, or 5:00 AM MST, with episode 3, "Awakening," on November 13. Kawahara said survival problems such as finding a safe place, food and somewhere to sleep take center stage from that episode. Kenichiro Komaya directs, Eiji Umehara handles series composition, and Yuki Hayashi and Naoyuki Chikatani composed the music. Haruka Shiraishi voices Yuma and Konomi Inagaki voices his twin sister Sawa. Ado sings the opening theme "Shinka."
The light novel, published in English by Yen Press, also has a webtoon by TOmoe. Another major science fiction anime project was covered in Shirow Masamune's Cyberpunk Classic Ghost In The Shell Gets Another New Anime From Science SARU.
Would you rather survive inside Altea or take your chances in Actual Magic?
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