Kirito from 'Sword Art Online' is the Japanese Government's New Cybersecurity Officer!

The National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) has a a new officer added to their team— and it’s none other that Sword Art Online‘s Kirito! The announcement of this tie-up campaign between the NISC and Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale was released on Friday in the anime film’s official website. The poster’s tagline (shown above) says “We will protect hte Internet”. The kanji for “Internet” mean “world” (but the text that goes along with says that it should be read as “Internet”).

The campaign is geared up to not only promote the upcoming movie (slated to premiere in Japan this February 18) but also to promote Cybersecurity Awareness Month which runs from February 1 to March 18. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is set with related events that would help get people to be aware of Internet safety, security, and the related. “I think it’s a great honor for Sword Art Online to be chosen for this cybersecurity public awareness campaign. From the start, Sword Art Online has been a work about futuristic virtual-reality games where in-game deaths become real deaths.” Nabuhiro Osawa (Sword Art Online movie production committee representative and president of EGG FIRM) said in his message.

The film is slated to premiere in the United States as well this March 9 in original Japanese language with English subtitles.

Here’s a synopsis of the movie as described by the film’s production company:

In 2022, the world of virtual reality was upended by the arrival of a new invention from a genius programmer, Akihiko Kayaba, 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 doesn’t have a full-dive function like its predecessors. Instead, it uses Augmented Reality (AR) 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” (aka: OS), 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…

For more information, you can check out Anime News Network.