Movie
Description
Eiji Nochizawa is a young man who was born on April 8, 2006, making him twenty years old during the events of the film. He is a student at Tokyo Industrial University and a survivor of the deadly Sword Art Online incident, where his in-game avatar was known as Nautilus. In the real world, Eiji stands 178 centimeters tall and weighs 65 kilograms, with a build that is lean and unassuming.
Before the tragic events of the death game, Eiji lived in the same neighborhood as Yuna Shigemura, attending the same kindergarten and school until she moved on to an all-girls high school. He developed feelings for Yuna during childhood but never found the courage to confess them. Hoping that a virtual world might provide the right opportunity, he invited her to play Sword Art Online together, and she accepted. On the first day of the game, the two found themselves trapped in the death game along with nearly ten thousand other players.
During his time in Sword Art Online, Eiji as Nautilus adopted an extremely cautious playstyle. After hearing about players who died due to reckless overconfidence, he spent the first six months of the game practicing Sword Skills alone in a deserted training field on the outskirts of the Town of Beginnings. This diligent practice allowed him to unlock the Horizontal Square sword skill and level up efficiently. However, he soon discovered a serious flaw in his NerveGear. A defect in the device caused his body to become unresponsive whenever he felt genuine danger, as the system prioritized instinctive fear responses over conscious commands. This condition, a form of FullDive Non-Conformity, could freeze him in place at critical moments.
Despite this impairment, Eiji progressed quickly enough to be scouted and recruited into the Knights of the Blood, one of the most prominent guilds on the front lines. He initially served in the guild's Second Army before being promoted to the First Army around the time the players reached the fortieth floor. His condition proved to be a liability during a battle against a mid-boss, where he froze and failed to support a party member as ordered. As a result, he was forbidden from participating in the upcoming Floor Boss battle.
On the day of that boss battle, Eiji learned of a party of players trapped in a field dungeon and quickly organized an emergency rescue party. Yuna insisted on joining the rescue attempt, and though the group successfully reached the trapped players, the situation turned desperate when the dungeon's boss used an unexpected area attack. When Yuna sacrificed herself to draw the attention of the monsters and save the other players, Eiji again froze, unable to move as he watched her die. In the aftermath, he resigned from the Knights of the Blood and secluded himself in an inn on the first floor, spending the remainder of the game trapped in guilt and depression. Over time, his sorrow transformed into misplaced hatred, and he came to blame the members of the guild Fuurinkazan for refusing to abandon the boss fight to help Yuna.
When Sword Art Online was finally cleared, Eiji awoke in a hospital under the care of Yuna's father, Professor Tetsuhiro Shigemura. He soon learned that Yuna had indeed died in the real world, shattering any hope that she might have survived. His family had also fallen apart during his two years of captivity, with his parents having divorced and moved on to new lives. Feeling abandoned and alone, Eiji chose to live by himself in a cheap apartment, using the SAO Incident Victim Relief Program to earn a high school diploma through correspondence courses but lacking any motivation to pursue higher education or engage with the world around him.
This period of despair ended in the autumn of 2025, when Professor Shigemura contacted Eiji with a proposal to restore Yuna as an artificial intelligence. The plan involved using the Augma, a new augmented reality device, to scan the brains of SAO survivors during combat. By having them fight recreations of the game's floor bosses, the memories associated with Yuna could be extracted and used to reconstruct her personality. Eiji, reignited with purpose and hope, began studying again and joined the professor's laboratory as an auditing student. He received a special exosuit that enhanced his physical capabilities and an Augma modified with action prediction functions.
In the augmented reality game Ordinal Scale, Eiji became the second-ranked player, his abilities far surpassing those of most other competitors. Driven by his desperate desire to see Yuna again and his lingering hatred for the Fuurinkazan guild members whom he blamed for her death, he carried out the professor's plan with brutal efficiency. He used physical attacks against SAO survivors in the real world to steal their memories, and specifically targeted Klein and his guild members, sending them to the hospital.
Eiji serves as an antagonist throughout most of the film, opposing Kirito and his friends who investigate the strange incidents surrounding the new game. His cold and ruthless demeanor in Ordinal Scale contrasts sharply with the timid and cautious personality he displayed as Nautilus in Sword Art Online. This transformation reflects how trauma and guilt have hardened him, allowing him to justify harming others by believing that the revival of Yuna outweighs any cost. In a one-on-one battle with Kirito, his exosuit is destroyed and he is defeated. Shortly afterward, Professor Shigemura betrays him, summoning an SAO floor boss to attack Eiji and scan his own memories of Yuna for the project.
After the plan to resurrect Yuna is thwarted, Eiji surrenders to the police for assaulting the members of Fuurinkazan. He is detained while prosecutors decide whether to press charges. However, Kirito later secures his release through an associate, needing Eiji's help to infiltrate the old SAO servers and solve a mysterious message. In this digital space, Eiji dons his old Nautilus avatar once more and, with Kirito's support, reaches the place where Yuna died. There, he witnesses the final disappearance of the incomplete artificial Yuna, known as White Yuna, and embraces the alternative Black Yuna, weeping as he finally begins to accept his loss.
Eiji later overcomes his FullDive Non-Conformity, the neurological condition that had paralyzed him in moments of danger. He logs into Alfheim Online with Yuna's AI fragment registered as his navigation pixie. When the War of Underworld threatens the lives of many players, he answers the call to fight and confronts the lethal player Vassago, also known as PoH. Though initially outmatched, Eiji receives buffs from Yuna's songs and fights with the same appearance and spirit he had during his time in the Knights of the Blood. Even after his avatar's arms are severed, he continues to fight, ultimately exposing PoH's true identity to the other players before being forced to log out.
Key relationships define much of Eiji's character arc. His bond with Yuna Shigemura is the central force in his life, motivating his actions both in the death game and afterward. He carries deep guilt over his inability to save her and a desperate love that drives him to extremes. His relationship with Professor Shigemura is initially one of mutual benefit, as both men share the goal of bringing Yuna back, but it ultimately ends in betrayal. Eiji holds a specific grudge against the guild Fuurinkazan and its leader Klein, whom he blames for refusing to help Yuna during the rescue attempt. Over time, after his defeat and redemption, he develops a more complex relationship with Kirito, who becomes an unlikely ally in the digital reconstruction of the old SAO world.
In terms of abilities, Eiji as Nautilus in Sword Art Online wielded a one-handed sword and mastered the Horizontal Square skill through dedicated solo practice. Despite his neurological condition, he reached the front lines and earned a place in an elite guild. In Ordinal Scale, equipped with his exosuit and modified Augma, he becomes the second-ranked player with combat capabilities that surpass both Asuna and Kirito for much of the film. Later, after overcoming his condition, he proves himself a capable fighter in Alfheim Online as well, able to challenge highly dangerous opponents in the Underworld.
Before the tragic events of the death game, Eiji lived in the same neighborhood as Yuna Shigemura, attending the same kindergarten and school until she moved on to an all-girls high school. He developed feelings for Yuna during childhood but never found the courage to confess them. Hoping that a virtual world might provide the right opportunity, he invited her to play Sword Art Online together, and she accepted. On the first day of the game, the two found themselves trapped in the death game along with nearly ten thousand other players.
During his time in Sword Art Online, Eiji as Nautilus adopted an extremely cautious playstyle. After hearing about players who died due to reckless overconfidence, he spent the first six months of the game practicing Sword Skills alone in a deserted training field on the outskirts of the Town of Beginnings. This diligent practice allowed him to unlock the Horizontal Square sword skill and level up efficiently. However, he soon discovered a serious flaw in his NerveGear. A defect in the device caused his body to become unresponsive whenever he felt genuine danger, as the system prioritized instinctive fear responses over conscious commands. This condition, a form of FullDive Non-Conformity, could freeze him in place at critical moments.
Despite this impairment, Eiji progressed quickly enough to be scouted and recruited into the Knights of the Blood, one of the most prominent guilds on the front lines. He initially served in the guild's Second Army before being promoted to the First Army around the time the players reached the fortieth floor. His condition proved to be a liability during a battle against a mid-boss, where he froze and failed to support a party member as ordered. As a result, he was forbidden from participating in the upcoming Floor Boss battle.
On the day of that boss battle, Eiji learned of a party of players trapped in a field dungeon and quickly organized an emergency rescue party. Yuna insisted on joining the rescue attempt, and though the group successfully reached the trapped players, the situation turned desperate when the dungeon's boss used an unexpected area attack. When Yuna sacrificed herself to draw the attention of the monsters and save the other players, Eiji again froze, unable to move as he watched her die. In the aftermath, he resigned from the Knights of the Blood and secluded himself in an inn on the first floor, spending the remainder of the game trapped in guilt and depression. Over time, his sorrow transformed into misplaced hatred, and he came to blame the members of the guild Fuurinkazan for refusing to abandon the boss fight to help Yuna.
When Sword Art Online was finally cleared, Eiji awoke in a hospital under the care of Yuna's father, Professor Tetsuhiro Shigemura. He soon learned that Yuna had indeed died in the real world, shattering any hope that she might have survived. His family had also fallen apart during his two years of captivity, with his parents having divorced and moved on to new lives. Feeling abandoned and alone, Eiji chose to live by himself in a cheap apartment, using the SAO Incident Victim Relief Program to earn a high school diploma through correspondence courses but lacking any motivation to pursue higher education or engage with the world around him.
This period of despair ended in the autumn of 2025, when Professor Shigemura contacted Eiji with a proposal to restore Yuna as an artificial intelligence. The plan involved using the Augma, a new augmented reality device, to scan the brains of SAO survivors during combat. By having them fight recreations of the game's floor bosses, the memories associated with Yuna could be extracted and used to reconstruct her personality. Eiji, reignited with purpose and hope, began studying again and joined the professor's laboratory as an auditing student. He received a special exosuit that enhanced his physical capabilities and an Augma modified with action prediction functions.
In the augmented reality game Ordinal Scale, Eiji became the second-ranked player, his abilities far surpassing those of most other competitors. Driven by his desperate desire to see Yuna again and his lingering hatred for the Fuurinkazan guild members whom he blamed for her death, he carried out the professor's plan with brutal efficiency. He used physical attacks against SAO survivors in the real world to steal their memories, and specifically targeted Klein and his guild members, sending them to the hospital.
Eiji serves as an antagonist throughout most of the film, opposing Kirito and his friends who investigate the strange incidents surrounding the new game. His cold and ruthless demeanor in Ordinal Scale contrasts sharply with the timid and cautious personality he displayed as Nautilus in Sword Art Online. This transformation reflects how trauma and guilt have hardened him, allowing him to justify harming others by believing that the revival of Yuna outweighs any cost. In a one-on-one battle with Kirito, his exosuit is destroyed and he is defeated. Shortly afterward, Professor Shigemura betrays him, summoning an SAO floor boss to attack Eiji and scan his own memories of Yuna for the project.
After the plan to resurrect Yuna is thwarted, Eiji surrenders to the police for assaulting the members of Fuurinkazan. He is detained while prosecutors decide whether to press charges. However, Kirito later secures his release through an associate, needing Eiji's help to infiltrate the old SAO servers and solve a mysterious message. In this digital space, Eiji dons his old Nautilus avatar once more and, with Kirito's support, reaches the place where Yuna died. There, he witnesses the final disappearance of the incomplete artificial Yuna, known as White Yuna, and embraces the alternative Black Yuna, weeping as he finally begins to accept his loss.
Eiji later overcomes his FullDive Non-Conformity, the neurological condition that had paralyzed him in moments of danger. He logs into Alfheim Online with Yuna's AI fragment registered as his navigation pixie. When the War of Underworld threatens the lives of many players, he answers the call to fight and confronts the lethal player Vassago, also known as PoH. Though initially outmatched, Eiji receives buffs from Yuna's songs and fights with the same appearance and spirit he had during his time in the Knights of the Blood. Even after his avatar's arms are severed, he continues to fight, ultimately exposing PoH's true identity to the other players before being forced to log out.
Key relationships define much of Eiji's character arc. His bond with Yuna Shigemura is the central force in his life, motivating his actions both in the death game and afterward. He carries deep guilt over his inability to save her and a desperate love that drives him to extremes. His relationship with Professor Shigemura is initially one of mutual benefit, as both men share the goal of bringing Yuna back, but it ultimately ends in betrayal. Eiji holds a specific grudge against the guild Fuurinkazan and its leader Klein, whom he blames for refusing to help Yuna during the rescue attempt. Over time, after his defeat and redemption, he develops a more complex relationship with Kirito, who becomes an unlikely ally in the digital reconstruction of the old SAO world.
In terms of abilities, Eiji as Nautilus in Sword Art Online wielded a one-handed sword and mastered the Horizontal Square skill through dedicated solo practice. Despite his neurological condition, he reached the front lines and earned a place in an elite guild. In Ordinal Scale, equipped with his exosuit and modified Augma, he becomes the second-ranked player with combat capabilities that surpass both Asuna and Kirito for much of the film. Later, after overcoming his condition, he proves himself a capable fighter in Alfheim Online as well, able to challenge highly dangerous opponents in the Underworld.