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May 1, 2013
This review is going to be a bit weird, because Index is a personal favorite of mine but from a technical standpoint I can't really give it a 10.
The story itself is nothing unusual or spectacular, ordinary boy gets caught into amazing and dangerous secrets of the world, but I find the "ordinary boy" part to be quite arguable, as the hero, Kamijou Touma, was born with a special ability called "Imagine Breaker" that can cancel any form of supernatural or magical phenomenon and lives in a sci-fi city full of students that go through ESP development curriculum to gain supernatural abilities of various types.
Many
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describe the plot as science vs magic and later on that does come true, but for the beginning of the series, it's mostly about Touma and his allies fighting enemies from both sides, each with their own personal agenda.
Toaru is full of cliche characters, but they're well applied and I personally think that matters way more than being innovative, but if cliches turn you off, take this as a warning. Many characters really felt like they could be actual people (ignoring the ridiculous get-ups they use of course) and some of them go through some pretty good developments, the most notable ones being former villain Accelerator and Touma himself.
For me the selling point about Toaru is its mood, the feeling it gives that this is an actual world, and despite having a focus, there are other stories going on in other places with other people, and having side characters that actually can be sympathized with and aren't treated as mere tools, although it has some that aren't treated this well too, for the most part I enjoy most of the characters and actually want to see them pull through.
The protagonist is still the center though, so how does Touma fares? Well, if you have something against idealistic heroes you might not really care for him, as he's a paragon of idealism, but he's constantly accompanied by people with more realistic points of view than his own. If you do however like this type, you'll probably enjoy the speeches he gives to his enemies, to refute their claims even if he himself thinks they have valid points. I personally liked very much how he doesn't simply beat the antagonists up and call it a day, he has to put his 2 cents on the matter first.
The fight scenes and concepts behind the ESP powers and Magic of this world were also really fun in my opinion, but some fights did feel a little awkward and the animation is just average sometimes, overall they're still very good and most of the confrontations had me fully interested, especially the ones that were more tactical fights than fist to fist.
To sum it up, Toaru has its flaws but none too important to really ruin all the good points it has, and if you find yourself liking the show for reasons similar to mine, I would really suggest you check out the novels, especially for the part where it shows the thought process of the characters a lot more than the anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 1, 2013
Disclaimer: This is my first review, so I'm not entirely sure how to do it, and although I'll try to avoid it in the future, I feel the need to talk about spoiler material in this one, so be warned. Also, there will be a TL;DR if you want to skip.
First of all, the biggest problem with SAO is all the potential it wasted, it had good concepts, art and acting, but the story itself was a bad application of the good ideas, while the protagonist and his love interest were annoying and forgettable respectively and all the other characters that could have been
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interesting pass by without development or even much screen time, instead feeling as tools to advance the plot (technically every character and event in a fiction is this, but they shouldn't feel like they are just this, that's my point)
I'll explain it in more detail later on, but for now I'll talk about the small details, from this point on there will be spoilers.
My first problem with the show started right on the first episode, I'll try to be brief on this one. The microwave explanation for the nerve gear made no sense, and why would people be so willing to put a death machine in their heads? Then there's the actual game, a game with no mages or ranged classes would not be that popular (I admit, this one is a total nitpick, but it still annoys me), then there's "resources in an MMO are limited that's why I'll use my beta tester knowledge to go to good places to level up" talk, it was bad both because it made no sense and because the protagonist I should side with already started like an unlikable jerk.
After that it was pretty much a bunch of forgettable episodes that didn't really advance the plot and were just trying to give the protagonist some pseudo-character development, but it's not character development if the events don't add to your character, he kept shifting between attitudes all the time with no real solid character traits.
The aspects of this taking place inside a game were also really thrown at you with no care about the presentation, with inconsistencies like sometimes they feel pain and sometimes they don't, or how in the first episode and a lot of times they activated the skills by will but for some occasions they had to access the menu to use some and so goes, it felt like this anime was just thinking any reference is good because people will automatically relate to it.
Now for the supporting cast, they were all there to highlight how awesome the "hero" supposedly was, that's really just it, even the love interest was forgettable. The first villain's actions were also questionable, saying he wanted his own world to watch, but trapping himself as a player too with the death rule applying to himself, or even the need to kill people if he could just trap them there, especially when later he wasn't portrayed as a really evil guy, just one crazy idiot.
Now for the second part of the series, the second villain made much more sense, but was too forgettable, just your typical power-hungry lunatic. The plot started making even less sense from this point on, there had just been a huge tragedy about a virtual reality game and then people immediately go play another one, including the main character's sister, he almost died there and spent years trapped, what is the logical course of action for his sister? PLAY THE SAME TYPE OF GAME FOR NO REASON WHEN FLASHBACKS SHOWED SHE WASN'T EVEN REALLY INTO GAMES TO BEGIN WITH, she was there just for the sake of being a plot device.
The side-characters and "people" of this world are simply retarded, just think about it, would you act like they did if you were trapped in a virtual reality that could kill you? Would you simply go and play a new one after such an event had just ended? You wouldn't.
There is much more to criticize about this one, but I'll leave it as is because this is already too long.
TL;DR: The protagonist is an idiot with no real character traits to him, but treated as awesome, all the side characters are merely tools for the plot and highlighting the hero, everyone in this world acts like a moron, the plot was an awful application of good concepts and the show is full of small details inconsistencies to big-time errors that completely ruin immersion.
The animation is good and so is the acting, but that is not nearly good enough to save this show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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