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There are two types of adaptations. The first type tries to be enjoyable by itself for both people who know the source material and those who don't. The second type's reason for existence is to serve as advertisment to source material and other merchandise. After reading the original novels and watching first 3 episode I can say Sword Art Online anime is the second kind.
First episode is adapted perfectly and nicely explains things about the death game, that 10000 people got trapped into. It also introduces main character and few side characters. But the second one already rushes the whole plot a lot forward. They leave out many scenes that define main characters and explain their motivations. They also try to introduce new scenes that make up for the exposition lost during cuts, but they fail horribly. Third episode is same, albeit little better. They left out less exposition and scenes, but thats because original material was much shorter than for second episode.
Thanks to this, it won't be surprising if many people are be confused by character's actions and ask 'Why?" and "How?" many times during those two episodes and even future ones. The feeling of rushed plot is felt even by people who didn't read the novels and that is saying something.
Later episodes probably won't be better.They are obvious trying to adapt as much original material as possible while not having any reason to keep the storyline and character development solid.
Only good thing about this adaptation is great visual directing, attention to visual detail and Yuki Kajiura's soundtrack. But this is far from enough to make this enjoyable watch.

After finishing the anime, it seems I was right. read more