| Overall |
3 |
| Story |
4 |
| Animation |
4 |
| Sound |
3 |
| Character |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
1 |
The synopsis of Sword Art Online (SAO) doesn't sound terrible.
If you are expecting a good quality work however, this is not the show to watch. What seems like a promising story, ultimately fails.
I expected SAO to be like Battle Royale.
Not in terms of the story but how it will be focused on the psyche of the characters.
Imagine.
Being forced to play a video game, where dying in this game means dying in real life. Every extra day you spend in this game, you stay motionless in real life. This will lead to (possibly permanent) paralysis and most likely, they are feeding you through a
tube. This is expensive and your family and friends are in great distress.
This is not a pleasant or/and peaceful scenario. Yet this is not reflected properly in the characters. What I mean by "properly" is having short-term and long-term impacts. Simply reacting is insufficient for a "proper" believable behaviour. Short-term impacts are the basis of long-term impacts. This must flow in a logical sense for a reasonable duration of progression and regression. Forgetting it the next scene as if it never happened, is the worst method of characterization.
This is why SAO ultimately fails. It does not develop the mental chaos, which is really the highlight of SAO-esque story. Due to this, everything falls apart. Especially, the characters.
-ART-
It's typical video game clothing. So I will not bash on how non-functional they are.(as video games tends to do that) But none of them are really that aesthetically pleasing or designed well according to the scenario. So, I give it a 4/10.
-SOUND-
Music should be used in harmony to create mood.
Few poor attempts have been made but overall, it fails to evoke anything out of the viewers. This is surprising, considering they chose the simple "tried-and-proven" type of music.
-CHARACTER-
Flat as a cardboard.
Though we do not know the motivation behind why the character acts in the way they do, there is no sense of cohesion.
The inconsistency of Asuna and Kirito is mesmerizing. It's like they are a different person every scene.
Even if the author doesn't tell you the back story of a character, there should still be a cohesive feeling behind their actions.
Is Kirito selfish person? If so, all his action should follow this to a certain extent.
Asuna moves away from Kirito and wants to be left alone at first. But after the boss fight, she even chases after Kirito. Why?
-ENJOYMENT-
This is absolutely subjective because I cannot enjoy poor quality work.
-OVERALL-
I give MAL ratings based on the word.
3 = poor
4= decent.
This is not decent by any means. It fails to develop any of the potential the story holds and does the remainder in a poor quality fashion.
SAO sits somewhere between 2/10 to 3/10. read more
