Story: Poor design in planning and complete failure in execution. The flaws in the nerve gear and keeping everyone alive in the real world are just briefly touched on and not properly explained in the anime. For the planing portion, the games the characters are trapped in are both terrible and boring. The mechanics make no sense and doesn't seem like a mmo's at all. If you had told me they got transported to another world that has a few game mechanics it would have been exactly the same. In fact, that would have actually fixed a few of my problems with this show, examples: the nerve gear, the supposed no pain, the care of their real bodies on earth, it would have all been fixed if they were just transported to another world.
The problems in execution are the pacing is horrible, and the story is riddled with plot-holes that just seem careless in nature as a lot of them had easy fixes. The ones that didn't have easy fixes were just so contrived that they shouldn't have even been in the story except for that the author wanted them in. My biggest example of this is that they say no pain is felt since it's just a game, but for EVERY hit the people look like they're in pain and their movements stiffen as if this is the case. There's absolutely no excuse for this. No explanation is given on this at all in the anime and even the explanation from the LN, which is it's reflex, is complete bs as this game goes on for years and everyone who fights in the front line should have adapted to that ages ago. The goal for the first half is completed in a half assed manner and the second half goal was completed with some bs logic involving the first villain. There's 2 reasons why this didn't get lower than a 3. First reason why this story doesn't get a 1 is that despite all the pointless detours, terrible set up and contrived points they actually finish the story and the main goal for both part 1 and part 2 of this series are met. The second reason is that this anime takes place in the future which forces me to knock down some of my problems with it's layout despite how terrible it is.
Art: Pretty good for the most part and one of the two reasons I can't objectively give this a 1. It was vibrant, colorful, well drawn and the choreography wasn't bad(not great, but wasn't bad). It does lose some points however because there are a lot of still images with just sound effects playing in the background. Pretty much ever fight scene without Kirito has this problem and takes away from the show since we don't get to see a lot of different fighting styles. Also, while the backgrounds are good they're also really repetitive and you just get bored of looking at them after a while. There were also some overly animated moments that just made it look weird.
Sound: The second reason I can't give this a 1. The soundtrack is perfect and just fits with the scenes and art-style like a jigsaw puzzle. It manages to bring out the full effect of every scene and draws you in to the moment. It's a shame that the poor story and characters hurt it so bad. My only complaint is a lack of variety, the sound get pretty repetitive later on but they're still good, and with this anime you kinda just gotta take what you can get, so I give it a pass(better than adding in some bad sounding music).
Characters: i'm just gonna list the characters and give a brief summary on their good points(if any) and bad points. This is gonna be long
Kirito: Child wish fulfillment character with multiple personality disorder and who's basically invincible for no apparent reason. I'm just gonna leave it at that because once I start on kirito i'm not gonna be able to stop for the next three pages. Just know he's my third most hated character.
Asuna: Liked here for episode 2 then hated her for the rest. Apart from episode 2 everything cool about here is just told, not shown. I'm in my third week of creative writing class and i've still already been told at least 10 times to show events in writing, not just tell about them. Because nothing substantial is ever seen about Asuna, instead of becoming a cool badass character with her own independence she pretty much just becomes Kirito's trophy wife. Seriously, asides from episode 2 and the first 6 minutes of episode 5 she pretty much just follows Kirito around, argues with him but still always goes with his opinion anyway, cooks for him, supports all his ideas, is rich, good looking, and doesn't even question his relationship with all the other girls. Not to mention in the second half of the show she becomes freaking princess peach. She's my fourth most hated character. Side note, by all logic's of the show she should be dead. While Kirito can get a pass, she should undoubtedly be dead.
Klein and Agil: Best characters in the show but given so little screen time it doesn't even matter.
Silica: Completely unnecessary. The only reason I can think of that she's here is the every badass needs a loli troupe. She takes up an entire episode and the contents of that episode were so god damn stupid and unnecessary just like she was. She's my second most hated character for a very simple reason. Her existence is not only unnecessary but it also hurts the show greatly. Asides from taking up an episode she, she's also revealed to have a pet dragon. This means that sao has a pet system and since there are no classes in sao EVERYONE can use it and yet NO ONE but Silica does. Unless everyone in this game is f'ing retarded(oh, wait a minute) then they should all have a pet. Even if the dragon is a rare pet their should still be other pets that can heal, attack or tank for you in the game, though maybe not all in one like the dragon. Silica's existence proves that there is a pet system and proves that all the players in sao are, without a shadow of a doubt, retarded. That's why she's my second most hated despite only starring for 1 episode.
Lizbeth: Didn't hate her. Her existence served a purpose, she had a followup(albeit a short one) that actually had some relevance, and she was willing to make a sacrifice for her friend. While I find her falling in love with Kirito completely unnecessary I can let it slide.
Yui: First off, so there was another loli in this? Then wtf was the point in Silica!? Now that that's out of the way, I actually liked this character. I liked her personality, I liked her backstory and I liked her design, including the pocket pixie form(I found that adorable). So it's really sad that this is my number one most hated character. Why is she my most hated character despite the fact that I like so much about here? It's the purpose that she serves. She's basically just a huge cheating plot device for the second half of the season. Her abilities are bs and way too convenient to the plot, they make no sense for her to realistically have those abilities with her backstory, and most of the time she talks is just to tell Kirito what it is he needs to do. She's the fairy from zelda with tricked out cheat codes. As someone who likes games myself, I cannot stand for her cheating god-like existence, and that's why she's my most hated character in this show
Villains: Villain one had the potential to be great but was squandered by lack of development. Villain two was just a freaking joke. This guy was creepy but held no real threat level factor. Everytime this guy showed up on screne and acted like a villain I just felt it was laughable and disgusting.
This show is terrible and in my opinion it deserves a one, since I value story and characters more than art and music. However there's one way to watch this that hurts the brain a bit less and that is to watch it after an exam. When I watched this it was after a brutal series of exams and my brain was fried. Under such a situation where you can't think much then the music and art is more than enough to carry you through the series and is actually quite relaxing. Unfortunately sao does not focus on this and is clearly an attempt to get people interested in their crappy story and characters. It had way too much bad dialogue that pulled you out of the immersion and made ruined the immersive effect of the art and music. If it had just tried to cruise by on it's good looks and sound and focused less on their lost cause story and character interactions, this could have actually been a decent relaxation show.
Final Verdict is a 4.
