Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online. I don't think it's an exaggeration to rank this as one of the most hyped anime series of 2012. That being said, one only has to take a cursory glance at any SAO related forums, discussions et cetera to see for oneself - that SAO is undoubtedly a series dogged by controversy.

Fans of SAO are so devoted to it that they will leap into every discussion to defend any perceived slight at their beloved anime. On the other hand, people who detest it tend to make an almighty fuss about everything that has to do with it.

To be frank, I was actually ... pretty fired up by the hype surrounding SAO and was anticipating an anime that was brilliantly presented, on par with the likes of Steins;Gate and Fate/Zero.

The first episode indeed lived up to all my expectations. We have a bunch of players trapped in a massive virtual world and a raving mad scientist ruling over said world. Throw in an additional quirk, dying in-game means a horribly real death in the real world. I could wax lyrical about the limitless opportunities this premise offered up! The second episode followed this up with a well delivered boss fight and excellent story development. Hope burned bright in the souls of many SAO fans.

However, all good things come to an end, and for SAO, it was disappointingly a whole 22 episodes earlier than expected.

Cue the main protagonist, Kirito suddenly transforming from a well thought out character into a cliched knight in shining armour. A Gary Stu to boot, perfect in every respect.

The few episodes go something like this.
A girl has a worry. Kirito pokes his nose in it. He miraculously manages to come up with a perfectly viable plan to solve the girl's problems and manages to execute it flawlessly every single time. The girl then suddenly develops romantic feelings towards her knight in shining armour a.k.a the one and only Kirito-kun. He's practically a stereotypical Gary Stu!

If it were a single episode interspersed in between the main story arcs I don't think anyone would have complained. But no! The studio in all its great wisdom decided to string 'em together in one almost unbearably long series of episodes.

The main grouse I have with this portion of the anime is that is does not have any bearing on the overall plot of the anime. See those cute girls that have befriended Kirito? They get one episode together in the limelight with him, and then fade away into the darkness. Helping someone get an item? Tell me how that's going to impact on the future plotline of the anime.

Whew. Now that I've got that out of my system, let's move on to rating the anime.

I gave the story a 5. Essentially, SAO is a jumbled up mix of episodes that each do the main concept of the anime no favours at all. First we have the filler episodes. Then we have huge leaps in time. Heck, the first seven episodes spanned one and a half years, yet the rest of it up to the end of the SAO arc only took a few months. Ever heard of pacing, people? That pissed me off no end. I was expecting them to pace the SAO arc over the whole 25 episodes.

The one major problem in this area is that the people in charge either took excessive artistic licence or were high on something, because SAO is as filled with holes as a block of Swiss cheese in terms of plotholes. Basically we have logic defying actions, even within the rules of the SAO world. On one occasion, the anime even blatantly contradicts itself, feeding us the ridiculous idea that pure willpower and love can counter the rules of said world. Come on, give us a break. That's just a blatant deus ex machina!

Then we have ALO, or Alfheim Online.

I won't spoil any people yet to watch SAO any further. Suffice to say that SAO's story and execution as a whole are mediocre, extending to the ALO arc. Its only saving grace is that the plot twists are quite well executed and unexpected when they are not logic defying.

Art-wise I have no particular complaints to make. The art as a whole is solid stuff, especially in a few scenes that are a feast for the eyes. A 7 overall.

Moving on to the sound.
The first OP, LiSA's crossing field was decent. Not bad, but not too good either, a hallmark of her songs. First ED, forgettable, generic and very plain indeed. I feel that the second OP was a shade better than crossing field. And finally, the pièce de résistance, the 2nd ED, Overfly. In my opinion it was actually a great song. Haruna Luna's not half bad. The soundtracks were done by Kajiura Yuki. Need I say more? 8 out of 10.

Characters! Now we're getting serious. I mean DEAD serious.
A breakdown :

Kirito - Every part of him shouts Gary Stu! He is the modern day Sherlock Holmes with wonderful deduction ability. He is a chick magnet without even trying to. He always goes out of his way to help people. He even gets a wife after non-existent courtship! He's even got his own unique Dual Wield sword skill because he's just that badass! "Make me a sammich and a rabbit stew, Asuna!" "Okay!"

Asuna - The female protagonist. When we first see her, she appears as a strong character, with the personality and traits to match as well. Granted, she does play some important roles in the earlier stages of the SAO arc. After that, she degenerates into Kirito's sidekick. What, you're among the top in your guild hierarchy and a front liner to boot, yet Kirito has to fight for your freedom from your guild? For some honeymoon so that you can spend your lovey-doey couple time together? She gets even worse in the ALO arc. Basically, Asuna is there to help Kirito on the road to awesomeness. Whenever she's in a spot of trouble, cue Kirito stepping in and coolly getting rid of her problems, be it enemies, monsters or otherwise. No point in her existing otherwise, is there?

These two are the only two that SAO really focuses on. The supporting cast are merely there to cheer them on. They play no major role and do not impact the storyline. Some even appear in only one episode!

Characters - A really bad one. 3 from 10. It would have been lower if Yui didn't at least appear to compliment the Kirito-Asuna pairing.

Enjoyment - I'm going to give it a deserving 7. I will concede that although the story and characters are immensely lacking, I quite enjoyed the series. Between facepalming at those god awful plotholes to being absorbed in the beautiful world of SAO, it's actually quite an enjoyable experience.

In conclusion, SAO is probably an anime series that polarises opinion like never before. I'm going to take a neutral stand here and say that I neither detest nor love it. Else there's probably gonna be another SAO flame war.

The source material by the author is excellent, but suffers very badly when being adapted by those "What the fuck are they smoking, they're so high" people from A-1 Pictures.

I'm giving it a 6. Seeing as the light novel is selling as fast as Kirito attracts chicks, I'll go out on a limb here and say I'm very hopeful of a further season 2.

Now, if only they would kick A-1 out and replace them with a better studio...

"It's shit right?"

"It's shit."


Shit Art Online, is essentially, shit. I don't even need to delve deep into this. It's laced with god awful writing, and panders to every autistic teenager on the planet. It's like a kid's fantasy, put onto paper and given a budget. Any teenager with angst could write this plot, and write it better than the hack of a writer that got it published.

Our protagonist, Gary Stu, is the best ever. He gets the best drops and weapons. He's one of the only players to get a unique skill. He gets the boss kills. He gets the most beautiful girl in ... the game, who also, coincidentally, is one of the best players. He also gets his own harem of good looking females, in a game which is supposed to make up of a small female population. He beats the game (Hurr Durr what a surprise) and saves everyone. My hero!

But why? Was it through character development? The power of friendship? Luck? No, no, and no. It's just because he does. Because he's the main character. Because the author loves his fantasy, where he is the alpha male, and where every desire can be fulfilled.

It's called self-insert. It's what you are doing. Stop it. It ruins the fun for everyone else.

Now, there is nothing wrong with having a fantasy. But when you go and rate a show a 10, which has more plot holes than a hooker has STD’s, we have a serious problem.

Despite the whole "death game" concept, there is no danger whatsoever thanks to Mr. Emoangstsoloplayer. Anyone who dies does it off screen, or we are told about it. Or, we meet them for as long as it takes to remember their vague design, and then they get killed off. What was her name again? Huh funny, I can’t remember since she was on screen for 10 minutes. So it's almost like they didn't die at all. Now that kept me on the edge of my seat. And then the one time someone should die, he doesn’t! Holy shit how’d that happen?!? Fucking magic, man I tell ya.


And there’s plenty of times where someone should die, but through some magical ass pull, save themselves and accomplish what they set out to do anyway. What’s the point in suspense if we already know the outcome? Jumping on a dragon to escape a giant pit? Why even have scientific laws that prevent people from doing the impossible when they can pull shit like this? This isn’t a super robot show, where the explicitly tell you to kick logic to the curb. Pathetically, the show tries to force a sense of realism down my throat I can’t swallow.

There's also a lack of depth to every character. The villain makes the game because HE CAN, Asuna stands there and looks pretty, the more interesting side characters (Klein, Gilbert and I had to look those names up, I wanted to say red hair and black guy) get swept aside by Mr. Gay personified and become wallpaper. The protagonist couldn’t be any more of a teenage faggot. I've had enough with these cardboard thin backgrounds and personalities; kill them off and be done with it. I'm in a kiddie pool and drowning here, even though it's shallow like this stories writing.

The Op by LiSa is by far the best thing about this show besides the quality budget. It's a good thing Asuna's ass won't look ugly, because there is nothing else to look at here folks. Seriously, I found at least 10 moments where a females ass took up half the screen in plain sight. Have the decency to at least put it in the background. We all know who your marketing is targeted towards.


Don’t even mention the horrid pacing. The show attempts to cram big chunks of story into singular episodes and falls flat on its face. How am I supposed to come to relate to a character if I only know them for a short period of time? Yet somehow these girls come to fall in love with the main character, within 10-15 minutes of meeting the! It’s asinine how a logical human being can call that development. I shall point it out again; it’s all for the sake of the fantasy. A romance show you say? Excuse me while I fall into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.



Shit Art Online’s writing is equivalent to that of an Inuyasha fan fiction written by an overweight fujoshi. The writer was a very young man when he wrote the first novel, as apparent by his lack of talent or any of resemblance of skill. “Two years’ worth of semen made a glopping noise as it flowed endlessly into Asuna.” Now I realize this line is novel only, but it does mean something when it comes to the show. Do you really think a man, who could seriously and EARNESTLY write a line like that, could write a good story? Doesn’t that line just make you want to crack up? And can anyone tell me what a glopping noise sounds like?


Must sound like shit.

Sword Art Online has become a phenomenon in the anime community. Since it has premiered it has gained both a large amount of fame and infamy. Nowadays it's really known for the latter, and seen as intensely mediocre by a lot of people. My thoughts on the matter probably won't be as articulate as some other people's, but I'll try my best to explain why I think SAO is a terrible anime.

When I first heard of SAO's premise, I was already put off. While I understand that it has potential, it just sounded very fanfic-y to me and not really that appealing, which is why ... it didn't really become one of those shows where I was like "MUST WATCH". Sometime later the infamy just caught up to me and I decided it wouldn't hurt to have a look-see.

The premise of SAO is essentially that some douchebag named Akihiko Kayaba trapped a bunch of people in the eponymous Sword Art Online for...reasons. The story follows Kirito, a lone gamer, as he strives to make it through to the end of the game safely, as losing in the game equals death in real life as well. On the way he also falls in love with a girl named Asuna.

Before getting into the main problems of the story, let me begin by addressing the "strong" points of the show as it were.

The show IS occasionally pretty in terms of visuals, however to say that it is artistically good is giving it a little bit too much credit. The character designs are honestly nothing special; they aren't vomit-inducing by any means, but they are pretty generic anime designs. They have a certain appeal but are nothing special. The armor and monster designs are also pretty uninspired and look like they were created by amateurs. It reminds me of the Tales series, whose art direction I also am not a fan of. This is no Final Fantasy XIV that's for sure.

The music is by Yuki Kajiura, who also worked on Madoka Magica (which is a MUCH better show than this piece of shit). It's a decent score, granted, but it's nothing too outstanding and doesn't in any way make up for the huge pitfalls that are the story and characters.

The story is very, very poorly paced, has terrible focus, and jumps the shark so quickly it's scary. The first episode is promising enough (though again, calling it excellent is a stretch); it sets up the stakes, gives a nice amount of tension, introduces the protagonist and main villain, and leaves you hopeful. Kirito is hardly an interesting character at first glance, but that's forgivable because it's only the first episode. The second episode introduces the supposed main female character, Asuna, and fleshes out the setting a bit more. It's nothing fantastic but the plot progresses a little and stuff actually does happen.

What follows afterwards however are like 5 episodes of irrelevant BS interspersed with incredibly poorly written, adolescent drama that feels like it belongs in fanfiction. The majority of the episodes are just propping up Kirito by having him win the affections of various girls in different ways, while also occasionally giving him a cheap source of angst for him to fuss over. The setting does get fleshed out more, but the thing is that this ultimately ends up being completely irrelevant to what BECOMES the main plot.

And what is the main plot? Kirito and Asuna's romance. And let me tell you, it sucks. It's incredibly forced, dull, and rushed. The majority of the development of their relationship happens off-screen, it does not feel natural or realistic in the slightest. What it feels like is that it was written as an otaku's fantasy version of what a relationship would actually resemble, because they lack the knowledge of how such a thing actually works, and how to convincingly portray it through writing.

It really astounds me as to how much of a cancerous tumor the entire thing turned out to be; they SERIOUSLY go into the woods to have a vacation and raise a kid while their fucking lives are on the line. I thought they were supposed to be trying to fight for their lives and go home? I understand Kirito is all about escapism and how this world feels real to him bla bla bla but this isn't executed in a mature and sophisticated way so it just feels like a stupid waste of time.

Kirito ends up defeating Kayaba through Deus Ex Machina (the power of love overpowers even videogame rules, how about that), and then we go into another bullshit arc that introduces a lot of other nonsense like Kirito's boring one-dimensional adopted sister who's in love with him (gee i haven't seen this incestuous imouto stuff in like every other bad anime ever) and an even more awful villain than the first arc.

In summation, the plot of SAO COMPLETELY failed to deliver on its potential. Instead of exploring philosophical, moral, and ethical questions about the setting and situation and doing good legitimate worldbuilding (which it at least seemed to be trying to do earlier on, albeit poorly), it threw all of that away to focus on a terrible love story. What the hell was even the point of writing this in the first place? The entire tension that was supposed to be felt was just not there, and with the second arc it just evaporates completely. It is the EXACT opposite of a compelling narrative, it's childish and amateurish writing at its most apparent.

With that out of the way, the characters in SAO are all bad. Kirito is little more than a blank slate for anime and videogame otaku to project themselves onto; he has a super edgy black coat and sword, he has a SUPER SPESHUL DUBBL SWORDS power exclusive to him (so much for SAO being fair), all the girls want him, everyone wants to be him, he has a super kawaii waifu who cooks for him, gets to play parent with a not-really child, saves the day even though everything says he shouldn't be able to, etc. He's as dull as dishwater. Calling him the "Black Swordsman" is an insult to Guts, the actual Black Swordsman.

The rest of the characters are all similarly paper thin and boring. Asuna starts out as an affirmative, tough female protagonist (though not an interesting one by any means), but gradually gets demoted to useless domestic waifu while her hubby Kirito does the actual heavy lifting. The misogynistic undertones present are honestly pretty gross.

The side characters are mostly irrelevant and pointless. The girls of the week are just flimsy archetypes and little more than that, they serve no purpose in the grander narrative at all. Lisbeth is easily the best one, and one I actually did kind of like, but I'm not going to pretend she was anything special either. While I say all of this, I do agree that Klein is pretty bro from what we see of him and that if he was the main character instead SAO probably would have been a much more tolerable series, because Klein at least seemed to have some semblance of a personality.

The villains are terrible and have no actual reasons for what they are doing besides the fact that they are bad people. Worse than that, they are not charismatic or interesting in spite of that, like Johann Liebert from Monster, Griffith from Berserk, Hannibal Lecter, etc. They just suck.

The main thing that keeps rearing its ugly head over and over again in all the things that are wrong with SAO is just how incredibly masturbatory it is. It seems strictly designed to fellate the main character (a stand-in for game and anime otaku), pandering to its demographic as much as possible, instead of focusing on delivering a focused narrative with compelling writing. Literally every single attempt this show makes at drama or generally invoking pathos falls completely flat because Kawahara obviously doesn't understand humans or the basics of writing enough to get emotional reactions that aren't mirthful laughter, disgust, annoyance, apathy or boredom.

I get that this is a shounen story and I shouldn't expect that much from it to begin with, but that doesn't mean it has to be terrible.

As elitist as it sounds to say this, the only reason I can see anyone propping this up as anything more than serviceable/mediocre is that they just haven't watched enough anime or read enough manga or just experienced enough stories in general to know there's SO MUCH BETTER STUFF OUT THERE. Seriously, even if you just wanted harem or moe stuff, there are better shows than this out there.

Sword art online is not one about action, but instead is a pseudo harem monomyth despite what the first episode suggests. It implores the same marketing tactic as Accel World, and Guilty Crown, where the 1st episode is merely a showstopper/crowd-pleaser with alot of eye candy and flashing lights as well as a misleading title, in order to accrue a sizeable fanbase. But if we ignore the 1st episode, and look at the anime as a whole it can be said that the anime was adequate for its intended purpose.

//Story
The story is quite simple, and it seemed to copy the core ideas of hack//sign, but ... to a lesser extent, that is it focuses more on romance rather than action after the 1st episode. The story seems to advance rather too quickly after the 1st episode, where it seems to bounce from the 1st floor, to the 50th floor in a mere episode. As an aside just to explain the floors, the anime featured a large tower which the hero must climb, similar to that of Druga, that featured floor 1 to 100 that had a very powerful boss awaiting on the top floor. So it was quite clear that the 2nd episode sparked large displeasure/controversy in the audience. So just to reiterate an important point, the plot moves very fast, it was expected there to be minor 'time' leaps and that the entire anime would revolve around climbing the tower that was featured in the anime to be the ultimate obstacle to freedom. But that was not the case. Sword art Online's story ended mid-season, in a rather, pathetic fashion. For a damsel-in-distress or monomyth anime, in regards to the 2nd portion of the anime, it did amazingly so in it's portrayal, but as an action-game anime, it failed miserably. The plot moved too fast, the romance seemed to be forced, for example where suddenly two protagonists get together in a romantic relationship almost seemingly out of nowhere (though there were small hints), and the fact that the circumstances which brought this about in the anime was unrealistic. The manga on sword art online could explain clearly why people in the virtual game could live as well as other questions on the context of the world of Sword Art, but the anime failed to explain adequately such small questions, resulting in an un-cohesive/disjointed anime with too many questions to be asked about the world. So if a person watched only the anime, without reference to any of the written works of Sword Art Online, the anime seemed to be fundamentally confusing. Sci-fi worlds must have depth, Sword Art Online lacked depth due it's seemingly short time frame.

//Art and Sound
The art and sound is something you'd expect to be top notch in an eyecandy anime like this, the first opening song, "Crossing fields" by LiSA seemed to resonate with the anime very well. Other notable mentions are, Innocence by Aoi Eir (2nd opening), Yume Sekai by Haruka Tomatsu (1st ED), and Overfly by Luna Haruna (2nd ED). The music in the anime was pretty well done, and seemed to blend well with the situations depicted in the anime.

//Character
The MC seems to be the most random personality on the anime, he's indecisive at times, a genius at times in decision making, and may other inconsistencies with his character. In the monomyth structure, where the hero saves the 'damsel in distress' the hero seems to become stronger, more intelligent or at least improve in character as the story progresses, with Kirito( MC), the reverse seems to happen. So as character progression goes, there seems to be regression rather progression in the case of the MC. The other characters, seemingly very vague, despite the anime being a fantasy. Other animes such as Hunter x Hunter, go out of they way to explain the background of side characters that are going to die in the next episode. Though I don't expect Sword Art Online to have this kind of depth in it's 25 episode anime( which could've been split into seperate seasons to make it seem less rushed, especially at the end), it could've at least explained more about the important female characters that turned the emotionally stagnant Kirito into a Cloud Strife.

//Enjoyment
I can't say I didn't enjoy the anime, but the appalling story development and heavily flawed characters make it difficult to progress with the anime. The story seems to jump at random speeds; from very fast, to slow, to fast, to very fast (at the end). The ending of the anime reminds me of Avatar Kora where the last episode seems to be 6 episodes smashed into one episode. So for enjoyment I'd say I'd be a 6 or a 7.


//Verdict
Overall, due to the reason stated above, I'd say the anime is around a 5 (mediocre), the anime was heavily over hyped due to its flashly first episode, but from then on, it seriously let down fans on the episodes afterwards. The anime seemed to combine 2 seasons into 1 seasons for some bizarre reason which just caused disjointedness, and a very strange final episode.

But if you've read this far, I'd like to thank you for reading my review.

I apologize for my ignorance in advance, as I have not read the manga or the light novels or any other related media corresponding to this franchise. This review is solely preliminary and focuses on the first 5 episodes only.

Sword Art Online seems to be an anime hyped up by many this season. Its easy to see why, as the setting of a virtual world in which players are trapped and must fight for their lives can easily attract many. Personally, I was excited as well, and as the summer anime season rolled by, I immediately picked it up. I had very high hopes ... for this anime, as it was in fact my first "virtual reality" anime. I had never watched .hack or any other similar anime so the setting was very fresh to me and i wanted to see how an anime taking place inside an MMO would play out. Now that I've viewed episode 5, it seems fitting to offer my initial thoughts on the series. In my opinion, Sword art online definitely did not disappoint in its portrayal of a virtual world, but is seriously lacking in other aspects such as character development and story.

Lets start with the good. Wow. What a fantastic world SAO is. Its portrayal definitely made me jealous of the players. Except for the fact that they were unable to log out and that dying meant death, I definitely wanted to visit SAO. Sword art online portrays its world magnificently. The art is fantastic, the settings are vibrant and colorful, and they all make the viewer feel that they are, in fact, in a virtual MMO. However, what I was even more impressed with were the concepts introduced in SAO. Its easy to see that SAO was inspired by many of today's MMORPGs but SAO takes it a step further and translates all of these concepts into a VMMORPG. Its very interesting to see how the concept of guilds, parties, and health points are portrayed in a world where the player is the character. One thing i thought was brilliant and hilarious was the concept of "sleep-pk," in which a player duels another player who is asleep, by using the asleep player's finger to accept the request. Overall, sword art online has a magnificent setting and I am looking forward to it expanding over the course of the series.

Unfortunately, I was not a big fan of the storyline or the characters. One main issue I had with the storyline probably came from my unfamiliarity with the franchise. The time gap between episodes 1-5 is erratic and almost none of the episodes had any contiunuty. Generally I'm open to this type of storytelling but the jumping around simply left me confused. Kirito's experience changes drastically in between episodes and it almost seems like he is a different person in each new episode. After wathcing episode 5 it seems that they are finally going through with an "arc," though I would have very much liked for them to continue a coherent story from episode 1. I feel the episodes were more used to show off the concepts and setting of SAO rather than to give insight into Kirito's personality and motives. In fact, I feel that this format of storytelling actually hindered my relationship with Kirito and isolated me from his character. Because of this its hard to keep track of Kirito as so much time passes by in between each episode. In addition, I feel that Kirito is too one dimensional as a character. In almost every episode, he plays the role of a "white knight" and helps random girls he runs into. It seems to me that he has no agenda in each episode, and that he is simply there, playing the game and helping people that he runs into. Its hard to see any ulterior motives and it seems to me that Kirito is 100% pure, which I hate because it subtracts from the depth the writers could have added to his character. In episode 5, Asuna returns(finally) and the two embark on an epic journey to.. help investigate a random murder. It seems to me at this point that most of the shows conflicts are caused more by other players rather than by the world itself. I would very much like to see Kirito "progress" in the game world and have a goal that he can work towards, rather than come to the aid of anybody who needs his help. Everyone he interacts with seems to be a girl as well(I was starting to think this anime was turning into a harem.)

To sum it up Sword Art Online is definitely worth watching. The weaknesses I addressed only pertain to the first 5 episodes and it is very possible that the show will pick up. I'm very much expecting it to. The setting is magnificent, and has revived my daydreams of visiting a virtual world. I hope to see a lot more good things from this anime and will post another review whenever I feel like it.

This anime is like wish-fulfillment drug for male teenagers and adults who're addicted to online gaming and can't deal with real-life challenges.

It basically shows them what they want to see - a perfect male hero who is loved by all the girls (including his effing cousin), who can solve any problem, and despite only playing games since he was 10 - is still fairly handsome and thin (yeah, that's how it works!).

All the girls are cute, forgiving, compassionate and inferior in terms of skill and wits to the main male character. Even the main female lead, who stars of quite good and strong ... is sort of degraded through the series to this pretty princess-wife type of character who is only there to be either saved by a hero or abused by the villain.

The online world, despite of being an effing death-trap is still portrayed as a better place than reality. Because hey, at least there is no homework, work, parents or that other pesky things that just get in the way!

I'm not giving this a 1 or 2 because honestly it stared of pretty good, the art was nice and pleasant and there were moments were I enjoyed it later on, but hell did it leave me disturbed and upset at the end. In terms of plot the second half was simply dreadful... (and some questions from the first part were also left unanswered.)

On some levels, especially the ones considering representation of women, this anime is disgusting. What's even more frustrating it's not that straight-forward about it but it hides this under the game reality rules and some illusion of a strong female character.

I can't add to what others have said but let me just briefly summarize my opinion, criticism, and praise.

= [ ( Story ) ] = ****3****

I apologize for such low rating. What started out as a promising series, SAO lets down its audience with weak plot and conflict resolutions. The periodic and time lapses between episodes cause confusion and misunderstanding. Without your ability to access primary source (LN), some of the plots are unclear, if not simply misplaced. What remains of the plot? Instead of focusing on serious aspects of the story, we are dished with series of ... MC's love interest, which serves zero purpose to actual love interest of MC. Harem is a word that fits this situation. The excessive amount of fan service that this story vomits is unjustified and unnecessary. However, SAO delivers simple and understandable plot objectives, which a little child could understand. There is a clarity in its objective and I applaud the author of SAO for making that very clear.

= [ ( Art ) ] = +++ 6 +++
the art is very justified for this sort of anime. With harem, loli, and incest, the cutesy style of art is very fitting and well applied. At the same time however, it does draw away from the believability of the story as a serious material, which the plot, at least at the beginning, promised to be a very mature topic. It is fortunate that SAO art tries to please teenagers and casual watchers and opted out for harem/romance/damsel in distress plot devices.

= [ ( Sound ) ] = """" 8 """"

Excellent music--one of saving grace of the series. It adds excitement to otherwise boring and repetitive action scenes, which seems to overuse charging and 360 degree back and forth.


= [ ( Character ) ] = """"3""""

Character development is shallow. MC is given little time for character development. Little of what does occur uses convenient plot devices [i.e. death of a friend] to advance its objective, which is extremely cliche and unoriginal. The time given to achieve this objective was narrowed to just one episode, which devastated the impact of the development as a whole. As well, other character developments are small or absolutely zero. If there was a little development, it was completely dependent on their interaction with the MC and it is highly unclear whether character development is visible or understandable from the viewers perspective.

= [ ( Enjoyment ) ] = """""6"""""

SAO is fairly entertaining, due to its cliche plot and high production value. The forced incest drama is really the highlight of this show, so I highly recommend it.

= [ ( Overall ) ] = """"5""""

I would like to think that 5 is justifiable by my reasoning. I would've given it 7 or 8 if it weren't for the horrible pacing, weak character development, and overall hype that is given to this show. IF the show was focused instead of trying to be everything (harem, romance, incest, tragedy, drama, action, seinen, tentacle, sex), SAO could've been an awesome project.

Sword Art Online is a terrible, childish, fanfiction level show that has been hyped to death and given mass high scores that it simply does not deserve. But there's probably a good reason for that and that is it's setting. It seems if you want to earn big cash while putting out a dreadful show, choosing to go with a MMO-gaming style theme is the way to go.

The allure of the show lies in the setting of a virtual reality world where one practically becomes the video game hero you have always dreamed of as a child. It probably isn't an over-generalization to say anyone ... who has played a number of video games as a child or has played one MMO dreams of becoming a character in such a reality. The presentation of this ego feeding world is done well enough, with the typical dungeons, towns, and fields that gamers reminisce about to how mechanics and physics work in the world. But this isn't enough to cover up the underlying pack of cliches and poor writing the show is full of.

The biggest problem with the plot is that it is expanded in to month skips. The show presents an interesting concept where the players of Sword Art Online must beat the game and if their health bar reaches zero, they are killed just like how it would be in real life. Yet, instead of presenting how the 10,000 characters adapt to this horrific news at the beginning of this nightmare, the game proceeds with the main character running off a field with a childish "I want to be the very best!" and goes on with a one month skip and a 2000 death number. And with almost each episode, another series of month skips are given without going in to full details about the main character's journey. The month skips are redundant, pass up what would be great opportunities to see the world of SAO, the struggles of characters, and just plain makes the pacing of the show out of rhythm. Flashbacks and lack of details will leave the viewer pondering many questions which can only be answered by doing your own homework: something that a show simply should not force upon viewers.

If there is one thing this show cannot be forgiven for is the characters themselves, especially Kirito. Many of the characters in the show are one-dimensional, have no real depth, and are simply awfully written. From Klein (The typical bro) to Silica (Moeblob) to Asuna (Aloof tsundere), the characters have nothing interesting to present to the viewer besides their one-defining archetype.

But the biggest offender to one-dimensional is Kiritio, a character solely created as a self-insert for a kid. From his inability to succeed in real life to becoming the envy of everyone in Sword Art Online, to episodes solely created so girls can fall for how nice he is, to his lack of struggles in the world, he is the epitome of the Gary Stu character. Typically you would expect for a main character to struggle through quests, monsters, bosses, other foul players, etc when given a show about a MMO virtual reality world. Instead Kirito proceeds to breeze through and humiliate any obstacle given. You aren't watching a character become stronger and develop, Kirito starts right off as an unbeatable character who smashes straight through everything. His only real conflict is his belief that he cannot protect his friends and comrades, a laughable messiah complex and the biggest cliche of "heroes." Kirito's character concept is nothing but childish.

With it's horrendous plot progression and even more horrendous characters, Sword Art Online can only be called mediocre at best. It presents an interesting world but suffers from a lack of exploration and finer details. The production values and soundtrack are nothing impressive and in the end one is simply left with a show that had great ideas, but was poorly executed.

Hype Art Online, or HAO like everyone calls it, is one of the 2 Summer season shows which are worth of a try. Positively thinking it's, luckily, the only Summer series which disappointed me with its mediocrity, over-used cliches and worth-of-nothing characters.


Before continuing, I need to make something clear about this thing you might be thinking about me; "You are just mad because HAO got such a high mean score after its first episode." This, my friend, is some hilarious shit. Mainly because I replaced an S with an H. Other than that, the sentence is pretty much bullshit. "People are trying to get ... it a mean score high as possible because mean score makes the anime better." Sounds about as legit. To say make it simple; I don't care about mean scores, I only care about the quality of anime.


After watching the first minute of the series you will already know what the author has in mind - To trap the players inside the game world. When this happends one would expect the players to panic due not getting back to their own world, isn't that right? But nope, that doesn't happen because HAO is one-dimentional shonen which doesn't try to be smart nor realistic by any means at all. I'm wrong? Imagine how you would act in the same situation.

To make the setting even more cliche and lame you need to make your characters the same. So obviously our MC is the best player in that game and everyone envies him and his skills, he is the best, that's it. This is pretty much the thing what everyone dreamed when they were 7 years-old. You know what shit usually happens when this is done? Lack of character development. The MC also got some other nice tropes to his heart, like badass, which doesn't suite him at all, nor any other bishonen due it appearing mainly overly gay.

But wait! Some shit happens and there is a player.. even more.. powerful than our MC??!?! Like how? Isn't that the most cliche thing fucking ever? Oh, yeah, almost forgot the nature of this series. Needs to put over-used cliche to lame cliche to make the series deep, all the depth and shit.


Cliches aren't all that bad thing if the story is otherwise awesome, the writer has balls to do shit and the character are actually worth of caring about. Unfortunately there is nothing to hold on to in Sword Bishonen Online, which makes it easily to be forgotten, and thus it's not memorable. Substance much? Pretty much the only different between Accel World and SBO is that HAO is dead-boring already from the very beginning while AW had actually some potentiality in the beginning. Also, pretty sure HBO will broadcast this at some point.


The pace of the series is something I'd call weird. Seems like not much is happening, yet the whole thing is extremely rushed. When I say it's rushed, I do not mean that the pacing is super fast. From recent anime e.g. Sakamichi no Apollon is really fast paced but it's not rushed due talented direction and quality execution. That's something HAO just lacks. Also, the director is a noname who has e.g. been part of the team who wrote Guilty Crown's storyboard, so, there you go. Just saying, though.


Production values really aren't notable. The art isn't bad but nothing special either, but I do agree it being fitting to the series. I personally dislike the character desing for the reason that it reminds me of personality lacking fanservice robots from Guilty Crown, but maybe that's just me. Animation is okay, but nothing worth of praising. It's not like the producers are known from their action scenes or anything anyway. Voice acting is decent enough. Theme songs come from LiSA, and she is amazing. Best thing in the series if you ask me, but I'm music faggot anyway.


I already heard complains about how wrong I am because HAO is actually one of the best from this Summer season. But no, don't misunderstand me. This season is absolutely terrible. I'm not saying this show is utter trash when comparing to other this season shows, I'm saying HAO is another cliche and very much an average series. It might be really enjoyable to watch, but is it actually good and easy to find it entertaining? No, I don't think so.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead; read at your own risk. (Or if you don't really care, then read away, I guess...)

Well, where shall I begin with this... I'll just say right now that this series (one which I had really high hopes for) ended up becoming absolutely horrid by the second half; each episode getting progressively worse than the last. But, in any case, let's discuss this shall we?

The story: It's basically just your typical MMO-genre type of series (think .Hack but with actual fighting as opposed to the characters just standing around and talking episode after episode). The first half of the series takes place in ... the world of Sword Art Online (hence the title) where everyone including the main character, Kirito, becomes trapped and in order to free themselves from their virtual imprisonment, they must clear all of the floors within the world's dungeon.(There's the whole "if you die in this world you'll die in real life" thing, but again, this is really nothing new.) In the second half, Kirito enters another MMO called ALfheim Online where he must now rescue his waifu, Asuna (a girl he met in the first game that ended up being trapped in the virtual world after everyone else in SAO had been freed) who now lies waiting for him at the top of the World Tree, a colossal tree in the centre of this new world. I won't go into too much detail, but the series really goes downhill from this point on. I'll just say that there were a few bad writing choices and leave it at that. *Cough.* A horrible villain, a tentacle scene, and incest (Oh my!). *Cough.*

The Art: Definitely one of the high points of this series (this being one of the only ones). As an artist myself, I can say the characters were drawn fairly well, but I can't help but say that I've seen this art style somewhere before... Oh well, moving on! Though aside from the characters, I must say that the world(s) look absolutely gorgeous and there seems to be quite a few well used colour schemes in certain scenes. Bottom line: It's pretty and colourful. NEXT!

The Sound: The soundtrack was both very intense as well as very peaceful and relaxing when it needed to be during certain scenes. Although, if I had to make one nitpick about it then I'd say that a lot of the tracks sound fairly similar to one another if not almost the same track played differently. (Though I can't say that for certain, it did sound like that to me.)

The Characters: This part was kind of like a roller coaster to me; at one point I'd want to murder them for all of the horrible choices they made, but then they kind of grew on me as the series progressed. However, during the second part when a certain character appeared, I just couldn't take this series seriously (especially near the end where he was literally licking off the heroine's tears and trying to rape her whilst the protagonist could only sit and watch). Just... No... A tip for any writers out there: DON'T MAKE YOUR CHARACTERS ACT LIKE BLOODY CARTOONS! If you want to write a character well, then make them a bit more realistic and even relatable. Even a villain can be a relatable character if written correctly (trust me, I've seen it).

Overall, it wasn't a completely AMAZING series like I was hoping for, but I did get a fair amount of enjoyment from it (not so much the second half, but beggars can't be choosers). If you want to watch it for the sake of wanting to watch something of this genre, then just watch up to episode fourteen and drop it immediately (trust me, the other half is not worth sticking around for). If you're a writer looking for what NOT to do, then I'd recommend watching it all the way through. What are you doing still reading this? Go watch it and see for yourself whether it's good or not. Go on... Shoo...

Sword Art Online – it’s the anime where you either hate it or love it. On paper, it seems like a very good idea: ten thousand people are trapped in a virtual world with no way out other than completing all one hundred floors of the world which get increasingly difficult. Gamers everywhere would love this concept and as a gamer, I won’t lie when I say that Sword Art Online intrigued me. The first episode was very promising – beautiful art with some of the most gorgeous scenery, a nice tutorial for not only a newcomer to the game, but the audience as well ... and a main character that seemed very likable. The future looked bright for the series and I anticipated more.

And, in one fell swoop, the delight of the first episode vanished as it went on. And on.

That’s not to say that the entire series should be exactly like the first episode, it shouldn’t. The problem is that everything that made the first episode so great is absent from the rest of the series. The breathtaking environments and even the likability of the main character seem to crash and burn as soon as the second episode hits. People hating on the beta-testers, labelling them as “beaters” when they’re clearly the people you would want helping you the most. It’s very strange that as it goes on, you’re introduced to characters that you’ll be seeing more of but only if they haven’t appeared for six episodes. Those characters in particular are the most interesting ones.

The story follows Kirito, one of those aforementioned beta-testers that already knows the ropes and happenings of Sword Art Online. He starts off as a guide to another character in the very first episode, being very energetic and helpful towards him. The problem is, due to his real life shut-in tendencies, Kirito likes to be by himself, therefore being a solo player. When it’s discovered that no one can log out of the game, it’s revealed that the ten thousand people in the game can’t escape and their minds are trapped in the game. If they die in the game, they’re dead in real life. If someone takes off the headgear needed to play the game, it’ll fry their brain and kill the player. It is said that whoever can complete all one hundred floors of the game can escape and free everyone. With that, Kirito goes on his merry journey to save everyone, though his initial intent is to save himself.

The premise is good, but the execution is absolutely poor beyond belief. As the series goes on, the overall life-or-death theme goes out the window for the main character, since he becomes far stronger than anyone else in the game. As the series goes on, there are a lot of time-gaps. It can be several months before something important to the plot actually happens and there isn’t much of a care regarding who has died besides those who the main character knows. Early on in the series, Kirito meets a small guild who doesn’t know his true level or his strength. Within the guild, there’s a girl who believes she’s not very strong and takes a liking to Kirito after they have a talk. Within the same episode, she dies. This gives the illusion that you’re supposed to care about that character, wherein she’s given no time to develop and the only connection she has to us is a few lines she spoke to the main character which is the loosest form of character development. There is little to no character development throughout the whole story.

The character that seemed interesting before the plot downgraded her was Asuna, the love-interest. She was introduced in the same episode the series began to show its “weak-points” if you will. She started off as a very strong female character, someone who many people could aspire too. She becomes basically second-in-command to the biggest guild in the entire game and is shown as very dominate, willing and caring. As the series goes on, the caring aspect goes way out of proportion as it becomes the only thing she can do: care. She becomes Kirito’s emotional anchor; his soulmate – no longer a badass, independent, strong woman character. The fact that there were other characters that were her eventually downgraded version before the plot made her less interesting than a plank of burnt wood and she was tossed into that crowd is severely disappointing for her character and the audience alike.

The art style and the music seem to be the only things that the series has going for it. The designs of the characters, clothing, weaponry, monsters, and locations – they all look good and appealing to the eye, with fight scenes looking magnificent. The music accompanying those scenes and the series as a whole isn’t bad in itself. It’s very grand and epic, music fitting for an actual video game. While these are the only good aspects of the series, it’s bad when you need something else to be more appealing than the story or characters. The fight scenes look great, yes, but it’s not gratifying enough to acknowledge that your lacklustre characters and plot are enough to keep an audience: you need flashing fighting and ecchi scenarios to be more intriguing than anything else.

Sword Art Online really shows just how emotionally draining it can be during the final episodes. During the fight against the Big Bad, the creator of the game, Kirito becomes impaled with his sword and all hope is seemingly lost. At this moment, it seems that we would be getting a bittersweet ending and that the series would’ve ended on something we wouldn’t call a “high note” but to show you can’t fight your battles alone- Or, you could just break the game and not die. This is when the series knows it’s being ridiculous, by having the main character break the rules of a perfectly designed game. Does it make any sense? No. Is the main character awesome for accidently finding an exploit that should exist in the first place? No. This was the moment a fanfiction writer came into the office, squealed that the main character was about to die and wrote in nonsense. It doesn’t make for a good save and it’s randomness out of nowhere is insanely bad.

Oh, and: it’s revealed that the Big Bad had no motive at all after losing. Fuck. You.

After all that, everyone is freed from Sword Art Online and the two lovebirds can live happily ever- there are still eleven episodes left!? Yes, that’s correct: there is a second season in which Kirito goes into another game that was launched during the time Sword Art Online in order to save Asuna because her mind was transferred into the other game after Kirito saves everyone due to the fact that the creator will marry her while she’s in her comatose state as he wants her family’s riches and- did this just become a lot more ridiculous? It’s odd when the audience thinks that this new plot is strange and may as well not exist.

The second season doesn’t introduce any other worthwhile characters besides Kirito’s cousin, who is in love with him because the harem set-up from the first season won’t die out. It’s a shame that the second season tries to bring back an aspect that wasn’t interesting or even necessary in the first place. Unlike Asuna or his cousin, there was no real development for the other female characters to fall in love with him. Even so, there wasn’t really any development for Asuna or his cousin to fall in love with him either. The romantic aspect of this anime is without a doubt underdeveloped and probably shouldn’t have been one of the themes. All of this is here to give us a reason to care for badly written, clichéd and unable-to-relate-to characters that could’ve been replaced with rubber gloves filled with acid.
Asuna’s a damsel-in-distress? They just won’t let her be the only good main character, will they?

The second season, shockingly, is a lot better than the first season. The villain actually has a clear motive right from the beginning unlike the previous villain, the relationship between Kirito and his cousin is more elaborate and understandable in contrast to Kirito and anyone else in whole series and the climax isn’t botched up with breaking the rules for no reason. Unlike the climax happening in the game, like in the first season, it happens in real life and it’s very dramatic, something that this series didn’t pull off that well until the final episode. With that in mind, it can be ridiculous as well and strangely dark. The villain would qualify as a rapist, groping and liking Asuna’s breasts. There are slug monsters which, if given more screen time, would’ve given us some tentacle hentai that would be most unwanted and the fact that his cousin doesn’t know who Kirito is in the game despite the voice and very similar appearance until he mentions Asuna’s name.

This could’ve been a lot better, it really could’ve but it’s just so bad that it’s a wonder why people thought this was good in the first place. A friend of mine said it was good; he was shocked when I said I thought it was bad. For what it’s worth, Sword Art Online will only appeal to those who want action and attractive women that will be used in countless H-Manga. Sword Art Online is bad, though it doesn’t go into the territory of being absolutely terrible. It’s start was great – why did it have to get worse as it went on. Overall, Sword Art Online is a bad anime with bad characters and terrible writing. Avoid it for your own benefit.

Here it is! My first review here on the wonderful website on MAL and what better way to kick start my reviews then with one of the most controversial and possibly overrated anime of all time. Of course I'm writing about SAO.

The story in SAO at first glance seems very interesting and almost desirable. A video game is released in the year 2022 and has each gamer step foot in a virtual VRMMORPG( Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) This seems like an excellent setting for an anime and was something that got me excited for this anime. However what SAO does with ... this setting simply is the definition of wasted potential. Throughout all of SAO's main story arc it keeps drifting away farther from its core story line. So what is exactly the main story line in SAO? well, you have Kirito our main protagonist in SAO who decides to play this game and try and beat it. Thousands of people enter this virtual gaming world in hopes they can also beat it just like Kirito wants to. However they soon find out that they are trapped inside the game until they beat the final boss. Also if you die in SAO, you die in real life. The first 4 episodes or so really suck you into the world of SAO but after you meet Kirito's love interest AKA Asuna, the story keeps tumbling down a spiral of never ending boredom and annoying episodes. I really gave up on SAO's story line after the first half of the season where they set SAO in a new MMO. The story never focuses enough on beating the game and more or less focuses on the love between Kirito and Asuna. This is where SAO becomes a real drag and honestly a pain to watch.it becomes Predictable and extremely cliche. Not to mention the story isn't paced what so ever and jumps all over the place.

The art in SAO is one of the things it has going for it. Beautiful in almost every scene especially the action parts of the anime, this show really knows how to show off a cool action scene. The animation is crisp and clean and every major characters' face is detailed and distinctive. This is something I really loved about SAO even if it's all just eye candy.

Another part of SAO's saving graces is the sound and music. The music in each scene is fits very well and is enjoyable to the ear, dare I say even the sad moments felt even more sad due to the music. which is what music should do in every anime. In terms of dub or sub, I would say sub however the dubbed version isn't the worst and is for sure watchable. It may all come down to preference in the long run.

I'm just gonna come out and say SAO has some of the worst characters out there and the most wasted. The two main reasons why SAO's characters are so bad is because 1. They have ZERO and I mean zero development in their personalities. For example Kirito is overpowered from the first episode to the last. Nothing seems like a challenge for Kirito or an obstacle.This makes SAO very boring to watch and soo predictable. My second reason why the characters suck so much in SAO is that there are just too many! You have a harem type thingy going on mid way through the first half of the season where Kirito meets girls who all have a some what of a love interest in him. I don't have a problem with this if only the characters were actually interesting!
SAO introduces one character and then seems to throw it out like yesterdays trash! It's frustrating when you have multiple characters introduced in an anime yet only two are fully fledged out. In terms of how Asuna's character is, all I can say is that she's the typical Tsundere love interest until they some how fall in love in a video game. I won't even go into detail on Yui's character as I believe she's the most worthless. Oh and also Kirito has a "Sister" or cousin who falls in love with him and wants to be with him. Somehow or someway an anime revolved around beating a virtual MMO managed to include an incest story line in the mix. Great job SAO.

Finally, did I enjoy SAO? Sort of, I say this lightly as anyone is even remotely intelligent in terms of anime would know this is an overrated anime full of eye candy and cool effects. Something excites new comers to anime. SAO would've a great anime had it done all the things correctly. I enjoyed the action scenes and awesome music yet dreaded the two main characters who I'm supposed to love and cheer for. In short Sword Art Online was a Colossal disappointment.

When I first started watching it, the show was about people stuck in a game world, with the only way being out is to defeat the final boss. Now this can lead to many interesting things, like how the players react to this, to each other, and so on. And the show does in fact reveal some of these things to us. We can see people right off the bat becoming scared and sad that if they die in the game, they die in real life.

So there is nothing wrong with the setting of the story. Except for one little thing, and that is it ... tries to be too much like the real world. The show has MANY filler scenes where characters yell out the same generic comment about how delicious digital food is. The filler takes up a good two-five minutes per episode. It is in EVERY episode so far.

Before I comment on another part on how it tries to be like real life, I must first explain the romance in this story. The boy named Kirito is a chick magnet. He attracts every female that comes into contact with him. So you would expect this to be some kind of harem. But it's not! He does pick a girl to romance, and it seems all the other girls acknowledge this. I am going to assume the rest of the show will display what a couple does.

Ok now back to how it tries to be like real life. Like with other MMOs, you can get married. A normal person would know it's not a big deal since it's just a game. But it's treated like a big deal in this virtual world. This is not a problem, it's what a married couple can create that is a problem. The third member of their family isn't really their kid, but they treat her like she's the most important daughter in the world! Within a day of being with her!

The story itself isn't bad at all, it is just the characters that make it bad.

The main character, Kirito, is nearly perfect. He grinds, grinds, and grinds to reach very high level and stats. He always has a solution to everything. Every girl he talks to falls for him. To raise the coolness factor with this guy, he receives a new skill (have to avoid spoilers for the poor souls that will still watch this crap). I am trying to think of his flaws right now...and maybe he has problems socializing? Nope, he can get along with anyone, and those he can't get along are just plainly evil or it's not kirito's problem at all.

I didn't think it would be possible for another character to be more perfect than him. A show having two mary stus? lol impossible.

Oh wait, his lover is one too. Except she's even better! And is the root of the food filler scenes. Her only flaw is that she can't live without him. Aka another female character that the writer decides needs a man in her life so she can function properly.

Honestly I was rooting for every bad character there was in the show, even though I knew kirito would dispose of him like yesterday's trash. The side characters are a lot more interesting than these two that's for sure.

Ok now that I'm done with characters and story, I'll move on to the next important aspect of the show, the art. If you can stomach boring perfect characters, long food filler scenes that amount to nothing, and can block out other characters mentioning how strong/cool/beautiful/nice/etc the two main characters are, I am sure you'll enjoy the art. Honestly this is one of the hardest things for an anime studio to mess up on, and that's drawing.

Although I do have one issue with the art, just one. The swords glow. It glows every time the character does an attack. And it looks really lame. But other then that, the art isn't bad.

Overall I couldn't enjoy the show. I stopped at 12 to save myself from the pain of watching it. I think I'll watch episode 24/25 just to see why the game creator did all this for. If you turn off your brain, I am sure you can enjoy this show too with it's delicious food, and light sabers.

(May have minor spoilers, read at your own risk) People are trapped in an online game and if you die in the game, you die in real life. Sounds great doesn't it? Well I am afraid that this is actually a very disappointing series (so far).
Note: This is my first review so I'm gonna try really hard to make it not boring.

Story-2: So people are playing an MMO in which they need to beat the top floor of the game in order to beat it, sounds normal right? So they go floor by floor beating up boss after boss right? Well ... no, the first episode they explain more or less how the game works and in the second episode they fight their first boss (its not a spoiler if its completely obvious right?) and theeeeeeeeeeeeeeen they skip around 10 floors. Then this episode and a few more revolve more around other characters and how they act being in this world. So at this point I am guessing the story is more about the characters than them beating the game. This usually isn't a problem for me, although if you want to refer to my opinion on the characters, go to "Characters:"
tl;dr - Not as advertised

Art-8: It looks pretty. What else can I say? The animation is done pretty well. I'm not that big on graphics or anything so that's all I will say.

Sound-7: It doesn't make my ears bleed but I don't particularly love the music in this anime. The voice acting is actually good. Nothing much else to say about this.

Character-1: Cliche as hell. Main character is obviously the strongest and most well known person in the game, all the pretty girls want him, bad guys are bad for the most generic reasons, and all the characters the show revolves around are boring and forever forgotten (most of them are).
tl;dr - They suck

Enjoyment-4: It's bad, but its at least a decent time-passer. Its funny to see how terrible it is. Reminds me of when I watched Mars of Destruction

Overall-4: So its an anime about the characters, but the characters suck. Has a few action scenes (not really) that are ok but they don't happen all that often (weird considering that this is an MMO). I don't understand why everybody likes this. It had potential, but it didn't turn out all that great. Its mediocre at best. I will continue watching it and update this as unnecessary, but I say you should waste your time doing something else.
tl;dr - Don't watch this, go and do anything else.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Have a great day!

Ok so I really wanted to like this anime. I love the idea of being trapped in an mmo, maybe because I played WoW for a few years. Unfortunately the writing is god awful. The story is practically non existant, there's pretty much nothing about advancing in the world and trying to escape. Each episode seems pretty unrelated and is predictable. You also literally miss the first 50 or so floors, I understand nobody wants to watch Kirito grind his way up but something here would have been nice. Whats even worse though is the characters. Each one ... of them is pretty cliche and boring with virtually no interesting dialogue. Kirito for instance is a super powerful and pure character who looks like he will always do the "right" thing. That looks like there is all there is to his character like we havent seen that in a billion other animes right? Oh and it is looking like he's gonna have some sort of harem, great as if the show couldn't get anymore superficial. The art looks really nice, although the fighting scenes aren't interesting whatsoever. I'll probably give this anime a few more episodes but it's becoming increasingly tedious to watch.

Started this because I was a hardcore gamer once. I thought this would be funny because I heard it follows the main character, Kirito, throughout the completion of Sword Art Online, which happened to be a mmorpg unlike otehr shows about card games and such that never interested me and I always thought were shitboring.

I think this could have been a good show, a very very entertaining one. BUT only for the people that actually play mmorpgs. Why ? Because there are certain "inside" things that "normal ppl" wouldn't really understand or better say perceive as being utterly hilarious.

For example, if you are ... a gamer like me, you will have fun realizing that the producers MUST DEFINITELY be hardcore players as well, otherwise i doubt it would have been possible for them to reproduce the gaming clishees so closely. You will definitely find yourself thinking "omg i was also a solo player!" "omg this happened to me too when i joined a guild" "rofl i also died when tried to open a treasure chest!" and similar stuff.

I suppose this show could have turned great for the likes of me IF it only followed the player's experience closely for the entire show. It could have been funny because, you know, when spending hours and days and maybe years playing a game we, the gamers, basically do what SAO's plot is about: we shut ourselves in away from the outside world. Althought we aren't really in a coma like in this show, we live in our virtual pointless space for quite a long time.

This show could have been intelligent if it somehow managed to mock the gaming experience rather than taking it seriously and thus disappointing, at least me. As an anime show, this is, without a doubt, absolutely terrible. It's basically a harem with annoying girls who pop up every damn episode with their "noob" stories, somehow Kirito has to save them (or not if they are out of luck). It's so repetitive that after watching for so long, waiting for the story to actually move on, you finally realize that you are watching an endless arc of fillers.

Why is this ranked 53?! How can this be ? I agree, the show might get back on track later on, but since for weeks we are just watching fillers, the boring kind of fillers that have no point whatsoever, I had lost hope that it will turn to be the amazing show that I expected it to be after watching first episode. Maybe the high rates were based on people's expectations also, not on actual values of the fillers.

Will continue watching just because I still have hope. But for now this is just a very very big disappointment.

“A person is very strong when he seeks to protect something.” - Heathcliff

Sword Art Online; a show loved by many, yet perceived as one of the worst series ever created by a lot of people. The show certainly wasn’t perfect, but it was far from being bad, and I think a lot of the hate it receives is unfair, because it’s just people trying to point out every single little flaw and turn it into something huge.

Story: (7 / 10)
SAO is effectively divided into two large arcs, the first one being what the series was basically “advertised” to be; people are stuck in a game, ... and have to beat the game to be able to leave. Now, because this arc spans quite a long period of time, two things appear which are worth noting.

The first one is the slightly “weird” pacing off the show. At times you will see the characters being on say, floor 20 in one episode, and in the next they’re on floor 40, which could easily make you think that you just missed an entire episode. This is not the case, and this was apparently a big problem for some people, and I do agree that the series could’ve benefitted from expanding the first arc to play out over a course of 25 episodes, simply removing the second arc (we’ll talk about this soon). I personally didn’t have much of a problem with the pace, as each episode’s actual content was more than enough to keep me interested, and while it’s not really an appropriate excuse, it may be worth noting that the story plays out like this because that’s how the novel was written...

The second thing is that quite a lot of the episodes in the first arc are not always about directly trying to clear the game, and as such many of them may very well be seen as fillers. These episodes will often be Kirito (the series’ protagonist) helping players of lower level (or anyone else in distress, for that matter), or simply spending time with his friends/loved ones.
I think it may come as a surprise to some when this series, which you probably thought was gonna be all action-packed and all, turns out to spend so much time on the relationship of two young players, and how they adapt to this new world.
The show has enough action and fighting scenes to make up for having this slower paced, more SOL-esque section, which I thought was pretty good, nonetheless.

Moving on to the second arc, this is where the story sort of... drops a bit, so to speak. There are some major changes between the two arcs, and it changes a lot of the “core mechanics” around which the first arc was based, as well as replacing the majority of the characters, and basically nullifying that same feeling of danger and suspense the first arc poses.

That’s not to say the story couldn’t be interesting and well-written anyway, but it really has nothing on the previous arc... While I didn’t really dislike it as much as many other people, I certainly found it less entertaining, but to me, the rest of the series more than made up for this part.

Art: (8 / 10)
If nothing else, the art in SAO is simply great. I liked the artstyle, even though it’s really nothing special, as well as the character designs. The animations are fluid most of the time, and the fighting scenes are very enjoyable, and well done if you can overlook the very tiny flaws which present themselves.

During some scenes, at certain points in the fight (like when someone gets hit), there’ll often be either a very short scene consisting of just a still picture, or a very slowed down scene, to really emphasise that someone did actually hit something. It’s not really a big problem though, as the still pictures are barely shown for any time, and they do look very cool, and I think this all comes down to people nitpicking to find more stuff to complain about.
The rest of the fighting scenes look totally OK, and the use of “sword art” adds a nice tone to the frames, so to speak.

Sound: (9 / 10)
The music was also a big plus, in my opinion. The soundtrack is all-in-all pretty great, with a lot of songs both fitting for the more intense fighting scenes, as well as the more “rom-com”-styled parts. The two opening themes, “Crossing Field” by LiSA and “Innocence” by Aoi Eir, are both more upbeat and fast-paced songs, while the two ending themes, “Yume Sekai” by Tomatsu Haruka (the VA of Asuna) and “Overfly” by Haruna Luna, are both slower songs, which is most often more fitting for ending themes.
I think all of the songs fit the series (and their respective arcs) rather well, and overall there’s really no problem with any of the songs from the series’ soundtrack.

The voice acting isn’t amazing, but it’s good enough, and manages to convey the feelings and messages that wants to be conveyed, so there’s really no problem here either.

Characters: (8 / 10)
One of the most common complaints I see about SAO is “the characters are terribly written”, and I feel like I completely missed this aspect of the show. I actually liked most of the characters, and the ones I didn’t really like that all that much were often the bad guys, so you weren’t really supposed to like them either, which I guess would make them well-written, in a way...

Kirito, our main character, was one of the few beta players of SAO, and this serves as an important plot-element, as he basically knows most things there is to know about the game, making him a very powerful player. At first his primary goal is more or less to just survive, but as he spends more time in Aincrad and starts caring about the people in this new world, his views changes, and soon enough he’ll be the one sacrificing himself and helping out people in need.

Even though many of the side-characters had rather little screen time compared to other characters (mostly one episode each), they were all very likeable characters, and there was never really a moment where I just wished the episode would end already, so that I didn’t have to see more of this horrible character.

A lot of the interaction between the various characters served as a sort of “comic relief”, which was nice, and the relationship between Kirito and Asuna is definitely all but “poorly written”.

As mentioned earlier, the majority of the characters are replaced during the second arc, and because of this I never really cared about the new characters all that much. They just didn’t have enough screen time or impact on anything to really allow me to relate to them, or make any sort of connection.

Enjoyment: (9 / 10)
I first found out about SAO through some random Youtube video mentioning it, and then looking at a quick summary of the plot. Because of this, I really knew nothing about the series except for the fact that it was set in a game world, and a friend had told me that the second half was a major disappointment.
Maybe it was because of my “ignorance”, or lack of hype about the show that made it so enjoyable to me, but I really didn’t have a problem with anything which people generally complain about. Sure, the second half is slightly worse, but I certainly don’t think it’s enough to mark the series as “bad”.

Conclusion:
If you’re looking for a super serious show about the struggle of 10 thousand people stuck in a game, trying to beat the final boss and avoid death, then this show might not be for you. However, if you’re fine with the aforementioned concept acting as more of a “ground layer” to the series, and having a slightly more light-hearted tone to it, based more around character interaction than just awesome fights, then this may be for you (if you can overlook the flaws and the changes in second arc).

Pros:
+ Cool concept (even if it wasn’t executed perfectly).
+ Very likeable characters.
+ Very good art.
+ Pretty awesome fighting scenes (most of the time).
+ Superb soundtrack.
-----------------------
Cons:
- Weird pace during first arc.
- Major changes in second arc, makes for a slightly worse second half.
- Very minor “annoyances” during fight scenes.

Sword Art Online... You know, at one point, I was actually really excited about watching this show to the point that it was THE show I was looking forward to that season and all the other shows were just fodder, but as the show went on, and its problems became more and more apparent, I grew a burning hatred for everything about it that it began to define me at one point. Word of advice: Just because something is popular does NOT mean it's good (Just look at Justin Bieber, Twilight, and Call of Duty), as you will learn the hard way with this.

First of ... all, let me start with that it's about. Sword Art Online is separated into two story arcs. Episodes 1 through 14 is the Aincrad arc. The story is set in the year 2022, the latest VR technology known as NerveGear was released alongside the titular MMORPG. The main character, 14-year old Kazuto Kirigaya (also known as Kirito) is one of the game's 10,000 owners after having beta-tested the game prior. What kind of company produces only 10,000 copies of a game? That's not good business, if you ask me. Anyway, upon starting the game, Kirito learns that there's no logout function. This wasn't a design flaw, but intentionally done by the creator, Akihiko Kayaba. He also explains that the players will die for real if they try to have their NerveGears removed or shut down, or if they die in the game. The only way to escape is by completing the game.

What could've been an enjoyable VR experience becomes nothing but a struggle of life and death. Meanwhile, what could've been an actually good show became a godawful show. What's wrong with this show, you ask? Plenty of reasons.

Let's talk about the characters, mainly the protagonists: For starters, these are not characters. These are bland, unoriginal, one-dimensional cardboard cutouts.

Kazuto/Kirito is basically your standard Gary Stu wish fullfillment protagonist. He has the highest stats in the game, gets all the best skills and items, always wears black clothing to show that he's this dark and emo anti-hero, bends the rules to his advantage to win every battle, and is desired by almost every single female. In other words, being this guy is basically every single socially awkward hardcore gamer's wet dream. He's the main character so everyone that isn't him matters none. Nobody wants to watch an overpowered self-insert bending the rules of the game to his liking. In any real MMO, no single player would see anything Kirito does an impressive, nor will anyone idolize him for doing what is essentially cheating. They would see him as a pathetic loser who has no real skill of his own. And that's what Kirito is: a loser. No matter what anyone tries to say, he's not smart, complex, or badass, let alone a character. He's a walking example of the writinf's complete and utter laziness.

Asuna Yuuki is probably the worst of the two. She's so stupid, she ends up making Bella Swan from Twilight seem not as stupid in comparison. At first, she seems fine, but as the series progresses and she become a full-time main character, she comes off as your typical tsundere and contributes absolutely nothing at all other than make Kirito do stuff for her and drag him into being a even worse character than usual. Oh and guess what? She's supposedly one of the top players in SAO, but all of her skill points is maxed out only to her cooking stat. That's right, no focusing on any particular stats that would be helpful to progress through the game like strength, vitality, defense, agility, or what have you. The only worthwhile use Asuna has is in the kitchen. To this day, I still laugh at the fact people actually refer to Asuna as a strong female character. In fact, anyone who thinks Asuna is "a strong female character" makes me assume that they actually don't know what that even means. I've seen a good amount of actual strong female characters to know full well that Asuna is most definitely not one.

About a fifth into the series run, the story becomes less about surviving in a game of life and death and more about giving Kirito a harem. Like I mentioned before, it's a given rule for any female that cross paths with Kirito to instantly fall for him. Why the chick falls for him is never explained. It sums down to "I love Kirito-kun because" and that's it. No reason at all. And when you put Kirito and Asuna together, then it gets really bad. It's bad enough these two are bland characters. But when their romance (For lack of a more suitable word) starts, it's just as bland. They pretty much do nothing that implies romance between the two: She hangs out with him for awhile, shares sandwiches with him, whacks him whenever he accidentally gropes her. An episode or two later, they're in love and they're married. Uh, what? There's no buildup to it that it comes out of nowhere, and what's worse is that romance completely overshadows everything. I mean, THAT is the plot that Sword Art Online focuses around: Not about 10,000 people fighting for their lives in a virtual world, it's about teenage romance that's so undeveloped that it makes you wonder if the writers looked at Atatck of the Clones for inspiration. They selfishly waste two and a half episodes on their honeymoon while everyone else is off progressing through the game. Our protagonists, everyone. Who cares about escaping the game? The script is pretty much godawful, the worst offender being episode 13, where Asuna spews out stuff about how meeting Kirito changed her life and how she believes meeting him was the very reason she put the NerveGear on. It's completely unbelievable and comes off as nothing but BS.

Later on, they adopt this AI girl as their daughter. Her name is Yui and she's arguably competing with Asuna as the worst female. She has absolutely no character and serves no purpose other than desperately try too hard to act cute and be the moeblob that panders to whatever otaku audience. In fact, her introductory episodes was the point where the series quality declined. Also, nothing agains her voice actors. I'm sure they do a good jo bportraying the character but mother of God, Yui sounds horrible. It's like that extremely high-pitched mousey moeblob voice, only alot more grating. She's easily unbearable when she's talking. Like, please stop talking.

Now Akihiko Kayaba, the evil mastermind that is responsible for the deaths of around a third of the game's population: When Kirito finally confronts him and asks what was his motivation for doing this, his answer sums up to "I forgot." He even states that he probably had none at all. In the end. SAO's purpose is completely negated and makes you feel like so much time was wasted and so many people lost their lives for absolutely nothing. If that wasn't the most trollish slap-in-the-face since the last few episodes of Blood-C, I don't know what is.

There are only a few characters I like, but they are barely seen at all, let alone given any character development because the story follows only Kirito and considers no one else important. Klein (The guy with the red headband) is the first friend Kirito makes once he enters SAO. You would expect him to be Kirito's wingman or something of the sort, but he's only seen for 5, maybe 6 episodes total. Silica (the loli with the dragon) is one of the more popular characters and she only has a screentime total of one episode and a few cameos here and there. In fact, her only notable scene is walking into the same room with Kirito in her undies. Why even bother introducing these characters if you're not ever going to develop them? Matter of fact, I don't even know why Silica is popular. Because she's a loli. That's basically her only appeal. Same goes for Lisbeth, a blacksmith player, who's, uh... Yeah, what's her appeal? None that I can think of. There's no point in liking any of these females at all. They offer nothing to anything. There's nothing to their character other than she's in love with Kirito-kun. And I think at some point, the author even mentioned that it was hard for him to write a female that doesn't fall for Kirito.

The plot: I've already described the plot. That's it. The rest of the show doesn't ever expand on that premise save for a few minuscule mentions of how many players are still alive. Aside from that, the premise is mostly ignored to the point that it's nonexistant. In fact, through the course of the series, we see the characters with their items and equipment changed only in between episodes. You'd think that a show based in an MMORPG would be focused around character customization, equipment upgrading, skill sets, etc., but it's never elaborated upon. For example, Kirito somehow pulls a dual-wielding skill out of nowhere. How and when he acquired it is never elaborated. He even says it randomly appeared out of nowhere in his skill list. In fact, that's a constant problem: We're only told about this number of played died, but it's never shown. Like the writers just wants us to take their word for it.

Obviously, when we're dealing with a show where anyone can die so you'd expect there'd be some suspense and drama. Nope. Everytime someone dies, the drama falls flat because we haven't known the character long enough to care enough for him or her. A half of an episode isn't enough to for me to know one character! The only "tragic" death, according to this series, is Yui's. When she "dies", the protagonists bawls their eyes out. They only knew her for less than a few days in-universe, two episodes overall. And it's instantly negated because they manage to salvage her data and convert her into an in-game item. Yui's character arc was one of the worst episodes of the series because of its contrived, weak, forced, sorry excuse for drama. In fact, any sense of suspense is gone when you realize that Kirito will win the fight by pulling straight out of the ass some brand new skill that was never seen before.

The second arc (Episodes 15 through 25) titled Fairy Dance (although you don't really see any fairies dancing until like the last episode), is much, much worse as the many faults are present at a much grander scale. The setting here is ALfheim Online, which was developed using SAO as its base. When Kirito first logs into ALO, he finds that all his items and stats from SAO are carried over. So instead of starting over from Level 1, he becomes overpowered at start. It shows nothing but laziness in terms of game development in-universe and writing out-of. The story switches from "struggle for survival" to "save the princess," but there's no real sense of emergency as ALO has a working logout function and no one dies for real if they die in-game. Also, Kirito does mostly everything except his self-stated objective, like it's the last thing on his to-do list.

And just when you couldn't get enough of Yui, she comes back. That's right, she's going Turbo! I mentioned that his items carried over to ALO, but all but Yui can't be read by the game system. She acts as a guide fairy to Kirito, kinda like Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, only even more annoying because she knows about stuff that she shouldn't and it only works whenever the plot demands it.

The Big Bad of Fairy Dance, Nobuyuki Sugou, is way worse than Kayaba in terms of being an effective villain. First of all, this guy is more of a psychotic, pedophilic manchild than a real villain. The first thing he does when we're introduced to him is outright inform Kazuto, "Hi, I'm the villain." No subtlety or ambiguity for Mr. Sugou. Also, the fanbase clearly does not hate him for his villainy. His plan basically involves manipulating the memories of the few hundred, Asuna included, that didn't escape SAO. But that's not the reason why the fans want this guy's head on a stick. The most heinous, evil, dastardly, utterly descipable crime against humanity that makes this guy lower than scum is molesting Asuna every chance he gets. To the fanbase, Sugou is Hitler compared to Kayaba.

Speaking of which, the show also portrays Kayaba as the lesser of two evils compared to Sugou, even though the former imprisoned and killed people and is pretty much indirectly responsible for the latter's actions, as well as every other antagonist that follows. While it is true that Sugou's plans are bad, Kayaba's are far worse, yet the show's idea of morality is completely backwards about it. Let's compare: Sugou's crimes only consisted of imprisonment and brainwashing of a few hundred, and sexual assault of one. Kayaba's crimes consist of imprisonment of 10,000 and murder of roughly a third of that number.

Meanwhile, Asuna is reduced to nothing more than the worst kind of damsel-in-distress. She does more of nothing other than be Sugou's sex toy. She doesn't even try to defend herself or even attempt to push him away, she just sits there and let him have his way with her body. She tries to escape on one ocassion, but ends up getting tentacle raped (Oh, you heard me right) and recaptured just as quickly. Which brings me to my next point. This show is utterly misogynistic to the point that it's outright offensive. The first arc is bad about it, but the second arc is where it is almost blatantly shown in your face. At some point in the climax of the arc, Sugou attempts to rape Asuna in the game right in front of Kirito. This whole scene turns a revenge fantasy and it only serves to make the viewer hate the villain even more, which is not how to even write a villain. And don't even use the excuse "Well, he's a villain so you're supposed to hate him." There are other ways to make the viewer hate the villain. Not only that, but when Kirito manages to put a stop to Sugou's actions, he brutally tortures him without any sense of remorse and even commits physical pain to him. While Sugou did basically do the same thing to him, Kirito does it back in an even worse scale and no one, not even Asuna, bats an eye. In fact, she's not the least bit traumatized over that she was sexually assaulted because Kirito saved her so all is good. This is obviously trivialized as a plot device and shows that the author clearly had no business in even toying with such a thing. If you can't write attempted rape without a serious meaning or purpose other than "all bad guys are rapists", then don't do it.

As Asuna plays damsel-in-distress, her role as a main character is given to Kazuto's younger sister (actually cousin), Suguha/Leafa. Aside from her huge boobies, she is a somewhat better character than Asuna in that her chemistry with Kazuto/Kirito is actually believable. But her character falls apart because of one fatal flaw: She falls victim to the pitfall of being a female character in SAO, and therefore fall in love with Kirito for no reason (That's right, we're approaching incest territory), only here it's different. She's in love with both Kazuto and Kirito, but she's unaware that they're one and the same. Same goes for Kazuto/Kirito, who's unaware that Leafa is Suguha. So it becomes more of a guessing game as to when they're going to find out, and when they do, the damage is already done and you don't really care anymore. And before anyone says that romantic relations between cousins are acceptable in Japan, let me point out that while that is indeed true, Kazuto and Suguha are not written as siblings and not cousins, which actually makes her falling in love with him all the more pointless and stupid.

Animation: Well, the scenery is nice. That's the only good thing I can say. Character designs, not so much. In case you've figures out, Kazuto/Kirito is an emo antihero, so he dons clothing that is as black as his soul. Black hair, black eyes, Hell, even all but one of his weapons are colored black. Talk about uninspired. Most characters are drawn with only one facial structure. For example, Take Kirito's design, add light-brown waist-length hair, light-brown eyes, and average-size breasts and you've got Asuna. In fact, the moeblob looks like she was recycled from a previous character's design. The action scenes aren't compelling at all, but made cheaply and lazily with single still-frames in almost every fight. There are a few exceptions, but it only means that the animation staff felt like wasting their effort and budget on facepalm-worthy humor instead of quality fighting scenes.

There's only little I can say about the music. I've heard good things about Yuki Kajiura's score and her music here is pretty much the only thing about Sword Art Online worth mentioning. Although it gets very repetitive most of the time. Only one track has stuck to my mind and it only plays whenever Kirito is about to win a fight. It's a shame that it's sadly wasted on something so awful.

Now the very worst fault that Sword Art Online has is its very fanbase itself. Usually, I won't talk about a series' fanbase when judging a series, but this is a special case because of their' foolish blindness to blatantly obvious flaws that even the brain-dead can find. You will find lots of users and their so-called reviews here that praise this show. Those guys are the suckers who was unfortunate to be sold only by its premise, which is interesting but has been done before (Hello, .hack franchise), and ignore everything else. The premise can only go so far, but how it is executed is what really matters.

This show has the stupidest fanbase ever since they probably like anything that looks like a terribly written fanfic written by a teenager. And from what I've heard, Kawahara wrote the first novel (or maybe the preliminary story) when he was a teen. It definitely shows. There is absolutely no effort put into this story and characters whatsoever. And once again, he admits that he basically wrote the story without even applying any form of logic. I'm beginning to think that he didn't write SAO just to tell a story, but so that it can become popular for all the wrong reasons, sell tens and thousands of volumes, and leave quality works underappreciated and selling poorly. Basically, a cheap cash-in. In other words, it's no better than moe junk.

Thank you, Reki Kawahara. Modern anime has gone down the toilet because of your actions.

Here's why I hate this show's fanboys: They said that it would be great. I took their word for it. I enjoyed the first few episodes. But as time went on, my enjoyment decreased as I became aware of flaws, and fans get angry because I didn't enjoy it like they wanted me to. SAO fanboys hate it when someone points out what's wrong with it because SAO is the perfect wish-fulfillment fantasy, and when the "haters" question said fantasy by pointing out the issues, fanboys get hostile because they feel offended on a personal level. They can't accept reality because the truth is just too harsh for them.

Sword Art Online is basically a textbook example of how to make an awful anime by relying on wish fullfillment and asspulls to tell the story. It is a power fantasy: Its message is basically telling you to reject your own reality in favor for their fantasy. I think that message is a load of bollocks and shows that some people who falls for this is in need of a reality check. Want an actual MMO anime that does everything that Sword Art Online fails at in that it actually develops its characters, doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator, and doesn't insult your intelligence right in your face? I recommend watching .hack//SIGN for its psychological aspects and meaningfully-written characters and Log Horizon for its world-building aspects and actually thought-out MMO functionality. It's hard for me to actually fathom how this show is so highly rated because it does EVERYTHING wrong on so many levels. The only thing it does right is make itself, and Kawahara, into a complete joke.

Some people likes it. Some people hates it. Some people finds it overrated. However, SAO is definitely one of the most anticipated, hyped-up, popular, and controversial anime series of the year. It is one of the most debated series with its various themes, characters, plot, artwork, music, and other factors. The series is adapted from the light novel written by Reki Kawahara, with illustrations by Abec. It has gained enormously popularity despite the way it originally was created. Indeed, the series has earned mass amount of sales revenue, topping the sales' chart, spawning video games, manga, side stories, and last but not least, the ... anime series.

The anime series is adapted from the light novels of the same name written by Reki. He is known for his themes of incorporating a boundary between fiction and reality related to the cyber world as one of his other popular works known as Accel World. But that's whole other story.

I have to admit. I was quite excited with the pilot episode. The idea of being trapped in another virtual environment where our very own lives are at stakes is an eye catcher. It is dangerous. It is deadly. And it puts your skills to the test where you realize it's not longer some virtual game you play for some high score because once you die, it's GAME OVER for real. But of course, Sword Art Online isn't by all means any original piece of work. Series like .hack//Sign, Summer Wars, and even old school series like Digimon Adventures have these themes. Sword Art Online has most of these as sources and presents in a more dangerous way. In other words, it's all or nothing. Once you're logged in, you're not going to get out until you beat the game.

Welcome to Sword Art Online.

The series does bring promising ideas like I've mentioned before. The pilot episode shows the horror of the players' faces where they realize their lives are changed forever. The theme of conquering floors to reach a final boss seems intriguing and some of you watching the series might even wish you were there especially when you were younger and conquering floors yourselves like some classic MMORPG games. The idea of these all sound interesting and SAO makes a good impression at first. However, it doesn't last.

From the first two episodes, the series maintains its reputation. The promising trailer sticks to its point and we are introduced with some of the main characters. However, it later show signs of shifting apart. Out of nowhere, there are side stories that are presented. Additionally, some of the main supporting characters gets lesser and lesser roles. At some points, it almost feel like a “monster of the week” phenomenon where each episode presents a different side story. Oh, and the dangers of the SAO world seems to be shifted as well. Originally, there were pkers but the idea of them actually becoming a significant threat is weakened from the beginning. It is debatable how this series came together like this from the first few episodes to be honest. I mean, there are stuff of what we mainly see in MMORPG games but some of it just doesn't seem to shine itself.

Now, adaptations aren't easy and fans (especially one with such a large fan base) always expect some greatness. But did SAO achieve greatness? From the first half, certainly not. The side stories' episodes does bring some of the other mechanics and a more detailed way of exploring the SAO world. However, it masks itself of the real story and what's to come. It's almost as if it's purposely making the fans wait for what's to come in these episodes. The way this approach is being handled is a flaw in my perspective as impatience takes ticks is way in.

That's just the first bite of the dish though.

The series does eventually draw its back to the main story but divides itself into two sections – Sword Art Online and later on, ALO or known as ALfheim Online. So essentially, it's almost like watching a two core series in one package with a small break in between.

The package doesn't stop there though because coming with it is the characterization of the two main characters of the series – Kazuto Kirigaya (Kirito) and Asuna Yuuki.

Initially, Kirito is one of those loner guys who wants to keep to himself but has a kind and courageous heart who is willing to help others. However, that sort of personality doesn't work well in SAO or any MMORPG especially since joining guilds and conquering beasts requires teamwork and motivation. Thus, he makes friends with other characters throughout the series as well as being an official guild member.

Now, the friends that Kirito makes are all strangely of the opposite sex, in other words, girls. Yes, they play the game as well and what's more strange is that most of them seems to have a thing for Kirito. As the series progresses, it almost seems as if Kirito is forming a harem of his own. In fact, no girl is safe; Whether you're a beauty, a blacksmith, a beast tamer, or fairy. This is likely due to the fact that he is a much higher level, has a kind heart, and is protrayed as a “Gary Stu” character where he is able to overcome any obstacle with eace. Oh, and let's not forget the Desu Ex Machina factor where Kirito is able to solve an unsolvable problem with some divine intervention. His characterization also has a problem in which his skill level is portrayed as a very high level but the series does not portray on how he manages to obtain a feat. Furthermore, Kirito doesn't really seem to have an interesting personality. The only time he really shines is during his heroic speeches or interacting with the other characters.

On the other hand, there's Asuna Yuuki. Originally portrayed as an admired girl with equally admiring traits in combat, she is the one that Kirito shares a dynamic relationship the most. In fact, the later episodes explores some of their relationship that began from strangers, to teammates, to friends, and later to something more. As dynamic as that all sounds, it doesn't mix right. Some of the sequences are rushed too much and the deus ex machina factor comes in. Out of nowhere occasionally, the problem becomes a solution where Kirito uses his Gary Stu abilities to solve them with the help of Asuna. However, I do admit that some of the relationship between the duo are relaxing to watch that balances in between the intensity of the fights involving the bosses and the dangers of the SAO world.

On the ALO side, the series' relationship between the duo is drawn away due to certain circumstances. Oh but that's not all. Another character with admirable tits and a peculiar relationship with Kirito is introduced. The chemistry between them is more of one sided and seems more like just a friend zone scenario till later on when a startling revelation is revealed. It's safe to say that Kirito's development by then has weakly worn down especially with Asuna, yet they remain close at heart.

The overall characterization of the series is only drawn out mediocre at best. Kirito, as I've already mentioned before, is the loner type who only seems to have good spotlights during action and interaction scenes. Asuna on the other hand is seen as a strong girl who often presents herself as entirely different character – sometimes she's a fragile girl with tears, other times, she swings that sword like a boss and shows why she is known as Asuna “The Flash” Yuuki.

Luckily, the concept of the series does remain intact. In other words, the theme of the virtual world is still there. There are the bosses, the floors to be cleared, player environment, items being bought/sold/traded on the market, guilds open to join, and other things you typically seem in the MMORPG world. However, the exploration of these themes are generally just mediocre with no exceptional twists. Furthermore, there are the random fan service themes presented throughout the series with Asuna Yuuki being the star of it all. She is like the desire of what the fans want and sometimes compared to one of the other main characters later on in ALO. (both physically and mentally of course)

Dem graphics:

I will say describe the animation as graphics since the majority of the series is presented in virtual form in nearly every episode. The artwork is portrayed as being slightly above mediocre. Every environment presented such as the city, guilds, sky, ocean, dungeons, etc are of the typical MMORPG settings. Even some of the monsters fits within the virtual boundaries. The way Kirito dresses is typical with his black outfit and standing out above some of the others. It's no surprise that he looks that way as if he was almost the leader of a wolf pack. On the other hand, Asuna dresses in ways that is portrayed as an female knight. Later on, it becomes more balanced with the duo in some more casual wear.

The soundtrack and music of the series are alright. The OST curtsey of Yuki Kaijura seems to be limited where we often hear the same rhythms over and over again. The main SAO theme that plays during battle seems also as if it's trademarked to Kirito, especially during his desu ex machina scenes. However, it does get to the point during some of the boss fights where the intensity boils up. The first OP song, "crossing field" by LiSA of the first half is actually well presented with some glimpse of foreshadowing and a montage of the supporting characters. The second OP song, "INNOCENCE" by Aoi Eir” from the latter half seems to be more of a monotone where we see mostly Kirito and his side with the addition of a new female character. The ED songs are just mediocre, however.

Enjoyment? I'd say this series is just slightly mediocre at best for me. The first arc concludes its story and leaves the viewers to a wondering of what's to come next. The certain events from the arc puts a nail into some of fan's original expectations with the side episodes and fan service being a main factor to blame. Well, the concept is still quite interesting and coming into SAO as an anime fan did satisfy me at that part. However, the characterization and the characters themselves are cliched and flawed along with some of the themes.

The artwork and soundtrack are there to backup the virtual environment. At times, it's serious and at others, it seems like a romantic comedy. And of course, SAO tries to present these all at once and it just doesn't work out as some may expected to be. To enjoy or not to enjoy? That's the question. It's hard to say really but some of the inconsistencies and weak development of the writings refrained me from giving this a higher score. In the end, this series is viewed from a different perspective to everyone. It's no doubt though that it's one of the most popular series of the year and possibly more to come. I know this review is quite long but time flies fast especially in the virtual world.

Thank you for reading my review :)

Due to the popularity of Sword Art Online, I decided to give it a chance despite the fact that I have heard divided opinions in regards to the series. In this case, the best way to know is to watch it. Unfortunately, I had to be stubborn to watch through all the episodes. I'll make an attempt to review different points about SAO which will explain why I do not feel that the series deserves as much positive credit as it receives.

I'll begin with the story. At the beginning I became quite positive in regards to SAO as the first couple of episodes had a ... decent beginning which caught my interest. It passed as a start for the series and I was interested to see where this was head. Sadly, it did not last for more than two episodes. Suddenly the pace became quite ridiculous, there were major plot holes throughout the episodes and some seemed more like fillers than actual story and the quality simply dropped, with an abrupt ending of the first Arc that was not at all satisfactory. In the second Arc, it took a turn for the worse. When I thought that SAO could not become worse, the second Arc appeared with an even worse story, progression and even added fan service which was not at all tasteful. It's a shame, but the quality of the story simply became poor.

While the story was quite the disappointment, the art was not. It was more than decent, even good and I found some enjoyment through that. It isn't perfect, but was quite suitable for what SAO attempted to be.

Once again, a positive side to SAO. I cannot say that I have any complaints about the sound, not the sound effects nor the voice actors. It may be the case that the sound was the best part of SAO. I cannot consider the sound effects to be too unique, the voice actors to be outstanding nor the OST to be a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, one of the most positive sides to the series.

Unfortunately, there is another part of SAO that I cannot adress other than being negative about it. I am now talking about the characters. I'll adress the main characters, and a general review of supporting characters and villains:

- Kirigaya, Kazuto. Sometimes you can meet unique, interesting characters that really catches your interest which leads to you wanting to see where this character's story leads. With Kirigaya Kazuto, or Kirito, this is not the case. Quite the opposite, Kirito is a generic hero without being unique even the slightest. In fact, there is nothing unique about him. He is the main protagonist, the hero, the prodigy, the ladies man, every generic aspect you can get in a character, Kirito has it.

- Yuuki, Asuna. Tsundere. You may as well forget about the character names and simply give them names by their character progression. Asuna is without a doubt the generic tsundere of SAO. She is without character and while her voice actor does a good enough job, that does not help this lost cause. You all know what happens between the generic hero and the generic tsundere.

- Yui. I suppose the point is that we are to be charmed by this young girl. Personally, that was not the case for me. I guess she can be called the generic moe out of the main characters. It is likely the best description to serve her.

- Supporting characters. I really want to say that the supporting characters of SAO are redeemable, but they are not. Once again, the supporting characters are generic and without qualities that deem them unique or anything special in particular. Generic males from short, skinny and geeky to tall and buff, as generic as can be and the females are no different from characters that appear strong but are not, to characters who are also moe.

- Villains. In SAO, as a setting inside a game, there are boss fights which then excludes the opportunity to introduce a large amount of villains. This should be a positive thing, so that those who are the actual villains can become well-developed. This is not the case. Just like the other characters, the villains are also poor and generic, and the main antagonists have nothing unique about them.

At best, the enjoyment I got out from SAO was decent but for the most part that was not the case. Despite that the setting is in a game, it did not even feel like a game at all. While there were a few points in the first Arc that made it slightly redeemable, the second Arc ruined most of that to the point I rolled my eyes due to the pace, the plotholes, the characters or even the fact that plenty of scenes became predictable. Overall, Sword Art Online does not deserve all the positive credit it has received, instead appearing to me as a poor and wasted attempt at a concept that could have been a lot more interesting. It's a shame.