Sword Art Online

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

First of all, I apologize for my poor writing skills. It's never been my strong suit.

When I first watched Sword Art Online (commonly nicknamed 'SAO'), it was because my friend, whom has an anime taste basically identical to mine, recommended it. At this point only two episodes had been released, and it was my first time watching an anime week by week, instead of watching it all at once like I usually do. I watched the two existing episodes and enjoyed them, but as the weeks went on, both my friend and I were left wondering why he recommended it to me in the first ... place.

Story:
The story is definitely nothing new. Kid plays video game, kid gets trapped in video game, kid has to escape video game. Of course, this kid (Kazuto Kirigaya, better known as his screen name 'Kirito') got the opportunity to beta test the game for like a day, so obviously he's better than everyone else. The entire show is just Kirito doing cool things, beating bosses alone that people can't even do in groups of 200, and meeting new "friends" that only have a few minutes of screentime but still end up considering Kirito their bff. There are ridiculous timeskips, leaving no room for character development, and episodes 3-7 are just filler to make Kirito look cooler. Of course, these episodes, like everything else in this anime, have the potential to contribute to the plot, seeing as he meets some new people. But again, like everything else in the anime, they don't. The characters never show up again until the last episode where they're celebrating Kirito's existence. The show starts out with everyone being trapped inside the game, which develops this fear, because hey, if you were trapped somewhere and if you died in there you died in real life, it'd be kind of scary. But of course, the fear weakens when Kirito easily conquers every boss with no struggle, it weakens even more with the frequent timeskips, and it's completely eliminated when they escape SAO and start the second game, where you can leave any time you want. That's right. In the second arc/game, you are a fairy prancing and flying through the forest, the ultimate goal is to be able to fly forever, and you can log off whenever you want. It completely destroys any suspense there was left, and sucks the fun out of it. Of course, they add one more element in an attempt to add suspense: Asuna is a damsel in distress and Kirito has to save her. Really, really lame.
1/10. SO much wasted potential, it's sickening.

Art:
The only redeeming quality of SAO. The art style is very nice throughout the first arc. It's very pretty and fun to look at. Of course, visual stimulation will only get you so far, especially when they get lazy and start cutting corners in the second arc because they have people hooked already. But in the first arc, the art is very nice, and it was definitely one of the big contributors to my watching it. I wish they would have kept the niceness throughout the second arc, but hey, we can't really expect much from this anime.
8/10.

Sound:
OST is gorgeous. I really enjoyed it. The OPs were fantastic (especially the first one. LiSA is fantastic.), the EDs were good, and the OST as a whole was very, very well done. Voice acting was average (referring to the sub, I'm not going to bother with the dub because that means I have to 1. watch a dub, and 2. rewatch this monstrosity), I don't really have many complaints in this department.
7/10.

Characters:
This is going to be a long section because this is the absolute worst part of SAO. It's not that the characters were bad, none, for the exception of Kirito, were bad characters. But the characters only show up for about five minutes before Kirito decides he's too good for them and moves on. (Though even after he ditches them, they still fawn over him and think he's the *~*~*~~*coolest guy evarrr!!!!!!~*~*~*~. This is literally the entire point of all of the characters. To make Kirito look cool.) Early on, we're introduced to Klein, who in any other anime, would actually contribute to the plot. In this anime, however, he does not. He hangs out with Kirito for the first couple episodes, has Kirito show him the ropes, and then goes on his way. He runs into Kirito a few times throughout the anime, but he contributes almost nothing. Which is extremely disappointing, because I thought he was pretty funny. This is the case with almost all of the other characters Kirito meets (with the exception of Asuna, whom I will get to soon). Kirito meets the character, Kirito helps the character because Kirito is better than everyone else, audience is left expecting the character to join Kirito on his quest because hey, they're on the cover art for Pete's sake!, audience is sorely disappointed when they never show up again because Kirito is a "lone wolf" (aka he's too good for everyone and doesn't want to waste his time with them). This happens for a while with the closest thing we get to a heroine, Asuna. Asuna herself, I thought was very cute, and I enjoyed her. But of course, along with all of the other characters, she is only there to make Kirito look cool. They meet, hang out for a while, they part ways... but then they meet up again about two years later. At this point, everyone is like, "Holy crap! A character besides Kirito that has more than two episodes of screentime!" and it is a glorious occasion for all. The two hang out for a bit, and suddenly, they're in love! I don't know about you guys, but I don't meet someone, not see them for ~2 years, find them again, spend a day with them, and then fall in love. But Asuna did, and it was one of the worst things to happen to the anime. Asuna was a very enjoyable character until her and Kirito got "married", got an in-game house together, and adopted a kid who was probably only a few years younger than them. A good chunk of time is dedicated to the two playing house together, and of course, a good chunk of THAT time is spent trying to make Kirito look cool. Asuna then becomes this lame woobie damsel in distress whom Kirito has to go save. Extremely disappointing. Literally every single girl character, except for *maybe* Silica and Yui because they're like 8, falls in love with Kirito. Including his sister/cousin/who even knows anymore. Yes. You read that right. In the second arc, the main female character is his sister/cousin who is in love with the real world Kirito, but of course, to get over irl!Kirito, she falls in love with gameworld!Kirito. Who is the same guy. This, of course, upsets her greatly because who wouldn't be mentally scarred if they realized that they were in love with their brother? But Kirito doesn't really care. He just likes to look cool.
Due to the fact that every single character is only there to make Kirito look cool, I give characters a 1/10.


Kirito:
I hate this kid so much he gets his own section. Kirito is a teenage boy who likes video games, just like every other teenage boy. He beta tests SAO for like a day, and of course, because of this, he's the SAO master. He can beat anybody in a duel, can solve any mystery, and get any girl. He doesn't join any guild (well, he briefly joins a tiny guild full of people who don't know what they're doing, but they all get killed because Kirito is cocky as hell), which would mean an instant death for any other character, but of course, since Kirito is the best player in all of SAO for some reason, he doesn't need a guild to beat ~75 bosses and the final boss. He just does it all himself, no biggie. Now anybody who has ever played any MMO ever, would agree that this is ridiculous and extremely unrealistic. You play WoW and go into a dungeon alone, you get slaughtered in less than a minute. That's just how it works. You're supposed to go in with a team. But Kirito is too cool for school and goes it alone. And of course, he succeeds. No big deal. Oh, also, he has an ~**~*~ultra secret rare skill that nobody gets but him~**~*~*~. (Aka he gets to wield two swords, which isn't that big of a deal but of course since it's Kirito it means a ton and everyone is amazed. I'm not that surprised that the other characters thought it was cool that he got two swords, since it is an ~**~*~ultra secret rare skill*~**~~*~ that nobody else gets, but they act like he's a god walking among them. But of course, that's no surprise because that's how he's portrayed throughout the entire anime. As a god roaming the virtual streets of SAO.) As previously mentioned, every single girl falls in love with him instantaneously because he's oh so cool and oh so badass. It's ridiculous, unrealistic, and nauseating.
If I could give negative scores, I would give Kirito a -6000/10. But because I have to pick from 1-10, I'll give him a 1/10. That's being pretty generous.

Overall:
SAO is the definition of wasted potential. Kirito is the definition of a Gary Stu. Characters get very little screentime, and are only there to serve the purpose of making Kirito look cool. This is definitely the most disappointing anime I have ever watched, and I feel as if if being exactly like Kirito wasn't every nerdyboy's dream and Asuna wasn't every nerdyboy's dream girl, this anime wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is.
Don't waste your time. Popular =/= good. Overall score: 3/10.

"This show is nothing more than childish story with additional adult scenes within it"

Sword art online is a very popular anime, no doubt about it, but however this anime not deserved to be this popular. appalling, horrible, pathetic is the best word to describe this show. Many people love this show too much, without even think how can that happened, why every nonsense scenes or moments occurred. And at the end that's all happened thanks to the main character, why is it? i will explain it later, first of all

The story is centered on anti social people who trapped in a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer ... Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) called Sword Art Online where the player will die for real when their hp reach 0. however its a amazing idea to make a story takes time in the future about virtual reality game, that could make me looking forward to it when this show still on going. The story was great when i know all players in this game will die for real if they not struggle to survive, it makes this show more emotional when some of the characters in the brink of death, but however there is one of the 10.000 players can denied the systems of the game, and ruin the story.

After the episode 15 the story become even worse than before, the story turn into cartoon story for child under 5 years old, where the hero's girlfriend kidnapped by some one strange, and the hero take her back with a miracle that doesn't makes any sense. However too many people said that the story of this show is amazing, but for me this show is nothing more than childish story with additional adult scenes within it.

Even though the story is horrible, the art and sounds was great, i don't know how to explain it, but when you see the art and sound of this show you will think that it will be a great anime, and for me the first time i saw the opening theme of this show i really love this show and thought it would be a great show after all and make me have a high expectation about this show.

Characters, maybe this is why i really hate Sword art online.
The main character, Kirito is a person who will not giving up something important to him no matter what. He can do anything he want to do, in fact he is the chosen one from the 10.000 other players that exist. He can kill some boss at that game by himself, when the other players need to party around a hundred players to kill the boss. Kirito is just like a god of that world, he can do anything if he want to, even though he cant do that things, a miracles will appears any time !!!
if you watched this show you will already know that kirito ever in the brink of death situation, not once or twice, but more than 5 times, LOL !!!
Kirito is a normal player but he can defeat the Game Masters in a game Not Once, but twice. No doubt about it, Kirito is a overpowered main character that can do anything that act like a GOD in every game he played, Pathetic.

The other characters is fine, fine doesn't mean its great.

Enjoyment, to be honest, i cant understand how could people enjoy this show. This is annoying, pathetic, horrible too many scenes that doesn't makes any sense. For me this show is really make me suffer, every episodes every scenes make me want to crush my computer and say "How Could That Happened !!!".

Overall, this show is annoying, and when i know many people think that this show is great, its just makes this show even more worse. As i said before "This show is nothing more than childish story with additional adult scenes within it"

The synopsis of Sword Art Online (SAO) doesn't sound terrible.
If you are expecting a good quality work however, this is not the show to watch. What seems like a promising story, ultimately fails.

I expected SAO to be like Battle Royale.
Not in terms of the story but how it will be focused on the psyche of the characters.


Imagine.


Being forced to play a video game, where dying in this game means dying in real life. Every extra day you spend in this game, you stay motionless in real life. This will lead to (possibly permanent) paralysis and most likely, they are feeding you through a ... tube. This is expensive and your family and friends are in great distress.

This is not a pleasant or/and peaceful scenario. Yet this is not reflected properly in the characters. What I mean by "properly" is having short-term and long-term impacts. Simply reacting is insufficient for a "proper" believable behaviour. Short-term impacts are the basis of long-term impacts. This must flow in a logical sense for a reasonable duration of progression and regression. Forgetting it the next scene as if it never happened, is the worst method of characterization.

This is why SAO ultimately fails. It does not develop the mental chaos, which is really the highlight of SAO-esque story. Due to this, everything falls apart. Especially, the characters.

-ART-
It's typical video game clothing. So I will not bash on how non-functional they are.(as video games tends to do that) But none of them are really that aesthetically pleasing or designed well according to the scenario. So, I give it a 4/10.

-SOUND-
Music should be used in harmony to create mood.
Few poor attempts have been made but overall, it fails to evoke anything out of the viewers. This is surprising, considering they chose the simple "tried-and-proven" type of music.

-CHARACTER-
Flat as a cardboard.
Though we do not know the motivation behind why the character acts in the way they do, there is no sense of cohesion.

The inconsistency of Asuna and Kirito is mesmerizing. It's like they are a different person every scene.
Even if the author doesn't tell you the back story of a character, there should still be a cohesive feeling behind their actions.

Is Kirito selfish person? If so, all his action should follow this to a certain extent.
Asuna moves away from Kirito and wants to be left alone at first. But after the boss fight, she even chases after Kirito. Why?


-ENJOYMENT-
This is absolutely subjective because I cannot enjoy poor quality work.

-OVERALL-
I give MAL ratings based on the word.
3 = poor
4= decent.
This is not decent by any means. It fails to develop any of the potential the story holds and does the remainder in a poor quality fashion.

SAO sits somewhere between 2/10 to 3/10.

SAO is the gold standard of wasted potential.

★☆☆☆

All two of my followers have been yelling at me to review this masterpiece—and it’s shit. I’ve never watched anything so hyped and so disappointing. The premise was so good only to be squandered like a lottery winner on cocaine and hookers.

10,000 players are trapped inside an MMO. To get out they need to pass 100 levels, beat the final boss, and if they die in the game they die in real life.

Just reading that premise set my imagination on fire. Two sentences had my mouth drooling with excitement. It was such an ambitious idea. I imagined ... an elite team of writers must’ve worked on it; men and women assembled from every corner of Japan. I imagined suspense, thrills, moral dilemmas, really dark shit happening. God help those girls trapped in there. It would’ve been a commentary on the human condition when put under extreme circumstances. And it’s a video game themed? Oh, Lordy, you convinced me at “the.” I’ll buy six copies.

Then I finally watched it, and it was garbage.

- Don’t expect any tension, tragedy or even a struggle.
- Don’t expect complex interpersonal or political conflicts.
- Don’t expect commentary on the human condition, moral dilemmas, or psychology.
- Don’t expect clever strategy or mind games.
- Don’t expect anything resembling real-life MMO culture.
- Don’t expect relatable characters or witty dialogue.
- Whatever your expectations are, throw them out, and lower them even further.

I don’t know where to begin. SAO fails on every level of basic writing. Let’s be fair: I usually don’t buy into hype, but SAO’s premise has it built in. There’s nothing modest about its idea, and when you can’t deliver don’t be fucking surprised when you get enough hatred to power a Tesla. If you handed this story to your professor you’d be given an F and asked if you stole this off FanFiction.net.

If you must check out this garbage, I strongly recommend seeing the first episode; then imagining the studio burned down killing all its staff; and episode one was the only surviving copy because SAO peaks at episode one. I wish I were kidding, but I’m not. The rest of the show drops the amazing premise to become a poorly written, amateur harem romance. It’s like you’re watching Schindler’s List then it suddenly becomes American Pie.

I don’t know too much about the writer, but he’s shown to be in the same amazing league as kids who shop at Hot Topic. How oblivious are you to not see how terrible your main character is? The main character has been described over and over as a “Gary Stu.” It’s a play on words from Mary Sue, a character type that’s basically just too perfect. SAO’s main character cannot escape even the lowest standard of a Gary Stu.

Let’s see. He’s too good looking because even another dude mentioned how attractive he was. He’s too powerful; taking down bosses and groups of people with no issues. Great way to build tension there. He gets all the girls because in a game where there’s a much lower population of female players he just gets all the hot bitches with no effort. He’s fucking boring. I cannot even begin to describe his personality other than just existing. And this is the worst crime: he wears all black. I’m not kidding. His entire outfit is a black trench coat, black fingerless gloves, even his fucking sword is black.

Look, I get it. It’s hard to write a main character. You want them to be likeable. They’re the face of the show, but SAO’s main character is nothing less than masturbatory wish fulfillment. Because writers want their characters to be liked they end up bland and uninteresting trying to appeal to everyone. It’s okay to have a character that isn’t liked. There’s a difference between not liking them as a person and not liking them as a character. That’s why villains are so much fun. You’d be horrified at their shit in real life, but in a story they’re fun and engaging. Most of all, make your main character relatable, and SAO’s main guy is none of that.

His Mary Sue love interest isn’t any better. In the first episode she comes off a mysterious, independent woman only to melt into a damsel in distress. She’s also a guild leader, and she has a very high cooking skill level. Where the fuck did you find the time to learn that when you’re leading players to escape the game with their lives? Are you guys even trying?

The pacing is all over the place. If you’re going through 100 levels I expect 50 episodes. But, no, the show skips dozens of floors without any sense of time. Shit just happens. The story is bogged down by incredibly vapid slice-of-life episodes. You have a whole fucking world of engaging stories, but you focus on Gary Stu and Mary Sue going off to a lake house and fishing. Goddamn, remembering this shit makes me mad.

Good pacing is gives a sense of struggle. You have your high point then your low point then another high point then another low point and so on. This is called writing. The worst sin is how they just glossed over 2,000 players dying. Not even a montage. They just mention it like a footnote. So much shit happens off screen why bother even having an anime?

And if this show had even attempted to meet its ambitious premise then the final 10 floors would’ve been the most agonizing, most intense, most tragic episodes where any hope of making out alive would’ve seemed impossible. But, nope, more harem shit.

Okay, fine, now you have a romance. I have to accept it, but it’s not even a good romance. A romance needs engaging characters, but when you have Gary Stu and Mary Sue I might as well be looking at a brochure. Two pretty people like each other and that’s it.

Is there anything I liked about this trash? I guess soundtrack was nice. The fantasy landscape and scenery was nostalgic to look at. Reminded me of my Runescape days. And when they did incorporate some MMO elements like messages and inventory that was kinda neat. Wish there was more of that shit.

I dropped this after episode 14 because—and this unbelievable—they escape the MMO, and everything goes even deeper into shit.

I don’t understand the hype for this show or why it’s so popular. My theory is that because there’s always an influx of new anime fans that they don’t grow up watching older stuff so they don’t develop taste like older anime fans.

You’re not supposed to watch only anime. You need to enjoy all sorts of entertainment from movies, books, TV shows, and video games. That’s how you refine your taste. I suspect SAO is a lot of people’s gateway anime in the same way Dragon Ball Z and Naruto are.

Whew, this is my first review, hope it goes well. Not normally one to write reviews but I feel like I needed to comment on SAO. I would just like to remind everyone below that this is a matter of opinion, and I am just trying to express my opinion on SAO.
SAO is somehow EXTREMELY popular, not exactly sure why, and before you rate this a thumbs down fan boys, read this review first.

Story (3) - As I'm sure you are all aware of, SAO is based on VRMMORPGS, which basically let you jump into a game as if it is real life. To say ... the least, the story isn't very original. Instead of having an interesting, unique, and original plot, the anime relies more on things like "plot" (.)(.)

Art (8) - Animation throughout the series is well done. Other than a few shortcuts that are taken in the animation, it is very high quality. Props to that.

Sound (9) - SFX and music are well done and match the settings.

Character (2) - In my opinion, this is the point that is quite the stickler for me. As long as there is likable, and well developed characters, I tend to watch an anime. However, in the case of SAO, there is little to no character development. Other than Kirito, Asuna, and later Yui and Sugaha. All other characters show up for 1 or 2 episodes and leave, only to show up at the very end of the series. Furthermore, those four characters are filled with problems themselves. Kirito is much too perfect, being able to do anything even though there was no mention of it in the past episodes. In fact, in the beginning, he was just mentioned as a "normal" guy who plays video games. Asuna is quite the annoying tsundere that seems to have bipolar disorder. Her personality frequently changes without any cause behind it. Yui is lolicon bait and Sugaha is...yeah. Viewers are unable to make out their own opinion of the character, and are instead forced to take the opinion that the anime basically shoves in the viewers face. Basically, blunt and pointless actions are used to define the characters and are anything but subtle. Furthermore, villains are your everyday generic villains with no variety at all, other than poor reasoning behind their actions.

Enjoyment (4) - Putting aside poor characterization, plot holes, and other major and minor issues, the first arc of SAO was enjoyable.There was humor and it was just fun to watch. However, the second arc, Alfheim Online, was rushed. Characters in the Alfheim arc somehow become even worse than the first arc and it is not in the slightest bit enjoyable at all. Things got too serious and the entire arc just seemed pointless.

Overall (4) - Overall, this anime was poorly done. Although the sound and art was well done, an anime is nothing without either or both story and characters. In this case, SAO lacks both. However, the first arc was quite enjoyable in some aspects of humor. Therefore, I would give Sword Art Online a 4.

This is a a rewriting of my first review since I was ranting a lot in that, so this time I wil try not to rant and will use the usual swear words like fuck cause I used the n-word before, anyway, here we go ;_;

"A person is very strong when he seeks to protect something. I’ll expect a good fight."

I feel sorry for people like me who somehow watched all of this, I think you'll know why. So SAO 2 is gonna be finishing up soon, so you know what that means, we gotta review the first season *sighs* welp lets get this over ... with. The thought of this makes me wanna barf. The story fails so many basic things. The charcters could be good but just get ignored like they were nothing. The music and animation are pretty solid but that dosen't make up for anything. And enjoyment comes from the mindless action and thats really it. A-1, are you even trying with this show?

Story and characters: 2/10
No seriously A-1, like seriously. So this is set in the near future were humanity have now accomplished Virtual Reality MMOs (VRMMOs for short) so everything is going well until, a game called Sword art Online (hence name of the show) is released. So as it gets launched everything goes fine until people realize, there's no logout button. Then it turns out the only way to get out is to complete all 100 floors, and there's a twist, if you die, you die for realsies. OH PAPER SHEETS! So this would probably be some Fantasy Action right? Well sadly, this also falls into the genres of Romance and harem.... so answered yet A-1? The bad thing is this fails so badly in basic things cause of, the MC. lets go on to him.

Kirito, so Kirito is the MC here and well, he really boring and bland. Even the stuff he says is bland. But somehow when he meets female characters (hence harem) they somehow fall in love with him... Either he's unbelievebly sexy and has a huge D or just anime logic. But really this is lazy, have a reason for why these people fall in love with him? Now male characters you ask, well the good thing is they don't fall for his spell, so thats all good.

Next, another thing about the MC is that the story just focuses on him when in reality he just sucks. When we get introduced to new characters, they get ignored later on until some specific serious thing happens to Kirito. This is another sign of laziness, cause this show dosen't even try on developements.

But, then we have Asuna, when first introduced she's this shy but brave woman who you really like, she knows whats she's doing and is really likable. Then, she meets Kirito -_- this is where she becomes helpless. She goes from Joan of Arc to some generic anime female, she becomes this weaker version of who she once was and it feels like her soul belongs to Kirito and something. Please don't get me started on the fanart and chapter 16.5, like don't bother.

Art: 7/10
The art is pretty nice here, I like it, some really good looking visuals. But this dosen't make up for its laziness of characters. Some scenes the animation may be a little sloppy but they tried.

Sound: 7/10
The music is not bad, some good tunes and some good OPs but meh EDs. It has some memroble tunes but overall good.

Enjoyment: 3/10
So, boring dialouge, convinient ass things, plot holes, no charcter developements, pathetic writing. The only pro would be the action which is actually enjoyable to watch other than that, it dosen't even try.

Overall: 2/10
This is a poor excuse for a plot and characters, I don't know how this even got mainstream? The ending is meh, not much happens and really is there as a Happily ever after vibe. Overall, stay away from this, it dosen't even try.

Rating: Shit would taste better than this.

Oi…………
You know, ever since starting this in 2011, I always keep an open mind when reviewing most anime out there as most people tend to be too dismissive and ranty when it comes to new titles and often say the words, “Anime is DEAD!!” whenever a bad show (or what people perceive as ‘bad’) appears in the broadcast wavelengths and this particular show already has a history of that already in the span of two years and has already gotten its fans and its critics. (And note, I said critics, not haters because…..well, we’ll get to that later).
Sword Art Online (SAO) is a Virtual Reality ... Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG), released in 2022. With the Nerve Gear, a virtual reality helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, players can experience and control their in-game characters with their minds.
On November 6, 2022, the players log in for the first time, and later discover that they are unable to log out. They are then informed by Akihiko Kayaba, SAO's creator, that if they wish to be free, they must reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, if their avatars die in-game, their bodies will also die in the real world. One of these players is Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya, a skilled player who is determined to beat the game. As the game progresses for two years, Kirito eventually befriends a female player named Asuna with whom he ultimately falls in love. After the duo discover the identity of Kayaba's avatar Heathcliff in SAO, they confront and destroy him, freeing themselves and the other players from the game.

Now, with a premise like that, it’s something that could be promising and worth to be a watch but unfortunately, that’s only the first episode and maybe the second because as the rest went back, the quality of it got lower and lower as the show went and this is something I watched twice. First time during the simulcast period and second time around the Toonami run with the English dub and I didn’t hate it as much at the first time but the second time viewing it, I really didn’t like what I saw (and no, it’s not because of the English dub).

The show is split into two arcs: The Aincrad Arc and the Fairy Dance Arc. For the Aincrad Arc, I did think that arc was alright at first, but most of the time, I was bored to tears and the pacing of it is way too fast and clumsy. I know some people complain about slow pacing of anime in the past but at least they try to get you immersed into the storyline. They jumped forward to the story too much, leaving out some details that could be important to the story but instead, it’s left out for the romance side story, which really wasn’t that great in the first place. The Fairy Dance Arc was a completely unnecessary arc as forced melodrama took over with either a love triangle that shouldn’t have happened nor did it need to exist and a new game, ALfheim Online, was made even though after the disaster of SAO, you think you would’ve stopped there but nope. The bad quality of the writing shows during this arc, even though the writing for the first one was just uninteresting. It felt like they needed to just do shit for the sake of doing it with no plausible explanation and as far as people saying it was the smartest anime at the time, you got to be kidding me. There is nothing smart or deep about this series and while that might not be a bad thing, it’s not entertaining either and if you can’t be both of those, then you failed to be a good show.

Characters are even worse as most of them don’t really seem that memorable or inspirational. They are quite forgettable. Take the main character, Kazuto Kirigaya, who is the most powerful character in the show because of……..well, fuck if I know. Now I said one time that Kirito wasn’t the perfect character and I may have said that wrongly because it is described as being perfect, perhaps too perfect and with him being the strongest player (or beater) in the game, I have no concern to worry about him. He’s just a generic badass wannabe. We know he can defeat whoever challenges him and that just sucks out the tension of it.

Kirito is a wish-fulfillment character that guys desperately want to be. And as for Asuna, she could’ve been an alright character and she was for a bit but most of the time, she had some of that tsundere character traits that I really hate but the biggest downfall for her is when her development shrivels down and that confidence in her is just poof, gone and for their romance, it really wasn’t that inspiring as most fans think it is because no relationship like that would ever go like that within the span of the first arc, which I would blame the time skips for and the fact that the second arc shouldn’t have been made at all. The other characters in there doesn’t seem that important at all because the show doesn’t give them that much face time except for either one or two episodes. Klein and Agil were good characters, I give them that but the girls (Yui, Silica, Lisbeth, Sachi, Leafa) all seem like they are part of Kirito’s growing harem of girls that fawn over him, even an AI character that supposed to be Kirito and Asuna’s “daughter” and also his sister…..no, wait, his cousin (as in that love triangle that was pointless to begin with). The villains of the show Akihiko Kayaba and Nobuyuki Sugō (Oberon the Fairy King) have the worst motivations for doing what they did, especially the former whose reason for doing this wasn’t even explained and the latter’s purpose may have some motivation but a piss-poor motivation to do it.

The animation by A-1 Pictures (who made Blue Exorcist, Magi, Fairy Tail, & Anohana) was perceived as stellar to most people and while it looks look visually stunning, it’s not all amazing as some make it out to be. It’s not awful but nothing that I haven’t saw before and as far as some of the action scenes go, they aren’t actually that well-animated. It has pretty artwork and the character designs does appeal to the standard otaku, which is why they might love the show in first place.

Music-wise, I love Yuki Kajiura and her music but this score is just about average and the same can be said about the opening and ending themes of the show (and I mean, all of them). “Crossing Field” doesn’t really stand out as one of the best themes in an anime and especially from the singer LiSA. I still say to this very day that “Oath Sign” is more of an inspiring theme song than this.

And now for the dub, which is also average. Yep, in 2013 where Bang Zoom Entertainment proves their dubs are getting better in quality (Fate/Zero, Blue Exorcist, Accel World) than most of what FUNimation or Sentai Filmworks pumps out weekly or monthly, this isn’t their brightest one but it isn’t that horrible of one either. Bryce Papenbrook as Kirito did felt uninspired although in his defense, I think it matches the character rightfully. Cherami Leigh does alright in her starring debut in a LA dub as Asuna. I would say that Todd Haberkorn being one of the villains is expanding his range as a VA but I’ve seen it done before and it felt like how Johnny Yong Bosch was in Fate/Zero (Ok, I’ve been mentioning that show here lately) In short, I do like most of the dub cast in here (like Cassandra Lee Morris, Christine Marie Cabanos, Patrick Seitz aka one of the few guys I don’t mind playing a black man because dude can do that, Kirk Thornton), but I felt they were underutilized.

FINAL VERDICT: OK, there’s no doubt about it. This is just a failure of a show, not a complete failure but damn, this was disappointing. I blame the hype of this as people making it out to be one of the best shows in 2012 when it’s really the most popular title of that year and I’ll say this as many people did, “Just because it’s popular, doesn’t guarantee that it’s any good.” The writing is abysmal, the characters are bland and forgetful. The only praise I get from it was the artwork and the music was just average and I thought .hack/sign was a bore to get through but at least that show had some merits. And I highly say I would NOT recommend this title to many of you unless you need to see it for yourself to show how it is. This is purely one of the many examples of how NOT to write an anime.

i'm sorry, but this review was made with google translator: / sorry if there are serious language fails

Well this is my first written review and I may spend a couple of things, not contains spoilers quiet;)

-HISTORY: SAO is an anime that for a true to the online gaming person may appear the best anime in the world (I mean by the good notes by the hype generated when it was freshly emission), but to me it seemed a anime with nothing new with a linear story and very obvious (at most there were 3 chapters in which things happen that I did not ... expect).
Within this point also comes something I found unnecessary and was extremely put fanservice scenes that did not come to mind and did not provide anything in an anime that does not need them and that what mattered was the development of the story itself.
Another point in what turn serious history chapter 7 as it is the typical "I love you, but you do not know" (it's cute as all animes that have a chapter as well, which raises some some expectations in my case nO), and finally a somewhat subjective and not objective personnel is: history is bad if you like this world of virtual reality and video games and stuff leed the book "Ready Player One" 100 % recommended, the anime story not worth seeing. 3/10

-Sound: Nothing to say the soundtrack is meh "good" is not something that influenced much in the anime, and other voices just "good." 7/10

-Characters: Something important in the anime is the character development as it affects (at least for me) in the enthusiasm with which I see the picture is depressing and SAO Kirito the main character is a flat character has not even a single sentence that makes me remember it, just remember what the end of the series because it always uses black clothes and nothing else, otherwise do not know if I should go to "character" is drawing faces, I caused a lots of funny to see how Kirito Kirito meets with orange hair FORGIVENESS meant Asuna. 2/10

-Art: The point that makes me put a 3 to this anime and not a 1 is drawing landscapes or scenes and light drawing is something that I personally always like to see in the anime and this is used extensively by "lens flares", the drawing of the characters is basic not much detail on the character itself, if not in the clothes and nothing else. 7/10

Final Note 3/10
Brief review: Boring and over-rated
i recommend?
NO, if a person is just beginning to watch anime asked me to recommend some would not be this as it may start to hate him (or FMA recommend Steins; Gate anime that are good to start on this)

There will be spoilers. "To escape, players must beat the game by defeating each boss on all 100 floors. However, if they die in the game, they die in real life too." One of the worst lies in anime history. This anime is like an april fool's joke. This is the anime they should make criminals watch in interrogations.

Story:

This is the cruelest joke any anime producer could pull off. The main character, [insert your name here] , is immune to this "die in game, die in real life" concept, even surviving being killed in the game. The storyline his infested with fillers, ecchi, and more. ... The storyline also has tons of time skips. "But what about the 100 bosses?" The final boss decides to make Kirito an offer. Kill him, and he let's everone free. Guess what? The final boss gets defeated! Surprise! This storyline is a trainwreck, adding pointless characters, ecchi, and romance in the series. Then again, the romance and ecchi are for the pervy teens and otakus. Subtracting the fillers and pointless episodes, this anime only has about 6 episodes that are relevant to the storyline. SIX. I'm not going to even mention the second arc, adding more pointless crap like incest, and downright removing the concept. The storyline proves how rushed this anime really was.


Characters:

Kirito, aka [insert your name.]:

This guy is invincible! He can't be touched, and he gets any girl he sees. He makes the perfect self insert character.!

Asuna: This girl was a boss. However, she went from being a boss, to a cheap tsundere, and eventually, to a straight moe. She is very annoying.

Any other character: They weren't memorable. I don't even remember their names.

Animation and sound:

I didn't mind the animation or soundtrack. They were awesome as a matter of fact, but they were made crap because of this crappy anime. The battles were very rushed however.

Enjoyment: I didn't enjoy this to the least. I saw my life fly away from me after finishing this series. This anime was a joke, a horrifying joke that steals away your time from your life. A troll created this and thought it would be a good joke to play. It wasn't even funny.

Overall:

This crap had a ton of fillers, girls, pointless characters, and time skips that'll make you cry. Take my advice, and stay away. You'll be happy you did.

I wonder if it's possible to write an uncontroversial review on this anime. Let me take a crack at it.

*****

You know, SAO is not the worst thing the anime industry has ever churned out, despite what people out there say. Is it bad? Sure. The characters suck and the plot is full of conveniences and the pacing is pretty crappy and there is no thematic value and blah blah blah.

SAO is such an easy target. It's not just because it's a bad anime; it's because it's a bad anime with massive hype. Compounding matters is the perception that people have of SAO's fanbase ... - I mean, when terms like "wish-fulfillment" get thrown around on a near-constant basis, it's hard to avoid imagining thousands of lonely and immature otaku hovering behind their laptop screens, ready to jerk it as soon as Asuna appears with a sandwich for Kirito.

If we treat anime as a medium for storytelling, and if we then judge SAO on its storytelling ability, yeah, it sucks. It's not really possible to defend its narrative structure nor its execution. Kirito is one of the most painfully dull characters in existence. I figure that Asuna was only created because the author of the source LNs had a bet to see how quickly he could torpedo a character's development. They even managed to slip in some incest in there - oh, but wait, she's not *really* his sister, so clever. This anime is fraught with a litany of serious issues and it deserves to be called a bad anime.

But you know what? Despite all that, it's still not offensively atrocious. SAO has great production values, and the fights are well-animated. The setting is fleshed out just enough to qualify as immersive, and while the game mechanics are absurd and serve as little more than deus ex machina, a lack of fidelity towards real-life MMORPGs isn't the biggest crime in the world considering that some of the most highly regarded anime out there take massive liberties with their internal logic as well (looking at you, M- nah...probably not a good idea to name names). And, well, I managed to get a laugh out of all the ridiculous plot armor that Kirito stacks himself with, and Asuna's almost surreal transformation from badass heroine to helpless fap bait had me in stitches. So there's that, I guess.

I think SAO gets way too much hate for what it really is. It's a bad anime that got too much hype, but it's really not the worst thing ever. There's much, much worse out there than this. SAO didn't give me a venereal disease, it didn't kill my brain cells (well maybe a few), it didn't make me want to stop watching anime forever, it didn't make me contemplate suicide, and it didn't make me want to write a hate review. It's just an unremarkably bad anime. That's all. 4/10.

I don't actually care about how much hate I am going to get for this review, so if you don't like my opinion there's a 'not helpful' button you can always click. Please do not try to haunt and kill me if I insult "the best anime evaaa".

Story: 3(poor)
First all all let me get one thing straight, as an mmorpg player myself I was really looking forward to seeing this anime as it was two of my favourite things mixed together and I thought that this was awesome.So maybe I went into the anime with my expectations set way too high, but then again it ... is done by A-1 Pictures, which is the studio that made AnoHana, which I really liked. That aside lets continue with my 'amazing' opinion on this piece of poop.
For the first 3-5 episodes everything was going great. There was so much potential for this anime to be one of my all-time favourites, but as the story progressed the chance of that happening kept getting lower and lower. First of all I would like to know whether the god of time skips had something to do with the show, because I'm quite sure he did. Like how exactly can you have about 5 out of a 100 supposed boss battles showed. Also why the hell would the last boss be weaker than any of the pervious ones. Moreover the show ignores its premise and genre, and goes on to be a 'romantical comedy' for more than 3/4 of the show.
Which really bugged me.

Art: 6 (fair)
Now, the art for the anime was quite amazing to be honest, but unfortunately I feel like the creators put more effort into the boob-bouncing scenes, rather than the action scenes, which is a shame.

Sound: 7 (good)
Now that is a real waste, because the OST is done by Yuki Kajura, who also did the soundtrack to Fate/Zero, which is my favourite anime.. Not only that but the opening and ending themes (with the exception of one) are similarly done by the same artists who did the Fate/Zero ones which made me really angry as to why the Japanese are wasting such great songs for such a god awful anime.

Character: 2 (dreadful )
Oh gawd, where do I even start.
First of all the main character is as chiched and overpowered a character could possibly get. Such a shame his birthday is the same as mine...
The main female lead changes personality from the baddas mysterious girl she's first presented as to a bitchy damsel in disstress that needs to be protected by the main character as every other heorine out there
The rest of the harem bait don't even deserve an introduction

Enjoyment: 2 (dreadful)
With all that in mind I didnt really enjoy the anime and finished it only to be able to get a " I survived" badge

Overall: 3 (poor)
Overall this anime is full of crap and it is highly overrated.. despite the very few good things about it I would reccomend you not to watch it if you want your hair on your head and not in your hands as its been pulled out by yourself.

P.S. I shall now proceed to find a good hiding spot before I get killed by all the die-hard fanboys of the show.

First, let me state that I watched Sword Art Online for the first time 2 years ago and was one of the fangirls who rated it as a 10. After re-watching it with a critical mindset, I will admit how stupid it was of me to blindly overrate this show back then. SAO is nowhere near as good as it portrays to be, and it’s easy to spot with open eyes.

The idea itself is good. Gamers trapped in a virtual game and cannot escape until someone defeats all 100 levels that increase in difficulty? Okay, sounds good. If you die in the game, you die ... for real? Sounds even better. Want to throw in a little romance? Go right ahead. Create an overpowered male protagonist and throw countless deus ex machina to make him appear as the ultimate hero with forced happy endings? You just ruined my appetite.

SAO started off well with the introduction of the MCs and a little gameplay to familiarize the viewer with the main objective. There are a couple of fillers that step away from the objective to give side characters their spotlight. It’s not completely irrelevant, because you learn more about the rules of SAO that come in handy later on.

If a show has a survival game, there’s nothing wrong with heroic protagonists (Kirito and Asuna in SAO) as long as it's executed properly. Although it starts off well, SAO fails by throwing illogical excuses to make Kirito appear more heroic than he actually is. Regardless of being a beta tester, there are several cases where he receives special treatment for no reason. A prime example is the addition of a moe deus ex machina character (Yui), who is nothing but a cheat code for Kirito and Asuna to give them an advantage over the other players. Yui is just there to answer questions, give tips, and share info that is not revealed to other gamers. SAO has a bad habit of forcing happy endings with the most ridiculous outcomes, leaving several plotholes. This develops Kirito into an obvious Gary Stu with him unexpectedly doing amazing things every single time he reaches a dead end. There are no logical explanations for his skills and talents that appear out of nowhere. It just happens, along with the first arc’s irrational ending.

The second part was worse, and I’m not referring to the incest that takes place. Everything restarts with a new game, new rules, new settings, and new characters. Again, the deus ex machina is all over the place, and Kirito would get nowhere without them. There are love triangles involved, and SAO explores one side and leaves the other side unfinished. It’s difficult also to actually feel for the characters when SAO doesn’t give any logical reasons why the person is in love. Asuna reduces from her role as a powerful fighter to a damsel-in-distress. It takes a huge leap by creating this uncomfortable atmosphere, sexualizing the show with these rape scenes, including tentacle rape.

The romance between Kirito and Asuna was not a bad idea. It was good considering the pacing within two years, so it never led to a cliché and rushed pacing with them immediately falling for each other. Besides Yui, who makes Kirito and Asuna’s story seem like the ultimate romance, things blow way out of proportion when SAO leads into a harem.

The harem aspect of SAO downgrades the characters significantly, but what can you expect when you have an abundance of female characters and an undefeatable hero? It is hardly ever a moment when you find Kirito spending less than a day with another female without her falling for him, and it throws fanservice in your face every time. Then comes the female characters with their dense moments. All of the scenes with Asuna and other females, who intentionally put themselves in danger, appears constantly as an excuse to bring Kirito into the spotlight as the guy who saves the day. If the girls had a motive or logical reasons for making rash decisions, I would excuse that. But since they just talk badass for an instant and step aside for Kirito to finish what they started, it makes the show unattractive.

There are honestly not any memorable characters in SAO. Kirito and Asuna are super attractive. SAO makes it obvious that they’re every woman/man’s wet dream, and nearly everyone envies them and wants to be like them. However, neither one of them have any special traits. Since they’re your typical Gary Stu and Mary Sue characters, there’s no sense for character development. The villains are not evil at all. They’re both pathetic and laughable, and the 2nd villain is more comical than the first one. Each one of them is indecisive, have no logical motive for their wrongdoings, and lack the common knowledge fit for any evildoer. Although most of the female side characters were just there to fall in love in Kirito, some of the serious ones acted realistically in terms of heartbreak. The gamers varied from good guys and bad guys, so it wasn't completely boring with everyone having their own goals.

The animation and OST are good for the most part. The settings and background design were beautiful, and it realistically portrayed the sunsets with shadows and appropriate color contrasts. The gameplay suited the atmosphere, especially when a character died. The character design and outfits were good. One noticeable problem was how the characters did not suit a situation. For example, two characters are in the same drastic situation, but only one character looks frail and unhealthy while the other looks perfectly normal as if nothing happened.

No complaints with the two OPs and EDs. Personally, I liked the ones from the first arc better. The seiyuu were good also, and most of them reacted well emotionally. The background music fitted the virtual world and different situations. It was playful during the laidback scenes and hardcore during the fight scenes. There were a few times when, immediately after a drastic scene, the music becomes cheerful and made me question whether I’m supposed to take a scene seriously or not.

Overall, it is not hard to notice the bad writing of SAO. The idea was good, but the execution was poor. I had high hopes for it in the beginning, thinking “How can someone possibly dislike this?” Then everything went downhill in a hurry. It led to plotholes. The MCs are basically a lie, because they needed help from deus ex machina and never actually worked for their success. The amazing animation and OST were the best parts, but it cannot make up for SAO’s failure with the story and its characters. Let’s hope SAO II is a bit more decent.

Now before I begin this review, let me just say that I have good reason to give this show a one out of ten. It's very rare that I give shows such a bad rating, but hear me out and you'll understand my points.

Now that we have that taken care of, let's move on.

"Sword Art Online" takes place in the distant future, where the video-game market has become huge thanks to new technology called, "NerveGear". It's a system that fully scans your nerves and all five of your senses and connects them into an online world where practically anything is possible.

The story focuses on ... the release of the first MMORPG for the NerveGear system, "Sword Art Online". Kiriyaga Kazuto (Kirito) is one of the beta-testers for this game and was able to easily get his hands on one of the limited 10,000 copies sold in Japan. When all seems to be going smoothly, things take a "deadly" turn when the video-game's creator, Kayaba Akihiko, forces players to keep playing until someone manages to beat the game. In order to do so, players must defeat 100 "bosses"; each on it's own level in the game and each more powerful than the other. If players die in the game, or someone in the real world attempts to take off the NerveGear, the NerveGear's micro-wave safety system will turn off and it will fry their brain, killing them in real life.

The first three episodes were absolutely incredible! It completely draws you in to the story, the characters are all so diverse, and the incredible action sequences have you hanging on the edge of your seat! There is so much at stake, and everyone is sacrificing so much to ensure that the game will be beat and everyone gets out alive. The series also grows tense as trust between people grow thin, and players start getting killed by other players.

Each of the characters was completely unique because they all had their own strengths and weaknesses, forcing everyone to work together in order to survive. One of the most notable side characters is Asuna, an attractive and shy girl who really knows how to wield a sword. She manages to help Kirito defeat the first boss as if they both did it before. I didn't have a doubt that she would be a very strong character that would help Kirito throughout the series.

I also absolutely loved the animation of the show and it's incredible soundtrack! It truly brought the show to life and made me want to hear the music over and over again.

The train started to move really fast, and everything was going fine. That is, until episode four. That's when the series completely "jumped the shark" and became what I hoped it would not become; a harem romance series with a worthless male protagonist.

Starting at Episode 4, the series starts to skip a lot of levels, skipping out on a lot of the story and action. And it's starting at Episode 4 when it starts to slowly sink in that Kirito isn't all that much of a nice guy.

Kirito may be strong, but he only cares about himself and becoming the most powerful character in the game. He hides secrets from his allies which lead to their inevitable deaths, he puts the lives of strangers on the line just to get a more powerful sword, and often uses other people as a means to help him grind his way up the rankings.

What makes this character even more despicable is how many girls are attracted to him and how he treats those girls.

It is a given fact that girls are attracted to strong, independent and cute guys, even if they are completely heartless. Yet once a new female character is introduced into the series, they are only shown for one episode then completely forgotten after the next episode.

In other words, not only are there far too many side-characters in this series, Kirito doesn't care about a single one of them. Not many people who watch this series notice this, though, and that's why this show is completely over-rated (because a good story doesn't really matter, right? As long as you got great animation, music and a lot of babes, right?)

This anime was definitely rushed. It could have gone on for much longer and included a lot more action sequences. Yet it's as if they cut out all the good parts and left you with what should have been the occasional romance episodes.

To put this into perspective, imagine cutting out all the action sequences and plot development sections in "Fairy Tail" or "BLEACH", and all you have is romance episode fillers. That's exactly what this series is.

But that's okay, at least we got Asuna to make the series worth watching, right?

WRONG!

By the time the series ends, Asuna goes from being a strong and independent heroin to a damsel-in-distress who can do nothing without Kirito around. The writers completely ruined Asuna's character just to please the large crowd of fanboys, and that's unacceptable!

And by then end of the series, nothing is explained.

There is no motive to why the game creator trapped people inside SAO, or how Kirito managed to come back to life after he was killed for a short moment in time only to somehow kill the final boss (which was suppose to be immortal) with ONE STAB.

I honestly thought that this series was going to be worth watching, yet I regrettably kept watching it hoping to find some good action or character development. Unfortunately, all I found were terrible romance fillers and even more useless side characters.

AND THEN THERE'S THE SECOND HALF OF SAO, which is when "Alfheim Online" gets introduced. It's as if the writers made the second-half of the series just to please the fan-boys and further throw SAO's potential out the window. It really would have been best to have just stopped SAO as soon as the game was beat, yet they decided to keep the bandwagon going and make the second half.

This section of the anime is even hated by the most die-hard SAO fans for a reason; the suspense and action from the first part simply isn't there anymore. The second-half just throws cute girls in your face and the series becomes extremely awkward and annoying, especially once Kirito's sister gets introduced (and if you've watched enough anime, then you know where this is going).

If I were to compare this show to another television show, it would definitely be the series LOST. It started off with incredible potential, then it just went downhill and never came back up.

In conclusion, "Sword Art Online" had incredible potential as an action series, and the first three episodes proved that. Yet it ended up to be another version of "School Days"; pathetic love story, hardly any plot, despicable lead and a lot of cute girls to keep the targeted audience interested.

I honestly despise this anime with all my heart, despite what the large crowd of fan boys have to say. Not just because of the terrible character development and the worthless plot, but what this series could have become. It could have been an incredible action series if they did it right, but they flushed it's incredible potential down the toilet and replaced it with video-game boy fan service!

This is why I believe that Sword Art Online is not only one of the most over-rated anime's in existence, but one of the biggest wastes of incredible potential in history.

THE VERDICT:
+ Excellent Music/Action Sequences
+ Colorful Animation
- Worthless Plot
- Incredible Potential Wasted
- Terrible Character Development
- Despicable Lead
- Pointless Second Part (Alfheim Online)
- Harem Replaces Action
- Too Many Girls

SCORE: 1/10

DO NOT WATCH!

When I first read about this story, I was so excited to finally see something so original. However I was greatly disappointed after watching the first two episodes. The storyline is quite fresh enough to grab my attention, but was poorly executed in the telling. The first episode fails miserably as it plainly introduces your typical boring protagonist: a lonely but talented gamer who has already played the beta version so has the upper hand in the game. Then another yet so boring character is introduced and the two gamers abruptly build a relationship that is short lasted. The characters seem like they have no ... personality and each one is no different from the rest basically each character has little to no dialogue. The point of the story is quickly announced by the game master as if the audience wasn't smart enough to figure it all out themselves. There isn't much action save for a couple of sword slashes that ends each fight. What burns the series even more is the lack of seriousness the characters seem to have. If death in the game will also result in death in reality, how come the gamers seem to have little to no care for their lives. When the first gamer is killed in a fight, everyone else seems to brush it off as if the gamer can be resurrected. How will the audience take the story seriously if the characters don't? Overall the story seems interesting enough for me to continue watching, just hope it improves.