Accel World

Accel World certainly has good quality visuals, dynamic battles and an interesting setting, however past that I cannot think of anything that the show does well. You may disagree with this and my scoring, but please, allow me to justify myself because I intend to do so in full.

Let's cover a good point first though, the art and animation. The art is very consistent, and it does a great job of displaying the interactive world in its diverse and grand state. The animation for the battles is well done, I certainly didn't have any complaints, there is plenty of movement and excitement, and the ... battles enough time to satisfy fans of action. The character designs are on the whole attractive albeit generic, but here we come to our first problem, the protagonist Haruyuki.

I get it, Haru is supposed to be a character with low self esteem, otherwise they wouldn't have brought in Yuki Kaiji to voice him, but the character design they chose to demonstrate this was insulting to the viewers. Looking at him, it shows the designers attempt to force down our throats the fact that this guy is vulnerable and a "loser", but at the same time still not be ugly enough to put us off, which is why he is chibi, rendering him completely different from every other character in the show. Why did they feel the need to do this? I get the feeling they think the audience is stupid, and need constant reminders of why this guys has no confidence, they even made his avatar a small pig, just to reiterate this further, because you are that stupid.

This leads me onto Haru himself and the rest of the characters. His best friend Taku is generic, seems to have no romantic chemistry with his girlfriend Chiyu (indeed Haru has more), doesn't add much to the series, but is at least likable. Although her relationship with Haru was odd (i.e. romantic), Chiyu was alright initially, but later in the series she becomes incredibly obnoxious. Kuroyukihime is the most likable character, partly because of her pleasant disposition and good design, but mostly because she got a pass on the second half of the series on account of being on holiday. The side characters lack depth and are completely non descript, the enemies are infuriating (and not for the reasons they should be), and then there is Haru. I'd be amazed if anyone could manage to actually like this guy, unless he is so similar to them disliking him is an act of self loathing. The amount of hatred I built up watching him was one thing, but then the second half of the series happened.

Now obviously I won't spoil anything, but let me just say, the second half of Accel World has some of the most rage inducing episodes you'll come across. Why? The characters start acting in completely illogical and infuriating ways, I had just forgiven Haru for the first half of the series when he just goes downhill in a spectacular fashion, the show starts introducing plot devices that either make little sense or break the setting Accel World itself, and the plot degrades terribly. Indeed, this half was so poor they had to introduce a few episodes of filler in the middle to give you time to calm down. The antagonist has at his disposal seemingly every plot contrivance possibly, and an ability that would never be allowed in any game of that sort.

In fact, a major factor in why I ended up being so angry is due to the blatantly poor plot devices and elements that were poorly thought out and look like ass pulls. It shows laziness in the writing, or a simple lack of ability. I was shocked often throughout the second half at how stupid these things were, and this did not help the infuriating exchanges at all.

So, in all, the second half was terrible, indeed I'd give it a 1 overall. It did have some nice battles, some fan service and some really spectacular background settings, but when you have to watch this in tandem with the genuinely upsetting nature of the show (where whenever the antagonist is on screen your head will find itself drawn to the oven) the experience is irredeemable. The first half was better, and many will have or will enjoy the first half, but I didn't really like it either. For someone who is the protagonist because they are good at games, Haru really sucks at games, he makes rookie errors and shows a lack of judgement that makes you wonder about his ability. To be fair to him this is simply more usage of plot devices, and I would forgive him for that, but he's an irritating waste of space who only serves to pander to the viewers inadequacies and insecurities. He is not a decent character, he is only there to make people who identify with him feel better for themselves. That is the only reason I can imagine someone liking this show at all to be honest.

Accel World is certainly not all bad, it has some decent episodes which always include exciting fighting, some of the side characters are likable, and the world setting was fantastic in terms of aesthetics, however these happy instances were always in between long durations of anger, misery and frustration. Many may enjoy it, I certainly don't speak for all opinions, but for me watching Accel World was an experience devoid of enjoyment or fun, the way this anime is set up makes it inherently dubious, but it is the execution that really cause such grief that I wanted to cause harm to myself. I hope this never gets a sequel.

Hey you! Yeah you, the humongous loser. Are you a humongous loser? Are you convinced your lack of physical attractiveness is the sole factor preventing you from attracting members of the opposite sex? Is your only skill in life that you're really good at a computer game? Well now there's an anime just for you!

Our male lead is a chubby little kid who gets bullied by spikey haired shounen protagonists. He spends the vast majority of the episode whining about his condition, wishing he could just disappear into this video game world. We're clearly supposed to feel sorry for him, so forgive me if that ... comes off as false when he already has two friends, one of whom is a cute girl who makes him lunch. Oh dear nobody loves me, except for my two friends who are trying to care for me, aren't I just the most sympathetic character ever. Also sorry for not feeling particularly sympathetic for fat people when they spend their time running around a virtual sporting environment and then lament the state of the body.

I called Accel World a Shana Clone pre-season, but that isn't strictly true. For my personal definition of the Shana Clone, the main character needs to be a personality-less everylead who has no defining features beyond the fact that they're kind of nice. Being a humongous loser is an improvement on that, albeit only if played correctly. A wimpy character has to develop so nice things can happen to them. The alternative is something like Future Diary or Evangelion, where the main character has something great fall into their lap, but their inability to mature means it actively worsens their lives. There has to be a pull/push to this. Something falling into a characters lap and instantly improving their life at no cost is not good storytelling. It's just wish-fulfillment of the laziest order.

Now with that in mind, let's take a look at what Accel World does. Main character's ability at this obscure computer game results in the prettiest girl in the school dragging him over, caressing the inside of his leg and giving him magical powers. He now has to compete in games where the if he wins, he gains extra points in tests and a whole bunch of other stuff. But ooh, does it come at a cost? Why yes, if he loses, he's no longer part of the game! So, does he get disconnected from the entire network? Err, no. Does he get damaged in the real world, .Hack style? Err, no. Absolutely nothing happens to him whatsoever. The extent of what happens to him is he no longer has bullies after him, he keeps his old friends, and he had a short romantic skirmish with the prettiest girl in school. Oh dear. I feel so sorry for your predicament. Let me play you the worlds smallest violin.

Another thing Accel World appears to struggle with is that it's a story, not a video game. Yes, I'm aware they are playing a video game inside the world. Thanks, the health bars and attack sheets gave that away. You don't need to give me a fucking tutorial for every single part of the fucking match. I'm not playing the game, I don't need to see that sort of stuff. Yet still, for large portions of the episode, our token pretty lady cycled through the rules and regulations on how to attack. Not important stuff that would affect the story. Basic video game rules that we could have figured out for ourselves based on the simplest of visual cues that it gave us anyway. You don't need to adapt a light novel verse by verse. Use the animated medium to show that stuff a book needs to spell out for you to understand.

Character designs are the same generic noseless shiny people you see all over the place, with the exception of chubby-san. The animation, apart from some neat CG effects in the fight scenes, is bland and forgettable. Heck, if you're going to be this shockingly blatant about wish-fulfillment, you might as well drop in some service, but there's not even any of that. It's an imaginary world for loser males in the real world to drop themselves into, wishing they too had a cute girl come caress their leg because they're really good at a video game. Blergh.

So I heard you hate life. Here's a video game that you can play IN real life! Now do you like life more? Even though you can only stay in the game for 1200 seconds which only amounts to about a second in the real world. Don't worry. McDonalds will be served.

Putting an obese protagonist in a show isn't done much. And I didn't expect shounen shows to have a fat ass, who hates his life, as a main character. Don't get me wrong though, I don't mind how the main character usually looks, but if the personality is this annoying, I'd rather have someone ... punch him out and end the show in one episode.

So our main character hates his life a lot, the reason is unknown because his life is not suicidal bad. He acts alone, unloved, he complains and he cries, he just hopes that he dies. Yet he has two friends, one who makes lunch for him and an "obviously-soon-to-be-enemy-for-one-battle" friend. But of course the male friend also cares for this fat ass, emo, main character. His name is "Haruyuki" and we're supposed to feel sad for him. Really now. His bitchy complaining and bitching about his life pisses me off. He doesn't have to keep repeating pathetic shit because I got it the first time. He's depressed. I don't feel sorry for him, I want him to die (Just drawings, I'm not like this to real people).

Alright then. So we have a Teenage boy who goes to high school. He has one friend who will obviously go against him for a while and a female friend who he obviously likes. Just your average emo kid who gets bullied here. But then a girl comes along.....
What the hell is fuckin wrong with these people? In anime, whenever there's a high school boy with a pathetic personality, a GIRL COMES ALONG AND GIVES HIM POWERS! Yes again. But why? Why must there always be a girl that grants him magical powers? I'm getting pissed off with the amount of "Magic girl gives boy powa" shitty anime going around. An example would be Guilty Crown or Sacred Seven.

Accel World takes place in a world where everything's high-tech. So you can log in to some virtual world in your school area and virtually "chill". Or you can virtually exercise like our fatty does. Pretty smart ain't he? It's like Wii Fit without the movement, amazing technology. There's also a new way of communicating with someone. So there's this cord. You connect one side of it on your neck, and the other side with the person you want to talk with. Then you send thought-like messages to each other. You can also check their data. Are these people humanoids? Honestly what the fudge. I'm quite sure no one wants robotic parts installed in them, especially ones that others can easily install a virus or a tracking device in. Hell if they can check your memories, then WHAT THE FK IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY WOULD YOU NOT CARE ABOUT THIS STUFF? What if they look at what you do in the bathroom broski.... And also by "wiring" with someone, I'll call it "wiring" because I forgot what it is, people see you as a couple. It's like kissing but with cords that attach to your neck.

Let's cut this short. Haruyuki met a girl in his virtual tennis game who liked him for beating her score. She then invites him to lunch with her and gives him a magical power. With this magical power he can go into the virtual world of the real world and fight against others. It's like Street Fighter, you just fight someone and win. If you lose, you get kicked from the game and you can't go back because you only had one coin. But if you win, you get experience! YAY! And your main goal is to be the best in the game, even though you will win nothing.

There's too much moe. Moe is fucking disgusting. Character designs are the same as those other ones that reflect light like a mirror does, with their skin. Everyone looks the same, there's nothing new and unique here at all. Expect the big guy. Fight scenes are extremely lame. For some anime with no story at all, and only focused on a virtual game based on fighting, I EXPECT GOOD PEWPEW MATCHES YOU PATHETIC WRITERS!

Accel World is about shiny people playing an Action MMORPG. They will go into detail to explain it to you, even though you're just watching the crappy show, and not playing the game.

I had the pleasure of wasting my time on such a crap anime; Yipee!! So let me tell you why you should definitely waste your time watching this anime!

The setting takes place in the future, 2046 where nothing is different from our current time except that there's a real life virtual game called Accel World, which slows down the speed in real life and the person's brain goes into an sped up imagination world. What's the point of the game? Level up and become the strongest.. I think. I honestly have no idea. Anyways, in this game it's sort of like Sword Art Online ... except instead of the characters looking like their real life faces, they look like avatars (pig, fairies) and when they fight they become a robot (Dumb shit right here).

First, the anime starts off with our fat, dumb, pathetic, cowardly, whiny, and virgin main character whose computer avatar is a fat pig. He gets bullied at school, and nobody likes him except conveniently the most popular girl at the school and the only reason why I even gave this show a 3: Kuroyukihime. Kuroyukihime loves our piggy main character and teaches him about Accel World, leading our heroic pig to join the game. There he gets beat up, loses to everyone, and vows to get strong enough to protect the ones he cares for. Unfortunately for him, he can't do crap and always has to hide behind Kuroyukihime. Sure there are plot twists here and there about who the "villain" in the anime is... But it always leads to absolutely nothing. But you know, good ol ecchi is included so for those of you perverted fans, give this robotic no plot version of Sword Art Online a shot!

Accel goes into very deep concepts about the universe. Allow me to list all these genius stuff:

- If you get bullied in real life, run into a game and TRY to level up! That fixes everything!

- If there's a love triangle going on with your best friends, try to keep it going for as long as possible, it will fix everything in life.

- There is only one solution to isolation in real life: make friends online!

- If a popular girl loves you, then try to protect her and lose consistently! According to Accel World, that makes you more charming. Also to make a beautiful girl love you, just get fatter and fatter and whine to her about the 10000 problems you have.

- Most importantly, remember that in the sense of the deep universe that we live in, virtual games decide our fate.


Truly a masterpiece, I recommend it to all the people out there that want to waste their time!

I've seen good shows. I've seen bad shows. Never have I ever wanted to stop watching a show before until I watched this. I get it, people like this show. Heck, I even liked SAO. But this show is something else. I haven't seen the whole show, so I don't think it's entirely fair to give critique it at the moment, however I just need to get this off of my chest.

Firstly, let's discuss the characters. Haru, our main protagoinst, is meant to be someone we identify with and empathize. His entire design is based around garnering sympathy from the audience. He's even introduced ... in a way where I as a viewer looked at him and thought "Man, I feel sorry for this guy". This all goes out the window within the next 5 minutes. Haru, our main character, is not likeable at all. How am I supposed to get behind our main character when he is so fucking unlikeable. Sure he's treated poorly and I feel pity for him but how can any of the characters truly like such a toxic personality. "Oh, I get bullied everyday therefore I get to treat my friends poorly". He also complains about wanting to get away from the real world, claiming it to be a "living hell". HOW?! You have two good friends, both of which have been trying to help you for who knows how long, and you've been refusing. They offered to do something about it. "OH I GET BULLIED, LIFE IS A LIVING HELL. FUCK YOU CHIYUU AND TAKU". The whole pawn speech he gave to Kuroyukihime was the last straw for me. I don't care how people treat you. You don't make stupid assumptions and use that as justification to say terrible things to those close to youChiyuu and Taku aren't much in the way of characters but at least they're likeable. The most likeable character in the show, Kuroyukihime, falls for Haru, leaving me to ask the question "...Why?". I suppose it's because he's the main character, therefore he has to have all the girls wanting his D. He's not really nice to people. He's not handsome. He doesn't even have a nice personality. Like come on, fall in love with someone worthy PLEASE...

The animation isn't bad, however the fight scenes lack any real impact to me. Haru's artstyle is also somewhat jarring, being drawn in a "chibi" style while everyone else is designed more "shonen" style.

The enjoyment I'm experiencing right now is almost nil. I feel physically ill trying to continue to watch this show. However, before I make a fair complete judgement on this show I will continue to watch it. It may get better but from what I've watched so far, its not good. I can't get behind a show if the main character is just so unlikeable.

Accel World is a bit of a mixed bag for me to deliver my thoughts on. Taking place in a future where augmented reality is the norm with the younger generation, a bullied outcast named Haruyuki meets up with popular girl Kuroyukihime who gives him a game called Brain Burst that allows him and others with the game to have the ability to accelerate their capabilities in the real world and face off against other users of the game to compete for Burst Points that allow one use of their abilities.

While the series does have some interesting elements to it via its battle system and ... the means that characters have to "accelerate" in the real world, the series suffers in the fact that it doesn't really feel like anything too serious outside of the game is at stake for anyone and the motivations that others have for being in the game feel kind of petty, reducing any major tension that could engage me to care for anything besides the show's Brain Burst elements. Sure, there's mention and showing of characters dealing with bullying, neglect or family abuse that the series says is what manifests a user's ability to use Brain Burst. But the motivations for many characters are no different from if you wanted to play an MMORPG with getting stronger, having allies to form alliances, gaining new skills/items or purposely breaking the rules for your personal gain; which I've already experienced from the Dot Hack franchise which at least had some major stakes to it during its first generation run with Sign thanks to the nasty effects any human player getting struck with Data Drain would experience in the real world. Here in Accel World though, the worst thing that would happen is all your Burst Points are lost and you lose accessibility to Brain Burst as no one is at risk of dying in real life (except for one instance at the start of the series unrelated to the game).

The characters are a bit of a mixed bunch. The major ones have character archetypes that they fulfill, yet get enough fleshing out to have you care for them in many instances, though Haruyuki's occasional angst fits would have me tempted to want to whack him. The majority of the secondary ones, on the other hand, don't get so much and are mostly reduced to archetypes. The anime does introduce a faction of villains and a plot element that affects Haruyuki's experience in Brain Burst for the second half of the series. But with this being based on an ongoing light novel series, these plot developments are left unresolved.

Visually, Accel World's regular character designs are on the plain side following the standard anime style and Haruyuki's design is of particular note as he is drawn differently from other characters and seems more like he'd be suited for a slapstick anime comedy with his appearance, with scenery in the real world being detailed and vivid. However, the visual highlight of the series comes from its incorporation of its augmented reality elements as characters are able to visit richly detailed virtual worlds with avatars they personally create (Kuroyukihime's avatar sticking out prominently here in both design and its fan servicy attire). The Brain Burst game renders the characters in armored avatars with differing abilities that are slick-looking and make for the best animated parts of the series when characters battle one another with a great amount of fluid movement involved in battles.

While sporting an interesting premise that I did enjoy some aspects of, Accel World does still stick firmly in conventional territory to a great extent, the stakes for the game felt rather underwhelming compared to other titles I've seen that featured MMORPGs or other technologies employed in any sort of serious plot and it ends inconclusively. You might get more enjoyment out of the series if you are a recent anime fan that hasn't picked up on many of the common cliches employed for anime as I have. But otherwise, I'm mostly indifferent to Accel World.

I'm going to make this short because well, I just finished watching the last episode and feel a headache from cheer stupidity coming on.

The concept was interesting. The first half was better. The plot falls apart, the main character goes from annoying, to bearable to mind numbing infuriating. It never truly concludes and what normally would of been a couple episode long story-arc begins the entire second half of the season.

For a show that keeps touting ideals about Haru being so awesome and so much better than he gives himself credit, he -NEVER- stops needing others to come saving him and wins purely ... by brute force, intervention of others, and outnumbering the competition.

The pointless fanservice went too far as well. Devolved into making all female characters pretty much just attractive meat to oogle at and was quite annoying as the character concepts were all interesting. The problems are never thoroughly thought out and all simply hand waved away and gets solved in manners completely unrelated to how the characters try and solve it as well.

The story, writing, and directing just does not hold up. Severely disapointing after coming here because it was highly recommended to those who enjoyed Sword Art Online.

On the bright side, it is pretty.

Like most anime the sound/art was good but the story enjoyment and characters all nose dive about ep 16.
For the first 12 eps if you can deal with the major plot hole that the main character is a short fat beta and chooses his online avatar to still be short and fat then you will enjoy the story and how it progresses at a steady rate introducing new exciting topics. The problem comes with the second half. They spend a whole season on what should be at max a 4ep arc and all other parts of the story go very slow and leaves many holes. ... (the manga probably solves these but I haven't read it)

It's my first time reviewing an anime, so please bear with me...I was actually wondering why Accel World was rated so low but now I completely understand... I hurriedly watched it because I was addicted to SAO and was wondering the connection on why Accel world was rumored to be a continuation of what happend after the whole SAO plot .Furthermore , I know SAO was a bit overrated and lacks some story elements .. but it was still enjoyable and the characters ( Kirito and Asuna) seems to save the story( as for me) .... I am a big fan of ... adventure and romance anime and SAO really hits the spot...but this one.. I truly,madly, deeply hated it..

[spoiler] The lead girl is the only thing, I liked about the story.. It was obvious that she has connections with Kirito or even Asuna by the whole rumors going around the web... All of it make sense because the anime even hid her own real name ....(Why don't they just reveal it earlier since everybody already knows and the fact that at the epilouge it was an open end question) The author and anime already gives many hints about her real identity..... Somehow, everything can still be handled but what drag on is the main guy.. Seriously, how could you watch an anime when the main guy looks chibi, constanly cry, and has almost no good point.While watching, it was so disturbing that he was the only one drawn in that way... If the author wanted a bullied person that turns into a hero, he could still have done it with a reasonable figure not a 4 feet tall roll of melon.. It was so lame that the girl even fell for the guy without a very valid reason .. It does not make any sense just thinking about it makes me wanna puke...[/spoiler] I like SAO much better... It dwells with the same problem as fate stay night... the prequel did better than the sequel ... It was so nerve wrecking too watch that such anime was a "continuation" of SAO. If I were the author, I would rather have explored on the story line of the main girl rather than adding the main guy in the story. :( It was a major let down for me!

The upsides of this anime are the artstyle, which is pleasant but not challenging and the soundtrack, as it occassionally contains quite catchy and/or epic tracks.

The story itself isn't something special but what makes it situationally hard to watch is the degree of romantic tension between the chubby main character and every other female in the story. It's absolutely unnecessary to constantly emphasise sexual attraction between the lead and his female best friend (in a relationship with his best friend) as well as with the elven year old little girl he's friends with, it's just another (creepy) wish-fullfillment for the target group "overweight and ... socially isolated".

Accel World would have been a decent anime if they focused the energy that was put into fanservice into a bit character and story development. And it would have been good if they additionally had reduced the amount of time spent on solely repeating things the viewer already knows or can easily guess.

In it's storytelling premise and shortcomings it strongly resembles Sword Art Online.

This anime is like Pizza that’s been left outside for about 24 hours—not quite a steaming pile of shit but not something that I’d recommend ingesting either.

At its core, Accel World is a mediocre MMORPG, mini-harem, shounen. It’s a tale about a high school loser, Haruyuki, joining a sophisticated VR PvP gaming subculture. Playing this game allows one to slow down time in order to PvP battle, but also lends itself into manipulating real world situations. In addition to gaming for the sake of gaming, Haruyuki follows his stubby little c*** into the “Accelerated World” in hopes of winning the favor of his crush ... and helping her achieve her goal of becoming the ultimate high ranking player in the game.

The mediocrity is strong in this anime. It lacks character development and contains many cliches and stupid plot lines. It ultimately fails to be much of anything beyond a waste of time.


Clichés vs Rules:
A cliché is born from lazy, unimaginative writing. It copies something that worked in another setting and clumsily pastes it onto the current one. One example of this in the MMORPG anime context is giving the protagonist a super special in-game power that nobody else has. We saw it in Sword Art Online with Kiritu’s Beta-testing head start and his *ahem* special power pertaining to swords. We saw it in that Dungeon anime where the wimpy protagonist leveled at x10 or whatever the pace of everyone else. Anyway in Accel World we see the same shit where Haruyuki’s character gets a special skill that lets him soar above competition. Convenient, right?

Rules are just basic, genre-specific facts that are necessary to the plot to make sense. In this case, it’s a rule that MMORPG anime should have real world stakes. Imagine in Sword Art Online if the solution for escaping the SAO virtual world was….*Drumroll*….Logging out?!?! Holy shit man. Boom. All the suspense, urgency, purpose etc. would evaporate. In SAO at least the anime characters were as trapped as the viewers of that shitty world. Accel World it’s just a game. If you lose all of your points you’ll just no longer be able to play that game. No Death, no brain-melting retardation, you just suddenly have a lot more free time to devote to homework. You have these faux emotional scenes were Haruyuki freaks out when he sees his friends slaughtered in the game and you can’t help but roll your eyes. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DON’T DIE!!!!!!!!! Then the match ends and they get ice cream and talk.

The unforgivable part of this anime is that they hardly explore the amazing real-world uses for their ability to slow time. Everything is about leveling up and getting a stronger character not robbing banks or setting world records. The conflict in the anime is just juvenile and ultimately uninteresting.

Romance Angle: Props for making the main character legitimately physically unattractive. None of this good looking, tall, athletic but can’t seem to get a chick archetype. Haruyuki flat out looks like an Anime Eric Cartman. That being said, their unconventional character design makes the all-too-familiar cliché of having the school’s hottest girl throw herself at the MC even more ridiculous. Really? The class president/hottest girl in school/academic prodigy/Miss popular etc gets all hot and bothered watching this chump play virtual squash with a piglet avatar?!?! Fuck! I feel cheated by my high school experience. But seriously, the romance subplot is just lazy and irritating. There’s no chemistry and she does all the work.

Character development is absent.
Animation is acceptable but not great
Sound meh

Overall: It’s painfully clear that I’m too old for this. Ignore my opinion if you want and enjoy the rancid Pizza.

It has its moments with cool visuals and intense battles. The art and animation are consistent, but there's criticism for Haruyuki's chibi design, which feels forced in emphasizing his low self-esteem, but ig it make sense?
The second half of the series i particularly disliked it for illogical character actions, poorly thought-out plots, and frustrating developments you can find certain elements of the plot challenging to digest, impacting the overall enjoyment. While it has its positives like exciting fights and likable side characters, the overall experience for this anime is...
It might be good and enjoyable... But totally not for all viewers:/

At the time of this review, I've only actually watched 19 episodes. I intend to finish the anime, just cause I don't like leaving things half finished, but oh my god...it's getting painful. Each episode is getting more and more boring than the last.

Pros? Great animation, cool armor design and what not. On a fundamental level, it's cool.

Cons? Everything else. Story is lame, characters are extremely two dimensional and lame, and without anything to back up the cool armor, it's just extremely boring. I'd constantly put off watching the anime, cause although people said it was good, I just had ... this feeling that it it was nothing more than it's original premise, and my assumptions were, again, right.

As an anime, it feels like this guy just doodle some awesome armors and thought "Huh, I should animate this." without any consideration for what a good anime actually requires, that primarily being a story and characters of at least SOME note. With absolutely nothing backing it up beyond it's premise, it falls completely flat after the first few episodes.

After watching the 1st episode, I thought, okay, maybe this will go some where good. After watching the 5th episode, I thought, Uhh...this is getting repetitive.
After the 10th episode I was getting really bored.
By the 15th episode I almost quit.
Now, I've just finished the 19th episode and oh my god... I don't know if I can actually stomach the last 5 episodes. Like, it's that bad. The art can only carry an anime so far...like 3 episodes tops... *sigh* Another lame anime that gets recommended way to often.

Contains minor spoilers.
Done by the same people that did SAO so maybe I had high hopes, maybe I have to rewatch it and I might change my mind but this show makes me want to shoot myself for watching it.

Story: It has been a minute since I have watched this but basically a game that is installed allows the user to slow down/stop time by using points, which they get by battling other player's avatars. However once they lose all their points, the game uninstalls itself and the user gets no more benefits from it.

Art: It is good, there is nothing special or great about ... it.

Sound: English dubbed is terrible, but the show was so bad overall, not worth watching subbed.

Characters: Here is my rant. This show had great potential to be a decent show. But no, they decided to make the worst characters ever. MC is fat, whiny and contributes nothing to the show, however he is granted a rare avatar in the game. Main female character is beautiful, popular and powerful. And of course when a villain finally appears, they are poorly constructed. All of the characters have as much depth as a puddle. Horribly done and that is the downfall of the show.

Enjoyment: Read characters then you'll get my point.

Overall: If I could go back in time I would never watch this show. I hate this show for having potential and then having such poor character development to the point where it ruined the show. Watch at your own risk.

If you thought Sword Art Online was bad, you'll think it's a complete masterpiece by the time you get through just one episode of Accel World. I watched the series almost 2 years ago but I've had this unfinished review sitting in my Gmail account all this time and I thought I'd do myself a favor by finally getting rid of it. Agree to disagree if you want.

I wrote pretty much wrote the entire review after I watched the series so I'm currently just revising what I wrote. The scathing harshness of my words drip like poison. This is basically a very long, salty rant.

TL;DR

Story ... (3/10) - Poor:
I wasn't all that surprised when I found out Accel World was done by the same author as SAO because the overall traits are the same. Advanced technology that can make fighting games feel like reality and a ton of generic cute girls all going for the main character. The only difference is that this main character is beyond unrealistic in terms of looks, has absolutely no backbone, and zero redeeming qualities. Also, apparently, losing one's privileges in a game is about the same as being executed in real life. Having privileges in said game gives you magic powers to control reality (or something.)
Overall, Accel World is full of complete nerds who want to escape reality. In all honesty, I don't feel that AW sends out the right "message" to the audience because it basically tells you that reality can be escaped, video games will solve all your problems and reality doesn't mean squat.

Art (8/10) - Very Good:
Despite Haruyuki's appearance, I must admit that AW's art is genuinely good. The colors are soft and the use of it is also not bad. Some of the fight scenes are really well choreographed and I found them interesting in a lot of ways so, kudos in those regards.

Sound (7/10) - Good:
Attack on Titan called, they want Eren Jaeger back. At some times, I could totally tell it was Kaji Yuuki voicing Haruyuki, at others, well.... He just sounded like a really whiny baby. In terms of voice acting, the AW's do as well as any other. Soundtrack is good, but I feel that sometimes the sound effects overrode the other sounds at certain points. It wasn't that the voice acting was poor, II'm just so bitter and spiteful that I can't even rate the easiest category the score it [might] deserve.

Character (2/10) - Dreadful:
I've seen many a complex character in my day, but never have I come across one like Haruyuki. He's got absolutely zero charm, is a cry baby, a chibi, and obscenely obese. To top it off, he looks like a chibi piglet (just like his avatar) and I'm pretty sure even puberty can't solve his problems. The author of AW literally gives no break to Haruyuki's physical problems.Now then, if you can imagine all that, good. Now imagine the most "kawaii gorgeous beautiful" girl in an anime (at least according to this universe) actually having a crush on the character mentioned previously and getting jealous over him if one girl even sticks one toe towards his direction
Now, it's not that Haruyuki is a crybaby that's a turn off or that he's shorter than a five year old or even that he's obese because it isn't really the looks that turns a person off to them (although it can be a major factor). It's the fact that he's all of this, makes no attempt to correct any of it, still gets the chicks and isn't even all that nice. This is the power of the harem genre, friends.
I will admit, he has shown a certain amount of "valor" but for what, a video game? True, I understand these "video games" are advanced enough to feel like reality, but no matter how real it may feel, it isn't and treating it as anything than such is beyond wrong. Now, I could understand how with Haruyuki's shortcomings he might want to escape reality but pretty much everyone else in the series has no excuse.

Enjoyment (1/10) - Pathetic:
I literally could not finish the series sooner. By the end of the season, I'd almost completely stopped paying attention and truth be told- I have no idea how it ended. Just that it did and I was praising /God/ that my brain cells were spared.
I'm Agnostic, which means I don't even really believe in God. This is how grateful I was.

Overall (2/10) - Dreadul:
Don't get me wrong, I love my video games and I would totally support virtual reality if it existed, but AccelWorld takes things beyond what is realistically believable even in this universe. AW offers nothing new and is pretty much your average harem in a nutshell. I enjoyed SAO more than AW.
This is literally the harshest review I've ever shared. Or, actually one of two.
But this is my personal best- worst review.

NOTE: Although this review focuses mainly on the tv series, it covers the entire animated franchise up until this point. If you happen to be one of the few people that didn’t watch it, thought of giving it a chance, and are reading this right now, I should advise you that there are some spoilers here, so take this TL; DR instead: THIS FRANCHISE IS COMPLETE GARBAGE AND YOU SHOULDN’T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH IT. With that said, let’s move to the review.

Ah, Accel World, the title that blew everyone’s mind when it came out for being about people playing videogames with an advanced ... virtual reality technology, for featuring a fat ugly male protagonist and for being made by the author of Sword Art Online (this anime adaptation came out before SAO’s, but it was the other way around in the light novels). Since it panders to both the otaku and gamer audiences it was hailed as a masterpiece, and guess what, IT’S GARBAGE.

So the show presents this futuristic society where people basically get a wireless virtual world installed in their heads since they were born. They have access to internet whenever they feel like it and thus can mail and call other individuals, take notes and do their homework or search information virtually. All of which appears as windows in front of them which only they can see. It’s presented in the cheapest way possible with people moving their hands in front of thin air.

They can also talk to others mentally if two or more people connect each other with a cable. This is also presented in the cheapest way possible with people sitting on a table and talking to each other without even moving their mouths. Good use of an advanced technology story presented in a visual medium there. Also sometimes their thoughts mix in and sometimes they don’t. Is there a rule which controls that? Nah, it changes whenever the author feels like throwing an ecchi joke or not.

So it’s a society that wasted money and technology on an application that allows them to being anti-socials that don’t really communicate to each other but it’s really awesome because people can (not really) play crappy videogames from within. Yay!

Here’s some app called “Brain Burst” which transfers them to the “Accelerated World” that allows people to think way faster than the normal human brain but in order to do that they need some experience points and how does people gain said experience points? They play a crappy mmorpg and fighting game fusion which is obviously a serious and very dramatic thing.

The game already begins in a ridiculous way by basically raping the players’ mind to get information about them and create their avatars based on their emotions and psyche (mostly insecurities). Um, what? Why would someone do such a thing, why no one demanded the developer for being a potential cyber-terrorist group that brainwashes people? Who cares, let’s play videogames! And the designs are ridiculous, simple yet deformed robots with one or two colors and no explanations whatsoever about how that specific design reflects its player.

What about the game itself? A generic mmo where people kill creeps and gain level; there isn’t even some lore behind the world they play in. They don’t even form factions because those were already formed when the game started by some people that apparently didn’t have better things to do than playing a bad videogame the whole time, said people didn’t even wanted to reach the finale of the game and instead tried to be at peace. What kind of gamers are those? But don’t worry because the main girl of the show didn’t like that and betrayed them and decapitated the guy that proposed that and since then there are factions at war in the game.

What that means is that the little bit of story within the game was made by the players and no from the game itself, how sad is that for a game that is not about creating your stuff with whatever is given to you like some simulation game or Minecraft? (And even that game has some sort of story).

What about the leveling and abilities system and the gameplay? People gain experience by killing creeps or fighting against other players, just like in any other mmo. But since this is also an rpg they also unlock new abilities when they gain more level. How? Weren’t their personas based on each person? Why don’t they begin with all of their unique abilities if their avatars were created based on the individual characteristic of each one? Why are the character’s abilities so similar to the ones of generic rpg classes like mages or healers when they are supposed to be based on each individual? What about those abilities represents the players? Who cares let’s just play videogames!

Just like in any other mmo, the players have a health bar, and while that should balance the battles, it doesn’t. What I mean is that they play a game, they have health bars, they battle with specific abilities that consumes specific amount of energy (they have some form of it in the game too) and deals a specific amount of damage. Yet the protagonist can be easily owned by whoever he encounters and is always about to lose, but when he has the lowest amount of health you can imagine, the same abilities that almost killed him (or new even more powerful) now deal nearly to no damage, what does that mean? It means that he has a ridiculous amount of plot armor. Oh, and he also can easily defeat his opponents in the end with just a few attacks, of course. And let’s not forget that he is able to do that because he has THE SUPER AMAZING, UNBELIEVABLE, UNIMAGINABLE AND UNMATCHABLE ABILITY OF… being able to fly, wow…

The players gain experience points whenever they kill shit or defeat other players, you know, basic stuff, and that’s a super important and dramatic thing because if they lose all of their points they lose in the game, and if they lose in the game, what could happen? Are whole races and kingdoms going to submit to others like in No Game no Life? No. Will the players lose their lives like in Sword Art Online? No. THE SUPER IMPORTANT, DRAMATIC AND SERIOUS THING THAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IF THEY LOSE THE GAME IS…wait for it…that they won’t be able to play the game ever again. The system blocks their ID and thus it doesn’t allow the losers to play the game ever again. Those are some really high stakes, right? Also, what kind of mmorpg blocks its players permanently? One that doesn’t expect to stay afloat for much time, I guess.

And the losers can’t even recommend the game to other people because the app instantly erases their memories of the game, and their time and role there. Do you need another proof that this developer is a potential cyber terrorist group? Say what you want about how games make people stupid, no game in real life (up until now) fucks up the players’ mind like this one, thankfully (well, maybe porn games, specially the vr ones that are being developed, oh God, what are we doing…).

That’s what happens when you create a nonsensical futuristic society with an advanced virtual reality without any form of control. How do they deal with hacking in such a society?
Anyways the brainwash is done supposedly because the game must remain secret, yeah, because having people yelling BURST LINK every time they enter is not suspicious at all.

Remember how experience points work? Well, forget about that, why? Remember when I said that the main girl of the show killed another player? Well, here’s what happened: she caught off guard the other player and instantly chopped off him. What happened with all the experience stuff? Well, turns out whenever two or more top players fight, they one-shot the other, taking away their whole experience and thus making they lose the game instantly. Why would such a broken rule which completely contradicts the mechanics of the game exist? Well, I guess it turns the game into something like Day Z and it becomes more interesting…if the protagonist didn’t have plot armor, that is.

You see, when Haruyuki, the protagonist, loses, he just gets his ultimate ability robbed by another player and becomes an unimportant player that slowly goes back to the top to fight against the asshole that defeated him once again, no big deal.

Even in their real life the main characters have plot armor. In the early episodes of the show Kuroyukihime, the main girl, wants to help Haru with his bully, so she gets him being punched by that guy so the asshole gets expelled, and what does he does for a revenge? HE ATTEMPTS TO CRASH HARU WITH HIS CAR, OF COURSE. But do not worry, dear viewer, here’s Kuroyukihime to save the day. After a long, unbelievable, lame, melodramatic, hypocritical and selfish love confession, she uses a once in a long time unique ability only the top players can use and thinks even faster, and uses her avatar to move her real body, so she gets crashed by the car instead of Haru, and after a few days, she’s ok and playing the game again, of course.
Let’s talk about the third arc of the series, because the other two were about people playing games where all those problems I already mentioned appear. So this particular arc is about how another student of their same school uses the app for something different than playing the game and that is cheating in the school exams so he gets better grades. It was refreshing to see something slightly different but the handling of this arc was also really bad. On one hand, it brings out an interesting question to the table, if we had and application like this, wouldn’t we abuse of it in order to get personal benefit? And wouldn’t we try our best to do that? Yet, again, the handling of this arc was terrible.

Leaving the fact of how minimal his main objective is aside, the antagonist of this arc is so edgy that you can’t take him seriously; he laughs as a maniac and treats everyone like shit because he gets better grades and because he has a higher score on a videogame. He does all that because he suffered bullying in the past from his brother, meaning he is not only edgy but also victimized; Haru went through something similar and he didn’t become a piece of shit. Also, he use one of Haru’s friends to gain points in the game, because she has THE SUPER AMAZING, UNBELIEVABLE, UNIMAGINABLE AND UNMATCHABLE ABILITY OF…being able to heal. What kind of lame ass mmorpg is this where a basic ability like that is a big deal?

This girl kept saying the whole series that everyone is stupid for taking a game so seriously and when an asshole tells her to betray her friends in order to gain more experience in a game she supposedly doesn’t care that much about she instantly agrees? Well Haru and this girl were extorted by the antagonist, yes, but it’s a futuristic society where they have all kind of stuff in their heads, they can record conversations and videos anytime they want. If it’s possible to do it today with no much difficulty, imagine how easy it should be for them, the whole arc could’ve been avoided.

And what does the super pro player Kuroyukihime is doing? She is on a school trip until she appears at the ends of the arc and easily defeats their enemies except for the main bad guy who has to be faced by Haru, because otherwise he wouldn’t regain his ultimate ability I guess. And of course, the final fight is full of plot armor, ass-pulls, new abilities similar to others and lame motivational speeches, what did you expect, strategies and fair conditions for each player? Oh, silly you.

This third arc ended up being the worst, not only has all the problems from previous ones such as plot armor and ass-pulls and could’ve been avoided as I stated before but it also contradicts the most basic rules of the series:

-Two players who have similar abilities to those of Haru and a girl from the second arc appear and Haru gets his ultimate robbed. How is it possible for his ability to get robbed by other player? How is it possible that there are players with similar abilities? Weren’t their abilities unique because they supposedly represent every player’s personality and psyche?
-During Kuroyukihime’s trip she has her own adventure fighting a random monster and she gets the help of her best friend, who was a Burst Linker before but she’s not anymore. It is stated at the beginning of the series that whenever someone loses the game and it’s uninstalled that person can’t play it again. What happened to that? Also this mini arc was thrown in during the last arc interrupting the story. I don’t care if it was a side story in the light novels or something like that, in the anime adaptation it killed the narrative flow just like a filler arc does.

Now, let’s talk about the characters, shall we? Unlike most of the others modern anime’s protagonists, Haru is fat, short, ugly, suffered bullying and have an inferiority complex. So this isn’t a story about a bland self-insert Gary Stu that haves all the chicks for stupid reasons and an empowerment fantasy for otakus and is actually about an interesting, flawed and well developed protagonist? No, is the same shit as the others but even more retarded. Why? Because lots of girls fall in love with him despite all of his flaws because he is kind and good at videogames, featuring not one but two cliché and lame characteristics of modern anime’s protagonists in one package that no girl would see as enough of a reason to fall for a guy.

To his credit, he gets some development throughout the story as he becomes stronger and thus he gains more self-confidence, but that is also inconsistent since he is constantly going back to how he was, and the circle repeats forever whenever something positive, immediately followed by something negative, happen to him.

As for the other characters, there’s Kuroyukihime, the perfect waifu of the show that is somehow a pro player, a top student, and a kind hearted person at the same time, yet in reality she’s selfish and hypocrite. I can’t believe how every fan of this series takes her characterization at face value and don’t realize how she only wants Haru for his (not real) capabilities of taking her to the top of a freaking mmorpg.

As for the others, edgy enemies with close to none characterization, and some turns out to be cliché harem archetypes that fall for Haru because of the aforementioned reasons; Takumu, a typical protagonist’s best friend, and Chiyuri, that bitch that isn’t just annoying and useless and not only betrays her friends for stupid reasons but is also jealous of Haru and Kuroyukihime and she tries to take advantage on him despite being his best friend’s girlfriend. Fuck this girl.

And that’s it for the series, although it has an interesting concept and some attempt at showing people’s change of attitude by the dependence of advance technology and less social interactions, as well as some attempt at showing how we would abuse of some power or facility gave to us if we have the chance to get benefits from it, along with some development for the main character, everything failed in the long run. Apart from the interesting premise, the only positive aspect regarding the story that I can think about is the pacing, which is not good, but not bad either. Take in count that while it’s still an adaptation with no ending, it covers three arcs where the protagonists fight against various other factions, which means that every important character was already revealed. But then again, this is also questionable because they keep making progress and going back to square one and then they constantly keep repeating the process.

If there are some positive aspects in this show, those would be the visual and sound department, the character designs are generic, bland, and Haru and the avatars are ugly and retarded, and the voice acting is nothing special; but the backgrounds, the motions, and the special effects are well done, and the sound effects and soundtrack range from fine to good, making the world they play in and their fights spectacular on a superficial level. I don’t want to waste more time in this, I’m moving to the rest of the franchise.

The tv series was followed by two ovas that were silly ova material about a pumpkin hunting other players full of fan service, even more retarded designs and melodrama regarding the not couple from the show and another one about onsen, Haru being fat and having to lose some weight in order to pass a medical exam in school, what does this have to do with gaming? Well if he doesn’t lose weight he can’t play videogames for stupid reasons. That’s it, don’t lose weight to gain better health and appearance, do it so you can go back to play videogames for another person. Overall good pacing, visuals and sound apart, there’s nothing more to these ovas, moving on.

After that, another studio released some two minutes specials about every character being even more retarded, barely trying to hide their fetishes (Haru’s best friend is literally treated as a dog by his girlfriend in these specials) and, of course, everything is shown in a crappy chibi style.

And finally, four years after the tv and ova series finished, Sunrise released a movie, and it’s easily the worst thing in the franchise. It tried, and failed, to be a recap movie, a sequel to the former entries, a stand-alone entry, and an adaptation of some volume of the light novel series to please the fans that were waiting for a second season, all at the same time. How is it possible to fail that hard? Well, like this:

-Bad as a recap movie: It only covers part of the series, leaving some details from the show off the summary.

-Bad as a sequel: The events here happen way after the tv and ova series, if it is watched by a person that never read the light novel series, said person would ask him/herself: Who are all of this new people? When and how did the long time characters gain so many new abilities? (Said abilities are pretty op btw) Why are the two factions still allies when they already accomplished their common objective in the series? Shouldn’t they go back to be enemies already since they want to reach glory (if you can call reaching the top of a mmo that) by their own? What are the new areas they go to? When and how Haru got rid of his curse?

-Bad as a stand-alone entry: You may think that this movie shouldn’t be judged as such because it doesn’t try to be one, but it is. Why would it include a recap then, if it wasn’t? The people that watched the series already knows the story, and the same goes for the people that kept reading the light novels, of course. Yet the movie starts with a recap that lasts for half its duration, and wastes said duration in stupid things instead of telling the viewer all of its important details. That aside, it’s also just a bullshit mission about two factions fighting against a feminine player that somehow allied with a monster in the game for escapists reasons, and she was defeated by the power of lame speech about love and friendship, and bullshit op new abilities. But that does not mean that the film can’t include some silly moments about the main (not) couple, right? Talk about wasting screen time in nothing.

-Bad as an adaptation: It is not even good as an adaptation of its source material because it changed some important details from the story it’s supposed to be adapting.

Good animation and sound apart, this movie is a complete disaster, there is not a single good thing about its script and thus, it does not deserve more than the minimal score.

And that’s it for the franchise, the tv series alone is slightly better but, as a whole, is the anime equivalent of the third Spy Kids film, and that’s definitely not a good thing.

Accel World: 4/10
Accel World EX: 3/10
Accel World: Acchel World: 2/10
Accel World Infinite Burst: 1/10

From the author of Sword Art Online, comes another Isekai anime that takes place in the form of yet another VRMMO concept.


Accel World has its multitude of shortcomings as expected so I’m going to go ahead with a pros and cons format approach to writing this review.



Pros:
- Great character designs (at least for the character’s in-game avatars)
- Fanciable female characters (I have to admit, all of the female protagonists are pretty hot and cute, including most of the supporting characters too)
... - Decent development at the beginning but goes to utter garbage nearing the end
- Good animation, it’s not in any means great let alone perfect but some scenes are well done while some aren’t living up to expectations
- Kuroyukihime
- Features some amount of fan service
- Very nice concept featuring a great futuristic setting with fancy plot devices



Cons:
- Crappy development
- Absolutely terrible character development on the MC and I dare say for some of the other protagonist
- Poorly designed MC, it’s so bad to the point it’s downright degrading. The difference in character design between any other character and the MC is just offensive.
- Some episodes can feel dreadfully repetitive and boring
- The MC starts out very pitiful but eventually becomes an eyesore and downright disgusting dwelling in the depths of self pity without any resolve to strengthen self worth
- Very similar to SAO



And there you have it. My thoughts. Is the anime worth watching?

Well, frankly I’m not one to say because I know there are many people out there that actually think SAO is a masterpiece.

Personal thoughts? No. Don’t watch this anime unless you really want to experience something that comes close to garbage. The only redeeming qualities of the anime is the art and the sound. That is it.







On another note, Kuroyokihime is extremely alluring, no doubt about it.
I love her character design and her avatar design both.

Holding true to being "the most beautiful girl in school," Kuroyukihime is a very attractive and slender young girl with long black hair that has two strands of hair extended from the top of her brow, resembling the antenna of a butterfly and large hazel eyes

Her avatar goes very well with her black hair and the strands sticking out. She has beautiful butterfly wings and portrays a cute gothic look for her avatar.

Even if you don’t like the anime, Kuroyoukihime should be the only main character you like throughout the entire anime


This review was written on 10-11-19 and may be outdated. I may have changed my rating due to various reasons.

When I say this anime is kinda bad, I mean, this anime IS kinda bad. Sure, the fights are cool and very dynamic, so designs are really interesting, and that's about all the positives this has. The "story" is a joke, and the characters are even worse, the main lead being the most otaku pandering character I've seen in a while. This honestly sucks, and idk how I managed to sit through it when I was younger.

I'm honestly not surprised that this series was conceived by the creator of Sword Art Online, the same Harem, OP main character, and pandering can be seen in ... this series. Horrible doesn't even begin to describe the character that is Haruyuki Arita, worst main character yet, not only are his visuals ridiculous and 'quirky', but in true Otaku nature he wins all the fights and gets all the love interests, why? Because this is probably the creator's power fantasy, as SAO doesn't stray from that either.

I'd say give the show a watch and judge it for yourself, but if you did that, you'd probably be wasting your time lol.

There are no spoilers.

I was eager to watch this as it was one of those stories about a separate world, but I quickly realized how poor the story and characters are. The main character looks like Eric Cartman from South Park and while I have nothing against his apperance, the cover depicted him as some funny, sometimes angry fay guy. In reality he is a whiny, constantly crying and pathetic fatso. The way he is depicted as shorter than his peers is really annoying to me.

I, personally have no specific requirements for art or sound, but I care how good a story is, as well ... how enjoying it is, and this one has very mediocre story and the enjoyment wasn't big at all. The biggest compliment I can give to this show is that if I was 12-13 when I watched it, the chances of me enjoying it more (due to my underdeveloped tastes at the time) are higher.

Then the coolest girl in school that everyone admires instantly falls in love with him and even risks her life to protect him. Around that time I lost my patience and started skipping forward just to get rid of it.

Nothing really happened that piqued my attention, aside from the last villain who had particularly annoying personality and I honestly wanted him to get defeated. The show ends with a cliche happy ending and that's it.

If you like romance that makes no sense or unlikely heroes, you might enjoy this, for me those two aspects were forced to the point where the show became a pain to watch.

I'd like to preface this review by saying that I'm still very salty about how much time I wasted watching this, as I was unaware this was an adaptation of a LN by Reki Kuwahara and thus, going to be absolute garbage. If you have no idea who that is, I envy you greatly, but if you do you probably already know to stay away from this anime. If you're considering to watch this anime, I'd encourage you to do literally anything else. Go do your laundry or study or play video games or watch some other anime.

The worst part of this anime is ... undoubtedly the story.
The story is very weirdly paced, as most LN adaptations are. What's more to this is, that these separate story arcs really don't fit together.
Overall the first couple of episodes are actually watchable, even if they're not outstanding.
The next part, which features the first bit of supposed real fighting and the first Villain, is also okay, but what really bothers me is that there is a lot of wasted potential here. I seriously have no clue how Reki Kuwahara continuously comes up with ideas such as this and then manages to execute so incredibly poorly on them every single time.
However every episode after Episode 7, is sadly not as mediocre and just terrible. Not only is the story just insanely generic, boring, there are also a lot of plot holes and filler content.

The character designs are actually pretty decent and the animation is really good. All important characters have decent designs and the animation is pretty and I really only have one complain, which are some scenes containing the obligatory early 2010s bad CGI, but luckily there are very few of them.

The sound design is decent and although there are some weird sound effects it sadly wasn't enough to distract me from the story. However I absolutely can't stand any of the opening or ending themes. I don't really have super high expectations for music in anime, however the music in this anime was just really annoying. This is obviously highly subjective but I have a feeling that a lot of other people might agree with my opinion.

The main character Arita, is basically a fat Kirito from SAO that is getting bullied in school. He obviously has no hobbies other than "nerd stuff and always tries to "do whats right". He is basically another self-insert protagonist and I really don't understand how some people think this character is interesting in any capacity. He's a huge wimp in the first few episodes and then drastically turns into *drumroll* less of a wimp, which is what he will continue to be for the rest of the anime as Reki Kuwahara hates character development.
Kurashima is a female childhood friend and is in a relationship with Mayuzumi which I actually almost forgot, because they actually have less chemistry than Arita and Kurashima. This character starts out as what seems to be a tsundere love interest for Arita, even though she already is in a relationship, then goes back to just being good friends for most of the anime, and whenever the plot calls for some harem filler she will undress in front of Arita.
Mayuzumi is another childhood friend of Arita. I can't talk a lot about this character, but he basically starts out being very generic, and after some events becomes even more generic.
Kuroyukihime has great character design and that's it. She is pretty generic and her name is making me cringe pretty hard. The only bits of backstory we get really don't add anything to this character either. She is however far more likable than most of the other characters in this anime and also rarely does anything out of character, which is because she mostly doesn't participate in the main events of the story.

"Oh wow, you haven't heard that i'm going on a weeklong trip right after something weird happened today? Well, too bad! See ya in a week ^_^"

"*literally just passes out because the plot calls for it*"

Overall this has been an immense waste of time for me to watch and I would not recommend anyone to watch it. If you have read this and are still not convinced that this anime is bad, please forget everything I said and try to enjoy watching as most of the stuff I said in this review is subjective after all.

have a great day (´・◡・｀)