The first arc of this anime blew me away with originality and a fresh new story. I have to say I was astounded by the quality of the art and the intense detail that was put in to make it look realistic yet at the same time virtual. The OST's are incredible. You'll never get tired of listening to them. Usually I skip through the intros and outros of animes after I listen to them once, but SAO kept me coming back for more. The character development was on point. One of the hardest parts of watching anime that span through a long timeline is pacing. SAO tied each episode perfectly and they were lined up in tandem, even though there was a time gap between them.
The second arc of the anime was completely underwhelming and unsatisfying. It felt completely cliche and absolutely bored me to death. I can say that the fight scenes are very interesting though and they kept me chugging through the final episodes. I really wanted to like the second arc because of how much the first arc changed my perspective on the fantasy-RPG genre. I felt like this anime would have been perfect if they had just stopped it after the first arc, but was still entertaining as a whole.
