Animation & Artwork: 9.5 / 10
I'll make it short. There isn't much left to improve. The only thing that keeps me from rating it 10 out of 10 are the facial expressions which are sometimes overdone (especially regarding Sugou). Also some action scenes tend to be blurry and the characters in these scenes seem to be offmodel. This occurs especially in ALO. Other than that... great characterdesign, backgrounds that can be described as "Scenery Porn" without exaggeration and overall animations were probably among the best ones I've seen yet. Currently, Sword Art Online ranks second amongst the most beautiful Anime I've seen yet, after Fate/Zero and ahead of HenNeko.
Characters: 8/10
Depending on the Situation, Asuna can be pretty moe (I see now why she won the SaiMoe Ruby Necklace). She's a good cook, is gently and due to character design even for anime standards dang beautiful. Oh, did I mention she's the Vice-Commander of the best guild, learns extremely fast and has the fastest attack speed of each known characters? She's dang Badass Adorable.
Hmmm... I'm not sure if you can see Kirito as a normal Shounen-Protagonist due to the not-that-standard Setting, compared to let's say, Naruto, Bleach or Fairy Tail. Whatever. His main drive in the story is to clear the game as soon as possible. Due to unfortunate events, he get's quite bitter until he meets Asuna and snaps out of it. His and Asuna's interactions with each other and especially with Yui are really cute, I for one got a warm and fuzzy feeling each tim they were together. Furthermore, he's also an generally nice guy. And so by the way he is the only SAO-Player with Dual Wield, kicks even boss-asses and tends to go berserk. He's a Badass Bloodknight.
Hell, even the Sidecharacters have their moments of awesome and badassery.
The only characters I really didn't like one bit were the antagonists of the arcs. I despise the first antagonist for forcing the players to participate in a massacre for his own amusement. And Sugou, the Antagonist of ALO, is such a douchebag that you have the urgent drive to ram your fist in his face everytime he pops up on the screen.
The show get's carried by Kirito and Asuna, and they do a dang good job at it.
Sound: 9/10
Hmmm, the Openings and Endings were quite good. The Japanese dub was excellent. For a change of things compared to other Shounen-Anime, I didn't have the urge to facepalm and ask myself "Really, dou you have to scream that much?". The reason this rating is so high is due to the BGM which can be described as epic. It doesn't matter what the situation at hand is, the OST fit's to a T. And SAO makes you know when it want's to be awesome, cause the OST does help a LOT. (Especially in Scenes where Kirito uses his Dual Wield, the combination of that and the music will result in much awesomeness).
Story & Storytelling 7/10
For me, the whole "get-sucked-in-a-game-and-survive" Setting is new. I haven't seen Series like .Hack or Accel World yet. Due to that fact, the Idea was interesting - a normal game becomes a Deathmatch that only ends if the big bad is slain and each lost life on that mission is an absolute death. Personally that's quite the harsh tone for a Shounen. ALO though has a quite weak story - the hero must save his princess, that's all.
For reference I read the Light Novels volumes one to four. The Adaption of the books was quite good though not perfekt. I personally didn't really like these Timeskips, they made it quite impossible to have a smooth flow.
ALO... Well, it was a weak arc in the LN as well frankly spoken. The antagonist was an even worse arsehole in the Anime than in the Novel, the Story wasn't quite as deep as the first arc's one, I didn't like the Idea with these fairies (Why fairies of all things? Why not Half-Dragons or something that's awesome?) and it became quite boring towards the end.
At least I often cracked a smile when the awesome scenes occured or when Kirito and Asuna were together, they are a perfect match.
Enjoyment: 8/10
If you take the whole series, the enjoyment would be a straight 8 out of 10. SAO alone would be a 8.5 out of 10 while ALO would just be a 6.5 out of 10. SAO was diverting, exciting, I liked the characters, it was occassionally funny - simply spoken very entertaining through and through.
ALO though... less. Like I already said, why in the name of god did the author decide to make badasses into fairies... Else, the several already mentioned deficits. Opening and Ending were not as good as the first one. Suguha was sometimes pretty annoying with her BroCon. But Sugou takes the crown. I've rarely seen such an absolute douchebag in an anime - I literally cheered When Kirino defeated him - mind you, it was three a.m.. The main issue with ALO though was that Asuna didn't get the chance to do any fighting whatsoever.
Rewatch: 7/10
It's quite the high rating. It doesn't matter that the end is already known since, despite all the seriousness of the story and the rather realistic problems of the characters, it's a shounen after all. What makes a rewatch enjoyable as well is the great chemistry between Asuna and Kirito - for me, they are in the same league as Yuuta x Rikka (OTP from Chuuni), Yoto x Tsukiko (OTP from HenNeko) or Ruri x Kyousuke (Favo-Pairing from OreImo). Maybe they even reach in the realm of Ryuuji x Taiga, whom I consider to be the best couple in the history of anime. Another reason to rewatch SAO are the astonishing good action scenes in the first arc.
Rating for both arcs: 8 outta 10
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Woah, kinda positive surprise there. If ALO didn't have the mentioned Problems, maybe SAO could've got a straight 9 outta ten. I really apologize to SAO and it's fans due to the fact that I mocked them and branded SAO as overrated crap. It was after just getting myself to read the novels that I grew interested in it.
