This show seemed to have a whirlwind of either positive or negative feelings centered around it last year. I'm joining the latter.
Story
The concept itself seemed great. Thousands of people are trapped in a virtual MMO by a lunatic game creator, and their only means of escape is to surpass all the game's levels. There's even a fatal catch.
While the first few episodes held promise, it struggled and then fell flat on its face. I could rant on and on about why I didn't particularly care for it. Honestly, I wanted to watch for the gaming aspect-- which is almost non-existent. Besides the bosses and enemies, the most you'll probably see is HP levels and gathering materials.
Another massive problem **spoiler?** is the romance. I suppose this is supposed to be the show's strongest point. Their relationship should be a reason to keep on fighting to get out in this dire world. They want to save everyone and burst out of that virtual hellhole, right? No. In fact, there's about 3-4 episodes where they're just slacking around. There could be more strategising, but this obstacle just sort of shoves that out of the picture.
And here we get to the root of the problem. The pacing. The series is 25 episodes long. The first arc spans across 15 episodes, and the second across the last 10. We jump forward levels upon levels. The first part is almost completely centered around their non-progressive romance and then we have... um, the rest. I can't even stress this enough. The second part is downright meaningless and disturbing at most points. I'm not entirely sure if it's based directly off the manga, but perhaps it would've been better to trash the second arc and just expand the first.
Art
It did have some colorful and amazing art. Whenever they stumbled into a fighting scene, it ran so smoothly it really blew me away. The hair movement, the weapon clashing... Agh, it just blew me away.
Character
Kirito is probably the strangest character I've ever seen-- not appearance-wise. At first he was a loner, and he several girls falling around him. That all changes, sort of? I felt as if I really couldn't get a read on him. He was just kind of there main character and had some likeabe moments. Then we have Asuna. Everybody knows and loves her in that world. She comes off as tough at first and then dwindles down a bit.
The supporting/side characters are literally just supporting characters (they appear during random battles and whatnot). And some are seen maybe twice and then never again.
In conclusion...
My advice would be to not go diving into this series expecting too much. You might be disappointed.
