Now that that's settled I'm guessing some of you who even bothered to read this damn review are wondering about the low score despite the declaration above. And fair warning but most of what you are about to read is just plain ranting and most of it has been said by countless others before me so if you're not in the mood for that then please stop reading and change the web page now...........................
Still w/ me? Hoookay then. First of all let me start by saying I absolutely adore SAO. It's the series that got me into reading LNs (Light Novels) in the first place along w/ To Aru Majutsu no Index. I loved it so much I was sneaking peeks at the baka-tsuki web site for updates using my workstation PC behind my boss's back. Risk of being fired straight away be damned! But, like countless other adaptations of a written work, a lot of what A-1 has done w/ the anime just degrades the series in it's entirety it's become cringe worthy even for die hard fans such as myself.
(Story/Characters)
THIS is where the adaptation failed the most. I know the futility of arguing about how great the source material is to an uncaring bunch so I'll not do that for the sake of my health. But I'll try to point out the things w/c made this adaptation such a train wreck anyway.
Some have complained about the countless time skips the anime implemented though out the first arc saying it's too abrupt a transition and that it had a ton of wasted potential. Apparently Reki agrees as he is currently working on a remake of the Aincrad arc called Sword Art Online: Progressive w/c would recount the adventures of our MC Kirito over the two years they spent trapped inside Aincrad giving it a more fleshed out feel and better pacing. See this series was originally an entry piece to a one-shot novel writing contest w/ a very strict and specific word count way back when. It's only after it's growing popularity that Reki was told to come up w/ follow up novels. But since the demand for the continuation of the original work was high he wrote a direct sequel w/out fleshing out the prequel resulting in a work w/c had problems when it comes to story transition and character development. Would the story have been better if they waited for Progressive to finish? I don't really know. But I do know that it would've flowed better.
As for the story itself there is no denying the fact that it's Shounen w/ a blatant self-insert OP MC. It's cliche as hell and the pseudo harem can be really annoying. But it has it's moments. And what actually adds to it's charm is Rekis writing style. He conveys a lot of different emotions and scenes expressively while managing to pack it in as less words as possible. It's not very wordy and comes in easily digestible paragraphs w/ occasional moments of dry wit, sarcasm and silliness. Kiritos inner monologues are amusing and at times bizarre w/c made reading them such a joy.
I'm sure the ones on the other side of the fence vehemently disagree I'm not touching that even w/ a 20 foot pole. One can argue that this is just Reki trying to dress up a poor story by using walls of text. But really people. There are countless other literary works out there and there exists not one sure fire way to differentiate ones work from the rest of the pack. If being able to add color to a cliche story and setting by using wordplay isn't a sign of a competent writer then the world really does lean towards the idea "Originality is King" more so than I had initially thought. I've seen countless other works fall flat on their collective faces even after boasting strikingly original concepts though so I don't even know what to think now.
So after all that ranting I assume you've already had an inkling of what I was going to say next. What? No?... My bad then. Anyway the point is that the crux of this series is Kawahara Rekis writing. There are no too ways about it. The internal monologues and colorful scene and character descriptions add flair to an otherwise bland story. The anime fails to incorporate even an inkling of that w/c is why it failed for the most part.
(Art/Sound)
The art I can live w/. Despite having fluid animation most of the time I find it real hard to look at the character art w/c really looks like Poplar and the gang from Working! w/c is understandable given it's A-1. But it doesn't really remove my misgivings w/ the art. The fanservice... meh it was in the novels too but at least it was fairly less overt that what the anime made it seem to be. But I do agree Reki f*cked up w/ the tentacle scene. I'll give you that. Most fans agree actually.
As for the music well I honestly felt it wasn't on par w/ Kaijura Yuukis other works. You can make all kinds of assumptions as to why this was the case but I won't jump on that too thank you.
(Overall)
Shame. A real damn shame. I still like SAO and probably will continue to like it but the adaptation really does such a poor job at conveying most of the things that made me (and other fans) like it as much as we have it really leaves you w/ a bad aftertaste. And for the legions upon legions of SAO haters out there... I feel you guys. I really do. My one single flickering hope is that the new season would at least upgrade this series as "watchable" instead of "utter trash" in your collective books. I know that's just wishful thinking but well... people can hope right?
