First of, the show, Sword Art Online, if not already known, features Kirito, a gaming addict that was a beta tester in SAO, as a protagonist. The show revolves around the Virtual World in SAO, Aincrad (An INCarnating RADius).
Anyway, the story as itself is a pretty interesting idea. To be able to fight and exist on a realm besides the Real World. The battle scenes in the show are pretty amazing and rather epic, in my opinion. Because it is on a virtual MMORPG, you would expect skills and such. The show was able to pull the effects off as something that looked both digital, but fatal as well. The OST, done by Yuki Kajiura, although not her best work, was pretty decent and fitting for most of the show. The OP and ED were decent from my point of view, and I thought was pretty fitting with the show. So enough said about that. Thumbs up for that.
On a personal level, I enjoyed it quite a lot. Namely because it was the first show that brought me back to the anime realm. Also, I suppose it might be a main character thing, but I believe there are many guys out there who'd like to fight like Kirito, or at least one of the characters, in the game. So, well, it kind of made me feel really happy. And I would give it a 10/10 for my personal excitement. Personal. Keep note of that.
Things were going great in the first arc, with nice fights and graphics. But I noticed that in the second arc, the quality dropped by quite a bit. The fight scenes were less badass and epic as the first half, and was quite a let down. Even the magic wasn't as cool as I had hoped. With exception of the bridge demon scene. That was pretty amusing. So it's understandable how people became dissatisfied with the show. The expectations of the first bit kinda made second bit seem really bad.
Another thing that has been mentioned countless times is Kirito's 'harem'. I use the inverted commas, because it's not a harem. It is clear cut that Kirito and Asuna are canon. Nothing else. Before the romance with her, however, he had met other players like Silica, Lisbeth, and Sachi. While Sachi is disputable, the author of the story decided to pair him up in the end. For comparision sake, a harem would be a show where the main character doesn't choose a girl in a blatant outright manner, like Ichijou from Nisekoi doesn't say out "I love you, Onodera." He thinks it, and doesn't decide between any of the girls he has. But Kirito chose Asuna. In fact, there were times where he met guys on his journey. But perhaps the animation company decided that only including the girls would make it more appealing. (Wait, would that give openings for yaoi... Okay moving on.) In summary, I believe that the argument of calling Sword Art Online a 'sucky harem anime' is invalid as it isn't technically a harem.
I must admit, the character development is near to non-existent. Kirito transforms from a VRMMORPG addict with no life, to a VRMMORPG addict with no life, with a girlfriend. He complains about having a lack of strength, but doesn't do anything about it. He just gets someone's shoulder to cry on when that happens. So once more, really annoying side to the story. Asuna, in fact, takes a step back, from timid VRMMORPG gamer to confident badass lightning fast commander of the Knight of Blood, and finally to weak princess who whimpers in her cell. It seemed as though having Kirito to protect made her less powerful. While she did attempt to escape, it was pretty weak, and careless, of an attempt.
Ah, don't forget the ending, right? The horrible deus ex machina at the end. Remember that he is just a noob in ALO. But oh wait, he kicks ass in the end. Why? Because SAO and ALO are linked. Heh. No that's not a spoiler. They say it at the start. Honestly, the battle at the end isn't even worth calling epic. Or a battle at all. It was a one-sided duel. Pretty much all of us knew he was going to win one way or another. But they picked a bad way to do it. That was a key point of the show that many people, including myself, were disappointed with.
While many didn't like the second arc, I have to say, logic-wise, it has a little bit of basis. Sorry if I spoil anything. In a nutshell, Asuna belongs to a wealthy family. But wait, this family is the one who made the NervGear. In parts of the world, arranged marriages are still acceptable. For the man in-charge of creating the NervGear to marry his comatose daughter to a man from another Virtual-Reality-related company is not something rare. Just so happened, that the man was a scheming little ass, and decided to manipulate the game into his field, so he could have Asuna, making her seem like one of the few 100 poor victims that were an excuse for his science experiments and marriage. And of course, why waste time holding the marriage of to a time where Asuna wakes up and can reject the marriage? Therefore arrange it such that Kirito has limited time, unlike in SAO where he had pretty much as much time as he would like.While the story is arguable, I find it reasonable to an extent, and I think, that while it seems draggy and unnecessary, it was the writer's decision. Personally, not looking at logic, I thought it was slightly fine, though clearly very rushed. In fact, the show missed out on a scene, where Kirito and Lyfa go into ALO's Underworld an are stuck there. Which pretty much sucked. I was hoping it'd be in an OVA or something (hint hint, producers).
In conclusion, I think Sword Art Online is a show with several good points, but several bad points as well. To anyone whose judgement of this show was influenced by anything at all, you poor thing. It made you either a person that overrated the show, or bad it sound like it was third rate crap made by a 10-year old. Either way, it continues to destroy the expectations that people originally held for the show.
In conclusion to my conclusion, I think this show is something that should be watched WITHOUT the opinions of anyone influencing you. Anime, not just SAO but everything, is not something you can compare side by side. Like you wouldn't compare Sherlock to Supernatural (I don't watch either, I am so sorry if I made any mistakes about that.), since they have different stories based on different concepts. So, I think it's unjustified to compare something, even in the same theme like Btooom!, to another show. If you have read this review before watching, fear not, just ignore everything (or at least most of it, except for this: If you're one for action and fantasy (with a slight bit of sci-fi), I suggest you watch the show. you might enjoy it.
I hope this has helped. Thanks!
