SAO is, in fact, nothing more and nothing less than a decent anime: enjoyable, with fantastic art and music, maybe a little stereotyped but overall something waaay far from being horrible as it is usually said. It is far from being a masterpiece, just as it is far from being a piece of shit. Let's start analyizing the Anime:
Story: 7
In short, SAO brings us in the world of an MMORPG, the homonymous Sword Art Online. The fact is, when you're inside the game, you can't escape unless you beat the final boss of the game. To make things more complicated... if you die in the game, you die in real life. This is it, add some romance and some fillers and that's SAO. Sure it is not something you never saw before, but personally, as a gamer, this kind of stories always catch me, and that's what SAO did. If you don't expect to see the masterpiece SAO'll never be, you will enjoy it, particularly if you are a gamer and are used to that kind of things. Some episodes could be trivial (especially fillers and the first episodes of Elfheim Online), but it usually never becomes annoying or boring.It is flowing and enjoyable, and it has an happy ending, so take this bonus points. I'm personally sick of these depressed pseudo-deep endings.
Art:10
Simply amazing. Chara-design is awesome, the (few) fights that are there are ever better than most of the shonens where fights are everything and the World in which the story takes place is breathtaking. Something near perfect.
Music: 10
The music simply fits perfectly every moment of the anime. Serene and happy moment? Calm and relaxing music. Touching moments? Heartwarming music. Is that a fight? Music starts, awesome as the battle it accompanies. That's all, I don't think something could be better about the soundtrack, in this anime.
Character: 6
Here it is, the weak point of the anime. Characters. Well, Kirito and Asuna are both SERIOUSLY stereotyped, as is Kirito's sister with her useless puppy love, and unfortunately are most of the characters, too. But there's something that forbids me to give less than 6 here: Even if they're stereotyped, personally I developed affection towards most of the characters. There aren't obnoxious character, except the Villain because, you know, that is exactly his job. So even if there aren't characters like Vash The Stampede that you'll remember for ever, and ever, and ever, at least they won't make you want to break your monitor/TV to punch them. That's a point.
Enjoyment: 8
I personally liked this anime a lot. It is not a masterpiece and never will be, but it does what it must do: entertain you with a catching story, a wonderful world, music and art, nice-but-weak characters and an atmosphere that can be anxious and heartwarming depending on the moment, but it does its job. It can't do nothing more, but it doesn't have to. Just watch it, enjoy it, wish you were Kirito (...well, maybe only in Elfheim Online lol) and cry when you finish it, because yes, you will probably cry. In this, SAO succeeds. It could be better, but it is absolutely not bad.
Average score: 8.2
Final Score: 10
As I said, this is absolutely not a masterpiece. So why am I giving 10 to this?
Simple: this anime undeservedly took a deluge of bad votes and reviews for no reason. The only reason it has been destroyed by a large amount of viewers were his 5 minutes of fame when it came out, the horrible fanbase and the fact that by its fans is often considered one of the best anime ever (if not the best), when it ABSOLUTELY isn't. But this doesn't mean it deserves 2, 3 or 4, means simply that it is undeservedly overrated by most of its fans and for this reason... it is terribly underrated too. I mean, it's not that bad. In fact, it isn't bad at all. This 10 I'm giving is only supposed to bring some justice for all the undeserved bad marks this anime took. In a standard situation, I'd give to this anime a 7.5, but this is the situation and I hope people will judge this anime for what it is, and not for what his fans think it is. If you want a good shonen, here is SAO. Far from being a masterpiece, far from being shit. A nice, enjoyable shonen, nothing more and nothing less. 7.5 .
