First off, is the story. The story in SAO is an interesting setup, guy logs into new MMO, everyone is trapped inside and they have to work to clear the 100 floors or die (quite literally) trying. This, at first is promising, we can explore themes of community, online gaming, identity, what drives people to game, and maybe even see some cool monster designs etc. The themes are really only present through the first 10 or so episodes, they do explore a little bit of each of the themes I mentioned (though not very deeply at all), but this quickly gives way to a hamfisted and tacky teenage love subplot that I found myself groaning through in just about every episode after ep. 14 or so. It continues on through the end of the series, and becomes a driving force for one of the characters to soldier on. There are also a few loose threads left, and some things they completely brush aside to address near the end of the series, but the resolutions just comes off as very half-baked and rushed.
The art and sound I didn't have any gripes with, on the contrary I found the art style to be detailed and the monster and character designs were often interesting. About midway through the season there is a shift and the art style changes to accommodate it (trying to avoid spoilers here), which I thought was handled well and made sense in context. As for sound, it was well done, there are sword clashes and clangs, and various sounds you'd expect in a video game. Surprisingly I didn't have much issue with the dub either, I found it very well done (probably due to the popularity of the show).
Ah, the characters. This is also where I draw some issues. Obviously Kirito, being the main character, is the character with the most depth. The writers do a decent job with his character growth, but he doesn't feel like a really fleshed out character, as his backstory is alluded to a few times but never really explored. There are two main female characters (one appearing much later), but they seem to serve as window dressing, we don't know much about them, they don't really seem to grow as characters much, and the writers don't seem to care much about developing them much outside of the archetypal lovesick teenage girl. Most of the side characters show up occasionally and fade back into the background of the show, some show up for an episode or two never to be seen again.
The antagonists of the series are very shallow, the first we never really get any understanding of who he is, what he wants, what he was trying to achieve, nothing. This left me wanting to know more, he does speak a little bit about his motivation in one episode, but it doesn't feel like they did enough with him, and then they brush him under the rug entirely. The second antagonist shows up a bit later on, and exhibits, yet again, another character archetype as the classic villain. The creators don't try to give him any sort of gray morality, and they often paint him as a remorseless power hungry rapist who just wants to exercise his power for his oh-so-evil plan to work.
Overall, I'm not really sure why I watched it to the end, maybe to see if they developed the characters more, or explored more interesting themes, but it just never happened. The production values were high, it's just a shame they didn't do more with it.
