Sword Art Online is a hilarious anime. While it's tagged as action, adventure and drama, it should definitely include the tags horror, and psychological, and comedy.
The character development is a perfect example of the later stages of type 1 diabetes. The anime begins by introducing the character "Kazuto". He is something years old, he has black hair, and his parents apparently do not exist. We forget about him soon enough, because we are introduced to him again as Kirito. Kirito has black hair, he is of an unknown age, and now he doesn't even exist, as he is permanently in a game.
Why did the developers of Sword Art Online decide to trap players indefinitely so that they essentially become vegetables in real life? Was it for economic gain? No, they are going to be arrested. Was it for political gain? No, they are going to be arrested. What is the motivation of the antagonists in this story? Does society not care at all about the thousands of people who were trapped and killed in an internationally public video game?
One month after the start of the the death game, Kirito learns that 2000 players out of the 1000 chosen for closed beta, have already died.
Very quickly, with absolutely no story or insight, Kirito becomes the seemingly most powerful individual in SAO.
He clearly only levels up so quick because he plays the game more than everyone else.
Somewhere in the story, Kirito meets a group of awful players. This group of bad players have an average level that is half the level of Kirito, and have a combined IQ of around 69.
A crazy female bad from the group breaks down to Kirito about how she is afraid to die, and Kirito immediately reassures her that he will protect her. Literally 14 seconds later, the group finds themselves stuck in a room with Kirito.
A bunch of monsters swarm in, and Kirito waits for them all to die before quickly disposing of the monsters in 1.6 milliseconds.
The leader of the group apparently realizes that with the death of his friends, the combined IQ of the Moonlit Black Cats is now 4, and he quickly jumps off a cliff. Kirito watches him as he flings himself to his death.
As it turns out, Sachi, the girl who broke down to Kirito, foresaw her own death, and recorded a message for Kirito telling him not to blame himself.
Unfortunately, Sachi's clever suicide also caused the deaths of her friends, so her post death message to Kirito was not very complete. Also, Kirito literally watched them die.
Apparently, unlike the hundreds of human players that literally live in the towns, not doing anything, Sachi and her friends have to fight monsters and die.
By now, the story has revealed that Kirito is a sadistic and bland person. He doesn't say anything smart, anything interesting, or anything funny. He doesn't do anything. He doesn't meet anyone that does anything. Literally nothing happens.
Kirito quickly progresses in levels, as he spends much of his spare time playing SAO, unlike apparently the rest of the population of players. He eventually meets Asuna,
Asuna's character can be defined as
Sword Art Online then ends, and Kirito is freed for around 14 seconds before joining the game again, except this time with wings.
The antagonist shows himself in the second arc, revealing his his lack of logic and character design. For some reason, he is going to be married to the vegetable Asuna, and he decides to focus the latter 12 episode of SAO trying to rape her with Kirito watching. He essentially puts Asuna in a cage for no reason, so that Kirito can save her.
Obviously, nothing happens in a majority of the episodes before Asuna somehow escapes the cage set by the admin of the game. She is quickly discovered by two scientists, who are actually jellymen. These scientists have tentacles because they are ugly in real life.
Eventually, Sugou, the main antagonist and sufferer of mental disabilities, begins to molest Asuna. The final battle! Finally! What the entire storyline has led to. The conclusion for this anime is literally a rape. Okay. This guy is literally getting married to Asuna, and he decides to virtually trap her for weeks, before virtually raping her?
Eventually, it coincidentally turns out that Kirito and Asuna live in the same city, and within a bikes ride distance.
In the end, Kirito realizes that he should continue to allow game developers to take control of people's lives, and uploads the "world seed" to the internet, which revives the virtual gaming genre.
