First Arc Review:
The story falls apart halfway through the first episode, and never pieces itself back together again.
The pacing is the worst I've seen in any story ever and this includes the 2005 Fantastic Four movie. It jumps around all over the place, speeding through important things, while taking it's sweet time to slog though bullshit. It sometimes will just imply interactions that never happened, and leaves the watchers feeling as though they are just watching a highlight reel of all the worst parts.
The characters are shallow and will appear once, never to be used again, leaving unused story threads everywhere.
The main character is at some points emotional and friendly, and at others a neckbeard Mary Sue of the worst kind. We sometimes see glimpses of someone's better writing in the cracks in the wall of mediocrity that SAO is, like in the segment about Kirito's first guild buddies. Unfortunately, at all other times, Kirito is written as a perfect unstoppable force, only able to quelled by cheating. We're meant to believe that Kirito is flawless, his only failure being that everyone is just too stupid for him. We are then lead to believe that this socially inept, pompous douche manages to romance a rich, beautiful and talented girl within a matter of ~3 episodes. It's really just painful to watch unless Kirito is the kind of person that you aspire to be.
Second Arc Review:
The second arc is better than the first, though that's not saying much.
The story, though not great, is more straightforward, and never feels like it's leaving anything out. It makes us feel like the things that happen in the show matter more than in the last arc, even though it's no longer a life or death situation.
The pacing in much more intuitive. Episodes pick up where they left off, and sometimes characters do come back to contribute to the story. There is a solid goal set throughout and one feels more reason to be engaged.
I cannot remember any characters from the second arc, aside from Kirito's sister, called "Leafa" in the game. That doesn't matter much, though, because Leafa is a pretty good character. She has a lot of synergy with Kirito, partially due to the fact that they are of equal skill and must work together to get things done. I didn't hate her, and that's more than I can say for Asuna.
Kirito is also better here. Though he manages to succeed in his goal of saving Asuna, hes not flawless in this game, and seems more human because of it.
Overall:
Don't watch this show. If you do, pirate it. Please do not support shit like this. It only makes anime worse, and none of us want that. Thank you for your time.
