The reason for Sword Art Online’s popularity, I believe, hides behind its interesting concept to the anime fanbase. A virtual reality game which you can almost physically be in, though not really. It is the dream of any gamer, and there are some idiots in this world who might even be want to trapped in one. It is not a rare fact to anyone that the majority of the anime fanbase consists of regular gamers. Turning Sword Art Online into their ultimate fantasy, add in a vibrant harem of hot chicks and it’s perfect.
Story: 2.7/10
Whomever wrote the scrip for Sword Art Online, was very confused about the genres he was going to focus on. Sword Art Online starts off as a dramatic anime, which emphasizes death and the hard loss behind it. The drama in the first two episodes is brilliant, but do not get your hopes up, because everything else is very disappointing. After the first two episodes we get lots of girls. And all these girls fall in love with our main character; Kirito. Why do they fall in love with him? Because he has been blessed by the harem God, that controls the feelings of all women, anime. Anyway, these girls get one or two episodes on them, in which they are saved by Kirito, fall in love with him, and then Kirito just straight up walks out. If they didn’t appear later on in the series, I would have thought that all this was filler.
The main objective in the first half of Sword Art Online is to beat the game, in order to escape. Now being trapped in a Virtual Reality Game, where almost everyone carries weapons and there is no government, you would think that escape would be a pressing matter. But nope, let’s go fishing. Because every gamer loves fishing.
After the first few episodes escape from the game is no longer a concern for the main characters, but building a nice family in their teenage years is. The ‘main plot’ comes back midway and is solved in an episode or two, and then completely thrown out for a new plot, which is a complete rip off of every Mario game ever made. Oh and involves incest… fml.
You know the scrip writers are not very bright when the word BEATER comes from the word BETA TESTER and CHEATER, put together. What. The. Fu*k.
Characters: 1.9 (It doesn’t deserve a 2)
There are three main characters in Sword Art Online; Harem King Kirito-chan, Mary Sue and Incest Fanservice. I will also talk about supporting characters as a whole and the two main antagonists; “I forgot, lelelel” and Professor Evil. (Don’t worry if you don’t get the character jokes, it’s just to make any Sword Art Online fan feel bad)
First there is Kirito, also known as Kazuto Kirigaya (Don’t care if I spelled that wrong, because that’s how little significance this real name has), who is the most badass man to ever walk planet Earth, and gets all the gamer girls. No like seriously, everyone he meets. Even Kein. Kirito is a character that is insanely strong, even stronger than the game itself. He is possible the man with the biggest plot armor in all of anime. Like what happened in the final fight of the first arc?? Even in the second arc, like how did he win? How did he become the GM outta nowhere? Through the power of Love and Friendship!!! There really isn’t much to say about Kirito since he doesn’t really do much, character wise. All he does is: save girls, beat bad guys, and go fishing.
He’s the strongest Sword Art Online player, and for the convenience of the plot, did it by playing solo. Now I don’t play many MMOs but even I know that, it just doesn’t happen. He is literally there to just solve every problem by himself, even if he can’t do it, he does it, because fu*k it. And he always comes out unharmed.
And the worst part is, all his fights are won through him slashing his swords really hard. There are no tactics, no surprises, just “AAARRGHHH”!! FRIENDSHIP POWWAAAHHHH “STAR BUST STREAMMMMM”. Kirito Dies… Lol no, he lives…
Then there is Asuna. She starts off as a very badass female character, something you do not get in anime a lot, but then gives all of that up so that she can cook for her husbandu. No seriously, why did Asuna waste time learning how to cook, while they were trapped in a life threatening game. Makes you wonder, if they ever wanted to escape in the first place.
Other than Kirito no one in this series actually does anything, including Asuna, so cooking for him and providing us with fanservice was the only reason she existed in this anime.
then for the last main character of the Sword Art Online series. His freaking cousin.
The only reason Suguha existed was because Asuna didn’t have bigger boobs and because incest was the only thing Kirito was missing in his harem. And sure, marrying your cousin is acceptable in many cultures, maybe Japan, but she lived with him like his sister. His actual fu*king sister. She fell in love with her brotherly figure. That shit is messed up.
Even in the second half of Sword Art Online, where she was important she really didn’t do anything, except tell Kirito where to go, and how to play. Not much to say.
The supporting characters of this series, don’t really need to exist. Yui is dues ex machina for every situation. Klein, despite having potential in the first half, never comes back again until the next season. There is Kirito’s harem which got one episode to get Kirito’s wand, and then never appeared again. Basically these characters could be replaced with walls and nothing much would change.
Now lets talk about the villains. First villain; Kayaba. He is the one responsible for creating this world, where he wanted the burden of death to also exist in games, like it did in real life. Why? The writer couldn’t think of anything and so Kayaba actually, forgot why….. I’ve heard rumors that SAO was written while the author was 16 years old, I think he might have been 5 tbh.
The next villain is Sugou. He wants power, money and women. The End. Kirito beats him with bullshit. Shitty villain, shitty character and shitty ending.
Enjoyment: 8.4/10
The animation, scenery and music are actually very well done is Sword Art Online. The production value for this series was really high because, even though the producers of this anime did not know how to write a story, they knew the type of stuff people will watch and invest their money in. And hence they used a lot of money because they knew they were going to make a lot of money. And most people cannot argue that the show was indeed enjoyable. It was actually entertaining. Even more so entertaining, when you realize that it’s really bad and can laugh at it while watching old episodes to write reviews on website >_>.
The action sequences in this anime are just fine. They don’t really stand out, specially for an anime with ‘Action’ as one of it’s genres. And they are very bland, in the sense that Kirito just fights with his swords. Though it is a game about swords, I expected more imaginary powers, like in an actual fantasy MMO game.
Final Results: 5.4/10
