Story, lets be serious, if you don't know the story of this anime at this point in time you are either new to anime or completely ignorant. As we know, we have Kirito who is trapped in an virtual reality online game where if you die once you die in real life. From here people either kill themselves to test that ( smart right? ) or start killing others ( smarter right? ). Anyway, our hero will try to end this game to free everyone. He is OP in everything that has to do with warfare, and somehow gets a harem, but of course he is only interested in the female character Asuna. Asuna is .. you could say even more perfect than Kirito. She is a goddess or something like that. Well, after 15 episode or so, you get a classical Mario ending ( The princess is in another castle ) and we start again with another VR online game. Until now you might hate this anime to the core. But, we have good things. The idea is original in the anime genre, being the first one to create such a setting. The villain being someone closer that it was believed at first, also became a good point. The love story went well ( the bad part being the characters themselves ). And the actual fighting was awesome. Well thought moves and skills. For me, the story gets a 6.
Art, I can hardly understand why people could even begin to complain about the art. When anime like "Ping pong the animation" gets a almost full marks in this category I feel like puking each time I try to understand why someone can simply rate it as bad just because he or she can't stand something from another category. We have a fluid artwork that is great to see especially in the fighting scenes. The scenery was sometimes breathtaking and other times eerie. The characters were designed to be either cute as sugar or nasty as crap. But that's just how the author wanted them to be seen. In my opinion, art can get a 9.
Sound, if you have a problem with the sound you have a problem with Yuki Kajura that made the soundtracks for Fate/Zero and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Those series obtained the highest marks possible in this category but once again were hated in this anime because of one big problem from another category. The openings and ending from both parts were absolutely great, and I don't think there is an anime fan who hasn't listened to them at least twice or thrice. Once again, a 9.
Characters .. Sorry, I know that I praised two categories one after another, and that may be biased, but I won't make a review just for that. In my opinion, the characters were, simply, clearly and absolutely DREADFUL. From the first to the last they were puppets created just so the author could live his fantasies. None have any depth, none have any logical background, all of them are so shallow that you can either ignore completely or see them as just side characters that weren't meant to be. From me, with all the possible love, a 2.
Enjoyment - I watched it. Not once, but twice ( i was bored ) and I could watch it from the beginning until the end. I felt annoyed sometimes, that's true, but sometimes I felt like I could really enjoy it. In other words, a 7.
Overall - If you haven't watched many anime's and wish to be immersed into one, watch it. Depending on your mentality it can strongly attract you. If not, well, it may be good as a reference in the genre as it has a huge amounts of cliches. It receives a 7.
