Oh boy, where to begin with this show? I'm not a quitter when it comes to anime, I tend to follow through with things. Sword Art was no exception. I'm pretty tolerant, but this anime was an absolute trainwreck. I feel like I've been somewhat generous with this review.
I watched this anime knowing of some of the controversy circling around it. Knowing me I though ahh well, it can't be that bad right?
I was so wrong.
Story: 3/10
Enter the VRMMORPG Sword Art Online, a virtual reality game with a nasty twist. The first two episodes of this show are pretty solid. We are introduced to the problem, the world, and of course our main character - Kirito, a quite promising looking protagonist who already has some experience playing the game. Then it just...goes downhill from there.
The time skips make the pacing of the show confusing and erratic. The show relies mostly on filler episodes featuring Kirito and his many lady friends that no one cares about. What was even the point of most of those episodes anyway except for showing off how our perfect protagonist can make any girl fall in love with him completely on accident? And why did Kirito go to such lengths to help these girls anyway? Isn't he supposed to be some determined rogue player who never wants to join a guild again after that one guild? I almost even forgot that happened. Then they tried to force in that romance with Asuna. Didn't you just love watching her cook for Kirito...This arc is summarised in 14 episodes with a deus ex machina and a hopeless villain.
Honestly, despite this arc being rushed and quite terrible in execution, it is definitely at the top of the pile of absolute garbage. On to the second arc!
Welcome to Hell. Who decided this needed a second half? One with stupid fairies nonetheless. Here's a repeat of the first arc, with even more girls to fall for Kirito! Oh the joy. Here comes Kirito and his league of babes trying to save his wife from a gross villain. Great. What's Asuna's purpose in this arc anyway? Who cares! Let's throw in some incest instead! Japan loves that stuff! And thus, this arc is concluded with another atrocious deus ex machina and it's all happy ever after! Right guys?! Right?!
Art: 6/10
I quite liked the art honestly. Which is a shame. Character design was mediocre but the scenery was pretty and was definitely one of the finer points of the show.
Sound: 6/10
Generic. The fact that I can't think of any of the soundtracks from this anime shows that it was nothing memorable. I won't give it a bad rating though because me not remembering it also means that it wasn't bad.
Characters: 1/10
Here's where this review gets fun!
Kirito - I tried oh so hard to like him. I really did. My problem with him lies mostly on being boring. Whereas with other characters, I hated what they did to said characters rather than hating the characters themselves. He started off as a strong protagonist with some promise in the first episode or so. Why did they do this to you Kirito? He had absolutely zero character development. Talk about a blank slate. Not a single flaw. He had no trouble killing any boss solo, had fun being incredibly overpowered and making all the girls fall at his feet. The worst part was he just...so goddamn nice! If they made this guy a jerk I think I could've hated him with a bit of respect! He was just so awfully bland. Ridiculous.
Asuna - Kirito's love interest. Is there...anything more to say about her really? That was her purpose. They started off with a seemingly strong, independant female character who seemed to have no problem holding her own. She switched around a lot between being strong and suddenly needing Kirito to come save her at the snap of his fingers. Make up your damn mind! While her archetype of a tsundere was repetitive and annoying, you could perhaps warm to her a little. A little. Until they destroyed her by making her hopelessly in love with Kirito and having her become pitifully helpless. The second arc was a disgrace. They tossed any personality she had out the window so she could be a helpless doll held captive for Kirito to save. She might as well just of been a sack of potatoes with female genitalia for the villain to attempt to exploit. I was very disappointed.
Yui - Used to cheat the game basically. I can't believe Kirito and Asuna wanted to actually adopt this little bundle of atrocity. She had no purpose except to be a plot device and help Kirito in his quest to be the biggest overkill protagonist ever lived.
Suguha - She's worth a mention. Kirito's little...sister...cousin thing. As much as I hated the second arc's villain, she takes the cake for most hated character in this anime. She is nothing but a nuisance doting on Kirito. Once again, a female character who showed a tiny bit of promise before they decide to destroy every shred of dignity she had by Kirito just...exisiting. Right. She's there to throw in the necessary incest to make this show a complete trainwreck. It's totally appropriate to fall in love with your cousin right? How stupid could she be, Kirito clearly looked no different in the game I don't understand how she didn't make the connection. The "heart-wrenching" scenes between her and Kirito fell flat. She was always better off with that shy brat of a classmate she had.
Akihiko - Had potential to be a good villain! But they decided that actually, instead of just making him a jerk who wanted to play with people's lives or whatever, they decided to play him off as a grey-villain and "I'm kind of a good guy". He served to make the situation and give Kirito extra god powers. That's about it. I would've preferred a "I did it for the lols" explanation for his actions than what we actually got.
Nobuyuki - I absolutely detest this guy. Not only was his in-game character absolutely laughable (was he going for the Legolas elf look?) his character in its entirety was just atrocious. Are we not going to talk about how he's a man in his 20's and Asuna is an underage girl or...? It wasn't just me who got incredibly uncomfortable when he was sniffing the hair of her unconscious body? Ugh.
Side characters - Who even cares? Most of them are just pointless girls who worship Kirito. Such as that one girl who died and we got to watch them replay her death over and over again. I think that was supposed to be sad. Huh. I don't even remember her name. Please replace the protagonist with someone like Agil or Klein. Please.
Enjoyment: 3/10
What was there to enjoy? This anime was erratic, gross, and very poorly executed.
Overall: 3/10
Get rid of Kirito and replace him with a decent protagonist instead of a overpowered babe-magnet. Get rid of the romance. Get rid of the second arc and stretch the first arc over the 25 episodes. Stop relying on filler episodes.
And ta-daa! We have a potentially half-decent anime!
If you can deal with some of the more uncomfortable scenes then go ahead and watch this show to laugh at it! But don't expect anything actually good.
