Everyone urged me to watch this so I did and my thoughts afterwards were: yeah it's okay but why are you guys all going bat shit crazy about this anime?
Me personally I don't get it.
Story (5) !!!SPOILER ALERT!!!
I admit, the first two episodes build up a huge potential. But I had to realize that they did not seem to be willing to use any of that potential at all.
They just present you irrelevant side-kicks which they kill off pretty soon.
The story is so fast paced that you don't even have time to like any of it.
All happens so fast that i found it hard to care about anything that was going on.
If they would have kept it down a bit, maybe SAO would have been a great anime. But like this it is almost inevitable that all those plot holes and deus ex macchina moments show up.
Art (9) : Yes the anime looks great. They did a great job and really tried to compete among other AAA titles and they created some pretty awesome pictures. The beautiful images created were one of the few things that kept me going throughout season 1.
Sound (9) : Great job here as well. Nothing to bitch about.
Character (6): Like I said. Due to the fast pace of the anime I didn't even have time to like any of the characters and even if I did they were killed off anyway before I knew anything about them.
Enjoyment (6): Since they didn't really develop the characters, made me rush through way too compact storylines, there was nothing to enjoy except for the well done fighting scenes.
This anime clearly was not for me. If you like very fast paced stories and don't care that much about detail give it a go. You will enjoy the fighting scenes and maybe one or two major reveals.
If you are looking for a complex story and interesting characters, move on to a different anime, there is nothing to see here.
