Sword Art Online is one of the most hyped anime series of 2012. Though after it finished airing the viewers had mixed remarks about it and the anime is now heavily criticized by critics and often described by some people as “worst anime ever”. Though the anime has totally failed to live up to its standards and has one too many flaws, still some of hate it gets is pretty irrational.
SAO (A short form used for Sword Art Online) is basically a gaming anime. As pretty much obvious from description, SAO uses the concept of going into a virtual world, which has been used throughout the series.
Before analyzing each detail, I will present some general positive and negative aspects of SAO.
Sword Art Online introduced its initial game concept in quite detail and a lot of fascinating gaming concepts have been introduced that can impress gamers and make them get into watching it. The sword fights in Sword Art Online and are undeniably one of bests one. Also SAO provides a lot of fan service stuff for light entertainment.
Now, as for negative factors, first of all SAO is “Non-Classified Generic Harem”. In easy words, it’s not an anime that can be actually classified as harem but SAO has literarily all qualities of harem. It’s entire story is rushed. The author has focused more on introducing more and more story arcs and what one would say waifu characters. Even the main love relation was rushed. Not to mention there are too many plot holes.
Generally its not an anime I recommend though if you are into gaming anime or you are someone new to anime and just want to watch some light-hearted entertainment, you might like SAO. Also you might also like it if you really love sword fights but if you are really into anime with plots, SAO basically doesn’t comes in that stuff
(Art: 10)
One of the things that I actually love about Sword Art Online is its animation style. Its character designs have been overall quite good especially the art style used for female characters. It does not have the best use of CGI but I really love the bright graphics, background effect and interaction between 2D and 3D models.
(Sound: 7)
Well overall sound track of SAO has well just been good. The opening and ending have just been fine, I personally prefer the second ones (“Innocence” and “Overfly”). The best parts of soundtrack for me are some of piano tones, especially the one that is repeatedly played at start of episode in earlier episodes.
(Story: 3)
SAO started by putting a great plot impression in first episode. It gave sense of a death game. However the series totally fucked up the concept.
What author tried to introduce was a psychological phenomenon in which first a person when separated from its native origins strive to escape the changed surrounding. He wants to cling on to his native identity. However with time he slowly starts accepting after observing the good things about changed surrounding and somewhat develops a place in his heart for it still loving the original even more. But for such a concept to effectively work, the story needs to be developed really gradually. So it was a risky experiment and SAO failed but I will give some credit for trying. In one episode we see character rushing to escape SAO and in next we have them completely relaxed.
Sword Art Online is also a love story between two main characters Kirito and Asuna which are the main character as you can tell from the opening. However it was executed really badly. In fact it’s rushed story and a forced relation. One can tell this by just comparing it with other love stories in SAO. You will realize others make more sense. For people who want to say, “Love can happen anytime and anywhere.” they should realize that in numerous top quality romantic stories, love started for no reason too. But in story the gradual development of feeling for someone is shown. How it started, with first sight or certain moment (Not necessarily with the character or even good moment). The story gradually reveals how characters feel in their heart as their feelings bloom. Kirito x Asuna pretty much ignored it all and if you compare it to other love relation, a lot of them at least gave an idea or showed more aspects of it.
It’s natural for an anime to have some plot holes but if one starts pointing out all plot holes from start, he might end up with more than 50 plot holes. I will just present few major and noticeable ones (The bullet points might contain spoiler):
• The villain never had a solid reason for what he did.
• In SAO, Kirito and Asuna were told that they were the first people in game to fall in love however the concept of in-game love and marriage was already presented earlier in series.
• In SAO, it was shown how players level can discriminate players and how high level players are literary invincible for low level players but this concept was completely ignored in later part of series especially extremely strong obstacle was defeated by single hit of something of lower level.
• The events of second story arc as told in anime were meant to begin about more than an year ago but if one connects, it could not even possibly be more than 4 months.
And SAO plot still has even more problems especially when you consider the later parts.
(Characters: 2)
Character development is the worst part of SAO. It is obviously evident from how story progressed that Reki Kawahara had practically no idea how character development is used. SAO used a cheap tactic to escape character and story development. It just kept introducing new characters and use them to make story progress. The result is a story in the form of multiple small story arcs. This is clearly an idiotic thing to do as the plot clearly demanded a continuous story showing gradual changes in personality. I am not saying anime using small story arc concept are bad but whether you use this or not depends on plot and is more effective for those anime that don’t require character development. An effective way of using these arcs for a plot like SAO is by linking episodes such that each arc is joined to form a continuous story. This can also be done by using an extra episode or part of episode showing how character has been influenced by each arc or simply using them to link each arc. However continuous story was still best way with occasional use of arcs as its not easy to write a completely continuous story.
OK now lets see how the characters are written (might contain slight spoiler)
The main character Kirito is an average teenage boy who is fond of gaming. He is good with technology and stuff and in fact was able to build PC at the age of 7 and also works as Beta tester. It’s actually his mysterious past that got it into gaming as he never find himself linking with his family due to it. For Kirito, MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is a platform that allows him to connect with people so he felt lively there. So his background has some worked done and its actually not bad. The initial part of story actually also develops his personality a bit but then just fucks it up. So for majority of series we have our average whinny over powered protagonist that either completely over-whelms his opponents or keeps getting saved by plot armor. He has pretty much no fix personality. His role is simply that of a playboy who basically wins heart of literary every girl he meets or at least impress them in some way but in the ends just reveals that he is in love with someone else. Kirito could have been a potential character if a dark factor was introduced in his personality in but author probably realized it would make him less friendly for female characters as well as for some fan girls, so he didn’t bother changing. So just to sum it all up, Kirito is a character who has some past but have a pathetic personality in the actual story. Just an average hero; which have a decent gentleman personality. Somewhat like a versatile prince charming.
Now, let’s discuss the female lead. Well Asuna is pretty much your everyday tsundere. Her background does not have much to with the plot of season 1, at least for the personality factor. Her personality is generally caring and loving. Comparing with some of other characters, Asuna personality has remained quite according to her part of plot. Though nothing really creative here either rather her role has been simple. She is basically waifu material and probably a reason that Japanese anime fan included her in the list of top ten anime female characters that they want as their wife, third if I remember correctly. In the end, I would conclude her personality does not have much flaws in it. But her role has been inconsistent. She started as a strong and main character but as story continues she pretty much becomes a secondary character in story in fact reaching to the status of Damsel in Distress at a point.
Ok, the third or second and sometimes even the most important role in any anime is that of antagonist. But SAO didn’t do any good in that department either. Potentially speaking, Akihiko had the potential of being the most creative character but in the end he is more of a confused personality.
As for rest, well pretty much some have been better but majority have been worse and I don’t even wanna get started on the despicable shit king or kawaii killer of plot.
(Enjoyment: 6)
SAO is poorly executed anime. Poor plot development, poor characters and poor character development. So for an anime with plot, SAO is no way near good. But a good plot isn’t the only standard of an anime being enjoyable, but not generally. An important factor while considering how much enjoyable an anime is to consider how it appeals to audience that aren’t much concerned about plot, character development or quality entertainment, rather they are just watching to pass their time, to relax and have a little bit of entertainment. So for such audience SAO, offers a jolly entertainment. It gives you light love stories, fan service, few jokes (mostly non-offensive ones). Also as I mentioned the virtual world (At least initially) is presented quite creatively and sword fights are really good. Probably all these factors are reason why SAO still has so many fans.
(Overall: 6)
Well according to this analysis, 6 is a fair rating for the SAO season 1. Just a reminder this is for season 1 only and if it was for whole series than it’s somewhat between 4 and 3. Now, depending on one’s standard the series rating can be varied between 4-6 but 7 or higher rating is quite illogical for it. Personally it is 4.5 stuff for me because I weigh plot and character development a lot higher.
Anyone who feels like criticizing it rationally or suggests improvement, please feel free.
