Reviews

GENERAL - So Sword Art Online... You'll love it or hate it. The premise of it is simple a game is released with a new hardware piece called nerve gear. After the beta test and the full game is released out our male lead Kirito joins on to see the new changes now that the game has come out for the public. All of a sudden there is no logout button. The game creator explains that they are trapped. If they die in the game they will die in real life. The nerve gear is what will kill them in real life and if someone tries to remove the headset it will kill them as well. So the game is a MMO RPG. In this game there are 100 floors. The only way they can escape is to get to the 100th floor and defeat the final boss only then will they be freed from this world.

So the story sounds very strong it has great potential so where exactly does it go wrong? Well the main issue is the time skips. We don't reallly get to see many of the floors acutallly being defeated a large part of the show is this slice of life type asepct within it. That isn't a bad thing exactly but it takes a way more tiem form the main sotry of it.

Okay now I do want to cover something else. Sword Art Online Progressive.
Its what SAO should be. It takes way more time to describe each floor and puts a focus on how to defeat the bosses itself and does a great job of making SAO into the story it should be. Now if it is ever animated this will fix nearly every problem that this series has.

Okay so I won't reallly cover the second arc. The premise isn't the greatest it may keep you interested but its nothign amazing and there are some other issues with it beyond that.

CHARACTERS - Okay I will only cover our 2 main leads here Kirito and Asuna.

Kirito is a simple character he is just that person that can win and he doesnt receive much character development. Not the greatest lead for a series at all but hie may be a fine character to others.

Asua starts off as a great character. She was the strong female protagonist of the show. Later on though she becomes a week charcter that always relies on Kirito to save her.

So this takes me back to SAO Progressive. Again even though its not in this anime series itself in Progressive these issues are next to none. The focus is put on Asuna which acts as a much greater lead then Kirito. If there is EVER a Progressive anime these complaints are next to non existent.

SOUND - Sword Art Online has one of the greatest OST's in an anime. It has many soundtracks that you may expect to hear in a real video game and can range from intense battle music to lighter soundtracks for the more slice of life parts of the anime.

ART / ANIMATION - Simply, the animation is amazing. Its bright popping colors and its very fluid animation is amazing and does a great job of showing how great some animation can be. The world of this game is brought to life greatly with its animation.

OVERALL - Well even though the show has many issues I do not feel its something to be skipped. When it comes to a series like this that is ofen overrated or hated you can not often find someone who is in between on it.
While I can see SAO's flaws it still has some parts to it that can be fun to watch.

SCORE - 7.2
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT - 8.0