What drives Sword Art Online Alicization is its new world and its simple goal. Save Alice, and climb the tower, where Kirito might get the chance of escaping or contacting the outside world. It's a relatively simple plot driven by the mechanics of the world, with numerous exposition dumbs. On the first watch, they are hard to get through, but they are subtle foreshadowing and necessary parts, as this time, there are consequences, and more people in the world aside from Kirito. As a whole, the world grows on you, and all the small details build a world, not just backgrounds. The author crams stuff about the world whenever he can, in conversations, images, history, and whatever he can.
This does cause some questionably slow pacing at points and frustratingly long episodes consisting of only dialogue, trying to convince you that the author isn't making things up. There are a couple of episodes like this, episode 5 as a prime example. It was them talking and trying to explain how the whole impossible circumstances were theoretically possible. The show also likes to take its time with its storytelling, making the story develop as organically as possible. There is a pleasant lack of time skips, as the show skips what would only be boring training and years of them chopping wood. However, this time, the story not only occurs in the virtual world but in the real-life world, as the two storylines slowly converge. What makes the first five episodes more interesting than the following 5 was the mystery(Contrived and see-through as it was) and its simplicity. It was only in the subsequent 5-9 episodes that it fell apart, before slowly re-constructing itself back together in the last arc.
If there were to be a complaint with the story itself, it would be the Sword Academy episodes. They had very little to no relevance to the central plot, and all it introduced were two typical SAO villians. I suggest you watch episode 10 despite the warnings and complaints, as it has a scene with Eugio and Alice that can't be missed and are the only redeeming part of the 5 episode arc. But beware of gore and some not Vanilla scenes.
Art 8/10
Long Gone are the days of a low-budget SAO, with animation that improves itself each episode. It was a great adaptation of its Light Novel Counterpart and seemed to add more depth than A1 usually does. As it takes place in a world similar to a game but adheres more to them than real world logic, there are a few scenes with light gore. These scenes seem to raise the stakes but also add a sense of reality, that previous seasons lacked
Sound 8/10
Not much to say but that Sword Art Online destroyed its sound game again. The OST nailed it and did well elevating its scenes. The sound design itself, Sword strikes, ability sounds, and the regular sounds are halfway through an evolution. It's not the generic sword clash sound or the generic rubble sounds, but more refined and fitting ones. It's near perfect. The Voice Acting was on point and conveyed plenty of emotions.
Character 6.5/10
Excluding the terrible and horrible villains that were the Noble Duo, the "Antagonists" and the season's overall characters were quite good. Without the episodic formula and containing a flowing story with long passages of time, this arc's characters were great for what they were trying to do.
Kirito, usually the overpowered and harem King, acts more like a boisterous and generally decent protagonist for the season. As most of his annoying traits are boiled down to him being bland, Overpowered, and having a Harem, seeing him without it does wonders for his character. He also does well in a storytelling perspective as he learns about the world, allowing us to learn it through him and being the one unique thing to the world. However, he is quite bland, and what makes his character a lot better is due to Eugio. Eugio acts as Kiritos friend and one saving grace of Alicization for him. Eugio has plenty of small pieces of development that are pretty good, but his bond with Kirito makes Kirito decent and their dynamic more bearable. Their characters are pretty simple but not generic, and there are few things to talk about them, aside from the fact that they just work.
While over half of the cast were females, they had minimal feelings for Kirito, making them more bearable. No Harem gets built here, aside from a couple of Generic instances, and they evolve to be more than just living fanservice.
The "Antagonists" are all quite decent as well. They are all antagonists not by choice but by the situations that Kirito and Eugio were in. Also, minor spoiler, it helps that the person they come to rescue and the main reason of the show turns out to be the secondary main antagonist from the same group that they were fighting, humanizing them subconsciously. There is a nice mix of antagonists, villains, and opposing forces. The antagonists get small pieces of development that are used in further seasons and can be understood. The Opposing forces get similar amounts of growth and fulfill their role. The villains, on the other hand, are just bad.
The two antagonists of the Sword Academy arc, were the Fairy King Overon all over again, but going further and including a gory scene for no reason. They are the representation of what is wrong with Sword Art Online villains. As for the main villain, she just seemed bland. Like the author had built her up, and used her as a plot device for the story, but when it came to her character, didn't know what to add. She isn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination, and she isn't a horrible person, just nothing really.
Her fight and her end was definitely a bit weird, pulling the regular SAO Villian power of friendship ending/ruining of all stakes and reason. Kirito did the most Kirito thing and hacked the game(for like the 5th time), and a different character pulled a power of Friendship, but this time with more thematic relevance, and dumb as it was, wasn't too annoying.
Enjoyment 7/10
After watching the next season and the last episode, it was clear that this was a setup and nothing but a prelude to the next season. It had parts that dragged and were slow. It set the purpose of introducing the characters' world and place while taking place on a loose storyline. However, it did end interestingly, including so many small details that shine hard on the rewatch. On the first watch, I gave it a 2, and now I give it a 7.Thats not to say that you will hate it on the first watch, but that there are annoying and plenty of boring parts of the show that annoyed me along the way. Just don't drop it on episode 10. It gets better after that.
Overall 7/10
It did well with most things it tried. Don't listen to the people who call it the greatest arc or the best that there is. Some parts are the peak of SAO, but there are plenty that are the Biggest downfalls of SAO. I would give it higher for the tier of Waifu that it Alice, but most of her best parts come from the next two seasons. It acts as the best buildup in the series so far and has plently promising aspects.
