After reading a few of the negative reviews here, I feel the need to set these people straight. This anime really hit home for me with the MMO theme + anime. Seeing the characters able to level up, use skills, and participate in all the other typical MMO activities has been quite fun. Yet, this is only part of the reason why SAO is so great. There is a lot of character development that makes you care about what is going on in the story, and this allows the producers to successfully tug on your heartstrings. The pacing has been great so far (I’ve seen 17 episodes) with a significant turning point being the thirteenth episode. Not to spoil anything, but I honestly thought SAO could’ve ended at episode 13 and thoroughly enjoyed the next few after it.
While the art isn’t the best I’ve seen in anime, it is still quite good and there is at least one impressive scene per episode where I think how cool it would be to play in the location shown. Overall this anime has been very enjoyable to watch and I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in video games and anime. You will not be disappointed!
