I can say for a certainty that I loved the concept behind it. I absolutely loved the concept of a game developer trapping gamers inside a virtual reality MMORPG and they have to struggle to survive in this world. In order to complete the game, they have to reach the top floor and defeat the final boss to free everyone from this world. As soon as I heard that concept, I knew I would really enjoy this. Although, I will admit, this series tested my patience at times.
While it's been the topic of much debate amongst fans, I actually really liked the characters. The lead protagonist is Kazuto Kirigaya (Kirito), a 14-year-old (16 after the series jumps ahead two years) online gaming junkie who's a bit of a loner and I can say I liked his character. I wish the series would've done a little better job of hashing out his backstory, but considering that would become a minor plot point later on in the series, I bared with it. Asuna Yuuki was yet another character I really liked right off the bat. She's a bit cold toward everyone and for the most part keeps herself hidden, but you could tell she's a tough player. I really liked how they portrayed her as the series wore on during the Aincrad arc and (I'm not even sure I can consider this a spoiler anymore) thought it was nice that her relationship with Kirito went into a positive direction. My biggest complaint with Asuna is that I wish we could've seen a little more of her backstory both inside the game and out considering this series becomes very jumpy with its plot in the first 7 episodes. I liked the chemistry both her and Kirito shared, although that did change later on during the Alfheim arc. I also found the side characters to be quite endearing as well, although, many of them got very little character development due to a serious lack of screen time. I found Ryo (Klein) and Andrew (Agil) to be some very nice side characters that assisted Kirito and Asuna at times during the game, with Klein being the first person Kirito met in the game. The antagonists were done quite well and it was interesting to see how Akihiko's plot unraveled. The only thing I can say as a negative toward the antagonists was that they were rather predictable. It is one of those animes where you know EXACTLY who a villain is as soon as they appear in the series. Overall, the characters were good base characters, my one argument would be they needed to be hashed out a little better.
I did personally like the romantic elements behind this series, but I did find myself groaning at the forced romantic tension that was brought forth in the latter half of the series. I've seen many people consider this a harem anime, and while I wouldn't call it a harem myself, A-1 certainly gave an impression that they were trying to give Kirito one. While I didn't necessarily like this move by A-1, I thought they did a nice job ironing it out in the final four episodes.
I would mention the art and music being very good as well, but I don't there's any question that A-1 put an honest to God effort in with its budget. They even went out and got Yuki Kajira to do the music for this series, and she's one of the most infamous musical composers in the industry right now. It was nice to see LiSA come along with her for the ride after working together with Kajira on the Fate/Zero OP. They collaborated one more time with the 1st OP of this series and it ended up being one of my favorite anime OPs of the year. I found Crossing Field is an addictive song and I have to give A-1 credit, they made an OP that made me WANT to stay for the full ride. Overall, I will admit that this isn't Kajira's best work, but I will say that her average work is still better than a lot of composers' best. I found the music enjoyable, not her best work, but still enjoyable nonetheless and still fit the mood of the anime.
I said a lot of positive things about SAO, but unfortunately, this anime was far from perfect. The biggest flaw I found with the series was it felt too rushed. Considering this series was adapted from the light novel series by Reki Kawahara, I felt A-1 should've just focused on adapting the first two volumes instead of trying to squeeze the first four into this 25 episode set. With as many characters as they have in this series, I felt they could've done a better job of hashing them out if they only covered the Aincrad arc with the 25 episode set. Considering this anime is told from Kirito's POV, they could've done a better job of developing the chemistry he has with the supporting characters. I can say one thing for certain, if this series ended on the 25th episode like it ended in the 14th episode, I would be begging A-1 for a sequel and highly anticipating it. The 14th episode felt much more like a season finale than the 25 episode did, although, I can't really criticize the execution of the 25th ep. It was a "nice" conclusion to the series, but certainly not "epic." Then again, it seemed as though the 25th episode was half-conclusion, half-exposition. For spoiler reasons, I won't reveal why there's so much exposition in the final episode. I can say it wasn't unnecessary exposition, but it was a little tedious and does take away from the overall effect of the final episode. As I've already said, A-1 really should've split these up into two different 24-25 episode seasons. The concepts and content involved in the Sword Art Online plot is far too vast to fit two different arcs into a 25 episode series.
Yet another thing that bugged me and this should come as no surprise, I really didn't like how the ALO arc was handled. Of course, this point does go back a bit to my point of trying to fit two different arcs into a 25 episode season, but the ALO arc only had 11 episodes to work with...and even then, not all 11 of those episodes consisted of ALO material. On top of that, there was a STARK decline in the likability of the characters in the ALO arc. I didn't find any of the characters outside of the ones coming over from the SAO arc to be very likable or memorable outside of Sugou, who made for an excellent villain character. Even besides the point, I really couldn't understand what A-1 was doing with some of the "imagery." What I mean by "imagery" is that they really tuned up the "ecchi" and in this series, I really didn't like that. Most of it was completely unnecessary. Not only is it unnecessary ecchi, some of it is downright off-putting and while I'm trying to avoid spoilers, if you've never seen this anime before, there is a scene in episode 21 that will make you say "WTF?" It was a scene that caught me completely off-guard and it even made me hate the producers for putting such a scene in. While I'm not someone that necessarily hates ecchi, I just found it to be unnecessary for this series. While I cannot say for certain since I haven't read all of the light novel, I found the direction of ALO to be a bit odd. The SAO arc's focus was specifically with Kirito's character and built a lot around his interactions. ALO on the other hand seemed to go slightly more 3rd person, not only going off Kirito's POV, but Suguha's and Asuna's as well. It was a stark and noticeable change...and for the series' sake, I don't think it was the best move. I understood why they went that route with the ALO arc, but with this series setup in two halves, it's just very bizarre to switch a story's POV from 1st person to 3rd person right in the middle of the series. Again, yet another reason why these two arcs should've been completely different series runs.
The best way I can describe Sword Art Online? It's a good series. If we're going by MAL forum discussion, the series isn't as good or as bad as some make it out to be (not sure how many of you read the MAL forums, but I don't think I've ever seen such parity about the quality of a series before), but in my honest opinion, it's a pretty decent series. It was probably one of the better ones of 2012 that I watched, but then again, I have a very low opinion about the quality of anime in 2012. The writing isn't necessarily great and it does leave the impression that there was a lot more that they could've done with the series, but even despite that, it was a fun series to watch. While there were quite a few flaws that were quite off-putting at times, it was still a fun ride from start to finish and for the gamer in anyone, it's an anime I'd recommend, especially if you do enjoy a romance to go with it.
