Reviews

And so comes the epic conclusion to the anime 'Sword Art Online'! Before I begin I'd like to say its been an adventure all season getting to see the world of SAO with my very eyes! I have enjoyed the beautiful art that I have seen and am beyond glad the world I dream about was brought to life. Thanks to A1 Studios, we were able to follow the tale of the Black Swordsman Kirito with our eyes and ears. With splendid visuals and an excellent music score, this world became a breath-taking experience. This anime covers the story of a MMORPG fan who takes on the worlds first Virtual Reality MMO. In this future the latest video game console is one that you put on your head. Its called Nerve Gear and as the name suggests, by intercepting signals from the brain it throws you fully into a virtual world where you can experience all 5 senses. With the release of the first full VR MMO game, a lucky 10 thousand people got to buy the game on its launch. Sword Art Online is a fantasy world beyond imagine with a large focus on melee weapons (so no magic). In this world players must work together to defeat each boss to advance to the next floor. Aincrad (the floating castle in the sky in which SAO takes place in) has 100 floors, each harder than the last. However panic ensues when players find out there is no logout button. They find out that they are never able to leave because if they do, the nerve gear will fry their brains. On top of that, if you die in the game, you die for real. Now stuck in a battle for not only his life but the lives of 10 thousand other players, Kirito must use everything he knows about MMOs to beat this deathmatch. Its a story of love, friendship, desperation, and overcoming the laws of the virtual world! Now that you know a bit about the good stuff and story, I shall get on with what I didn't like. This anime was an adaptation of a light novel by the same name. Novels 1-4 plus a bunch of side stories were adapted into this season. That was ALOT of story. While I believe A1 did a great job compacting the story and telling the basic story well, I believe this was not as good as it could have been. This anime was over hyped before it began due to the highly successful LN. The reason I feel the LN worked so well was because it took that time to get you invested in all the characters and events. Nearly every episode felt rushed and left out so many things that added to the story. Now don't get me wrong, they weren't necessary details but it made the difference between good and amazing. The fight scenes seemed very quick and to the point due to this and there was very little build up at all. One could also argue that they managed to butcher most of the side stories because of how little time they had. I would have rather seen only the Aincrad story arc and related side stories take up the 25 episodes. Then less cramming would need to be done and the focus would be on the story and fights instead of summarizing everything. Another problem I had was that, at times, the animation quality would drop quite a bit. You could clearly notice a ton of detail missing during certain scenes. Lazy animators possibly? I'll never know. Though I believe the LN to be greatly superior to this anime, I believe everyone should give both a shot as they are wonderful works of art! Personally I think the 1st and last episodes followed the LN very well and gave off that same amazing feeling, so not all was lost. I honestly can't wait for a second season. SAO is not the best anime ever made but it certainly a worthwhile experience that everyone should try.