Reviews

It's SAO nice that this 25 episode anime has ended, as I check every review made on this anime I've notice that a lot have given it an overall rating of 5 and below and only a few gave it a 6 and above. I guess I can't argue with such rating, since this anime is one part disappointing and one part satisfactory. "SAO" how do I rate this anime? For the story, I'm giving it a "Very Good" 8, since combining the fantasy, action, sci-fi, cyber punk and romance genre in the form of " Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG)" is really quite interesting. Another thing about this anime is that even-though it was titled "Sword Art On-line" it was actually 2 sequels in one, so technically speaking "SAO" has ended in episode 14, episode 15 to 25 is Alfheim Online or ALO. However, the problem with studio A-1 Pictures, is that has put more emphasis on the quantity of the episodes so much so that some of episodes are useless fillers and sways us audience away from the anime, there are other review which states that the said anime should have just focus on the Aincrad setting of "SAO" that take a huge U-turn to another sequel setting in Yggdrasil part of " ALO." I guess that was the primary reason why a lot of reviews gave it a low overall rating.

Art: Mediocre 5.

I don't have much to say about the art, since I'm not an art critic anyway and besides Asuna's statutory rape scene by her lunatic husband supposed to be, Nobuyuki Sugō was censored anyway and it's pretty obvious that he didn't get to pump her.

Sound: Fair 6.

Basically I like the opening theme of "SAO," but not "ALO's" opening theme, I also like that Asuna's VA was done by Haruka Tomatsu.

Characters: Decent 4.

Well, I don't how to put my finger in this anime's category, all I can say is that I like the way that Kirito is portray as this bull headed lone wolf, in which his character is way too predictable, Asuna is basically you typical fighting vixen who becomes Kirito's on-line wife....in "SAO" that is, but I really hate that from a fighting vixen she was transformed as a helpless damsel in distress in 'ALO." When Lyfa came into the picture in "ALO" suddenly I felt that Kirito should have forgotten Asuna and be with Lyfa . If there is any charcter that gives me the most impact it is Oberon the Fairy King or Nobuyuki Sugō, ok so he's the 2nd main baddie who appeared in "ALO" but he's one baddie where I would like have his head chopped off , so the rating for this category is for him.

Enjoyment and overall: Fair 6.

TBH, there are episode that were enjoyable and there are episodes that are not, the thing her is that the plot of the anime thought it is very good, has been stretch thinly to fill the 25 episode slot. Frankly this anime should have just been limited to just 20 episode and instead of shifting from one setting to another studio A-1 Pictures should have just finish the Aincrad setting and allocated "ALO" as a sequel to be aired on another season. So far the enjoyment is mainly on the action genre of this anime than anything else, in fact the rest of the genre don't played out well, so therefore both the enjoyment and the overall of this anime only deserves a 6.


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