Story: There was so much potential for Sword Art Online to be something special. In the end. It's just a bland romance anime. SWO and ALO are never explained in detail and they're unjustly random settings. Story? Simply boy who had little social skills meets girl and they fall in love. That's it! What really drives me mad is how there's barely any characters or great character interactions! No teamwork, Kirito essentially does everything himself and he's just Over Powered for no reason.
Art: It's mediocre at best. Yeah, there's a difference in art styles when they go into the VRMMOs, but the difference is really slight.
Sound: Opening and ending theme are catchy enough. The music is probably the show's strongest point.
Character: Both Kirito and Asuna are just plain boring. They're strong from the start so you never see any growth in their skills. The only growth we get is the lame boy with no social skills suddenly gets a ton of girls liking him >. > Klien is the comic relief character, but he gets no spotlight and every other character is literally just there without any purpose. Even the villains fall short of loving to hate them. Every character is just there!
Enjoyment: I watched the first few episodes expecting this to be really good. I realized as the show got on that it just was not my cup of tea. Still, I finished all 25 episodes out of obligation for the time investment. I have to say this is easily one of the biggest disappointments for me. I was expecting an awesome Virtual Reality world anime that would focus on the environment and perhaps have a sense of teamwork since it is a MMO... but no... we just get essentially Twilight in the world of Dot Hack. Better yet, once ALO starts we completely lose fighting monsters! I get it, there's so much more content in the light novels and it can only get better. People love the series so I'll give the show its credit, but I was completely misled by the whole premise of the story. So much potential wasted.
Overall: 3.6/10 Poor.
