Reviews

It's not particularly hard to explain what Sword Art Online is about. I'm sure we have all thought about being able to enter a virtual reality world, showcasing the ability to play a video game. That is exactly what this anime is, a virtual reality world built around the design of an MMORPG. The major twist is, once everyone logged into the game, it was impossible for them to leave, equally if they die in game or forcefully try to exit the game, they would also die in the real world, through a design in the gaming console - the nerve drive.

The story for this anime was great, to start with; Everything was really well laid out and exciting through out the first series. You really connect with every single character, though they don't stick around for long most of the time. But this was mainly in the first series, Once everything hit the second series it kind of got less interesting and more repetitive. Not that there was not any change, just nothing major happened, the majority of the second series felt like a side story.

I'm trying hard not to spoil anything, But one relationship in particular in the second series was, quite honestly, really dumb, I didn't really care for any part of it. That is not the one thing i found stupid; A lot of the concepts and themes that are hastily explained don't make much sense and leave you wondering what the point is - Luckily I never thought about any of this while watching it. I didn't care that there was a few minor problems, I enjoyed everything about this anime through out.

That's all that needs to be said really. I have no need to explain how amazing the art or sound is, if you're watching based on the visuals and music; watch this anime, it has exactly what you are looking for.

I'll dig a little into the characters, I don't want to ruin the characters impact on you, cause they had a large impact on me. The majority of the characters are perfect, I had such a strong mental connection with most of them, i wanted to see more of the secondary characters. But it's not all sunshine and happiness, as with most of the problems of SAO, the second series characters were worse than the first series.

Overall, with all the stupidly placed, bad elements this anime has to offer, you would expect it to be a train wreck. That is not the case, it has easily become one of my favorite anime of all time, personally rated it's to the top of the list with a 10. But picking out all the problems it has if they really effect you, it rates overall as an 8; and this is mainly because of the second series. But still - watch this anime.