4/10
Not Recommended
Spoiler-free
Top Review
11,342
While Sword Art Online boasts fantastic art and sound design, it fundamentally fails as a cohesive story with rushed pacing, irrelevant filler episodes, and characters that devolve into textbook archetypes. The series squanders its promising first two episodes with unnecessary time skips, deus ex machina plot resolutions, and a Gary Stu protagonist who inexplicably excels at everything while female characters exist merely to fawn over him. This show is ultimately disappointing, with its most striking aspect being how completely it betrays the potential established in its opening episodes.
Read full review