Review of Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online has every extra thing going for it. Beautiful soundtracks, vivid settings and nice character designs. The music is beautiful and adds to the series so much. The set up of the series initially was perfect, the tension and scale were marvelous. However, mid season it became a generic slice of life rom-com and that may not have mattered as much had the romance been believable or characters interesting. All the characters are generic archetypes; lolita, tsundere, etc. Kirito has absolutely no personality besides being emo because he thinks wearing black is cool. Each girl in his generic harem get one episode eachand then are never important again. The action was however, a highlight. Despite his second match against the main antagonist being horrible and deus ex-machina, his first match was done better and felt much more intense. THe boss battles are brilliant as well when in sync with the soundtrack it is an epic. I'm not getting to the second half because that was entirely based off a romance that never worked in the first place. Overall I believe enjoyment of this series comes from how you watch it. If you watch it as an outsider you notice just how weak the characters are and how unfocused the plot is, but if you put yourself into the protagonists shoes as Kirito is simply a wish fulfillment character I'm sure you would enjoy having your own harem, kicking ass and wearing black all the time.