Review of Sword Art Online

This review has a summed up review at the top without any spoilers and a bigger review with spoilers after It is pointless to question who someone really is. All you can do is believe and accept. Because the way you perceive someone is their true identity. - Kirito Non-spoiler review: Story: 2; it was very bad. There were things I liked about it, but it was very predictable, full of plotholes and just hard to enjoy Characters: 2; they weren’t as bad as the story, but still very bad. Many characters felt very similar. Visuals: 7; This was pretty good. The style was good and the animation was smooth. Butthe animation didn’t give off the sense of power that it felt liked they wanted to.
Music: 5; Had some pretty good soundtracks, but many forgettable ones.
Enjoyment: 5; I don’t really know here. The concept was fun and it had many intimidating characters that were fun to look at but it was mostly not that fun.

Spoiler review:

Story:
I will be splitting this segment into two parts. On with the first half and one with the second half. The reason for that is because their level of quality was very different in my opinion.

The first half: was bad. It was very predictable (mostly because of Kirito), had unnecessary characters and had many other problems. But there were still things I liked. Like Asuna and Kiritos relationship and the story made sense for the most part. But my biggest problems with the first half was Kirito and Akihiko. I’ll start with Kirito, who was a little too overpowered IMO. We saw people who were almost as good as him if not better, but the story got very predictable because of his OP nature. He hacks into the game twice in the series which we don’t see him do before Yui dies. But I’ll get back to Kirito in the second half.
Another thing I disliked is something I haven’t heard many people talk about. There is not really any reason for Kirito to join a guild. After he joins the guild, he and Asuna take a break and after that, everyone takes on the boss which they would have done even if Kirito was still a solo player. I would have ignored all of that if they did one thing. ONE SINGLE THING. Make Kirito have to deal with being in a guild. The reason why Kirito is a solo player is because he was the reason why a whole guild died in a trap room (BTW, that scene was incredibly predictable). They don’t reference that at any point. The show completely forgets it. It could have been so interesting, seeing Kirito having to deal with being in a guild and then getting over it. But they didn’t.
My next problem was Akihiko, the creator of SAO (the game, not the show). This one is very simple. He had no reason to do what he did. He killed hundreds of people, and was there any reason behind it? No. I would even have been satisfied with a comically evil reason. But they didn’t even do that
I didn’t hate the first half, but it wasn’t average either.

Second half:

I don’t think I liked anything in the second half. It may seem too much, but it was so incredibly bad that it’s hard to say everything bad about it. But I’ll try to write down some. The whole arc is way too long. This sacrifices both our time and our knowledge that Kirito has to get to the tree as fast as possible. But they just do a bunch of shit to pass the time. Kirito and the most powerful player in the game fight so that they have a fight, we see a bunch of scenes with Asuna and Sugou so that we can see a bunch of scenes with Asuna and Sugou... you get the point.
Next, if you thought Kirito was too overpowered in the first half (which I thought) then you won’t believe what happens now.
Kirito spawns into the game, meets Leafa and learns to fly without a controller in minutes. He then learns to fight while flying within weeks and defeats the most powerful player in the game who has played for a much longer time. Kirito basically becomes perfect. It makes more sense that Kirito is OP in the first half cause he has spent a large amount of time on the game which would make him powerful. But this is a different game with new mechanics. I know that Alfheim was basically a copy of SAO, but just because you were good at SAO doesn't mean that you would be good at alfheim.
Next, Yui doesn’t have a reason to be in the show. Unless to open the door in episode 23, but that could have been opened with just the card that Asuna throws down. She’s just there to be “cute”.
Okay, there were two things I liked about the second half. The first thing was how the story handles Yugu having to get over her feelings for Kirito. It was a good character depth for the character. The second thing I liked was the Sugou attack on Kirito IRL. It was tense because we see Kirito getting attacked without the advantages of being in a game.

Characters:
The only character I liked was Asuna. She wasn’t that one-sided, she had a good character development and was pretty good all around. Every other character was bad. Kirito made the whole story predictable, Sugu was too similar to Asuna IMO, Akihiko didn’t really have any reason behind anything he did which made him not feel real and Sugou was just a comically evil guy. The others either didn’t have a role in the story at all or were forgettable.

Visuals:
This was actually pretty good. The character designs were pretty good and the animation was smooth. But most action scenes weren’t as good because of the animation cause it didn’t make you feel the power of someone's attack. Like for example, if they animated Kirito swinging his sword, I didn't get the sense of power that the animation should have

Music:
OP 1: Okay
ED 1: Disliked it
OP 2: Okay
ED 2: Disliked it

The rest: Mostly forgettable, but had some pretty good ones

Enjoyment:
I didn't find it boring, had some cool fights and was funnier than most animes. But it was too predictable. I don't really know how to show the level of enjoyment I got from a show. But that'll do

Overall I thought it was a technically good show but had huge problems with story and character. I will give it a 4. It was definitelly not the worst I have seen, but still not that good