Review of Sword Art Online

Hi, if you're reading this, then you have found one of my "small" (I do try to keep it as short as possible, but it never ends small) and rare reviews about an anime or a anime series, to let people know what to expect, since there are a bunch of elitists and haters and so on, who could make it hard to figure out if it's worth watching or not. It's spoiler free, so no need to worry about it. And so, LET'S BEGIN! Now, I've been thinking about writing a review for this for a quite some time, though I never did it untilnow, since there is a lot of content to go through. It's also one of the reasons, why I'm going to do a review on each season separately, so if you're interested, keep an eye on the comments section for each of the seasons. I'm rewatching everything mainly because it has been some time since I watched sword art online and now there are new seasons that I haven't even watched yet and I'm a little bit interested to what's instore for me.

So, let's dive in, a little bit into the story's structure, characters and things like that. I will start with an issue or more like a feeling that I had about the few last episodes, they felt more like an ova or even a movie that should've come out, since it's a part of the story, but the setting changed a little bit and it's only the last episodes. It's nothing major, but something felt off, I think they wanted it to be separate, but the amount of episodes wasn't large enough, so they put everything together. But it's remarkable to how well the story is written, even now, rewatching it for the third or fourth time, it still manages to make me interested and to give me an emotional feeling towards pretty much everything. The world is really made, maybe it's just me, but living in the modern day, it kinda makes you think about the premise of it and the more you watch it, you become more attached to the characters and setting that it has. Yes, it's anime and yeah, the emotions are a little bit cranked up higher then they normally would be, but in the end it's kinda realistic and to a point that it's a little bit scary.

As for the characters, you might be expecting this, but they are pretty well made. Everyone has a unique design, and there are a few small details that some might not notice, so I will say only this keep an eye on the characters outfits at the start (first episode I think), you might notice that the outfits are similar or even identical for some of the characters and considering the place and setting, it makes sense. Of course it might seem not as a big deal, but it's cool to see it. As for dialogue, it's good. There will be things different from the manga and that is normal and I will also address the hate comments a little bit later, to give more context on everything. The interactions are not always perfect, there will always be some cliche thing in every anime, but I would say it's close to perfect.

Another thing I want to talk about is the art design and sound in it, since no one ever does that, which makes it kinda sad, since man, for example, the music is really good and I'm not just talking about the openings or ending themes, the music in whole series is really good and quite enjoyable. And with the art style, that was so the ridiculously well made by A1 Pictures, there's no wonder to why it became such a major hit, when it came out. It's truly a job well done, since we need to remember that back then, having high detail tools, like 4k or even 8k drawing tablets, weren't even available back then.

Finally, I want to address the haters and elitists, that kinda make it a bad experience for newcomers to this series. One of the main things that makes them boil is knowing that a small part of the characters monologue wasn't also in the anime, this is true, but I haven't seen a single anime to this day, that has been made exactly the same way that it was in the manga. And I think others will agree. Also, just because something wasn't in the anime, doesn't make it bad, if you look only at the anime itself, it is totally fine, good even. I have even seen instances where they simply hate the main character's voice actor in another anime, just because they didn't like Sword art online.

So if you read any hate comments, please ignore them and try to see it for yourself, since by the end of the day, you're the one who's watching.

In the end I give it a solid 9.5/10, there were some small things, but I can't deny the fact that it's really good and if someone likes isekai anime, it definitely should be on their "plan to watch" list.

I hope that any of my yabbing was useful and have watching,

PEACE, I'm out! ^^