Review of Sword Art Online

If you like short anime with an investing plot, as well as many engaging fights, this anime is for you. Key words being short, as you may know, SAO has 25 episodes, so why did I say this is good if you like short anime? It’s because this series is amazing…For about 13 episodes. See, here’s the thing, The first 13 episodes, (to some degree, anyway, I won’t deny that there are a couple where the MC is living a power fantasy) has amazing visuals and fights to go with it, alongside a really good plot, I dare say it’s the best anime I’ve seen in terms offights and action overall, the second being an anime similar to this, with (least in my eyes) a better plot, that being log horizon

Back to what I was saying: Normally you’d expect the entire point of the anime: defeating the boss of the tower to escape from the virtual world they are trapped in: to be scope of the ENTIRE anime, but that’s only for the first 13 episodes, the rest of it is just him trying to defeat some guy who has trapped his girlfriend in a recoded/altered version of SAO which he released soon after everyone escaped (why and how anyone would dare to play a game like Sao after that point is beyond me.)

The remaining 12 episodes feel like some of the most rushed and pathetic clumps of plot I’ve ever seen, and is the singular reason I decreased the rating, because at this point, there is genuinely no challenges, you KNOW Kiroto is going to win every fight he’s in through “pure skill from being trapped in SAO for two years” and the anime relies on that skill for….gee I don’t know, THE REST OF THE ANIME ITSELF, INCLUDING ALL OF THE NEW SEASONS. They basically made him a Mary Sue, or a perfect character.

Regardless, I say all this to say that SAO is a decent anime in some regards, namely fights, and its first 12 episodes are amazing plot-wise, but after that, it completely rejects any decent notion of plot and doesn’t have anymore stakes worth watching, the main thing that has everyone engaged was the notion that you could die if you weren’t careful.

Also: another thing, the author gave Kirito a full team of girlfriends, because “he’s so amazing, he’s soooo perfect, he’s soooo caring”, one of them including his freaking sister (which was arguably one of the biggest problems for the last 12 episodes), so if you don’t want to see that, don’t watch this anime.

Overall, SAO is a power fantasy, it’s really that simple, most people can digest the first 13 as the plot and fights were engaging, but after that, it’s descend into some of the most despicable pieces of fiction to ever exist is genuinely hard to watch, and they don’t make up for it until the third season. So good luck making it that far.