Review of Sword Art Online

Reki Karahara takes the most generic and uninspired premise he could think of and shatters all expectations in the worst possible way. Sword Art Online tries to condense a story that spans over two years into 25 episodes, leading to the worst pacing I've ever seen. This problem is most evident in the Aincrad Arc, where several months pass between episodes and instead of emphasis being on them actually trying to reach their actual goal, it's dropped completely in favor of side stories with little to no significance. The arc only picks back up near the end and even then it's overshadowed by a badlyexecuted theme of family and happiness in a virtual world. Characters receive no character development and have embarrassingly bad judgment and don't use logic. The best example of this is the main protagonist Kirito, who hasn't changed since episode 1. It only makes it worse considering he is a generic, overpowered harem lead who can't solve problems unless it's in a video game. The girls are just as bad, as they are attracted to him just because he's good at video games. One of them being his cousin and they make no attempt to justify the romance. The villains are even worse, as they have no motives behind their actions. The fight choreography and direction is lazy, with no strategies being executed during fights just characters wailing on their opponents with sword skills that do nothing more than just make their swords light up different colors. You can only tell what a few skills actually do other than strengthen attacks. Many plot points pop up that go unexplained and ignored. The only thing I can really say good about it is that the soundtrack is decent, although I doubt you would want to listen to opera music on its own. Sword Art Online had potential but Reki Kawahara obviously didn't know where to take the series from there and ended up failing tremendously.