Review of Sword Art Online

This anime introduced me into the SAO series, and I don't regret it. Watched the entire anime in 2014/15, and was just in time to watch SAO 2 on Adult Swim's Toonami. The concept of being stuck in a virtual world where you have to kill to survive or be killed with real world consequences was new to me, and I was HOOKED. Kirito was pretty cool, but now I think that his character is ehh. Asuna is cool too, but sometimes I wish the other female characters were as close to him as he was to Asuna (but the it'd become more like astereotypical harem anime so I'm not totally with me thinking that's ok lol). For introducing me to SAO, this anime was pretty cool. Action was spot on, animation was crisp, and there were moments the hairs on my neck stood when the stakes were high.

The one thing that threw me off was when Suguha was introduced and she and Kirito unintentionally developed a relationship that only stopped when she found out he was trying to get to Asuna in ALfheim Online. The rape wasn't as bad as most people say it was, especially when Kirito put Sugou in his place (twice). All in all, I enjoyed it back then, because it would find it too mediocre to watch now.
- Mj