Review of Sword Art Online

Spoiler-less, TL;DR, fast, simple, and easy-to-digest review: Almost Mid, OP, Fantasy-Action Junkfood (that people can't stop eating) 6/10 (Edited review. SAO: Abridged by Something Witty Entertainment review added!) Animation? Excellent (+++) Woah I didn't expect this trash anime to have one of the GOAT in animation. Great battle scenes as well. Characters? Meh (-)They are bearable, even the MC and the female lead. Most people are dickheads in the story, and that includes the MC. And the 2nd main bad guy... ermm... uh... I don't want to talk about him. (Klein is very underrated btw so more love for him plz)

Story? Ok (+)
Cool concept... for edgy teenagers alike. As for me, a working adult... it's cringe but not too much. At least it is better than Rent-a-Girlfriend. Wait no- LEAGUES BETTER than Rent-a-Girlfriend that even the worst and the most unforgivable character is better than that trash, and I'm not even over exaggerating.

Pacing? Bad (--)
Idk man. It feels like its slow and fast at the same time. You can skip some parts of the story and you MIGHT miss some but most of the time? nah. You can even skip episode 12 or watch it in 2x and not read subtitles and do homework and still not miss anything.

OST? Good (++)
OP and ED are good. Background music is also good. Immersive at best.

Enjoyability? Meh(-)
Just like I said in the Pacing section, you can skip the boring parts. Watch the actions instead and you might still find enjoyability.

Abridged? Excellent (+++) - does not improve the score of the anime but worth looking into
Finished watching SAO (season 1)? Then it is highly recommended to watch the abridged version of it. I promise. The abridged literally reworked the entire thing and made it better (imo). The only downside is that they upload episodes too long (as of writing, they abridged 22/25 original SAO episodes in 17 abridged episodes. Score of abridged? 9/10