Review of Sword Art Online

Needs more: - Actual characters. There are none. I would say the lack of character arcs is the biggest flaw in this show, but you would need, you know, characters for that to happen. (EDIT: Lines of females falling helplessly for Kirito don't count.) - Character development (especially Kirito, or like what is the point?! I mean come on, even the Heroes journey is like writing101) - Upping the horror elements (psychological aspects of being trapped in the game - its established as a thing, but the show barely even touches on showing us any of it, why?) - Interesting settings. For a large MMO, there isn't a lotof variation between the levels. SAO and ALO as games seem to fall into the Oblivion problem of promising large worlds to explore but then consist mostly of trees/forest setting. Not a huge issue, just a personal gripe.
- Consequence. Kirito is shown from the start that he is a bad-ass who can do anything and kick anybody's ass without consequence. Other than arguably episode 3, none of his or anybody's actions actually influence the characters in any way, and even beyond this episode it doesn't actually influence his character, because it was supposed to be his reason for having his lone-wolf persona yet its pointless because that was his thing anyway even before that episode happened. Gah!

Needs less

- Yui. F**k Yui.
- Kirito pulling of stupid shit out of no-where, breaking the entire logic set in-universe. It makes no sense and makes nothing about the character.
- Yui. I just wanted to say again because she is the worst.
- Incest/tentacles/r**e - I wasn't told this would devolve into a fetish-show by midway through the second arc, but hey ho.
- Fan-servicing females that meet Kirito and instantly fall head over heels for him. Its not good writing, its embarrassing and it gets old much quicker than the show thinks it does.
- Subjugating the female lead into a Princess Peach role - very boring, and as established above poor treatment of promising character (also, see above)

Already fine/praises

- Despite everything wrong with the series (and there is a lot of that), overall the animation/character design (note; I mean how they look, not the characters themselves), and settings (apart from the lack of variation, see above) are fine. So... despite its flaws, at least it looks nice...?
- Kinda similar as above, but the action scenes (when we actually get them) can be decent; one of the things that effort was put in and it shows.
- The first three episodes could potentially have developed into a good anime; alas I can't really praise this too much because it didn't.
- Lastly, the show is strangely watchable and addictive despite (or maybe partly because of?) everything else. I know people other than myself who have watched this and hated it, yet I don't know any of them that didn't at least finish the damn thing. I think this is a reason for its popularity in the first place.
- EDIT: forgot to mention that first op is FIRE, can't forget that.

Final verdict

I had a lot of fun because I was given warning to watch it ironically and preferably with a lot of alcohol on standby. I did the former and usually also the latter. This does not by any means make it a better show, but I can at least say I'm looking forward to doing the same with SAOII and Ordinal Scale.