Review of Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online is an anime that I really wanted to like, and if you’re like me, and its premise sounded intriguing to you, then you probably wanted to like it, too. It takes a special kind of talent to take something with such potential and just utterly waste it. Going into it, I heard some pretty nasty things about it, and I kept asking myself “This can’t be THAT bad…… can it?” Unfortunately, my worst fears came true, and all I was met with was massive disappointment. -Story & Characters- Taking place in the year of 2022, a hit new virtual-reality MMO is released: SwordArt Online. By putting on a special helmet called a Nerve Gear, your subconscious goes into the game’s world, as if you yourself are in the game. On what seems like a typical day of grinding and fetch-questing, all goes wrong when the game’s creator, Akihiko Kaeba, announces that he removed the ability to log out, and will only allow them to leave when they complete a 100-floor dungeon, and also confirms that if the players’ HP reaches zero, the Nerve Gear will shock their brain and end up killing them.

……Never explained why.

This already sounds so awesome, right? It’s like Dot Hack, but even better…… at first. After the first four episodes, the story will plummet into a mishmash of nonsense, attempting to wrap up two years of time within the first fourteen episodes. Time skips seem to happen at every corner, making the story incredibly disjointed. One minute, the main character is level 40, the next episode, he’s level 70. What happened? Did anything of significance happen within that window of time? According to Sword Art Online, no, nothing did. This terrible pacing also affects another highly disappointing aspect of this anime: The characters.

Our main character, Kirito, is your average teenage boy who likes to play videogames, just like the rest of us. Kirito isn’t a terrible character, per se, but he’s really just a copy-and-paste shounnen. He has no flaws, everyone loves him, and even develops his own harem (More on that later). Kirito is even able to break the MMO’s system through Deus Ex Machinas, simply because the writers couldn’t think of a logical way for Kirito to make it out of a predicament alive. One second, he’s fighting a losing battle, the next, he comes out on top and doesn’t even break a sweat, despite the MMO’s limitations. There was literally a scene where Kirito’s HP reached zero when he was fighting an epic duel. However, instead of dying, he comes back as an apparition and wins. It’s Kirito: Deal with it.

During episode 2, he meets Asuna, our heroine and (blatantly forced) love interest. For a little bit less than halfway through the show, Asuna is portrayed as a strong, honorable, and (dare I say) total badass. However, after she and Kirito finally confess their feelings for each other in the sappiest, most melodramatic fashion possible, she becomes little more than a chirpy tsundere, and, during the show’s second half, she becomes Princess Peach, and Kirito’s goal is to save her from the clutches of the evil, horrible, bad man.

The rest of the cast is hardly worth talking about, as they only come and go as the show demands. What could have worked as a dark story about what dying really is, we’re just thrown into various situations that lack any type of context. On more than one occasion, there will be dramatic death scenes of characters, where Kirito explains in a monologue why this person’s death is so tragic, yet, we know next to nothing about said character, aside from maybe their name. We’re merely told, not shown, which is a big no-no in storytelling.

Speaking of which, the second half of the show is probably the biggest offender of this entire anime. Not only was everything completely resolved after episode 14, it ended on a relatively satisfactory note. I was confused as to why the show kept going, as the way that the show presented itself in episode 14’s conclusion implied its end. Had the show ended right then and there, I would have scored this anime slightly higher, but…… it continued. Kirito and the rest of the SAO players that managed to survive this ordeal finally wake up from their two year sleep and go on with their daily lives. Here, we see Kirito back at home, living his life as a normal, young teenager. However, Asuna, who just so happens to live around Kirito’s area and is just a train ride away, still hasn’t awoken from her slumber, and Kirito periodically visits her in the hospital. He eventually learns that a man with close connections to Asuna’s family plans to marry her, and demands that Kirito stay away from her. We later learn that he manipulated Asuna’s Nerve Gear so that her subconscious transfers her into another MMO, Alfheim Online. Kirito naturally won’t stand for this, so he borrows the game’s software from a friend, makes an account, and proceeds to save Princess Pea-, I mean, Asuna. What confused me was that this half of the show made me feel like I was watching something entirely different. In fact, it makes me wonder why the entire anime was titled “Sword Art Online”, as it only applied to the first 14 episodes. A more appropriate title for it would be something like “Getting Stuck in Two Virtual Reality MMO’s”. Not only that, in Alfheim Online, since the players can log out, the tension of the first half is gone entirely, making it lose its impact and making it hard to care. To the second half’s credit, there are no time skips, and it has a much better pace, which was what hurt the first half, and the secondary love interest, Suguha (Who is also Kirito’s cousin), was cute and likeable. Joy! We found a decent character in this pool of blandness!

As mentioned before, during the second half of the show, Kirito all of a sudden develops his own harem. Girls all around Alfheim Online will meet and fall in love with him for literally no reason. What’s so special about him, anyway? It makes no sense at all.

But wait! The flaws with the story don’t end there. As mentioned before, there are Deus Ex Machinas up the hizzy, but to add to the pile of “win”, why not throw in some plot holes, too? Akihiko Kaeba’s reason for trapping the players in the game is never explained. Except, oh wait, it IS explained: He can’t remember why he did it. Uh, right. But the most unintentionally hilarious Deus Ex Machina is when Kirito is cornered by a bunch of PK’s in Alfheim Online. Oh, no! What are you going to do, Kirito!? The logical thing to do, of course: Transform into a massive demon dragon, kill all of the PK’s, revert back to normal, and never mention it again!

This
actually
happened.

In conclusion, the entire story of this anime was just bad. Both halves of the show felt completely unrelated to each other, the second half was silly, and the characters were weak. Just a very poor story.

-Visuals & Sound-
However, not all is bad in the world of Sword Art (Alfheim) Online. The show’s athletics are easily its highlight. The visuals and art style are absolutely phenomenal. The character models are brilliantly drawn, and have very solid animations. The backgrounds and environments look gorgeous, as well.

Another highlight of the visuals are the fight scenes, which are breathtaking. Every sword clash, every magic spell, every item used: It all looks wonderful. The fight scenes are also incredibly well-directed, with the way that the camera cinematically swoops around the action and zooms up when the characters get closer and closer as they run up to each other. A-1 Pictures should be proud of themselves.

The audio is equally strong. I watched the show dubbed (I prefer to watch anime that way), and I was not disappointed. Bryce Papenbrook does a stellar job as Kirito, and gives him more personality than he actually has, and the rest of the cast is equally well-acted. Going over how brilliantly well-acted everyone is will take me all day.

As for the music, well…… It’s Yuki Kajiura: Do I even have to say anything? Being the mastermind behind the soundtracks of Kara no Kyoukai, Madoka Magica, and Fate/Zero, Yuki Kajiura delivers her strongest soundtrack yet. Ranging from emotional piano pieces, to epic scores, to beautifully orchestrated tracks, this is one soundtrack that I whole-heartedly recommend buying, even at full price: You must listen to this soundtrack, and if you don’t, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

-Conclusion-
Despite its top-notch visuals, epic fight scenes, great voice acting, and amazing soundtrack, these aesthetics can’t save this anime. The laughably bad story, terrible pacing, and highly underdeveloped characters are this show’s biggest downfall, and the entire anime is terrible because of it. If you don’t care about the awful story, and the aesthetics are enough to hold your attention, then maybe you can have some fun with it, but that’s all they are: Aesthetics. I need more.

Do yourself a favor: Listen to the soundtrack and give this one a pass.

+Stellar production values
+Epic fight scenes
+Top-notch dub
+ Yuki Kajiura: ‘Nuff said
-Horrible story
-Terrible pacing during the show’s first half
-Plot holes and Deus Ex Machinas galore
-Second half is silly and feels like it has nothing to do with the first half
-Annoying, whiney villain in the second half
-Asuna starts off as a great heroine, but devolves into a typical anime tsundere
-Forced romance
-Underdeveloped, bland cast
-Wasted potential

Final score:
3.5/10