Review of Sword Art Online

The anime that has such a love-hate relationship with the fanbase. Some people swear that this is one of the best anime to ever have come out, others just hate the entire series. I'll do my very best to provide as unbiased a review to this as possible, however late it is. 10,000 players find themselves stuck inside a virtual reality MMO, created by the antagonist Kayaba Akihiko. Among those stuck inside is our hero, who goes by the gamer-tag of Kirito, and his love interest, Asuna. Halfway through the arc, they find themselves solving the mystery of Sword Art Online, but there's more. Asunachanges her whole character, from being the femme fatale of the series, becomes the damsel in distress, all for the sake of progressing the story forward. It's absolutely insulting to her character. Just to rub salt on the wound, the antagonist that drives the latter half of the story is an abusive rapist type character who pulls no punches in showing how bad he is. Because we all need a bad guy we can hate, right?

The qualm that almost every hater of SAO has (myself included) was that the story had so much potential. Instead of the absolutely sickening harem route that the author took, he could have built the world of Sword Art Online into a dark and gritty world, all the while building a romance between the two MCs. That would have definitely taken the story into a much better direction than where it is currently.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite sum up the story. Kirito, being the typical badass anime protagonist, isn't quite satisfied with one girl. The author feels the need to add the stereotypical friendzone-girl, the loli, the incest, all into the mix just to prove how much of a man Kirito is.

Halfway through the Alfheim arc, I was wondering why the series I actually liked turned into such a shitty and generic harem story. Why? You had so much potential! I desperately wanted to like it, but it kept leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

With the advent of the second season, focusing on another new MMO, to tack on another "cool" detective aspect to Kirito, not to mention add the "cool" archer girl to his harem.

I so desperately want to like this anime, but with the direction it went, I really don't have any choice. The author keeps moving from world to world without any intention of actually building a world to it's full potential. For all of this, I have to give this series a 4/10