Review of Sword Art Online

“A person is very strong when he seeks to protect something.” - Heathcliff Sword Art Online; a show loved by many, yet perceived as one of the worst series ever created by a lot of people. The show certainly wasn’t perfect, but it was far from being bad, and I think a lot of the hate it receives is unfair, because it’s just people trying to point out every single little flaw and turn it into something huge. Story: (7 / 10) SAO is effectively divided into two large arcs, the first one being what the series was basically “advertised” to be; people are stuck in a game,and have to beat the game to be able to leave. Now, because this arc spans quite a long period of time, two things appear which are worth noting.

The first one is the slightly “weird” pacing off the show. At times you will see the characters being on say, floor 20 in one episode, and in the next they’re on floor 40, which could easily make you think that you just missed an entire episode. This is not the case, and this was apparently a big problem for some people, and I do agree that the series could’ve benefitted from expanding the first arc to play out over a course of 25 episodes, simply removing the second arc (we’ll talk about this soon). I personally didn’t have much of a problem with the pace, as each episode’s actual content was more than enough to keep me interested, and while it’s not really an appropriate excuse, it may be worth noting that the story plays out like this because that’s how the novel was written...

The second thing is that quite a lot of the episodes in the first arc are not always about directly trying to clear the game, and as such many of them may very well be seen as fillers. These episodes will often be Kirito (the series’ protagonist) helping players of lower level (or anyone else in distress, for that matter), or simply spending time with his friends/loved ones.
I think it may come as a surprise to some when this series, which you probably thought was gonna be all action-packed and all, turns out to spend so much time on the relationship of two young players, and how they adapt to this new world.
The show has enough action and fighting scenes to make up for having this slower paced, more SOL-esque section, which I thought was pretty good, nonetheless.

Moving on to the second arc, this is where the story sort of... drops a bit, so to speak. There are some major changes between the two arcs, and it changes a lot of the “core mechanics” around which the first arc was based, as well as replacing the majority of the characters, and basically nullifying that same feeling of danger and suspense the first arc poses.

That’s not to say the story couldn’t be interesting and well-written anyway, but it really has nothing on the previous arc... While I didn’t really dislike it as much as many other people, I certainly found it less entertaining, but to me, the rest of the series more than made up for this part.

Art: (8 / 10)
If nothing else, the art in SAO is simply great. I liked the artstyle, even though it’s really nothing special, as well as the character designs. The animations are fluid most of the time, and the fighting scenes are very enjoyable, and well done if you can overlook the very tiny flaws which present themselves.

During some scenes, at certain points in the fight (like when someone gets hit), there’ll often be either a very short scene consisting of just a still picture, or a very slowed down scene, to really emphasise that someone did actually hit something. It’s not really a big problem though, as the still pictures are barely shown for any time, and they do look very cool, and I think this all comes down to people nitpicking to find more stuff to complain about.
The rest of the fighting scenes look totally OK, and the use of “sword art” adds a nice tone to the frames, so to speak.

Sound: (9 / 10)
The music was also a big plus, in my opinion. The soundtrack is all-in-all pretty great, with a lot of songs both fitting for the more intense fighting scenes, as well as the more “rom-com”-styled parts. The two opening themes, “Crossing Field” by LiSA and “Innocence” by Aoi Eir, are both more upbeat and fast-paced songs, while the two ending themes, “Yume Sekai” by Tomatsu Haruka (the VA of Asuna) and “Overfly” by Haruna Luna, are both slower songs, which is most often more fitting for ending themes.
I think all of the songs fit the series (and their respective arcs) rather well, and overall there’s really no problem with any of the songs from the series’ soundtrack.

The voice acting isn’t amazing, but it’s good enough, and manages to convey the feelings and messages that wants to be conveyed, so there’s really no problem here either.

Characters: (8 / 10)
One of the most common complaints I see about SAO is “the characters are terribly written”, and I feel like I completely missed this aspect of the show. I actually liked most of the characters, and the ones I didn’t really like that all that much were often the bad guys, so you weren’t really supposed to like them either, which I guess would make them well-written, in a way...

Kirito, our main character, was one of the few beta players of SAO, and this serves as an important plot-element, as he basically knows most things there is to know about the game, making him a very powerful player. At first his primary goal is more or less to just survive, but as he spends more time in Aincrad and starts caring about the people in this new world, his views changes, and soon enough he’ll be the one sacrificing himself and helping out people in need.

Even though many of the side-characters had rather little screen time compared to other characters (mostly one episode each), they were all very likeable characters, and there was never really a moment where I just wished the episode would end already, so that I didn’t have to see more of this horrible character.

A lot of the interaction between the various characters served as a sort of “comic relief”, which was nice, and the relationship between Kirito and Asuna is definitely all but “poorly written”.

As mentioned earlier, the majority of the characters are replaced during the second arc, and because of this I never really cared about the new characters all that much. They just didn’t have enough screen time or impact on anything to really allow me to relate to them, or make any sort of connection.

Enjoyment: (9 / 10)
I first found out about SAO through some random Youtube video mentioning it, and then looking at a quick summary of the plot. Because of this, I really knew nothing about the series except for the fact that it was set in a game world, and a friend had told me that the second half was a major disappointment.
Maybe it was because of my “ignorance”, or lack of hype about the show that made it so enjoyable to me, but I really didn’t have a problem with anything which people generally complain about. Sure, the second half is slightly worse, but I certainly don’t think it’s enough to mark the series as “bad”.

Conclusion:
If you’re looking for a super serious show about the struggle of 10 thousand people stuck in a game, trying to beat the final boss and avoid death, then this show might not be for you. However, if you’re fine with the aforementioned concept acting as more of a “ground layer” to the series, and having a slightly more light-hearted tone to it, based more around character interaction than just awesome fights, then this may be for you (if you can overlook the flaws and the changes in second arc).

Pros:
+ Cool concept (even if it wasn’t executed perfectly).
+ Very likeable characters.
+ Very good art.
+ Pretty awesome fighting scenes (most of the time).
+ Superb soundtrack.
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Cons:
- Weird pace during first arc.
- Major changes in second arc, makes for a slightly worse second half.
- Very minor “annoyances” during fight scenes.