Review of Sword Art Online

When I first heard of Sword Art Online, I thought the premises of the Anime was extremely cool. Trapped in a VR game by a sociopath degenerate , beat it in order to return to reality. You die in-game, you die in real life. Pretty cool, right? I was excited to see what the world of Sword Art Online had to offer, but as I am about to dwell on upon this review, I was unfortunately met with cliche's, question marks, and inconsistencies that ruined the experience. *Story* This is one of the major weaknesses of SAO. Critical plot holes (will get into that), inconsistencies,and generally bad decision making from the producers leave quite a lot to be desired. To start off, episodes 2-6 jumps around A LOT. When I got to Episode 5, I thought that I accidentally skipped to a later episode. Turns out, I did not, they just happened to have fast forwarded 2 F***ING years into the story. No explanations, no flashbacks, no anything.

I thought the worst was over, and I could finally see our main character kick ass. Nope. The actual storyline progresses very slowly, and instead, creates a subplot that revolts around a love story. (The actual main plot only progresses in a total of 5 episodes out of 14). But that that was just a teaser. From episodes 15-25, the Anime takes a COMPLETE turnaround, and becomes a full-blown Harem. Watching the last 10 last episodes was a dreadful affair; It didn't tell a particularly interesting story, and I felt like the Anime could have easily ended at Episode 14 as the progression from episode 15 and onward were minor and meaningless.

To top it all off, plot holes were visibly present. Let's talk about how the players manage to survive 2 YEARS without food or water. On episode 1, a player attempts to log out to eat, his stomach was growling, but is obviously trapped. Naturally, he'd die from hunger and thirst within days, right? Apparently not. Starting from episode 2, eating and drinking in the virtual wold is equivalent to eating and drinking in the real world. Eating pixelated food apparently provides nutrition to the body. Not only is it physically impossible, but an explanation to why it's possible, is not provided (The anime does a very poor job explaining things). And this, ladies and gentleman, is how you compromise the entire premise of an Anime in 2 episodes.

*Characters*

Oh boy, where do I even start? To put it very bluntly, the characters in SAO are incredibly generic, lacks any substance, and are downright boring. Yes, i'm looking at you, Kirito! He has no personality whatsoever, doesn't have any interesting traits apart from being insanely overpowered. If Lord Jesus Christ had a son, his name would be Kirito. Can he beat almost anyone in a swordfight? Yes! Can he spontaneously hack the game, and alter highly advanced AI code? Absolutely! Can any girl fall in love with him in less than one episode even though he has zero personality? Why of course! FYI, this continues for the entire 25 episodes.

I don't really have a lot to say about the female characters. They are as boring and empty as the main character (Kirito). Most of them seem to fall in love with him, yes, everyone, even (I hate to bring this up) HIS COUSIN. Yes, his cousin. The directors of this anime brought up one the biggest pet peeves in the Anime Community. Incest. I'm not quite sure why they did, but my guess would be to make her a more interesting character as she would otherwise be forgotten rather quickly.

* Art/Sound*

Ah yes, one of the better parts about SAO online is the artwork. Beautifully made, from the dungeons to the cities of the different floors, to the nature. Music is also top notch, having a great flow, and appropriately change mood according to what happens throughout SAO. The sounds and art from the fighting are very good, and is perhaps my favorite part of the entire Anime.

*Final thoughts and rating*

Sword Art Online is an Anime that I really wanted to like. It had great potential to tell a great fantasy story, but instead it focuses on a love story with the same type of girls you'd find in regular Harem. Enjoyable fighting scenes, and beautiful scenario and music are the reasons I didn't give this Anime a 1.

Final rating: 4

Would I recommend this anime: Partly yes. Episodes 1-14 are just decently enough to recommend. As for episodes 15-25: Don't even bother.