Review of Sword Art Online

Okay before you move on to the next comment because you saw that I gave SAO anything higher than a 4, hear me out here. And also, there'll def be spoilers but I'll try to keep them at a minimum. Lets start with some pretty obvious parts. No matter you like SAO, or hate SAO, no one can dispute that the music was outstanding. Crossing Fields was a great song with nostalgia mixed within, even if you never watched SAO as a kid, somehow, somewhere, you still feel that warm spot in your heart every time you hear iconic first 4 notes. Another pretty obvious thingwas that the art was overall quite well. Obviously comparing it to modern animes with Wit Studios and UFOtable it's not as comparable, but this was made in 2012, and at the time, the art was fantastic. We can compare things in the past with modern standards. And finally, honestly, I had a blast watching it, it was a fun ride, and I enjoyed(almost) every moment of it.

Now, lets move on to the not so great parts, and I think there is one thing to blame for most of SAO's problems, it was way too rushed. If the Aincrad arc was just the entire 2 cour season, they could've had much more time to flesh out Kirito and Asuna's relations, and could've developed the characters much more. The story also seemed kind of rushed, the finale(first and second cour) just didn't feel like a finale, especially the first one, it seemed to come out of nowhere.

Another thing I really don't like and I feel like this one is just poor writing is the villains. The second villain is pretty much forgettable and doesn't have any real motive or character besides just being evil and horny. And the first villains motive doesn't even fucking exist. I think this is my main complaint about the actual writing of the show, WTF was the villains.

Finally, this is something that I feel like that just could've been completely avoided is some of the "interesting moments" in the final few episodes. I don't really want to get too deep on this one because it is quite traumatizing to remember but without spoilers as a good rule of thumb whenever you see purple tentacle looking monsters in the second arc just skip like 5 minutes ahead that scene was literally not important to the story anyways. Also, just skip the second to last episode I know it's the climax but like, holy fuck that shit was dog. Just read the wiki if you want to know what happened, I'm telling you this to save you the pain of watching that. Still watch the final episode though, it was a pretty good conclusion to the story.

The plot was mediocre at best, though it was an interesting premise at the time. I think one thing that I saw from another review sums up the show best. It doesn't feel like a poorly written anime as much as it feels like a really well written fan fic.

But overall I think the story was way too rushed and if they just chucked the second part into a separate season this show could've been up there with the likes of Code Geass and Death Note. I wish we can get a remastered version of this and have a SAO that had enough time to fully flesh out and develop the characters.

So, I gave it a 6/10, it was a fun ride, lots of potential, and lots of nostalgia. Even if you don't like the show, you can still agree that it's pretty much a must watch as it opened the way for the modern isekai landscape and really changed the community as a whole. I really wish it was the masterpiece that I wanted it to be, but sadly this is what we got. However, I still think it's worth the watch.