Review of Sword Art Online

Now I know you will take one look at the score I have given it and will automatically think "this is just gonna be another hater review. *ignores review* or *clicks not helpful* Just read the next paragraph. If you agree with it, read a bit more and if you get bored then you can leave. If you don't agree then click not helpful and get on with your life. If my hunch is right, then at least 50% of the anime community are also gamers. And I bet every single one of them has gotten into some sort of mmorpg before. I have. So Ican say safely that most of the anime community can relate to Kirito. And Kirito is literally, the perfect gamer. He is not obese, does not live in his mothers basement (I am just pointing out stereotypes sorry if I offend anybody), great at gaming and can pick up chicks in game like they are pokemon. And that people, is how this show hooked so many people. By making a male lead the viewers dream life that is actually somewhat realistic.

Going more into the review now. What makes this show that makes haters hate so much yet makes people love it so much. I'm just gonna give some major points now.

The Good:
-Great Action
-Amazing art and sound
-The amazing world of SAO
-The "Romance"

The Bad:
-The Characters
-The Timeskips
-Progression of story does not do what it says on the tin
-The "Romance"

As I do my review I will try to cover and explain all these points. And remember, this is all personal opinion. Don't rage or anything if you're reading this.

Story-5
Everybody in the anime community know the story. I don't need to explain it. At first glance the story seems fine. But after the first 2 episodes, everything goes downhill. From episode 2 to 3, there is massive timeskip. Everybody is level 20-ish more and Kirito is double their level. When I watched this questions aroused like "How is Kirito double their level?" or "Was there anything important that happened on the other floors?". But that is one timeskip in a pool of many. The other big problem I found was that the story set itself up as some grand quest and struggle for survival in the first 2 episodes. After that, all I saw was Kirito helping out some girls then getting married and focusing on his love life for the rest of the SAO arc. Call me blind if you must, but I think I am not the only one with that opinion. Then we have the Alfheim arc (I think I spelled it right). Long story short. It was shit. I barely understood what was the point in making that arc. There was no danger to it anymore. I could rant for a lot longer but I will stop now. Hopefully you get my message about both arcs.

Art-10
This probably doesn't deserve a perfect score. But I will cut it some slack. Not to say it was bad or anything, quite the opposite. The character designs (except for Suguha) were really well drawn, the world of SAO and to a lesser extent Alfheim online looks amazing, the action scenes were well choreographed and the boss battles always had me cheering "Haul some ass guys!!!!". I'm 100% sure that 50% of the anime community knows about the awsome art and animation of SAO. And I will say, it lives up to it's hype.

Sound-8
I don't remember much about the sound. Not because it sounds bad but it has been a while since I watched this and I don't plan on re-watching this or watching the second season. But the biggest question that comes in my mind when I think about sound or more specifically music in SAO is "Does Crossing Field by LiSA live up to it's hype?" Yes it's really good, but it's a little overhyped. (Personal opinion if you disagree with it; good for you, have a cookie.) That is all I can say about the sound because I don't remember any of the ED's or the other OP and I can't remember the background music.

Character-4
Now this is the part of SAO that I find really falls flat on it's face. Kirito is literally just one of those big face cut-out things that you put your face in. He is the perfect character and that is all we see him as. Then we have Asuna. She first appeared as some badass heroine but turned into a "damsel in distress" character and was completely useless later on without Kirito around. I found no character development within the series. I will give this anime the trophy for maybe the first to have "character regression" as in the opposite of character development. There was "romantic" development but I also found it so forced and rushed. I'm sorry people but I had to say it. This "shining" point in this series is what I found one of the worst. What I saw was a really stereotypical or more accurately a generic love story. Boy meets girl, they hang out, go on a "date", then they get married...wut? I can rant about this forever. But I think I made my point. Wait I forgot some characters. Suguha: incest is not wincest. The other two girls in Kirito's harem: they only appeared in 2 episodes. Cant say much other than they are useless without Kirito around.

Enjoyment-4
I'll be honest. As terrible as I am making this sound. (And I probably did switch o pure hater review some time along the way) I did enjoy it to an extent. There was only 4-ish episodes that did not involve anybody swinging a sword at some type of boss, and those 4-ish episodes were the really terrible ones. The other episodes were worth watching for the epic boss fights or any sort of duel that happened. Now this does not include the Alfheim arc. If I were to rate the SAO ar and Alfheim arc then SAO would get a 6 while Alfheim gets a 1. Alfheim was just mind-numbingly pointless. If you want to know my thoughts, then google "problems with SAO second half" then click on any blog and read the hate comments. Those are my thoughts.

Overall-4
Obviously you might be thinking "the scores don't add up. A 5, 10, 8 and two 4's shouldn't get a medium of 4." And yes it should be something like a 5 or 6. What's stopping it. All the scores was mostly based on SAO. This score and the last also included Alfheim. Which severely brought it down. I'll be honest. The studio could have just extended the SAO arc to all 25 episodes. Then that could have made for a lot less timeskips, and perhaps actually fleshed out the characters. But apparently the manga got cut halfway through so they cut the SAO arc short just threw in the Alfheim arc. I don't know if this is true, I have checked but didn't get any answers.