Review of Sword Art Online
I will just rate the first arc here because every episode after 14 is garbage. This anime is such a pain. I get it, "he has SAO as his favourite what a normie loser". I really wish MAL woud let us rate story arcs separately, same goes for any show with major changes in story, because you should know damn right I would rate Aincrad a 9/10 and Fairy Dance a 2/10 on a good day. Thing is, I understand that SAO isn't great. But quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. Story: 9/10 Come now, when I first watched this, I honestly thought it wasthe coolest thing I'd seen, as I am sure most people did.
I still think the aincrad arc was incredible and the only things I can fault it for are the annoying time-skips and harem parts (these aren't actually that bad tbf).
Art: 8/10
Not many people will praise the art of this show, in fact I bet most people would rather bash it. I can kinda see why, especially when compared to the Alicization style. However, I think this style has its own charm, after all its probably one of the first shows you watched so the art brings some nostalgia surely. Art isn't so big a deal for me as most and I don't see many problems with SAO's.
Sound: 10/10
Ok the music in this show is phenominal and it does not matter how much you hate the show, you cannot deny that. Everything from the nostalgic opening to the music in every scene. Usually shows play music and I don't even realise they had music in them at the end of them. This show is one of the few where you notice EVERY track that plays because it is just so damn good.
Character: 8/10
KiriSuna is amazing and I don't care what you say.
Individually, Kirito is a cliché op mc who gets all the chicks. As SAO goes on this remains true but it is still built upon straight from episode 3 and we are brought back to this constantly in the latest season 8 years later.
Asuna is pretty much instant best waifu for everyone who watched SAO to begin with. Looking back, most of them can't stand her. To this day I still think she is a really enjoyable character to watch and easily my favourite from the show. Her problems lie in how she differs in the arcs - she starts off as a seemingly confident and strong person before devolving into a "oh kirito put it in me" character that needs saving from everything.
Klein and Agil are enjoyable additions as they don't interrupt the relationship and aren't typical obnoxious characters. They are actually just really chill dudes.
Liz and Silica on the other hand are just there because why not a harem. I don't dislike them still, as they understand that Kirito likes Asuna and don't really try to get in the way of them at all, granted they rarely show up after their respective episodes in the Aincrad arc.
Enjoyment: 10/10
Just because something is objectively bad, does not mean people won't enjoy the hell out of it.
When I watched this a few years ago, I remember rewatching the first 14 episodes every day for a week and then some. After that I watched through all of the game dialogue etc etc just to see more of the characters.
There is no show I can say that I get more immersed in than SAO. I did a rewatch of this after 2 years a few months back and can safely say that I love it just as much as I once did.
Overall: 9/10
I can't give this a 10/10 because it still has its obvious flaws that even I cannot gloss over. Like Kayaba's motivation for the whole death game, the harem episodes, the time skips etc.
I honestly think Progression might solve everything, but I could be wrong.