Review of Sword Art Online

This review has been re-edited. "Levels are just numbers. In this world, strength is just an illusion. There are more important things." Sword Art Online, one of the most watched animes of 2012. Let it be said that Sword Art Online is a personal favorite of mine. However, looking at all the reviews tells me one thing: there are haters and lovers of the show. The things that haters are saying often involve the sentence, "It's so overrated", while the lovers of the show say, "This is one of my favorite animes of all time, it's so good!". I can agree with both, yes, Sword Art Onlineis overrated, and it is very good. But overall, the show deserves a lot of credit overall. People that hate the show are going a little overboard if you ask me. This show was worth watching, and I was happy I did.

It's been a while since I've seen anything involving being inside a videogame. Last time I've heard of a storyline similar to that was when I was watching .hack// and that episode of Yu-Gi-Oh where they get trapped in the online Duel Monsters game. In other words, the story has been done before with similar concepts, only in a way, different. The entire story is based off of the main characters trying to escape an MMO without dying. For me, that sounds like a heck of a lot better then the life I'm living right now, some may agree with me, but in all reality, that would be horrifying, knowing you may die from playing a simple game. They do a good job presenting the life of the players over the 2 years they're trapped, but there are multiple time leaps. First it's summer, then it's Christmas, then it's a few months later. It isn't until around episode 5 or 6 where they start a steady timeline. Overall, the story is what intrigued me to start off.

The people who designed the anime did a spectacular job making this. The artwork was absolutely breathtaking. It really looked like a videogame world, they had the main menu, the inventory, the skills, the worlds, the monsters, literally everything most MMOs have. Not only that, but the scenery was amazing, tons of changes to make it look cooler every floor they go up.

There will soon be an english dub for S.O.A., and like most of the fans, I'm really praying they don't screw this up. The japanese dub was awesome, tons of emotion in the characters, but when it comes to dub, that's when they lack in the emotions and realism. We can only hope that when the release date comes, it doesn't turn into Judgement Day. As for the SFX, really good. Again, the designers made it seem like a videogame, so it sounds exactly like one.

So many characters that I liked, only a few that I hated. In all animes, there's always that ONE PERSON that you can't stand, whether it's Shinji from the Eva series or Itou from School Days. Always. That one person that I hate fortunately doesn't come in until over half way through the series, but if he wasn't in it at all, they'd be cutting the series short since he's the vital character that makes up the plot of the second half. Anyways, main characters; we got Kirito, the male lead, the master of MMOs, the ultimately overpowered person in the game. Despite that, I still found him to be a good role. Asuna, the female lead, gorgeous, deadly, a master chef. Literally, she's in like "The Top 5 Girlfriends" list, she's practically perfect. There are other characters that come in throughout the series like Klein and Suguha that play fairly big roles, then others that have maybe an episode of screen time, 2 at max. Good character list overall.

I thuroughly enjoyed this series, there wasn't one moment that left me bored, it was full of action, romance, and drama. They all fit well together in the way that this anime goes, and it had a satisfying ending, but now fans of S.O.A. eagerly await the announcement for Gun Gale Online, supposedly Season 3 to the series, but it may not end up happening unfortunately. I will restate what I sad before, this show is indeed overrated, but at the same time it's truly an amazing anime to watch.