Review of Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online is one of the most controversial anime released in 2012. Since then, anyone how has watched this is on one of two parties. One side say that they love this anime, despite its flaws. And the other side basically can't see anything good about this anime and only the flaws that this anime has. Now I watched this anime quite recently, as I never heard of this anime until last year. Everyone told me that this was a "must watch" or something in that nature. Now, I'm going to be honest, I tried to like this anime. I did. But itjust pissed me off on how bad I thought the anime was.

The story is about a new virtual reality game that just got out on the market called Sword Art Online. It follows a guy named Kirito as he tries to make it through the game safely, as none of the players can log out and if you lose it will cost your life. On this journey, he meets and falls in love with the female lead, Asuna.

From a glance on the outside, it seemed like a really good plot. As a fan of MMO's I was interested in this and considering how much it was recommended to me, I decided to it a shot. But I didn't know what was to come as the story falls into a downward spiral or nothingness. The story was WAY to rushed and put time skips in when it wasn't needed at all. I would have been fine without them, I would have watched the first arc even it was just a season or two alone. There is too much time wasted and condensed to 15 episodes, which by the way was mostly filler. I liked the first two episodes, as were on track. After that, I didn't like where they show went in terms of story. It focuses more on filler than the story itself and that's what gave it a major turn off. As for the second half, it wasn't the same. It was more of a horrible story line and there was focus in the wrong places. The second half wasn't as rushed, but still had similarities to the first half. Also, the story focuses on mediocre plot lines. Kirito and Asuna's romance? I felt like someone was shoving their religion down my throat. And all the others involve nothing to do with the main story itself, like fishing. This honestly feels like a really bad fanfiction, to be honest. I hated that useless plot points became the main plot point. I was expecting a more psychological and philosophical approach to it. Honestly, that would have been a way more jarring story than how it was presented.

Now the characters weren't really that good. First, we have Kirito, our main protagonist of the anime. He is more of a loner and anti-social type who likes to spend time playing video games, more than interacting with people in real life. He is hardly interesting as I continued to watch this show. He was too OP and he had plot armor that you anyone could smell a mile away. In the game SAO, it's shown he can perform moves that humans can't normally do. Then, you have Asuna. She appears in the second episode, who is a new player but could play fairly well. At first, I thought she was going become a bad ass female lead, which I liked. Considering her first appearance, I can probably say most people who didn't like this show can agree. But as time goes on, she can't do anything without her fucking boyfriend and has to rely on a man to save her all the time. I didn't want no remake of Twilight for fuck sakes. And all the supporting cast as well. When they get there chance in the spotlight, all of them somehow end up falling for our anti-social hero, including his cousin.And I'm dead serious on that part. All of the females are weak and useless and literally can't do anything without their FUCKING BOYFRIEND, aka Kirito. Seriously.

The animation was really well done for this anime. And it's one of the only things I really enjoyed. The action shots put into this was splendid and overall great. The boss fights, which is one of my favorite scenes, were great. But other than that, there is nothing else to say about it.

The sound to the anime, however is also a disappointment. The first opening to this anime was good. Other than that, the music wasn't outstanding and none never stuck out to me, which made it worse for my experience. Now for the dub, it was really bad in my opinion. Bryce Papenbrook was bad at portraying Kirito, not that it matters, because I hated his character anyway. The other characters either didn't make a huge impact or they I learned to except them. Since I listened to the dub, I would suggest the sub because frankly I couldn't care less about the dub at this point.

Overall, this anime wasn't very good. The plot takes it's turn and focuses on a twelve year old sight on a romance. The music was invisible and the VA work was horrific. But, there is one thing I forgot to mention. Even though, this show was a complete disaster for me, I still wanted to get to watch this show. Maybe it's because I wanted to see how this terrible show wanted to end, who knows. The point is, this anime isn't for everyone. It's more for the shounen fans out there. There is so much better animes out there! Please don't waste your time on this.