Review of Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online has managed to garner both a large following and a very bad reputation for being "the worst anime of all time" in the relatively short while that it's been out. My personal opinion of SAO was that, no, it wasn't the best anime I've ever seen, but it certainly wasn't the worst. I mean, there are some really, really bad anime out there, and I don't think that SAO holds a candle to the horrors of some of them. And I'll tell you why. I have mixed feelings about the Story of Sword Art Online.The concept of the anime is a very interesting one, I think, and certainly has an appeal to all of the hardcore gamers out there. I enjoyed the story quite a bit... for the first half of the show, that is. I think that I would have enjoyed the anime a lot more if it had been shorter, which sounds weird to say, but it's true. By the end it hardly even seemed like SAO anymore, and I missed Kirito and Asuna being in the world of the original game. So I gave the story a 7, because I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy the storyline in the second half of the show as much as I had for the first.
The art, I really have no complaints about. I don't think that there was anything wrong with it, and the fight scenes were pretty well animated. Same goes for the sound, it was alright. I liked the VA's, so I gave it an 8.
The characters are the other thing I had some qualms about. Kirito's not the problem for me, although I know a lot of people didn't like his character. I actually really liked him. Asuna was fine, too. But I feel like I still don't really know most of the supporting characters very well. In most anime, there's a lot of supporting characters that actually play a big part in the story, but most of (though not all) of these characters were just sort of thrown in for the filler episodes. Take Klein, for example. If you had to give a description of him, what would you say? He's funny, I suppose. But I sort of feel like I got a better hold on his personality from Sword Art Offline, the specials, than I did from the anime itself.
Because of the strange storyline and a bit of something lacking in the character department, I felt like I couldn't enjoy SAO as much as I wanted to. That's not to say that it's not worth watching, though.
Overall, I gave Sword Art Online an 8. I wouldn't recommend watching it if you're looking for an anime with an incredible storyline, but I'd say that it was a fairly enjoyable watch and it kept me interested throughout. Just don't take it too seriously, and watch it for the entertainment value! I think you'll find it a lot more enjoyable that way.