Review of Sword Art Online

Spoilers Ahead. Tens of thousands of players trapped in an MMO, forced to battle their way out? The concept of Sword Art Online was promising. The setting was in an MMORPG - an expansive, huge fantasy world filled with thousands of quests and monsters. It offers near limitless possibilities - as any MMORPG player will tell you. Unfortunately, SAO really fails to capture any of the things that make MMORPGs fun to play. It takes off in a direction that few people were expecting and leaves many dissatisfied and disappointed by the waste of creative potential. SOA falls short in many regards, but especially in terms ofits plot and characters.

"In the near future, a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) called Sword Art Online has been released where players control their avatars with their bodies using a piece of technology called Nerve Gear. One day, players discover they cannot log out, as the game creator is holding them captive unless they reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, if they die in the game, they die in real life. Their struggle for survival starts now..." (Source: Crunchyroll)

This synopsis doesn't accurately reflect what the anime is about. It's the premise set up by the first two episodes, but is soon forgotten and is even abandoned by the 15th episode. What supposedly should be the major conflict of the story takes a backseat to what's really just a love story between Kirito and Asuna. Brief spasms of plot development occur every now and then, but are so poorly thought out that it often leaves the viewer baffled and confused. SAO uses time skips gratuitously - skipping forward two years within the first few episodes. In this time, characters become exponentially more powerful without any backstory. Characters aren't given time to develop and the episodes themselves are often extensive tangents to the main story. These tangents introduce a multitude of characters that usually don't play any role later except for cameo appearances. It baffles me trying to understand this direction of story telling. Kayaba Akihiko traps thousands of players within his virtual world, making death permanent and forces them to play his game. There is a lot of potential within answering the big question of "why?" But SAO never truly gives an answer for this question. Apparently even Kayaba Akihko can't tell you why he trapped players in another world. This "plot" is so lackluster that it's really not an accurate synopsis of the anime. The overall feeling given off by the haphazard side quests doesn't remotely reflect the desperation and hopelessness characters talk about.

There are also a variety of MMORPG things that either don't exist or, when translated into reality, come across as pretty ridiculous and hard to take seriously. There's no animosity for beta players. The idea of a beater (combination of "beta" and "cheater") is completely unheard of. No guild would disband because of a loot drop conflict. Nobody thinks sharing an inventory is romantic. SAO focuses a lot on trivial aspects of MMOs without really noting the more notable things.

The abrupt shift from Sword Art Online to Alfheim Online was pretty poorly done and confusing to the viewer. Sword Art Online had not really been fleshed out before it suddenly vanished from the anime - out of the 100 floors, major events take place in maybe three or four. The ultimate resolution of the main conflict is resolved within a few minutes with deux ex machina with no prior plot development, making for a very unsatisfactory conclusion to the world. The second arc of the anime does have a marginally better plot, but really only because there's a clear goal and stays on focus towards this goal. While it is the typical damsel in distress plotline, Sugou, as a villain, is pretty implausible. The concept of a random older man obsessed with marrying a comatose teenager and almost succeeding is pretty far-fetched and frankly, outright ridiculous. Again, Kirito defeats Sugou with the use of deux ex machina and saves Asuna from the perverted clutches of Sugou (Episodes 21 and 24 are pretty weird.) Kirito's cousin Sugu becomes a prominent figure in this arc...but the question really is why? What purpose does replacing the clear romantic interest with another romantic interest (a cousin, no less) do for the series?

Kirito is a pretty straightforward main character. He's brave, heroic, determined, altruistic, kind, and just - the embodiment of the typical hero character. He's fairly ridiculously strong - given the protection of the deux ex machina. Things occur that are nonsensical according to the anime, but Kirito overcomes through sheer willpower, apparently. When he gets killled in Sword Art Online, he just decides not to die ("A true man never dies, even when he's killed"). His ability to resolve major conflicts in the story by realizing something is second to none.

Asuna is possibly the most inconsistent character out of any anime I've watched. When she is introduced, she is distant, quiet, and mysterious. She's seen wearing a cloak with a hood that covers her face and talks very little. But a few episodes later, she's the assertive co-leader of the knights of blood. Given, two years has passed, but the complete 180 in personality is still notable. A few episodes later, she's no longer assertive or distant. She turns into a typical lovey-dovey opposite for the male lead. Asuna, on numerous occasions, demonstrates remarkable swordmanship and competence - dispatching scores of enemies or even killing a boss. She then loses any ability to fend for herself once in Alfheim Online and is reduced to your standard damsel in distress.

The romance between Kirito and Asuna begins abruptly and doesn't have much plausibility. Asuna is horrendously underdeveloped - again, the time skip has prevented the viewer from watching much of the interaction between Kirito and Asuna - before she becomes unconditionally devoted to Kirito and they get married (in SAO). She really has no reason to do so. The next few episodes are a strange collection of married life - they move into a cabin together, they get a kid(like thing), and they live together.

Now wait. Isn't SAO supposed to be an action anime? Why are there so many episodes about married life? The divisive focus of the anime chooses to really hone in between the love between Kirito and Asuna. But anyways...

The rest of the cast is very secondary and plays few roles aside from simply being there. Even Sugu, who is introduced as the the main female character in the second arc, is unquestionably secondary because the romance between Kirito and Asuna is already so established. You already know she's a placeholder. Klein and Agil are given so little time to develop that they're really only known as friends of Kirito.

From an objective viewpoint, the story and characters of SAO are very bad. It is very poorly executed. There were plenty of promising ideas that ultimately came to naught.

However, there are some positive features about the anime that still give some form of enjoyment. The sound and art are superb. SAO is a gorgeous anime. Character designs are well-made.

On some level, I really want to like SAO. It's the epitome of a geek's escapist fantasy. People play MMORPGS escape the confines of reality - to be able to fight monsters, quest, fly, have adventures, whatever. It would be an awfully tempting offer to live in an MMO world as your character. SAO offers, in some form or another, a glimpse into this fantasy. It manages to connect in, really, just due to its premise. But with all its faults, SAO becomes more and more difficult to associate with as the anime drags on. Things get more and more ridiculous and the plot loses any semblance of plausibility. At the very end, you're left with a disappointing, unfulfilled anime that didn't live up to its full potential.