Review of Sword Art Online

Hello Everyone, Caz here with an anime review. SAO to me is neither the worst thing created nor the best, instead it is stuck in the valley of almost brilliant but not there yet. The story is very good for the first part of the first season, with plenty of motivation from the surroundings to create and let you become attached to some of the characters, though this peters out towards the end of the first season and it becomes quite ordinary in the second half, with much of the threat of death gone and the objective being better for a single episode than a whole twelve. Ofcourse the art, and so the action, are good, but shiny and fluid visuals only lend to a third of the anime, if that. Still, the landscapes are very colorful and pleasant to look at, which makes me happy they chose a video game environment as I feel that this can give the artists more liberty with howthey construct areas.
The characters feel good at the start because you can feel all the potential they have, all the chances they have, especially in there situation they have been placed in, to become truly great. Sadly, this potential is wasted as all the main characters can be placed into boxes before long into the series (~6/7) and the chemistry between some are somewhat forced in some cases.However, the villain of the second half served his purpose very well as i really loved to hate him.
When I first watched this anime, I found myself getting really into it. But now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I can barely remember any of the scenes and those I do are either because I hated a character so much I was shouting at my screen for them to be deus-ex-machina'd or because I am a sucker for fluff, no matter how forced.