Review of Sword Art Online

Let me just say, if I have to rate an anime lower than a 5, I never finished that anime or I watched it when I was an ignorant pubescent. You would have to pay me to finish a bad first season. A bad second season, that’s unavoidable, the ball was already rolling. So if you’re wondering why its not lower than a five, thats the reason. I finished. It was decent enough to finish. I also want to say, yelling at this show for its obvious flaws was really fun, which kinda bumped the enjoyment score. I completely understand why some love this showand why many hate it. It honestly comes down to the audience’s exposure to certain story elements, their standards for a good anime, and their purpose for even watching the show.

So lets get to it.

Story:

HA! HAHA! So many things to say. One thousand people are stuck in an MMO, and if they die in the game, they die for real. If they want to escape, one of them has to win. Simple fun plot, honestly, all they had to do was be pragmatic about it.

Do you know how many episodes it took before one person goddamn asked, “what do you think is happening to our bodies?” I WAS FREAKING OUT FROM EP 1. The body gets dehydrated after 4 freakin days. They were in that game for so freaking long, how are they not concerned when they’re fighting so hard to leave. Ya’ll want to get back to your normal lives? Obviously you’ll have to go through rehabilitation, some of you guys will have to catch up for school, some of ya’ll wont have jobs, like hoooow was this not a form of conversation from early on?

Then there’s the first 1/4 of the season, which is interesting in a few ways. The first two episodes definitely sets up a feeling of a long arc of beating the game, but instead we get time-skips.

So, I was fine with the idea of time-skips. It made sense, I’m not going into a shonen of 100+ episodes of battle scenes after battle scenes because come on…ITS A FREAKIN MMO.This is show thats trying to get straight to the point, because there’s only two possible endings. You die or you escape.

Now the execution of the time-skips are questionable. There are definitely better time skip scenes that should have been used. Talk about the hierarchy building in the game, the limitations of some characters, the ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT of certain relationships. You can gauge some tension, the desponding hope and the eventual separation of classes as the time skips progress but honestly it was not the best. But also not the worse.

Then we get to the middle. The “romance”? As if there is one? There isn’t, just a very strange idea of a misogynistic romance that should not be admired.
The ending of the first arc was fine. Im assuming the confusion is how a certain character lived, but I thought it was very clear there was a 90 second gap before the brain is fried.

ALSO, why was there an episode on the damn resurrection ball and yet it wasn’t brought up when that character had died? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Second story arc was interesting, but painful because it depended on a romantic arc that had no justification for existing and tried to add sympathy to a character that loved our main character who has no personality at all.

So if I had to guess on why OTHER people liked and disliked certain story elements, this is my guess:

Pro: Romance between the badasses who are hot and slightly angsty, yay. Two arcs in one season, with just enough information to leave room for assumption, how fun! Oh hey, more romance with a cutie in the second half, more tension! Oh hey, a creepy perv that adds “realism” and brings an excuse for more skin!

Cons: How is this romance? What was the purpose of half of these episodes, when you have so few? Is the ecchi helping, honestly? Besides being a creepy replacement for not being able to have children and a cop out, why is Yui even here? Need more context clues, people.

Character:

I mean, many have exuded on this snd I think everyone has it right on the money. These characters are the worst aspect of this show.

The funny thing is, they aren’t annoying. You can get away with never noticing what is so horrible about them because this show leaves A LOT of room for assumption.

Let me say this again, THIS SHOW LEAVES A LOT OF ROOM FOR ASSUMPTION.

This is the textbook guide of Gary Stu and Marie Sue. People say its wish fulfillment of the author, buts it also wish fulfillment for the audience. Its the traits you want those characters to have to fill in the holes for a perfect show. Its you assuming the character has a certain backstory or certain genes that makes up for the lack of content justification.

So I’ll be brief cause tons of reviews have said perfectly what is wrong with these characters.

Kirito. He has zero backstory in this whole show besides being related to someone, playing video games often, and doing Kendo. Thats it. Whole show. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR HIM TO HAVE A ROMANCE. HE HAS NO PERSONALITY.

Asuna. Perfect Waifu, who piqued Kirito’s interest by being hot and being a badass. Then she sealed the deal by being a great cook. I don’t need to explain why this is wrong.

Yui. Why does she exist. In retrospect she’s a cute character, but in her conditions I’m creeped out half the time by minors calling her their daughter.

Everyone else. Honestly, if the characters just weren’t treated with such disrespect, I would have liked all of them. The designs were basic af, but there was something to the color schemes and the interacting body language that I found interesting. Plus they’re all trapped in a game with imminent doom, I mean I sympathize with all of them.

Animation:

This was the animation of a top tier anime. There wasn’t distinct fight scenes I remember since Kirito was just OP the whole time, but there was never anything poorly done either. I think that brought in most of the audiences parading this show. And thats fine and fair.

Music:

Liked the music and there were times when it was timed very well. If the characters didn’t suck to high heaven, that is.

Final Thoughts:

You can finish it, thats the best compliment I can give to the overall show. It is possible to finish. Will you be screaming the whole time? Probably. Or you’ll just accept the tropes, the plot holes, the cop outs, and enjoy the great animation and music for what it is.

Will I ever watch anything related to SAO after this? Heeeeell nah.