Review of Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online makes me sad. Can you guess why? No, you are wrong. It's because it is the utmost example of wasted potential, leaving me in constant state of "how good would this have been?". Let's start with reasons why you might want to watch this anime. It looks great. Whether it's the characters, the landscapes, the action, and so on, everything looks really nice. Next, sound. The voice acting is good. Nothing amazing, but it's good. The soundtrack is great, though I do believe it was not used to its full potential. Finally, the premise. Sword Art Online is inherently interesting (to me, atleast) because of its premise.

Now, reasons why you wouldn't want to watch this anime. Earlier I talked about how interesting the premise is. The anime starts based on that premise (obviously), which drives it forward for the first few episodes. But then, disaster. It's not long before the story starts to encounter major issues, such as sidetracking, nonsense, pacing, and a complete and utter lack of any coherence whatsoever. It doesn't get any better later on, as not only do these issues persist, but in addition, the actual plot takes a dive akin to that of an Olympic gold medalist.

Different people derive enjoyment from watching anime in different ways. Unfortunately, the kind of person I am did not mesh well with Sword Art Online. If you like the anime you watch to not fall apart if you put thinking into them, this really isn't one for you. Especially since Sword Art Online is an extreme case of this problem. On the other hand, if you don't care about that and just want to dive into the world and enjoy emotions, pretty visuals, nice sounds, etc, that's fine too. Really, it is. It doesn't mean that you are stupid or anything just because you don't want to put thinking into your entertainment. Go watch this, you'll probably like it.