Review of Sword Art Online

CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS. With so many reviews with a huge standard deviation all around MAL for SAO, let me join the bandwagon of SAO review writing competition! Actually I am copy pasting one of my forum posts that got buried under 30+ pages. Yeah, SAO hit 25-30 pages on average in MAL forums per episode during its run. This anime drew attention of both admirers and haters alike. I don't really hate it. Rather I would say I disliked it. Not because it is overly hyped and I am one of those who hate things which are liked by the mass. If you see my anime listyou'll probably notice that most of the highly rated anime in MAL and in other anime db sites have pretty good scores from me. So why SAO got a 5/10 from me (and I was being generous for an anime that gave me unwanted lols)?

SAO is a mess. Yes. The proper words for it. A MESS. The only good points of the anime are the animation of the surrounding, the environment, the background details, and the music. It makes you want to be in those fantasy worlds. The idea of realistic virtual world pulls the people into the anime and death in the game is death in real world, pretty much the scorers for the anime.

Everything else, the hollow characters, the ridiculous character interactions, their out of screen development, the randomness of the storytelling, the bizarre pacing of the anime, every single female character having a thing for the main guy, the male side characters being pansies, everything that I seek in an anime to give it a decent score is at shambles.

This anime could have been a great anime. The plot had an enormous potential to make it one of the best anime in years. But what we got instead? If anything other than a mess, I would say it has been a comic relief, just that it wasn't meant to be funny. I ROFL in so many incidents while in others, I did facepalms. Something you really don't expect from an anime that gives the vibe of a very serious story line. Ironically, it tried to be funny at times, but those moments were far from anything funny.

So here is a new take on writing a SAO review. Let me break it down to the genres that it acclaims since no one has done it.

Original Genres:

Action: Half-assed most of the time, overly glorified at times, like someone blowing up when struck by a sword for instance that didn't go unnoticed for many during the ALO arc. Also, A1-Pictures and the facial expressions during high frame-rate action scenes. You probably already know the rest. Score: 5/10

Adventure: Jumping from here and there, more specifically, from level to level. Oh yes, bloody amazing adventure: you just get to know which level they are at, and that's bloody that. No way someone's going to show all 75 levels, right? But hey, why not just do that in such a way that the coherency of the story is there or at least try to make it free-flowing? Score: 2/10

Fantasy: A definite plus of the anime. Maybe the only true genre it has covered properly. SAO arc had some of the best landscapes drawn in an anime made for TV broadcasting. Even though the landscapes lacked creativity, completely ripped off of other fantasies, just that they were animated vividly, which were definitely a plus for the anime. Score: 8/10

Game: Fair enough. They were indeed playing a game. A life threatening one too. Just saying. Score: 7/10

Romance: Okay. It is somewhat proven that when people are at loss, they seek comfort, strive for human warmth. They just want to know that there is someone who would care for them before losing their sanity. I really don't care how Asuna and Kirito started liking each other since I believe falling in love can take years, or just a matter of moments. I think the most romantic moment of the anime was when Asuna cried and said she wanted to grow old with Kirito in the real world. At that point of time, anything simple would have been pretty good for a romance substance but to do that, the animators pushed everything they could think of to make Asuna look a bit too dreamy. She is beautiful, comes from a good background, loving, caring, considerate, good at cooking, good at fighting, and add another twenty things as you wish, and she is basically the most flawless female character you need to make a successful romance story. Like seriously? In an attempt to oversize the romance, an attempt was made to look Asuna a bit too perfect and in the end making her a weak character who was initially shown as quite the dependable and strong character. Asuna pathetically became a tool for romance. And subsequently...*(continue reading or scroll down to asterisk) Score: 3/10 (And I am a fan of romance in anime too.)

Genres it conveniently overlooked:

Harem: Every single female character out there is going after Kirito apparently because he is the gameliest of gamers. Oh wait! I forgot about this character named Yuriel who actually had someone else she liked other than Kirito. And what did we get? Just because she is not meant to be one of Kirito's harem, she has a face of Nizuma Eiji. Score: 9/10. Definitely a Harem anime.

Shounen: Overcome every single obstacle by powering up from God Know where from because Kirito happened to have played the game before as a beta tester and have better reflex (my arse). What the fuck have the rest of the gamers been doing throughout their miserable lives? They just get pawned out of nowhere every time because they are just some random gamers. Score: 7/10

Comedy: Why? Because the anime is full of craziest comedies even though you probably wouldn't want to watch them in an anime set with such serious tone. Even in the final episode when the rapist of rapers missed Kirito by half a meter, he didn't forget to mention that his eyes were playing tricks on him. I literally ROFL. If they make a sequel, which is very likely to happen, I, if for anything, will watch this anime for all the random LOLs. Score: 9/10.

Incest: Okay. Yeah she is a cousin so it doesn't really matter. But they grew up together as siblings even if they are not blood related. It is understandable that suddenly knowing that the one you have lived with wasn't your sibling may result in unsettling emotional state of mind. So I would have stroke it out for decency's fuck. But I didn't. Know why? I never say bad things about female chest. But the way they emphasized on Sugu's BOOBs was annoying to watch as a human being but enjoyable at the same time being a guy. Score: 8/10.

Ecchi: Scientists given tentacles in their avatars in the game? LIKE WHAT THE FUCK? But if you think logically, it all makes sense. They really need to grab Asuna in way that would make you drop a bit of your manhood. But from the business point of view, I say A-1 picture did fucking brilliant. (Continued from the asterisk from above!) *They even ended up making Asuna a raping bag. I am sure every otaku is buying 10 pieces of this crap using their parents' money. No, it wasn't meant to be a racist comment, but that's how they portray the otakus in general, so take my sincere apology for saying such an obnoxious thing. Score: 10/10.

When an anime drifts away from its original genres and scores higher on other *hidden* genres, you must know that the anime if anything, is a complete train wreck.

And thus the anime gets a 5/10 from me.

I haven't read the Light Novel, so it is pointless to judge it from the LN's point of view. No matter how good the LN may be, the anime is probably just a very bad adaptation if anything.

If you have tons of anime to watch in you list, you should avoid watching this anime unless:

1. You really don't have anything else to watch (your list of completed anime is touching 4 digits).
2. You crave for popular (not necessarily good) anime.
3. You are a Masochist (deciding to watch an anime that is bombarded with low scores by majority of the reviewers).