Review of Sword Art Online

This was one series that a lot of pple recommend I watch. SAO is very successful commercial wise and I know a lot of pple who enjoy this series. I also wanted to watch cuz its concept gave me interest, an anime exploring virtual reality, I mean c'mon that's dope asf. Therefore I had high expections for this series and after watching all of season one dubbed here's what I think. Story:5/10 Very disappointing. It gets off to a good start wit its interesting concept but starts to just fall due to its poor pacing and inconsistent plotline. The series feels like it suffers from filler asthere were times where we're given a plot but then forced to follow some irrelevant stops that kept the story from progression. It then has moments where it time jumps and it feels like the series is tryna rush itself. It also never answered this one question that we needed to be answered and becuz of this it suffers from exposition. However they were some decent conflict and twists that added some memorable moments and romance to add emotion. It also gets a point for having a good conclusion.

Art:10/10
By far the show's biggest standout. The one thing about this series is that it's so beautiful to look at. Consistent animation, great use of color, and gorgeous costume design. Another thing I really loved here is that the art really gave you that video game feel. The visuals really stood out wit its grand backgrounds making the gaming world look so stunning and where the animation really stands out is when player menus showed up. It's becuz of its great animation why the action was such an enjoy to watch. In terms of looks it's hard to find any series to surpass SAO.

Sound:8/10
Impressive and very solid. The music here was very good wit its 1st opening theme being my personal favorite. It also did a great job wit handling the battle scenes by adding a lot of tension to make the action have the right amount of intensity. As far as dubbing goes it was fine, but just fine. There were some voices that didn't work for and a lot of cheesy dialogue BUT when u have a series wit lots of romance you kinda have to expect that. I do have to give props to Bryce Papenbrook who I honestly thought did a good job as Kirito.

Character:4/10
Bad characterization and poor development. For one I really didn't care for Kirito at all, he was basically a walking Mary Sue no one can beat him and literally every female fell in love wit him for NO REASON. He was however given decent development and was given reasonable motives. Asuna however, is w/o a doubt the worst developed character of the entire franchise. She starts off as this strong, interesting character who then suffers from stereotypes. Most of the supporting cast don't have enough screen time nor moments to make them memorable and the villlains come off as laughable rather than intimidating. My favorite character would have to be Leafa who to me was developed well but eventually sidelined and became used of fan service.

Final Verdict

With its popularity I was disappointed by this season. Strong start but then drags from filler felt episodes and too many times where the story would lose track. And with its weak cast there wasn't anyone to really save the story from losing track of itself. I would however recommend this to some pple in particular those who like romance and for the ones who want to look at beautiful art. I just hope season 2 could redeem the franchise.

Sub or Dub Recommendation: Sub