Review of Sword Art Online

Story: The premise is really interesting, and the first two episodes are pretty good. They show the setting and the lone-wolf kind of guy that Kirito is. Also, as the second episode happens two months after the first episode, it shows a little bit of how has life changed for those who are trapped in the game. Because of that, this two episodes are really interesting and it makes you wonder what's gonna happen next. Sadly, the anime goes downhill from here and the next episodes show you that it doesn't know how to take advantage of the premise they have built upon. The anime makesa sudden and extremely early turn of focusing on episodic content rather than advancing the story. Episodic shows can be really enjoyable, but here it just doesn't work with the premise the anime has. Why would I want to watch Kirito do the equivalent of a videogame side quests instead of actually struggling and fighting for his freedom when this is the point they've been trying to sell us in the first two episodes? It's like if in Attack on Titan instead of showing us how our heroes fight against the titans we get to see Eren doing some random errands while all of the action and drama of dealing with the titans happens offscreen. I would forgive this more if the episodes were interesting enough to make you forget that the story isn't progressing at all, but to me it was all pretty mediocre and predictable

Then we get a few episodes that actually focus on trying to beat the game, more Kirito doing random shenanigans, and finally, we get to advancing the story again.

And while you might think things will take longer, the final boss appears early and kinda out of nowhere. There's no anticipation, no witty dialogue from either the hero or the villain before the fight, not even an emotional moment to remember what the stakes are. It just happens.

Let me make a parenthesis here to tell you that, by this point, battles are pretty predictable. Kirito overpowers his enemies from the start because of some skill he has or just because he is that great. And even if he himself gets overpowered, he suddenly gets a way to overpower his enemy back or someone else saves him. There's not a single time when you can see a close battle in which anything could happen. The one time Kirito actually lost, in the end of that same episode it was proven that his defeat didn't really make a difference on anything other than being a mere inconvenience.

I bother on writting that because not only does it show that fights are boring and uninteresting, but that by the point of him having to face the final boss there's really no expectations for this battle, and you would be right on assuming that.

The final battle ends with a good old deus ex machina. If you don't know what that is, it basically means that things happen with no believable explanation. In fact, there's no trying to explain how did Kirito win at all. He completely broke programmed in-game and real life rules just cause.

The big bad is finally defeated, so we only need an epilogue of some sort, right? Well, the thing here is... we're only in episode 14 and there's a total of 25 episodes. What, you may ask, can come next? I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

Everyone wakes up except for Kirito's love interest, Asuna, who's still trapped in another game because some guy wants to marry her and for some reason (money) her parents are ok with it and will give let the marriage happen without letting Asuna have any choice. Kirito, obviously decides to rescue her in a game very similar to SAO, but this time if you die ingame you don't die in real life. And there I thought I couldn't be any less worried for them.

I could talk more about it, but I don't think it's worth the time I'll take writing it and the time you'll take reading it. I think you already have a pretty good idea as to why this part of the anime is worse than the previous 14 episodes and I personally couldn't have waited more for it to be over.

Characters:

The story is bad, but the real problem here are the characters. I strongly believe that if you don't care about the characters you can't really care about the story, and they are as bland as they get.

First we got Kirito, our main man. At first it looks like he could be a little interesting. Remember how I said the anime showed us a bit of Kirito's personality in the first episodes? Well, forget about all that because Kirito throws the little lone-wolf and rebellious archetype he had going on and throws it through the window and becomes another boring power fantasy protagonist by not showing any of his personality traits. His only characteristics are being better than everyone else, except for that one time in which he lost, and being irresistible to every girl he meets, including his own sister.

To be fair, though, there's one moment that seems to change Kirito by reinforcing his solitary attitude he has... but it only really shows when he explicitly mentions it and never again.

Then we got Asuna which is the really, really obvious love interest right from the beggining. She's a little misterious at first but that ends the same episode she gets introduced. The only thing I can say about her is that she likes cooking enough so that she decides to level that skill up to the maximum instead of expending those experience points in something far more useful, which, even though a lot may think it's really dumb, I think it actually gives her a little bit of personality, but that's really it.

Finally, we got my "favorite" character of the show. Kirito's sister, Suguha. Even though her whole character is based around her forbidden love, she's the only character that we actually see struggling with something and having some sort of development. I actually felt a little sad for her, which is something no other character made me feel. Actually, no one other than her made me feel anything at all.

"Where's all the other characters?" You might ask, and the thing is... they don't exist. I mean, they do, but if the main cast is replaceable, I really don't know how much lower can I put the rest of the characters. They're just plot tools, and that's if they're lucky. Most of them aren't even that.

But not everything is bad...

Art & Sound:

This is the part that I actually liked. From the first episodes I was pleasantly surprised at all the backgrounds which really stand out. They're really beautiful and I even paused some episodes just so I could contemplate them some more. The animations are generally good and fluid. I didn't caught any "derp faces" or things like that.

The music is really amazing and it does a good job of setting the mood. Too bad the general characters and story ruin that mood, but if it was in a better show, it would just add to the experience. The first opening is sometimes stuck in my head, too.

Final thoughts:

I think I already expressed how bad this anime was for me. There's a lot more things I could have gotten into, but I don't want to give any important spoilers because, unlike a lot of people, rather than an angry rant, I mostly want to give people something that can help them decide if they want to watch it or not. Even though this was mostly a negative review, I want to strongly encourage you to read more reviews, specially positive ones, so that you can have a different point of view other than mine. Who knows, maybe you'll actually find out you really enjoy this anime, and I wouldn't want to stop you from having a nice time.

Final Score: 3/10