Review of Sword Art Online

Here's my hot-take on SAO. It's okay to like it. Since the anime series first aired it seems like there was an explosion of light novels being adapted into anime. Isekai following the "if-you-die-in-the-game-you-die-for-real" format have long persisted as a dominant force in storytelling in light novels. It coincides nicely with the trend of giving them increasingly long and convoluted names that double as a plot synopsis. Looking back SAO is refreshing in it's simplicity. It blazes through it's first story arc faster than any isekai would dare these days, killing the first big bad before 12 episodes are up. Unfortunately, however, money. The seriescould have ended after Aincrad and it would have been just fine. I think I would actually call it really good. But it's the money train that can't stop rolling now. I don't think we'll ever see the end of it.

The whole second half, with the new fairy game they go to and the incest subplot is what people usually remember and the reason why most people come away from the series hating it. I myself was really enjoying it up until that bloated affair. The series never managed to get any better, but I gave it a decent grade for those first 11 episodes or so when the show was actually good. Long live isekai, I guess

8/10