Review of Sword Art Online
This is the anime that pulled me into the world of otaku and anime back in 2013. Thinking back to when I was a teenager, I really loved shows like this, where the main character is super strong and surrounded by tons of girls who like him. But now, watching it again in 2024, I realize how embarrassing my taste was back then. There are so many cringe-worthy scenes that seriously test my patience—like, is this really something worth watching? So, in Season 1, it's split into two parts with two different stories. The first part left me with a bunch of questions. It’s said that ifa character dies, the game device, called NerveGear, will kill the players in real life through their neural connections. That’s insanely brutal, with about 4,000 players dying, but the chaos of that isn’t really shown. After finishing the game, everyone just seems fine and peaceful.
In the game itself, I was curious because of some annoying spoilers I heard about Asuna and Kirito getting intimate in the game, and her making noises of pleasure. WTF? How could a fake avatar body even do that? Like, can it produce hormones and reproduce like real humans? If that’s true, then why aren’t there any reports of player-on-player harassment in this supposedly free world? Was the stuff people said about Asuna and Kirito just a lie?
Moving on to Season 2, we get this disgusting main character with a personality like someone with mental issues, trying to sexually NTR (steal) Asuna Yuuki from Kirito. I don't even want to think about what he might've done to her body while she was lying unconscious in the hospital—whether he was touching and kissing her all night or whatever. Just thinking about it makes my heart ache because I absolutely hate stuff like that.
Then we get to the second part, where the game changes, and we see Kirito’s cousin’s feelings for him growing, whether she realizes it or not. Even though Kirito changes his avatar, it’s still obvious that he’s the same person she loves.
The second part is pretty bad because the story is driven by that disgusting character I mentioned earlier. I’m left wondering if the author just got tired of the leveling and dungeon stuff. Maybe that’s why the rating didn’t even hit 7.5.
Spending years in a fantasy game world would definitely mess with someone’s psychology and personality. If I were playing in front of a monitor for hours on end, I’d probably go nuts trying to interact with people too. That happens to the main character in this series, where he starts acting like he’s still in the game, like riding an imaginary horse and carrying a kendo sword on his back. (That’s seriously ridiculous! It made me laugh so hard at how crazy this character is, LOL).
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The animation and visuals are pretty good for an anime that came out in 2012. The dramatic background music also really gets the viewer pumped up and emotional. But honestly, all of that is too good for a story that’s pretty much TRASH. The female characters are made super cute and attractive, but there’s no harem genre here—it just leads to a bunch of girls around the main character getting hurt.
Score: 7/10
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