Review of Sword Art Online

Everyone knows that SAO is a highly polarized anime. you may not like it cuz kirito is op and shit, one trick pony characters, unrealistic, yui, "beater". But hear me out. First dozen episodes of SAO is good, and like 6-7 of them are actually like masta piece. Nostalgia aside, the handful of episodes that are good is because there are stakes at hand and the world feels immersive. Axe the yui crap and brush up on the murder mystery arc and you gotta a pretty decent anime. These first dozen episodes is pre-ultra sexual harem kirito days. It is a perfect amount of harem. Likegod damn he's smooth but not like unaware. He addresses the problem with Liz and helps out the dragon girl maturely (although he did use her as bait ahah but he's confident so it's justified?), and ultimately gets his true girl.

Let's not act like if SAO wasn't 24 episodes of just aincrad and Kayaba Akihiko actually waited for him at floor 100 that this anime wouldn't have shlapped. And if you just subtract Yui and "beater" then bam so good. Even if you didn't like Kirito or even the story, the stakes and pressure that SAO created is unmatched, enough to keep most even a little invested.

Maybe your gripes with this anime is with OP-ness of Kirito. Well yes and no. Give him the benefit of the doubt. He tested beta. He knows his way around. He's a good gamer. Most main characters are gonna be more special than other characters. And to top it all off, he's not that op. Floor 76 was still a disaster wasn't it? Give him some slack and appreciate him.

But alas, we can't imagine or watch SAO in a vacuum. Everything we've seen happened. GGO happened. Weird stuff happened in Alicization. Alfheim happened. Those 12 episodes of aincrad is all we got.

Take it as you will. I can vacuumize my watching experience to those 12 episodes despite its ups and downs.