Review of Sword Art Online

This anime tends to get some mixed reviews, so I will do my best to offer a clarifying opinion. ***Warning: potential spoilers ahead (if you have not seen the anime!)*** I've seen both Sword Art Online (SOA) season 1 and season 2. If you've read reviews praising SOA, they're most likely praising part one of season one. If you've read reviews trashing SOA, they're most likely trashing everything else. I find both viewpoints to be a bit extreme. Although the critiques you will read about are legitimate, all things considered, SOA is a great anime. What's good: The story centers around a concept that I--and I'msure many others--have entertained since I was a kid. Virtual reality, and the idea of entering a video game where you maintain your bodily form is nothing short of awesome. Sure, the concept itself may not be novel. But where SOA really shines is its execution in bringing the concept of virtual reality to life. The anime does an excellent job of presenting watchers with a hypothetical thought experiment of what it would be like to be trapped in a virtual world for two years. Unlike other animes, SOA is set up such that you don't feel like you need to suspend your disbelief too much. With advances in AI, machine learning, and user experience, we could very well one day live in a world where entering an SAO realm would be possible.

With an awesome concept serving as the background for the story, the actual plot was very entertaining. I grew up with Saturday morning cartoons like Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Teen Titans, etc. and one of the most recurring plots was always some rendition of "saving the world." Here, SAO offers a twist on that age old plot cliche: escape the world. But to do that, the protagonists of the story are forced to fight through dungeons and bosses to reach the end of a world level before moving on. In the first half of season one, the story advances rather quickly--some might argue too quickly--which leads to serious pros and cons about the writing for the rest of the season. More on that in a bit. As the plot begins to build build, it eventually leads to one of the most memorable plot twists from an anime that I've seen to date. Overall, if only for the story alone, SAO is worth the watch. It is a thoroughly entertaining action anime that will leave you wanting more.

This anime also has an abundance of scenes depicting landscapes and other areas that are artistically gorgeous. Honestly, when I finished watching the anime, part of me longed to live somewhere akin to Aincrad. I think when an anime is visually and aesthetically appealing, it is a reflection of how the writers/producers/people that make this stuff view their own work. When the artwork is great, when they invest the time and resources into hiring animators to make each individual scene look good, I think it signals to the watcher that this isn't just any ordinary anime. This is something that is actually worth watching through to the end.

Hands down, one of the best features of SAO is the music. I'm an avid OST listener, and if you're a fan of scores from video games, movies, and anime, then you will love some of the OSTs from SAO. I maintain a playlist of songs from various anime that I have seen over the years, and SAO ranks as one of the top most animes with OSTs that I listen to on a regular basis. Even if you never watch the anime itself, go listen to the music. But don't take my word for it. Go on Youtube and look up a few OSTs from SAO. When you find one, any one, just hike up the volume, sit back, relax, and enjoy.

At this point, I've tried to portray some of the aspects that I liked best about SAO in the most positive light possible. As I mentioned at the start of my review you will either read reviews that absolutely love SAO or hate it. Let me now discuss why some people might hate it.

What's bad: First off, let's start with one of the more milder complaints: character development. For the most part, SAO's character development is something you might expect from a typical anime. You have the hero, Kirito, and his love interest, Asuna, and a villain who is, arguably, the most sophisticated character of all but has the least amount of screen time. This is frustrating because it feels as if the writers invested all of their efforts in making the anime look and sound good without investing much in the area of developing the character's personalities. In the first half of season one, the lack of character development isn't entirely apparent. Initially, everyone's motivation seems pretty clear--escape the video game and get back to the real world. Although Kirito first comes across as this douche that thinks he's better than everyone, that perception is quickly curtailed when the writers, through the use of a convenient plot device that sees his party members die as a result of a trap that he led them into, pull a complete 180 and rewrite Kirito as this altruistic savior that suddenly seems to care about the wellbeing of everyone else. On the other hand, Asuna maintains a very edgy personality for a majority of the first half of the anime--something that is quite refreshing given the abundance of animes that depict women as these damsels in distress--until the inevitable romance occurs between Kirito and Asuna. The love story is kind of cute, and the chemistry between the characters is real. However, when the story progresses beyond the first half of the season, all caution is thrown to the wind and the writing takes one of the longest falls down the shitter I have ever seen.

When part two of season one begins, the flaws in the character development really become apparent and you begin to realize that the makers of SAO really spent little to no time distinguishing this story from any other anime with similar characters. At the conclusion of the Aincrad arc, Kirito and everyone trapped in the virtual world are returned to real life, except for Asuna. Part two commences with Kirito voluntarily reentering another virtual world in an attempt to bring Asuna back to reality. My biggest problem with this new arc is that the writers seem to assume that Kirito's accomplishments and victory in the previous arc were enough of a justification to warrant every decision that Kirito makes in part two. When Kirito embarks on his quest to rescue Asuna, his quest quickly turns into a mission to save the new video game world from the evils of the fairy king. In this regard, SAO turns into just another "save the world" type anime. Moreover, in part two, Asuna becomes the archetypical damsel in distress while Kirito has no real reason to be doing anything else but rescuing her and gtfoing. Real original, right? But it gets better. As in any cliche anime with a romance story, Kirito somehow becomes the most heterosexual male that every female in the story fawns over and quickly forms his own harem. When Asuna is saved and season one ends, Asuna assumes her place as Kirito's bitch and is basically emasculated of all her fiery passion and edginess that she exemplified in the first half of season one.

If that's not shitty character development, then I don't know what is. But that's not even the worst part about SAO. Sadly, at the conclusion of season one, it becomes clear that the writers really had no reason to give a shit in season two and so you are led on with one of the biggest teases in anime history. Season two starts with an awesome premise and an awesome plot idea, but is quickly ended in a matter of a few episodes with one of the most underwhelming conclusions to date. As you are left wondering what will follow the conclusion of the first arc of season two, you imagine all the possible plots that could follow. "Maybe the writers of SAO won't pull a season one!", you think to yourself. "Maybe it'll be better!", you say. But sadly and cruelly, despite all of your hopes and dreams, your expectations are proved horribly wrong, and season two concludes with one of the shittiest endings to an anime ever. With no rhyme or reason, the first arc in SAO season two is rushed to a conclusion that is far from satisfying and leaves you wondering, what was the point?

So there you have it. Despite the shortcomings following part one of season one, I still thoroughly enjoyed this anime and refuse to give it less than an 8. Many will disagree with my opinion here, and that's fine. I probably shouldn't be so generous. But if I pretend that the stuff after season one never happened, this anime actually was really good. Also, for those of you that noticed that my writing became progressively worse as I went on, that was intentional. It was intended to reflect how the writing in SAO became progressively shittier as time went on. So if you started my review thinking that I was providing some excellent feedback, but then ended it thinking that I wrote like a kindergardener, that's precisely how I felt after watching SAO. Good day.