Review of Sword Art Online

What happens when you take a decent concept, but that concept gets so popular and overhyped that you end up caving in and pandering to the interests and fantasies of your various fans? And what happens when this caving and pandering becomes so substantial and excessive that the entire plot built from the concept ends up making no sense? You get Sword Art Online. I will state before I continue that I came around to watching this anime after being told it was bad by friends. Nonetheless, after watching the series I have formed my own opinions, which seem to align with most others who thinksimilarly about it; but I wanted to share my thoughts and input in 2017, this being my first anime review. Plus, the show turned out to be worse than I expected. Also, I know it's based on the light novel under the same name, but all opinions will be based on the anime only.

Simply put, SAO turned into a bloated cornucopia of fan fiction and plot holes. The writing feels very cheesy like it was written by 16-year-olds, and genres are vomited left and right to appeal to specific audiences. I don’t mind anime that go for a handful of different genres, but they must do so in a way that connect to the overall development of the character, plot, and story. SAO fundamentally fails to do this, and their pandering becomes extremely obvious.


Story: 2/10
As mentioned, the initial premise actually sounds pretty interesting: an MMORPG of which people quickly find out that they’re unable to log out until they have defeated all bosses; and if they die in the game they die in real life. The first two episodes do a decent job of setting up the conflict, characters, and mood of the show. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the rest of the series, as it does not represent the first two episodes, and just about everything goes downhill from there.

I can safely say that around 95% of what happens in the rest of the show is either half-assed explained or not even explained at all. And no, I’m not talking about setting up a mystery scenario and purposefully leaving the viewer to question. I mean that things that occur are either eventually rushed into some bogus explanation or blatantly never explained. I often just assumed that the motives were plot convenience and “muh fan service!” For example, just wait until you hear the creator Kayaba’s true honest-to-god reason why he traps thousands of people in a game while being unaware of the consequences. It got to the point that a meme was made between me and my friends, where if someone asks why an event unfolded the way it did, another person would respond: “you’re using your brain too much, just embrace it.”

I will try not to spoil the plot too much, but in a life-death situation you would expect to be presented themes of survival, moral dilemma, and doing whatever it takes to, you know, leave the damn game. But why have any of those things when you can play petty games of “screw around at some location until you’re bored,” “where’s my waifu?” and “Make Kirito Great Again (even though he’s already great at everything).” The rest is just facepalming romance, harem and white-knighting that will cause you to forget the premise.

To accommodate the aforementioned, the first arc (that is, after the first 2 episodes) is flooded with crazy time skips and forced side stories that don’t add anything to the plot or premise. If the first arc doesn’t give you headaches, the second one definitely will. The second arc essentially throws Sword Art Online out the window and instead becomes Boob Elf Incest Online. The harem gets even worse here; and although there aren’t random time skips, the anime’s theme is completely replaced by fan service.


Character: 1/10
This is for me the worst and most painful part of the show. I will go as far to say that SAO is the antithesis of creating character development. These characters are some of the most cheesy, forced, pandering, simpleton, melodramatic, cringe-worthy, strawman figures of fan fiction I have seen in an anime as popular as this.

Kirito/Kazuto: I don’t mean to sound condescending because people are entitled to their opinions, but I am baffled at why he is in the top 10 best anime characters on MAL. The main protagonist is basically the Jesus of games. Actually, saying this would be insulting to Jesus, for he had to struggle. Kirito, however, manages to conquer everything that comes his way with little effort. How I see it, he has NO character or personality whatsoever. He is the ideal perfect guy who just happens to know everything about the games he stumbles upon, performs almost flawlessly in combat, hacks his way through struggles like magic, and captures the heart of every girl who lays eyes on him. He is in my opinion one of the blandest protagonists in not just anime, but in animated shows in general; and that’s a strong statement. I guess my explanation to Kirito being in the top 10 is that some people look up to his godly perfection and aspire to be him. But for me he came out as douchey and non-human.

Asuna: At first, I actually liked the direction she was being developed as a well-rounded protagonist who can handle herself while assisting Kirito when need be and vice versa, and one of her flaws being letting her emotions get the better of her in some situations. But of course, the first two episodes do not represent the rest of the show, for gender stereotypes and “muh fan service” envelop the rest of it. Instead she becomes for the most part a showcase waifu who needs her prince Kirito-kun to rescue her, and founds basically Cooking Mama: MMORPG Edition. However, I do have to concede that in the first arc she isn’t always helpless, for she does fend for herself in a FEW situations. This is untrue for the second arc, nonetheless. By then she is a helpless Princess Peach who is literally encaged by the villain, longing for “it’s a-me, a-Kirito” to rescue her. I wouldn’t mind a character like this as much if the fan fiction weren’t so obvious and if her personality was consistent from the start.

Antagonists: My opinion of the villain of the first arc is more of a story issue. As mentioned, Kayaba’s motives are poorly explained and his background is still very mysterious. The villain of the second arc, however, is one of the cheesiest most generic villains I have seen in a while; and the way the show introduces him makes little sense. He has evil intentions for the sake of having evil intentions, plot convenience, and- you guessed it- muh fan service. That simple.

Other characters: There’s not a lot to say about the other characters because they were easily forgettable and very difficult to admire or invest attention in. They were either random side-villains, figures of tokenism, or girls trying to get into Kirito’s pants. These three points sum up their roles:
1) A character would be introduced in one episode and then dropped for the next 5-10 episodes, only to be found in a cameo later on.
2) A character would be introduced and die almost immediately, and then the show tries desperately to get us to pretend to care about said character.
3) A character would be dropped into the abyss completely, never to be seen again until the very last episode (won’t spoil how this plays out).

Art/Sound: 7/10
The art and sound are actually pretty good, and they at least make the show appealing to the eye and ear despite the other flaws. I can understand the nostalgic factor for fans of MMORPG solely by the stunning medieval setting and the illusion the show creates of being a game avatar. However, the same cannot be said about the character designs, for they were too generic for my taste. I also found the animation to have gotten lazier and sloppier over time, this being prevalent in the second arc.

Enjoyment: 3/10
The aforementioned development of the story and character makes SAO unbearable to watch in a serious manner. I found it humorous at times, but for the wrong reasons. That is, you can get some good laughs in with your friends by making fun of the cheesy romance, odd sensibilities and staunch pandering (of which there is plenty). Even then, these laughs don’t last forever, and it just gets more painful and cringe-worthy to watch as the show “progresses” (spoiler: there is hardly any progression).

Overall: 3/10
The only aspects that are decent from this show from a critical standpoint are the art and music. I feel that most of the higher scores for SAO stem from these elements. That and too many people buy into these fan-based nostalgic, romantic and sexual teases. However, personal enjoyment is by no means the only factor in what makes a good anime. Taking a chunk of crap, painting over it and making it look pretty can only last so long because at the end of the day, it’s still a chunk of crap; and the smell is not going away. I could not overlook the anime’s very poor writing, lack of character development, and countless plot holes given the few fine aspects.

Conclusion: SAO had a lot of potential to become a solid anime, but the writers succumbed to time crunch and heavy pandering to fan service; and they failed to tie their countless loose ends. The result was a rushed, inconsistent, sloppy, pandering flop.

If you are looking for mindless eye candy to fantasize with and imagine yourself in, or if you’re looking to laugh at below-mediocre writing and plot, then by all means watch it. But if you’re looking for a coherent plot, an engaging story, character development WHATSOEVER, substance, and overall a good anime, you will not find any of these in Sword Art Online.