Review of Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online is equal parts terrible and awesome. I mean terrible in a bad way and awesome in a good way. The quick summary: -The first 13 episodes get an 8/10. -The last 12 episodes get a 3/10. -Don't watch it because it will disappoint you in the end no matter how strong it starts. Lets start with the pros. Visually, it looks great the whole way through. Action sequences are enjoyable and as flashy as a person could desire. The backgrounds are nicely done and really show the scale of the world that Sword Art Online takes place in.The sound in Sword Art Online is also a great piece of work. The sound effects are what is expected from the environment presented, and the music is always right where it should be the whole way through.

The story is full of cool and original ideas. Characters are entertaining too.

Now for the cons.

The pacing of the series is difficult to deal with. It's fragmented story telling would work well for some stories but it's really jarring in Sword Art Online. One might argue that it adds to the serious tone of the series, but I'll come back to that in a bit.

The characters might be entertaining, but most of them are very forgettable. The ones most easily remembered had short lived parts as it were and so there is a problem here: unimportant characters are more memorable than the main cast...

While the story has some great and unique ideas they are totally muddled in their presentation. The focus and tone of the show both shift numerous times. It begins as a relatively serious, dark, and action oriented anime before changing into a love story, a harem, a tragedy, and ultimately what feels like canonized hentai fanfiction.

Now back to that earlier bit about arguing the fragmented story telling works for Sword Art Online: it does... for about 5 episodes. That's a mere one-fifth of the series. With the constant shift in tone and direction that style breaks quickly.

Overall, Sword Art Online could have been something amazing which is what it started off as, but ultimately it turned into the some of the worst story telling ever. I would not recommend watching it in full to anybody, but would suggest that viewers watch the first 13 episodes and then stop.