Review of Sword Art Online

There will be spoilers, because they are the main problem I have with this show. You have been warned. Story: 2/10 Sword Art Online started out strong and very enjoyable in Aincrad. The premise of being trapped in a virtual world and dying in real life if killed in the game is one which I personally do find to be quite interesting, and if they had kept this, I probably would have liked this show. However, multiple times throughout the initial arc of Sword Art Online, they made plot elements which completely went against this premise and defied the logic of the game. The first time thishappens is very early on, when Kirito's entire party gets killed and he tried to get a one-time event item that he could use to bring back a girl whom he had told would be safe. While it turned out that this item had to be used within about 10 seconds after the character died, this broke the logic of the show because once you're dead in this game your brain is fried. Later, at the end of this arc, there was an infuriatingly rushed scene on Floor 75 after fighting the boss, where Kirito reveals that it was Heathcliff, the guild leader, was actually Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of SAO, all along, and that he was going to be the final boss on Floor 100. While he paralyzes everyone in the room but Kirito, they fight until Asuna, Kirito's wife in the game and the main heroine, overcomes paralysis out of sheer will apparently, intercepts Kayaba's attack and dies, at which point Kirito loses all morale and is also killed. While it would only make sense that at this point they would be dead for good, Kirito comes back to life and kills Kayaba, winning the game and allowing everyone to log out, with both him and Asuna somehow alive. Yet, the worst part of this story is yet to come. After the Aincrad arc is Alfheim Online, a game with no risk of death in which Asuna was trapped after leaving the game. Kirito has to save Asuna, previously a power female character and now a damsel in distress, from a man who wants to marry and rape her. On his way, Asuna escapes, only to be greeted with tentacle monsters who try rape her for... some reason. Maybe? Kirito finally makes it to where she is, leading to the worst scene in any show that I can think of, an NTR scene in which Asuna is nearly raped until Deus ex Kayaba comes and lets Kirito control the game, dropping the villain's level to one and pain tolerance to 0 and killing him in the game, destorying any logic left whatsoever.

Art and Sound: 9/10

The art and sound in SAO are really the highlight of the show. This show looks polished, with interesting character designs and great looks to Alfheim and especially Aincrad. As for the music, the OST is amazing and done by one of anime's best-known composers: Yuki Kajiura. I don't have much to complain about s far as these categories go.

Character: 5/10

I don't especially hate most of the main characters, although I do really hate the antagonist of the second arc. Kirito is overpowered to an insane and illogical degree, but I didn't mind this that much personally. Asuna was a great character and I thought that she was one of the better ones in the show. More minor character like Klein was enjoyable (better than Kirito). Kirito's sister, Suguha, can be basically summed up in one term: brother-complex. She was not particularly great and there was too much focus on her in a sexual way which there should not have been at all. Yui, an AI who was Kirito's and Asuna's "daughter" was cute, but not an interesting character, and the way she was brought back in the second half of the show was ridiculous, breaking the logic of the show (although, is there really any logic to it in the first place?). The worst character in the show is the villain of the Alfheim arc, Sugou. His entire character was that he wanted to marry and rape Asuna because he was a comically evil person, without any nuance to his motivations.

Enjoyment: 4/10

For the first half, I was definitely enjoying the show a lot, I cannot lie. It was fun and had an interesting premise as well as a genuine romance, not seen in many shows, which I enjoyed. But once the Aincrad arc ended, my enjoyment plummeted, and at the end of episode 24, I was genuinely angry about what I was watching.

Overall: 3/10

I went into this wanting to like it, despite all I'd heard about it. But because of the awful logic-breaking events of the show and just bad writing all around, I believe that this was just a bad show. I understand why many people love it, but I couldn't stand much of it.