Review of Sword Art Online

Arguably the breakout hit of 2012, this is a weird, messy work. It’s full of risible elements (little sisters, invincible main protagonist, waifus, the entire second half) that make it inexplicably annoying and bad… and yet. At least for the first half of this series, even with the random diversions and stuff that’s awkward, I still managed to buy into its love story. Or, rather, I bought the idea of it, as something that was necessary for both of those characters. The real time element of it (how they actually stay 2 years in the game) is what eventually sold me on it – ifthey have to stay this long inside the game, why not make something beautiful of it? Of course, this turns out to be complete wish-fulfillment idealized domesticity nonsense that wouldn’t fly in a more serious work; but, here, it mostly works.

copied/pasted from my blog: www.thenextthingblog.wordpress.com