How Many People Like Sword Art Online

9 /10

Trapped in a deadly virtual reality game

Warning: Spoilers

This anime, set in 2022, opens with teenager Kazuto Kirigaya logging into the virtual reality game 'Sword Art Online' he knows what to expect as he was one of the beta testers. Computer games have progressed to a stage where it feels as though the players are really in the world of the game they are playing but there is a surprise waiting for Kazuto, or 'Kirito' as he calls himself within the game; the creator has made a game where it is impossible to log out and to make matters even worse the player will be killed in the real world if they die in the game or if somebody tries to remove their VR headsets. They are told that the only way to be released from the game is for somebody to get to the hundredth level and defeat the final boss. Kirito is highly skilled tanks to his time in the beta game but even for him it won't be easy. In the game he befriends Asuna; a girl who is also highly skilled. As time passes they progress, some players die and others settle down to peaceful lives in the lower levels of the game. Eventually, after two years, they reach the final level but even after victory things don't go according to plan; only one of them awakens leaving the other trapped in another game created by a man who worked for the creator of Sword Art Online. If the two of them are to be reunited the one who was freed must enter the new game and overcome a more dangerous foe.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this series but once I started watching I was soon drawn into the story. Kirito and Asuna were great protagonists if a little overpowered at times, the other characters were pretty good too; both secondary characters and those who only appeared for one or two episodes. The worlds they were trapped in were imaginative within the confines of the game styles they replicated; they were also beautifully designed and well animated. I cared about the protagonists and found myself worrying when they were in danger despite knowing they weren't going to kill off a main character at that point in the show. For the most part it is a good action adventure with plenty of sword fighting that is suitable for all but the youngest viewers but later on there are some scenes that are more disturbing; most notably when the antagonist attempts to rape a half-naked Asuna. Overall I'd say this series is well worth watching; if it gets a DVD release here I'd certainly be tempted to buy it.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.

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9 /10

Sword Art Online II

Warning: Spoilers

It is time for another series of Sword Art Online and once again is consists of two main stories. In the first half of the series Kirito is approached to enter a game called 'Gun Gale Online' to find and identify a character calling himself 'Death Gun'. When he kills another player that person dies in real life; something that is theoretically impossible. Once in the game Kirito befriends a girl called Sinon who initially mistakes him for a girl. She is a sniper in the game despite being traumatised by an incident involving a gun in the real world. As the story progresses they find themselves confronting 'Death Gun' and learn how he is able to really kill people… something that will put Sinon in real danger.

In the second half of the series Sinon joins Kirito and his friends in Alfheim Online. They are no longer the main protagonists though; Asuna takes a more central role as she learns new skills and befriends a girl called Yuuki. It looks like their friendship may end as Asuna's mother believes she is spending far too much time on line and is threatening to stop her playing any more, believing her online friendships aren't real. As it turns out Asuna and Yuuki's friendship is threatened by something far more serious; on line Yuuki may be the best swordswoman in the game but in real life she is seriously ill.

Having enjoyed the first series I wasn't sure I wanted more in case it wasn't as good. Thankfully this series was enjoyably too although, at least for the first story, is quite different. The Gun Gale world is much darker in tone and appearance than the original worlds and the use of guns is quite different… even if Kirito continues to use a sword like weapon. I really enjoyed this story. The second arc didn't grip me as quickly; there seemed no real danger as the group took on new bosses and gained skills; then, with the introduction of Yuuki, things get more emotional leading to a tear-jerking conclusion. Overall I'd say if you enjoyed the first series you should enjoy this too.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.

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7 /10

It was quite good but it's sudden setting shouldn't have shifted on episode 14

Warning: Spoilers

From episode 1 to 14, I really enjoyed the medival vibe from this anime. I honestly wish it didn't have to have such a sudden shift of location for the players to be trapped into instead of ending at just the medical world. I mean they were meant to "clear" the game within the medival world and get out alive but instead, have to go to another world as well to actually get out. Its just really confusing and totally out of sync for me on that respect...

Anyways putting that aside, Kazuto and Asuna were actually pretty good teammates. Kazuto is such an intelligent gamer and pretty much a likeable one too! Asuna is like the girl who takes whatever she gets and she's pretty much a badass as well! I honestly did not expect them to kiss at the end, normally in anime I know what couples are going to be matched up or should be matched up, not Kazuto and Asuna. I don't know what to say about them as such but good for them to being a couple lol!

This anime was good to watch but the background setting in my opinon, shouldn't be all over the shop. That's the pretty much exact reason why I'm only giving this anime a 7/10...

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2 /10

not good enough

Warning: Spoilers

If this anime was characterised as a romantic one, with a love story theme, it would have been just fine. But, instead of that, it lures you in with the whole game like adventure themed story, with a so so MC and some more than capable fellow players. The story unfolds with the MC helping hopeless girls out and eventually (actually in the middle of the anime) falling in love, getting married and playing happy family (all that in two episodes, wow!) After that, I just gave up. I don't want to come out as a hater, but nothing warns you that this won't be an action focused anime. At least, if his girl kept her whole strong female appearance it would have been a bit better. But she just was lessen down to a sidekick. So, 2 out of 10.

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1 /10

Very bad.

It is genuinely impressive on how many levels this show fails. It has become a reference point for bad writing. This is a story written by someone who has admitted to doing no research beforehand, and made by a company prone to reusing footage. It fails on so many levels, that its popularity doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Yes, this show was released around the time death games got popular, the animation looks slick to the very untrained eye, and a few worthless characters are killed early on to give a sense of danger to the whole thing, but I can't believe that it is still popular that it has already gotten spinoffs, movies, and other series. How are people still watching this mess?

Characters

None of the characters have any actual personalities, especially not the females. Pretty much all of the women onscreen are only on the show to serve as a love interest for Kirito or to draw the eye of anyone watching for the attractive anime girls. None of them have any personality other than some of them having hobbies, and having a hobby does not equate to having a personality. The side characters also don't serve any purposes, other than to propel the "plot." The main character, Kirito, is mainly just a blank slate because the writer thought that being the most overpowered character ever written is a personality.

Plot

The story of the first arc had some potential, but unfortunately is it very poorly executed. None of the characters act like gamers. All the characters are very weak. The villain has no motivation. The fights are terrible (just watch them without music, without the amazing soundtrack no-one would be defending those fights). There are countless filler episodes and very little plot progression. The game doesn't make sense as a game. There are a lot more problems, but the main thing is that the author can only give exposition in a bar or a cafe. Seriously, if you have seen this, think back to any time you heard a clunky speech of poorly-disguised exposition. Chances are, it took place in some kind of a restaurant, which is a pretty lazy way of conveying information to the audience. Also the villain HAS NO MOTIVATION FOR KILLING THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE.

Now I'm going to talk more about the Fairy Dance arc. Some of the things I mentioned previously regarding filler, exposition, and fight scenes are also here, but the plot has some extra problems. Like incest. There is an incest subplot just thrown in there and the poor writing just makes it gross and uncomfortable. If there was better writing, if Kirito's cousin had a personality outside of wanting to bang him, and if she grew over the course of the arc as a person, then it could've worked I guess. Asuna, Kirito's "wife" from the first arc has been reduced from a poorly animated badass to a caged damsel in distress. The villain of this arc has motivations, making the finale slightly less anticlimactic than the first, but they make no sense. If you lay out everything that he's trying to do, and think about how government cooperations work, and everything anywhere near his plan, it makes no sense as to why or how he would do this. There's also an uncomfortable and unnecessary rape scene with tentacle monsters that doesn't make a lot of sense in context and doesn't need to be there. For some reason Kirito is now friends with a mass-murderer and can walk immediately after being bedridden for 2 years.

There's a lot I don't want to get into about how NOT A GODDAMN THING MAKES SENSE, but this review would just end up even longer and there are plenty of video essays on YouTube that go into more depth in much more entertaining manners.

Sights and Sounds

The character designs and settings are ok, I guess. Most of it is pretty generic and bland. Like I said, there is a lot of reused footage and still panning shots. I wouldn't be as annoyed as the panning shots as they're common in anime, but panning over a frozen image can only be excused if its an establishing shot, not an excuse for a fight scene. For some reason people defend the fight scenes saying that they're the best thing about this show, but if you watch them with out the spectacular soundtrack, they're pretty pathetic. I can't believe that such a talented composer is working on such trash. Or they might not be anymore, I don't know. The music is still good. The voice acting is not. I watched this with the English dub, which is terrible. I also watched some of the original Japanese dub, and it really isn't any better.

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6 /10

This anime is simply okay.

I've seen some episodes of this show, and I just don't find the Matrix-derived world inspiring. It's nicely done with the animation and all, but the story and characters just aren't that deep for me. To be fair they're serviceable nonetheless.

If I want to watch lucid dreaming in sci-fi I want to see something exceptionally unique to that story's take on the mind. Inception's done this, The Matrix did it, and even non-specifically: Terry Gilliam's Brazil did this and that wasn't a story about the mind but insanity in a dystopian metropolis. The animation's nice and the intros are nice, but there's not too much outside those areas frankly. It's noble in its scenario and imagery and kudos to the filmmakers not pulling punches with the spectacle.

This show, I watch for the visuals and not the story. Some nice stuff here and there and it does it's best to try and stand out from other anime's of its ilk.

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3 /10

Heavily Overrated

Warning: Spoilers

Sword Art Online (SAO) was a pretty bad anime. I know loads of people loved this series, considering its popularity, but I have some complaints about the series nonetheless.

The idea of being stuck in a virtual reality MMORPG really is a cool idea. It actually made me desperate for something like it, without the dying of course. However, the cool idea is the only place where this show scores points in my book, nor is it the first anime to use this idea.

The first time watching this I loved it. The second time through I couldn't even make it past the second arc. Everything was so boring, and not just because I knew what was going to happen next. The characters are so unbelievably flat, and their conversations shedding little light on who they really are. All they ever talk about is "Ever wonder if we'll get back to the real world?" or "Do you ever forget that we're in a game nowadays?" They use variations of these questions in literally EVERY conversation. Why can't you just accept that your stuck, and move on with your life? Now you may argue "Maybe they're just the kinds of people who don't let things go easily". Maybe, but that doesn't stop the characters from being lame and uninspired. The creators ought to show some creativity with their characters, instead of rehashing the same character traits and changing their gender.

That's not to say that I hated all the characters. Characters like Klein and Agil were my favorite characters. Why? Because they almost never brought up how much they missed the real world. All Kirito and Asuna do is whine about it. Sure, they have their distinct character traits that are shown through some dialogue and their actions, but the conversations they have together aren't ever about anything else. We know generally who they are, but never go fully into their character to see smaller, individual traits. It has to come up at least once every time they talk. The conversations they have with the secondary characters are more interesting because the others actually know how to move on.

Some people have said that SAO has something for everyone, action for boys, romance for girls. You may disagree with this (many people seem to), but I found the action to be quite mediocre. The sequences of action were, although realistic for a video game, weren't fun to watch. In virtual reality you'd think that they'd add a bit more strategy to how they fight over just wailing on the enemy. When there was action though it was always interrupted by something less interesting, which really took away from it.

The romance, on the other hand, is pretty poorly developed. It comes completely out of the blue, with Kirito and Asuna hating each other one episode, then completely in love the next. Where did this come from? The episode limitation. The creators had to rush everything because they had to cram two story arcs into 25 episodes (that's my theory anyway). I'm not saying that Kirito and Asuna weren't the best possible couple in this show, but it just happened randomly, with no explanation as to what their relationship was between the points of hatred and love, so their relationship really isn't all that developed.

You may say "Well the show is story-driven, not character driven", well actually it isn't considering how little is actually put into the story, and how few episodes actually have to do with progressing it. Most episodes are spent 'developing' the characters. Even if it was completely story-driven, the characters are so flat that you wouldn't even care whether or not they achieved their goal.

In terms of story arcs, the first one was much more enjoyable. Many people have said that the second was bad, but I thought it was alright. It wasn't as good as the first arc, but then again, the show isn't all that great either. I wish that they'd spent more time in the first arc, as Sword Art Online was way more interesting than Alfheim Online.

VERDICT: Sword Art Online is a show that fails on many levels, with the exception of its not-so-original-but-still-cool idea. I feel like the reason why the show is so overrated was because everyone was so attractive. The bad guys were obviously bad because they were ugly, and the good guys were all good-looking. It felt like this show had more development of Asuna's rear end than her actual character did. Overall, Sword Art Online isn't worth watching. It was filled with lame main characters, poorly developed relationships, and an interesting but still linear story line.

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1 /10

Absolute Garbage

Warning: Spoilers

It's actually viewers of this drek who are trapped in a pretend world. In this world nothing much happens even though there's a constant hint of action just over the next scene.

Lame characters, lame love story, lame villain with lame motives to do what he did.

Thankfully, you don't have to clear the game or watch the whole episode to escape. You just have to stop watching this drek.

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8 /10

Anime made for RPG gamers.

Well I have to say, this has got to be the hardest anime to review and rate that I have come across so far. It is one hell of a mixture. But I did had a great time watching it, was very entertaining and that is what really matters.

On the plus side, I loved the setting/premise, a world where virtual reality has been perfected and MMORPG's truly come to life. The RPG gamer in me was really happy while watching this anime. DAMN I wanted to be in SAO so bad. The animation was great, especially that of the action sequences. I loved em. Coupled with amazing soundtrack, they really became epic. Protagonist was very likable and cool. The heroin was hot. :p

Now on the bad side, the anime felt really rushed in the beginning. It actually felt like I skipped an episode couple of times. Would have been better if they stretched out the first arc into 24 episodes or so, would have been much better. It got a little too much lovey dovey too later on, which was off putting. The side characters were good BUT they got very less screen time, way too less. It was like the anime forgot about them. And then there was the second arc. It didn't suck as bad as many said it would but still it was nowhere near as good as the first arc. IT just didn't had the same feeling as the first arc. The setting in it was cool, had a lot of Final fantasy vibe to it. But the love stuff was lame and pointless.

As for the rating, well I would give it like:

First arc (1-14 episodes) 8.8/10.

Second arc 6.5/10.

Overall, despite its flaws, I somehow still found it to be very enjoyable and was engaged in it a lot. 8.3/10.

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8 /10

It's a must-watch

Maybe I'm a sap but I love this show. I loved it when I watched it ten years ago and I'm loving it again watching it with my daughter this year. It reminds me of all the good times that I had playing WoW and raiding with my guild. It's smart, funny, exciting, and thoughtful, as long as you ignore the weird cousin-love thing that crops up for a few episodes

(Note that I've only watched the first two seasons...)

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4 /10

Mediocre

Review for Season One I don't understand what the hype was about, it was very so-so, nothing much to write home about. It did have a few good episodes but many more dull ones were there too.

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5 /10

Over hyped and kind of stupid, but enjoyable nonetheless

Warning: Spoilers

I have mixed feelings about this show. It has many good things, but it also has its fair share of bad things. The first half of the show, I like. It's just pure entertainment, with absolutely nothing else, but it's watchable and addictive. The animation is great, I love seeing the world of Sword Art Online, the threat of death creates a little tension, and watching our two main characters Kirito and Asuna fall in love is sweet and charming. The second half I hate. I don't like the new world Alfheim Online. It never captured my interest the way Sword Art Online did and the threat of death is gone. The whole arc with Kiritos' sister is unbearably annoying and I really wish they had just cut that out. Lastly, Asuna, the all powerful Asuna, is reduced to the clichéd damsel in distress, which is stupid, dumb, and makes no sense. All that being said, I still enjoy the show and recommend you watch it. There are stupid things and it may not require much brain power, but you can have fun with it.

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5 /10

Gets you hooked and always messes up halfway through a season

Warning: Spoilers

Somehow Sword Art Online manages to get me hooked every time a new season comes out with an interesting premise. And then it manages to throw out most of the rules it establishes early on in favor of action and drama. In the process it always messes up the characters and story to the point at which you just want to turn off.

Season 1 one starts with the idea of locking people into an online game while focusing on the mental stress that puts on the players because when you die in the game the VR device fries your brain effectively killing you outside. After a short while it basically just abandons that concept of the stress and just goes for Kirito (the MC) being overpowered while building a harem and basically beating the creator at his own game freeing everyone. Kirito is basically cheating.

Season 2 start with a new game world with Asuna from season one still being imprisoned and no one knows exactly how. Kirito starts in a new world with different skill sets but is still overpowered. He fights his way through the world somehow uniting the players behind him to beat an unwinnable fight rescuing his sweet heart Asuna. Again Kirito is basically cheating.

Season 3 we go into a completely different game scenario with guns. It looks interesting at first, but gets boring really fast because the characters are boring and Kirito again is overpowered even though he basically fights with a sword in a game centered around guns. So yeah it's again cheating...

Season 4 is the longest one and net yet completely done (about 4-5 episodes still missing). Still with 44 episodes done I can say that the first half is pretty good, with cool characters and a bromance instead of to much focus on a harem. Kirito is not as overpowered anymore the concepts and story are actually really entertaining. To bad that once again they throw out concepts that are established early on in favor of DRAMA! Oh and the main antagonist of the second half is just terrible in terms of concept, design and powers. Imagine jumping into a game for the first time and getting the most powerful character of the evil faction. Then pretty quickly losing that character to one of the secondary good guys. Afterwards he imports his main character from a different game and becomes way more powerful than before with stuff we haven't seen before in this world ans there is absolutely no explanation on where is powers are coming from.

Also we have a secondary antagonist who comes back from season 1 and who for whatever reason has the power to influence other players that logged in from all over the world (how exactly that worked is also highly questionable). He is able to affect these people on a mental level to do what he wants because apparently he just has the power to do so. If VR devices had the power to do what has been shown in this show they would be banned so quickly for the general public because it would just be way to dangerous.

Oh and btw. the writer of SOA apparently "likes" to use "struggle snuggle" scenarios. They appear a few times throughout the show but always stop before it gets to the actual "action" part. Even with that said - if you don't like that, then you may want to avoid SOA.

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9 /10

Amazing anime

This anime is very good, the story and fight scene is awesome. All the arc is perfect especially Alicization arc. You must watch this anime once in a life

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9 /10

Still Awesome!

Finished season 1 of Alicization. This is still an awesome series. I can't wait to see how the next season unravels. I feel like Kirito and Asuna never catch a break. Because of SOA they are forever tortured by people trying to replicate and advance the original technology and Kirito seems to always be the ultimate test for these systems. Still Awesome!

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9 /10

War of Underworld

Warning: Spoilers

Yeah, they just keep doing it! They figure out a new plot that is just as good or better than the original. This one has been awesome all the way through. The only thing I can knock them on is they have dragged out the "Catatonic Kirito" thing too long. He just woke up and it took forever, but once he did it's like all was right with the world! Which led me to this thought.....

I have watched so many Anime's. There are several that I tend to watch over and over. "The Irregular at Magic High School", "Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?", any of the "Fate/" series, "Wiseman's Grandchild", "Arifureta", "Chivalry of a Failed Knight" and so on and so on......But let me ask you this, when you think of all the things Kirito has down and who he is as a character and all he has survived.......Has there ever been a better Hero character? Think about it. Food for thought.

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1 /10

Wasted Potential

Sword Art Online runs under the premise almost out of a Saw film: A master programmer of an MMORPG has entrapped everyone in the game and the only way to escape is to fight your way through a series of dungeons in order to fight the final boss. Players in the real world lay in a vegetative state and will be killed instantly should anyone try to remove the virtual reality unit they are tied too. And somehow an incredible amount of time passes and no one has been able to figure out a solution to this. Sword Art Online seems to have all the elements of a potential heart racing thriller but doesn't seem to care about that.

The writing is really mismatched on this series that it almost feels like there's two camps of writers on this, one team that seems more interested in making a series about a regular MMO and regular people that play them and a another camp that wants to make a regular fantasy series with a mix of science-fiction elements. Either one of these would be fine for a show, where it not for the fact that the series had set it self up to be an action thriller with people's lives hanging in the balance. It gets to the point it seems like the staff wants to be doing one of these shows but got stuck doing an adaptation of existing material by the studio.

Each episode feels as disconnected as the next with little overarching connection to it. What manages to save it from really feeling like there are really two different teams of writers trying to make the show something completely different, is the cast of uninteresting characters. For being in such a stressful and dangerous situations the characters all seem strangely calm about this. There doesn't seem to be anxiety, a desire to race to the finish and get back to reality sooner or even survive. Everyone seems to carry on as normal when you expect mass races to the finish, team ups or anything more sensible. Even the main character seems to not give any kind of care about this. Seeing a bunch of character behave like everything is normal with not even the slightest inclination that all is not well just robs this series of any peril. And and there's no indication that these are troubled people who'd rather live out their world in virtual reality, so there's no justification of the strange amount of calm. It's the same kind of problem I had with Toyko Magnitude 8.0 which also found a group of characters in a very stressful and life threatening situation but didn't show any signs of it. The series really relies on you suspending your disbelief.

The animation quality is pretty good it's pretty standard animation fare but I hardly think it's as quality as many say it is but it's certainly not bad either.

I never thought I'd see the day when I actually found a musical score by Yuki Kajiura so boring that I have zero interest in even sampling the soundtrack down the road. This has to be one of Kajiura's least interesting scores since The Garden of Sinners film series but even those had some strong theme songs behind them, this has nothing! For being a more symphonic score outside of Kajiura's usual small musician ensemble she fails so terribly at catching any of her stylistic charm seen with past scores nor any sense of flair nor adventure that comes with a different direction. It's an even less interesting rendition version of Fate/Zero and not a single solitary piece stands out to make it worth mentioning. I've been a fan of Kajiura for many years and I've never been let down so hard before.

This series is one of these most overrated series of the past year with very little that makes it worth a good watch. The series has a lot of action but very little substance to back it up and even the action isn't that fun because there's no thrill or danger to it.

If you want a series that better explores the depths of MMORPG and has a better grip on what kind of a story it wants, I would actually recommend the .hack series, which does share it's similarities to Sword Art Online, such as both featuring characters trapped within virtual worlds.

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6 /10

How does this get such a good reputation

I finished the first two seasons now and I'm actually wondering how this show got its good reputation in the anime scene. I mean the first 6 or so episodes were entertaining and I was curious how it all plays out but as soon as they leave the soa game the show just got stuck into a boring love story and doesn't really seem to get out of it at all. The fights are mediocre and the characters are very linear and flat written. The world building doesn't really exist after the first few episodes and the story overall just isn't really exciting I feel like. I probably won't watch the next seasons since my expectations aren't really that high.

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5 /10

Gary Stu Online

The first two episodes are the best, after that, the show devolves into a FanFiction for your eyes. The protagonist is the textbook example of wish fulfillment. This guy can defeat anything, anyone and get anything from anyone no matter what. He's way too powerful for the story to actually mean anything.

SOA has an interesting premise where 10,000 players are trapped in a VRMMO where death in the game means death in real life. The show does try to tackle the mental toll of what it'll be like where your life literally can end at any moment in the game, but where it drops the ball in showcasing this premise is in its protagonist.

You have little reason to worry for Kirito, since you already know he's going to end up out of whatever situation he finds himself in. The game mechanics are barely there at all and the random time jumps from days to months breaks up the pace greatly.

Hype is good, but that doesn't mean the story will be any good.

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8 /10

Not a masterpiece but worth to watch

I would not call this anime a masterpiece but it really is something. Surely there are better anime's out there. But if you like game and vr stuff then it's totally worth your time. I watched all 4 season. I didn't like season 2&3 that much. But season 4 was a beast. As the release date is out I am waiting for season 5. Although I think it's overhyped but you can enjoy.

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8 /10

Overhyped but good

In the overall anime I think it's overhyped. But still I enjoyed it though.2&3 season was kinda gloomy to me but season 4 was a beast. Most of all what I like the most in this anime is kirito and asuna's love story. Everything is good but my main motivation is kirito x asuna. You should probably give it a watch.

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8 /10

Honestly, not that bad

This is an okay anime series. Why do people hate it so much?

It is because of the supposed "sexism"? (Lol, as if the otaku crowd has ever cared that much about sexism) or because the main character supposedly is a "Mary Sue/Gary Stu/Marty Stu/Whatever"? A lot of protagonists in shonen anime are bigger Mary Sues yet people love them. Just ask Akira Toriyama.

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3 /10

Not worth it

Warning: Spoilers

I finally watched SAO after delaying it... and well shouldn't have wasted my time.

I'm giving this a 3 just because of the beautiful art and the one episode where a group he was with got killed because of him (I felt for him then) but besides that I'm never going to get the hype for this.

I don't mind the cliché plot since I've watched plenty cliché anime that I still love. Don't believe people who rave that SAO has unique plot that's like saying Disney's Frozen was the first movie to present strong independent women (*cough* Brave *cough* Mulan *cough* Pocahontas).

What was dreadful about this was how it was presented. You start off strong getting the feeling like it's going to be a good action anime with the loner MC but nooooo it's actually secretly just a harem anime...if I wanted that I'll watch harem anime.

You never see MC training or struggling... he's just -boom- OP. The anime's main plot is "getting out of the game" so you'd thought you'd see the people there actually try hard to beat the game (haha). I mean yeah sure plot armor happens (ie Naruto, One Piece, etc where MC never really dies) but at least you can see them struggle and you can feel for them and root for them. Nope, not in SAO. MC's just OP at the beginning and until the end. By the time I got into the final boss fight I was desensitized by his overpoweredness that at his supposed death (since you know getting stabbed with little to no life should've killed him but it takes minutes before he actually disappears so he can deliver a final blow to kill the boss) I felt nothing. No tension. Nothing. Not even happy for him that it's the end.

Another is where everything jumps. In Episode A you're in level 50 and then for Episode B you're in another setting...Episode C you're back to the start... huh. I got so confused I had to check the wiki episode descriptions just to check if I was still on the right track or was simply watching the wrong episode.

The most waste was the FMC. She was presented early on as this strong mysterious loner type but then after some episode jumps she just becomes this useless harem girl *sigh* (they even got married in- game. LOL). It's kinda laughable how some of the episodes we're shown one girl get rescued by MC and they immediately fall in love with MC..at least give us something more to root for.

Probably going to get hate for this since plenty love it but I just don't get it. I tried reading positive reviews but most just say "It's the best anime" "Sword Art Online is ridiculously well made with great character development" "Deep and moving story" ...none of which I saw so I'm questioning if we watched the same series.

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8 /10

SAO 1: Good animation, story & characters, with flaws. SAO2 - Terrific!

Season 1: First off, when you create a story that has any kind of magic in it, like this one, you must immediately prepare yourself to be somewhat disappointed in how it develops. Why? Because ANYTHING can happen, and generally does, and the author is not held down to any rules whatsoever, not the rules of story, not things that can actually happen, not events & constructs that could possibly occur in any universe or reality of any kind anywhere, ever. So, when the hero or heroine gets into a bind - who cares, just invent something new to get them out of it, whether it makes sense and can actually happen - even within the reality of the story - or not. Nothing matters, you don't have a real storyline, just random events that occur to the author as he's going along writing. This may seem like a nerdy point, but as an author myself, I expect high standards from others.

Unfortunately, Sword Art Online uses this tactic often enough to create a plot, and of course that is the fault of the storyteller. The main character, Kirito, is interesting enough, as is his love squeeze Asuna (as well as his loving sister, and we're not completely sure why here), but as has been pointed out by others, they are not fully developed, but we do get the idea in the time they've allotted. The overall story is understandable - good guy needs to kill/remove bad guys and save other good guys he cares about, plus his general love of battle - and so that kind of works, if haltingly so as the characters confront the maze of hoops the author has them jump through. The animation itself is very good, in both characters and backgrounds, and the music fine, but in the story development there are flaws, for instance in villains that are evil for no apparent reason, they just like being evil (A common anime tactic), which kind of grates, because it's really stupid, and it's tough to have a stupid character who is a genius in other respects, but hey, I don't want to nitpick.

All in all there is enough visual splendor here, plot drama, & romance, to keep the viewer generally interested in pursuing this tale to the end and its relatively satisfying conclusion. It is light entertainment with attractive females and males (didn't really notice much fan service, but whatever it was is fine), some good action fights, and a reasonable love interest that is easy to understand. The reviewers who don't get the time spent on the love interest missed the whole Middle Ages and Arthurian legend with Knights, Kings & Queens, & lovely Princesses, not to mention Shakespeare, & a couple of hundred years of the Age of Romance. So, watch this with an open mind and don't be too critical of its imperfections, and you will likely enjoy yourself.

Season 2 (SAO II): Many of the flaws from SAO I are gone, and what was created was a much more pointed, focused, and powerfully dramatic and emotional second series. All the good points are there with the addition of a better, more powerful story, more exploded characters who are now made more real and intense. A great job in this overall.

I give this a 9 out of 10, and the first season a 6. I averaged them out to an 8, because the second season was so much better. IT does what art is supposed to do - make you see and experience life in a small and intense period of time - and doesn't let the magic overwhelm the humanity of the thing. Definitely worth seeing. If you're not a romantic - & it's clear some reviewers aren't! - you probably won't like this so much, but then you probably shouldn't be watching anime in the first place. For those of you that are, it's a treat!

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3 /10

It can be fairly entertaining, but not because its a good show...

Warning: Spoilers

Sword Art Online season 1 review (finished 7/4/2018)

Needs more:

• Actual characters. There are none. I would say the lack of character arcs is the biggest flaw in this show, but you would need, you know, characters for that to happen. (EDIT: Lines of females falling helplessly for Kirito don't count.)
• Character development (especially Kirito, or like what is the point?! I mean come on, even the Heroes journey is like writing101)
• Upping the horror elements (psychological aspects of being trapped in the game - its established as a thing, but the show barely even touches on showing us any of it, why?)
• Interesting settings. For a large MMO, there isn't a lot of variation between the levels. SAO and ALO as games seem to fall into the Oblivion problem of promising large worlds to explore but then consist mostly of trees/forest setting. Not a huge issue, just a personal gripe.
• Consequence. Kirito is shown from the start that he is a bad-ass who can do anything and kick anybody's ass without consequence. Other than arguably episode 3, none of his or anybody's actions actually influence the characters in any way, and even beyond this episode it doesn't actually influence his character, because it was supposed to be his reason for having his lone-wolf persona yet its pointless because that was his thing anyway even before that episode happened. Gah!

Needs less

• Yui. F**k Yui.
• Kirito pulling of stupid shit out of no-where, breaking the entire logic set in-universe. It makes no sense and makes nothing about the character.
• Yui. I just wanted to say again because she is the worst.
• Incest/tentacles/r**e - I wasn't told this would devolve into a fetish-show by midway through the second arc, but hey ho.
• Fan-servicing females that meet Kirito and instantly fall head over heels for him. Its not good writing, its embarrassing and it gets old much quicker than the show thinks it does.
• Subjugating the female lead into a Princess Peach role - very boring, and as established above poor treatment of promising character (also, see above)

Already fine/praises

• Despite everything wrong with the series (and there is a lot of that), overall the animation/character design (note; I mean how they look, not the characters themselves), and settings (apart from the lack of variation, see above) are fine. So... despite its flaws, at least it looks nice...?
• Kinda similar as above, but the action scenes (when we actually get them) can be decent; one of the things that effort was put in and it shows.
• The first three episodes could potentially have developed into a good anime; alas I can't really praise this too much because it didn't.
• Lastly, the show is strangely watchable and addictive despite (or maybe partly because of?) everything else. I know people other than myself who have watched this and hated it, yet I don't know any of them that didn't at least finish the damn thing. I think this is a reason for its popularity in the first place.
• EDIT: forgot to mention that first op is FIRE, can't forget that.

Final verdict

I had a lot of fun because I was given warning to watch it ironically and preferably with a lot of alcohol on standby. I did the former and usually also the latter. This does not by any means make it a better show, but I can at least say I'm looking forward to doing the same with SAOII and Ordinal Scale.

Rating: 2/10

Sword Art Online season 2 review (finished 18/4/2018)

You know its kind of petty coming to MAL and hating on SAO-related content at this point. Everything that could be said about the series has already been said many times by many people, that despite whatever I put there is likely to not be too much originality to it. Almost everybody I know who watches it thinks that it is trash, although I am aware that committed super fans do exist, and its fascinating that people like me continue to watch through not just the first season, but also into the second season despite knowing all to well that any enjoyment that I get will only be laughing at how poor the quality in the story and characters, falling into both the same old problems and a whole range of new problems and terrible moments that keep it entertaining enough to watch the whole way through.

However, here I am anyway, so while I am here I'm going to start with what I liked about the series. Sword Art Online II makes a few decisions that pull it slightly above what can only be described as a disastrous first series; the main decisions I can think of for this are the following

1. Actually having a villain that manages to be intimidating for any of the plot - in the first two arcs portrayed in the original SAO, the villains were pretty crappy. I don't remember the designs being pretty intimidating, with the first just being a dude who despite his sadistic intentions of trapping 1000 people in a game leading to the deaths of around 4000 people seems to be viewed of as something of a martyr by the end of it for literally no reason, and then the second villain certainly being vile but not exactly intimidating. Death Gun (I still can't believe that's the name they went with) manages to actually be a convincing and intimidating villain. Well... that is until their character motivations and methods are revealed, as these end up being a little bit disappointing. Still I'll give points for effort.

2. Speaking of effort, at least the show TRIES to give the characters actual arcs. While their character arc for Kirito in GGO starts off promising it ultimately doesn't deliver, however I would be lying if I said that Sinon's arc doesn't at least finish fairly satisfying. I guess it's better than nothing... which instantly makes it better than SAO 1.

3. Also, my problem for most of the arcs tends to be that they don't take advantage of the universe-inside-a-game settings enough, not telling enough unique stories that can be made within this setting; however, the Yuuki arc seems to be the exception of this, and I'd be lying if I said that there was no effort to evoke an emotional response here (you say feels bait, I say at least they are trying to do something dammit!)

However, beyond these aspects I don't really have anything much positive to say about the show. Its dragged down by many of the things that made SAO bad in the first place; Kirito is boring and when he isn't overpowered he pulls stupid shit out of his ass, Asuna is underused, fan service is annoying, side characters are pointless, story makes no sense, too much boring exposition, lack of character development for most of the characters, lack of understanding for game mechanics and MMORPG's, lots of other stupid shit, Yui, Yui, more Yui, etc. There also manages to be new stuff that drags this season down; do I even need to talk about the arc in the middle that goes completely NOWWHERE and is completely pointless and boring, making it essentially a massive waste of time for everyone? I'd say this would drag the season back down lower if it wasn't so thankfully short.

So well done Sword Art Online II, you managed to raise the bar from a terrible show to merely a poor one, although its unfortunate to see that as usual with SAO there was potential here in some of the ideas for what could have been a decent season, if not even a good one.

Rating: 3/10

Overall rating: 3/10

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How Many People Like Sword Art Online

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