Rant: Sword Art Online

Okay, so my Sword Art Online review from before was a little negative and perhaps more than a little biased. Let's rebreak Sword Art Online down.

I review and love anime based on three key aspects: Quality, Story, and Characters. Quality is not sarcastic QUALITY; it falls under animation, art, sound, everything that a good anime should have.

The Story starts off interesting with a good concept. Sword Art Online is a Virtual Reality MMORPG, but someone decides to lock ten thousand people in it for a life or death struggle where they beat the game or die trying. Oh, and they have a time limit due to their body in the real world being neglected from lack of nutrition. This is interesting, and it could have gone so much better, but we eventually completely forget this because of character interactions, which I'll cover as to why it ruins it. And even then, there are some plot holes that go with no explanation at all.

Character interaction is a joke, basically; by episode nine, our protagonist, Kirito, wants to marry Asuna, our female lead. At sixteen. And then they have a kid. Well, adopt is a better term, but it's the message that counts. The entire female cast is in love with Kirito which is insulting to me on a personal level because I've seen strong female casts done right.

Kirito is made to be an invincible protagonist and he only suffers two losses in the entire game, and both of them were strictly to show how powerful a bad guy is. One of them is a female, but dies later in that episode due to... I believe it was HIV/AIDS. Apart from that sending a horrible implication, it's insulting because there is nothing more boring than an invincible protagonist, and Kirito is one. I get that the intention of SAO was for us to empathize with Kirito, to project ourselves on him, but some like struggle. Some like challenge. I am one, and Kirito just puts me off. At the end of the first arc, he dies, but returns to life in a way that is not explained. In the second, he turns into an admin in the game due to the first antagonist giving him his privileges. How exactly does this work? How does one game transfer over into the next, and most importantly, how is he still playing an MMORPG after what happened in Aincrad?! If that happens in real life, that technology would be banned and Kirito might have and should be mentally scarred.

Our female lead, Asuna, starts off as and gives the impression of a strong, independent, frankly badass lead. She eventually turns into a whiny, blushing schoolgirl with a crush a la Hinata from Naruto. I take this personally because if I haven't made it clear already, I've seen how interesting a female lead can be, and Asuna is like a slap to the face. The entire second arc has her only acton to whine and ask for Kirito to save her. Despite being the “Queen” of the game. How disappointing.

The romance between the two is a cornerstone of the anime and has been called one of its strongest points, but I and another person called it "Twilight for boys". The romance between the two is jumpy and erratic; like I stated by episode 9 or so, they want to be married to each other. You have no interest in any other character apart from these two and they can't even pull romance off correctly. Asuna herself develops a crush on Kirito simply by being around him. It’s the same with every other female character; they all have a crush on Kirito. It’s like a poorly written fanfiction. It’s wish fulfillment, and it succeeds.

So that's two out of three; Story is wasted and Characters are flat and uninteresting. Does Quality save it...?

Actually, it does. SAO has among the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen, and the music is incredible. I actually downloaded the first OP because I liked it so much. I admit the characters in the anime look a little primitive to me, nowhere near matching what's done in the light novel at; they seem, deformed like typical anime characters or stock art. Animation flows smoothly and easily and the effects are fairly well done. But this alone cannot save everything else. If you cover crap in icing and sprinkles, it's still crap. And that's what damns SAO.

4/10. It’s mediocre. A wasted concept that could’ve been so much more interesting than it was, a grim, epic, anime that eventually turns into little more than a fairy tale; Prince Charming, and the Damesel in Distress living happily ever after. Characters that add nothing to the story, and an invincible protagonist.