Sword Art Online Season 1
Sword Art Online has this very interesting concept and because of this, it popularized the isekai genre. Now, does SAO has good writing? Unfortunately not.
Sword Art Online is a game created by Kayaba Akihiko for the new machine called Nerve Gear, where you can use to full dive. It’s like using a VR but your mind is transferred in the world. It sounds interesting but unfortunately, when Reki Kawahara wrote this, he don’t know how to write properly. Sao is a hot mess if you ask me. The story is everywhere, the characters are poorly written and so on.
SAO episode 1 started strong. We could see the world in the eyes of Kirito, a former beta tester of SAO and one of the 10,000 people that are “lucky” to get a copy of the game. In this episode, we could have a glimpse of the world of Aincrad, a 100 floor floating castle. Later in the episode, Kayaba Akihiko will appear, announcing that all of players gathered here are trapped and the only way to get out is to clear the game, meaning finishing all 100 floors of Aincrad. He also said that if you die in game, you die in real life as well. When I first watched this, I was very intrigue in the world and didn’t notice the flaws. If you are asking me about the flaws, don’t worry I’ll get into that later.
SAO episode 2 is about the players clearing the first floor of Aincrad. Diavel, one of the players and the leader of the frontliners, gathered as many players he could and tell them about the plan. At this point, hundreds of player died and most of the players lost all of their hope to get out of this world. Diavel’s plan is to clear the first floor so that he could show to the others that there is a chance to get out of this game if all players help altogether to clear the hundred floors of Aincrad. Fast forward to later, Diavel died because he wants to get the last hit of the Boss so he could get the item that would drop if it dies. Because of this Kirito and his teammate, Asuna decided to kill the Boss by themselves. Kirito got the last hit, making him the hero, or that’s what should happen. Mr, Rockhead (I forgot his name since he is so forgettable) says that he just wants the last hit so he let Diavel die and saying that he knows a lot about the game since he is a beta tester and so on. Kirito says that don’t lump him with those amateurs, the so-called beta testers. And because of that, Kirito got the title of “Beater”.
The first 2 episodes of SAO are the only good part of this show. Episode 3 onward, we would not see more about the world, the struggles of the players, and the cries of others. Instead, we would only see Kirito pick up girls each episode and him becoming overpowered. We don’t even know what his motivation to clear the world is. Does he wants to help others get out the world? Does he fight for only his sake? Does he fight because there is someone he wants to protect? Or does he fight to get girls and get to bang them? I don’t even know what. All we know is that he is overpowered and the world revolves around him. Enough about Kirito, what about the world and the story? These are what I am most disappointed about. After episode 1, the story jumped immediately about the characters standing in the floor 22. What happened in other floors? What happened to front liners? What happened after Diavel’s Death? How many people died? What happened to others? I have many questions and none of them are answered. What I’m most interested about is the world, not Kirito’s no personality harem. You could swap him and his harem with NPCs and the story would be more interesting. They are so 2d, I don’t sense any personality within them except Asuna, who has her own reason why is she fighting.
After this we have the Fairy Dance arc, which the only thing I could think about why this is the name of the arc is Kirito and his cousin, Suguha whose only personality is having big boobs and in love with Kirito dance in the sky.
In my opinion, the story should have ended after episode 14, I mean the name series is named after SAO right?
Characters: 0/10
Story: 2/10
OST: 8/10
Animation: 8/10
Overall: Bullshit/10