KageNoArashi

*Old review with terrible engrish

If you haven't noticed, Sword Art Online(SAO) is one of the most anticipated and debated anime of 2012. Most say its Great and some say its Bad, well....i gotta say....it is downright HORRENDOUS. Most anticipated anime of 2012? And THIS is what they gave us? Oh and before any of you fanboys read this, put your fanboy sword down or leave this review because this review will not look nice...

Story:This is BS

It starts out with a unique plot(tho it has already been done so before in the .hack series). You probably see this elsewhere but i'll briefly explain again. A death game where 10 thousand people is trapped in, unlike other games, you don't respawn, if you die in the virtual world...then your dead for good back in the real world. The NerveGear will also damage your brain if someone tries to take it out, so you die that way too. The only way out is to beat the lvl100 boss to beat the game. Sounds exciting and the story could really in depth right?

Except that it did not....

Heck the ''beat the lvl100 boss to save the world" plot is just a silly excuse for it's REAL plot, which is "save a 100 babes to get virtually laid". First of all it lacks it's theme,survival...which is crucial in a death game...and instead,you find yourself immersing into a world of some kind of cheesy dating sim. I'll explain as we move on.

It tried to portray itself as something serious, and packed with lots of drama and emotions, we thought that it might change the survival genre with its interesting premise and setting, BUT WHAT YOU REALLY GET IS JUST FAN-CATERING(Gamers) BULLSH*T.

Really the plot only lasted for 3 EPISODES, no kidding. Straight after the FIRST EPISODE it plunged right into pointless side-stories which doesn't even relate to the main plot, getting out of this game ALIVE doesn't seem to matter anymore just after a couple of episodes. Everybody is fooling around, had time to act as villains, had time to solve a mystery(the explaination is not too bad, but does it relate to the plot? NO!), THEY EVEN HAD TIME TO PLAY FAMILY!!! A 16 YEAR OLD LOSER AND HIS 17 YEAR OLD "WIFU"!!! HOW SERIOUS, TOTALLY DEEP WRITING....

Oh, and thumbs up for underaged virtual sex! (Not to forget the tentacle hentai and on-screen rape!)

The fights honestly hands down to the animators, they did an exceptionally great job the choreography of the fight scenes. It honestly stood out from the crowd BUT... only the animations, because the fights are UNCREATIVE. Honestly there really ain't any innovation in their fights, it's basically your protagonist who has some sort of mental disorder, swinging his sword around like a F*KIN MANIAC, no strategy, no fanciful sword plays, no cool special skills whatsoever.

Instead of feeling hyped while watching it, most of the time it just felt disturbing...

Pacing is one of the biggest problem of the show, IT IS LIGHTSPEED!!! !Thanks to the unnecessary Time Skip, actually...more of a TIME LEAP! From one episode to the next it felt like you have skipped AT LEAST 10 episodes. Nothing is explained on WHY and HOW did Kirito get from this area to that area with new equipment and meeting a bunch of new characters. 

The rushed pacing did 1 thing right tho, that is to leave a bunch of plots holes for the fanboy army to cover it up for them with information found elsewhere, i can bet that the next "smartass" fanboy would try to find information somewhere else and try to bash me...

This show is not a bit logical. Government?Parents?Where are they?TEN THOUSAND people is trapped in a death game and after 2 YEARS!!! 2 YEARS!!!!NOT A SINGLE PERSON GAVE A SH*T ABOUT THE TEN THOUSAND TRAPPED IN THE GAME WHOM'S DEATH IS NEARLY INEVITABLE!!!They bothered to bring them to the hospital BUT NO ONE TOOK ACTION! NO ONE TOOK THE INITIATIVE TO OVERTHROW THE DEVELOPERS, WHO TRAPPED THEIR LOVED ONES IN A DEATH GAME? This is not SAW! The Big Bad Akihiko is lying there in his office, they could have captured him, hire a bunch of super hackers to hack the system so that people could log out, or force him to set it that way!It would be ALOT quicker and the gamers could get outta the game in less than 2 years...and they could CLOSE DOWN THE GAME FOR GOOD. But did they do it? NO! They acted as if they did not exist or is invisable in the real world!

People do not behave like this if it's real. People will freak out knowing that they are trapped in a death game, and likely is gonna try to grind level to beat the game or totally lose hope in life, but instead they treated it like a joke and still have the BALLS and TIME to do role-playing! They even have time to set-up their own business there. It just doesn't feel serious nor logical AT ALL!!! 

They literally treated it like just another day in a life of a gamer...no not a well-thought survival drama packed with emotions...just a day in a life of a gamer...

And the ending is horrible, it's not a ''survival of the fittest" ending, but a cheesy love story's ending. The ending in the 2nd arc is not much different either...

The overdramatic and cliche plot moments ruined the "Game" part of the anime, IT DOESN'T FEEL ONE BIT LIKE A FKIN GAME...

What this show lacks the most is LOGIC, it makes you feel like an idiot, I don't want to spoil it so i'll put a link to my rant(it also includes some part of the review on 2nd arc), read at your own risk.

Oh yeah and the 2nd Arc can be easily sum up as a degraded story regarding further of the bad relationship Kirito has with Asuna, with improvised fan-service and a pinch of incest. Now his off to save his ho before she gets bang by another guy who is the "Big Bad"

Animation:At least they done it right

Pretty much the best they could offer,animation feels pretty solid and well-synchronized. The background art looks stunningly beautiful(tho i'm pretty much sick of another generic fantasy setting in every MMORPGs). 

UPDATES* But now to think of it, the good animations are only shown in the fights(and those are bullcrap).

Sound:Fitting

I've gotta admit they do have some pretty nice soundtracks, it's fitting to the theme of the series, but nothing too memorable. The opening themes are sung by some famous anime theme-song singer, it sounds alright, but it's not memorable in the long run, especially when it is wasted on this BS anime...

Voice actors did a good job in portraying the characters.

Character:Inconsistent to Non-existence

There is LITERALLY ONLY 2 CHARACTERS IN THIS SHOW(3 inclusive of Harem cast 24072 Suguha in the 2nd Arc), any other characters who is suddenly introduce out of nowhere is  dumped out of the show as quickly as they are introduced, there are merely a bunch of background decorations to trick viewers to thinking that there is a "large cast of colourful characters". You could barely relate to any of them.

MOST of them are just cute, lusty (i hate to use this...but...) sluts to increase kirito's harem level, it's just wish-fulfilling. About every female character WILL fall for Kirito one way or another, it's just plain obnoxous and unnecessary in a show which is supposed to be more about survival than a love story or even a harem.

And don't even care about the fk*n guys in this show because they are mostly misogynistic stereotypes that mistreats the female "species" just for Kirito to come and "save the day" and be the "hero" or just a bunch of boring stereotypes.

And the main 2 leads?

-10 punches kirito and asuna figure-,-100 knee strikes to face-,-smash onto ground 500 times-,-1000 stomps-,-bites of head-,-slice and dice body-,-burns the rest of the body-,-kicks it out of window-,-2 middle fingers-

Asuna - Evolution chart: lvl2 shy loner ->lvl4 tsundere ->lvl8 deredere ->lvl16 a worthless damsel in distress for fan-service...

Asuna starts out as a mysterious player, trying to not gain any attention from others(no one is chasing her tho... doesn't wearing a cape in a crowd with no one chasing her attract much more attention?). Then she suddenly became one of the top players in the game, with a tsundere like personality. Next, for some reason she became all cute and crap, tsundere totally gone. And in the 2nd arc, she is the princess trapped in the castle waiting for her prince to come save her, and a fap doll for the viewers...

Kirito - Evolution chart: lvl1 emo, dark jerk -> lvl8 cool(acted),bit cheery @sshole -> lvl16 arrogant happy-go-lucky douche of a f*ck...

Kirito... Honestly he is nothing more than an average gamer's dream personality, undefeatable(in-game and script protected) douchebag who gets all the babes despite acting like a total douche to them, he is just a selfish, arrogant self-insert wish-fulfilment character with a mental disorder to pander the gamers...now everybody can relate to him and thinks he is one of the best characters for being a dick...

Also this GENIUS OF A GUY at one point forgotten that he could use the dual weild "skill", oh boy our "hero"....

Plus, his sort of "character development" didn't really go in a good way either, his still a jerk like he has always been, and now what matters him the most is not getting outta the game but rather to help babes in need...He never grew to be a "greater character" rather he grew and become more of an arrogant jerk.

It disguist me to call him a "hero" OR EVEN "the protagonist"...

And the big baddie! The 1st one was undeveloped, the 2nd one is a worthless one-dimentional wussbag and the baddest thing he ever did was just to rape somebodies girlfriend...

Btw, truthfully saying, i like that Klein guy more than Kirito the main lead even tho he only appeared in a few episodes outta nowhere by total coincidences. His character development made ALOT more sense than Kirito's development, start out as comical noob but ends up being a leader of his small group of friends after he decides to go on the journey with them, it is ALOT more realistic if you see it as a DEATH GAME...DEATH---GAME---FANBOYS---D-E-A-T-H-G-A-M-E... 

Overall: MMORPG?More like an online dating-sim.

If i wanted romance, i would have looked elsewhere...

If i wanted action, i would have looked elsewhere...

Heck, IF I WANTED SOFT PORN, I WOULD HAVE LOOKED ELSEWHERE!

It's made to solely pander video game nerds. The only few possible reasons that this BS is hyped up soooooo much by fanboys is because:

1. It is a "MMORPG"(the core reason...yes...just because it is a MMORPG...)

2. They have probably watched only a handful of good shows

They tried to be serious, but failed miserably at it, it's like halfway writing the story the author thought it would be a great idea to WIPED THE SCRIPT ON HIS FKIN @SS and  turn his teenage wishes into a story...

Definitely this show is highly overrated, yet it is protected by an ARMY of fanboys and girls that haven't yet realize there are much better animes out there. Even if you are not a demanding viewer, this show should be mediocre at best, NOT A GOOD PIECE OF WORK, AND FAR FROM A MASTERPIECE LIKE MANY PROCLAIMED.

Also, this anime do have potential, but lost most of it relatively quickly, due to bad directing and horrible writing.

All in all, SAO is nothing more than a CONDENSATION OF THE AUTHOR'S WET DREAMS, into this MASTURBATORY POWER FANTASY that people can fantasies upon.

I know people is going to disagree but, SAO is really...an insult to your intellegence

On the Brightside:+Smooth and beautiful visuals, +Couple of nice soundtracks, +Attractive pilot episode(premise), +The feeling when you finally stop watching the show

On the Downside:-Nearly nothing is related to the plot, -Logic is lacking(big time...), -Characters are hardly likeable, -Horrible pacing, -Directed by a newbie and written by an authors whose works are all below average wish-fulfiling garbages, -Cheap romance+action to pander both sexes, -Plot holes everywhere, -Screwed up good ideas which had potential to be great or even a classic

I'm not stopping anyone, but watch at your own risk.

Now let's wait for the debate/flamewar.