I’ve never actually posted about anime on this blog, but I love watching it. In fact, I’ve been watching it since I was six years old, when my brother watched Azumanga Daioh with me, though I barely remember it. And watching millions of good shows, I decided to hit up Sword Art Online. Big mistake. It’s quite an unpopular statement, but Sword Art Online is terrible.
There are almost no lasting characters. Kirito just meets random people. None of them stick around with him at all. Mostly, they just die ten minutes into the episode, leaving the watchers wondering why Kirito is crying over this person he barely knew. And the ending of the first season was terrible! Kirito and Asuna BOTH died, but somehow they both live in the end! How is that even possible? And when they asked the creator why he would trap the players in a game, he just responded with “I don’t know.” What? Are you serious? You can’t just make the villain do something with no reason at all! That’s some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen! But the worst thing isn’t the sporadic characters that come and go–it’s the characters that actually stay.
Asuna is a horrible character.
First off, it seems like she’s got multiple personality disorder. When she’s wearing her hood, she’s all mysterious, cool, and badass. But as soon as the hood blows off, she’s a cutesy tsundere who always clings to Kirito. They tried to make her badass and skilled in battles, but her personality outside the battles is sweet and adorable. It’s as if the makers of this show tried to make her both extremes at the same time, but they executed it terribly. Instead, they’ve made a completely contradictory, mess of character that we’re supposed to like. For example, she says, “I didn’t come here to eat good food,” yet the same girl maxes out her cooking stat. Asuna just doesn’t make sense. It’s clear that the makers of this show wanted her to be at least a little badass, but they took that away too, in the second season. They just turn her into the classic “damsel in distress” and she barely contributes anything to the story.
Kirito is too perfect. I understand that protagonists should be strong and cool, but Kirito is honestly way too good. I could understand him being a beta tester and more experienced than the others, but being overleveled? That’s way too unfair, and it means that we as the audience never fear for him dying, since he can kill anything in a slash. This also takes the interest out of the battles, because Kirito’s never gonna die, so why have the battles in the first place? And the reason for him being overpowered in the second season is utter bullsh*t. All his stats from the previous game get transferred to Alfheim Online? That’s LITERALLY cheating! It’s not that he farmed a lot, or that he beta tested the game. He just cheated his way into the game!
As for the second season, I actually enjoyed the fact that Asuna was never there, although it was terrible writing for them to do that. But that forced love triangle was ridiculous. Sugu was Kirito’s surrogate sister for God’s sake! And I know that Kirito was actually adopted and that Sugu’s actually his cousin, but to him and Sugu, they were brother and sister. Who in the world would fall in love with their older brother? Sibling relationships are nothing close to that! I have an older brother who’s awesome and amazing, but I’d never fall in love with him because our relationship is in a familial way, not a romantic way! Obviously, the creators of Sword Art Online were running out of ideas or never had any siblings.
In the end, Sword Art Online is absolutely horrible. It doesn’t deserve ANY of the praise it’s given.