Sword Art Online is an anime that follows Kirito, a teenager who is trapped, along with ten thousand others, inside a virtual reality fantasy game. Each player (in the real world) is wearing ‘nerve gear’, a headset that allows them to control their characters with their minds. The creator of the game has made it impossible to log out, and whenever a player is killed within the game or has their nerve gear forcibly removed it kills them (in the real world). The only way to be released is to complete the game.
Although the concept of a person dying in a game causing them to die in real life has been done before, Sword Art Online tackles it in a way that is original and incredibly entertaining. Through beautiful animation and pretty great scripting, it’s a show where you can turn off your brain and just watch*.
The world building is phenomenal. The realm is huge, but it is organized in a way that is easy to grasp and because you are so absorbed in it, it becomes familiar. The music and sound effects are also brilliant. From an epic battle score to birds chirping in the background to icecubes sloshing around in a glass, every single sound (apart from the overabundance of gasps in typical anime fashion) serves to heighten to the atmosphere and envelope you in the world that is Sword Art Online.
Overall, the pacing is seriously out of whack. In the beginning it’s not so much of a problem. There is the occasional time leap, but it’s necessary and doesn’t cause that much of a headache. It’s fast paced demon slicing anime action, and it’s good. However, towards the middle it starts to slow down and it gets boring. You’re struggling to finish the next episode, but you have to in case the next one gets back to super crazy sword slinging madness. Eventually it does, but after that it jumps all over the place.
There’s also the issue that, towards the end of the season, it gets pervy. We’re talking lots of boobs and large pink tentacle monsters. It’s unnecessary and, quite frankly, very unsettling. At the very end they step up their game again, turn away from the adolescent perviness and turn more to justified, horrific scenes that express evilness at its core.
The first half of the season could have been easily expanded to fill the entire season without drawing things out too much. This, in our opinion, is what should have been done. They had something great going, and for some reason they decided to end it. Our advice to you is to stop watching at episode fourteen. That way, you’ll get maximum action and minimal creepiness. The great animation, world building, soundtrack, and script make up for most of the flaws in this series, and we’d recommend watching the first part.
We’re giving Sword Art Online 3.5 schlond poofas out of five. If you stick to the first half, you’ll spare yourself quite a bit of hardship.
*I kind of lied, you do have to keep your brain on if you’re watching it with subtitles, which I strongly suggest you do because the dubbed version is… grody to the max.