Anime Review: Sword Art Online ソードアートオンライン

Sword Art Online is originally a light novel adapted to an anime.

I'm sure I'm like the last one on earth watching this but I still kept it in my hard drive for a while.

They are currently on book 11 that was published couple months ago.

"This is a game but at the same time, it's nothing to play with."








Basic story outline
 

In the year 2022, a virtual gaming machine "Nerve Gear" gets invented.
Right after that a game called Sword Art Online (aka SAO) gets invented, compatible with the nerve gear.
This is kinda like every gamer's dream, to get into an actual world of gaming and feel the actual game yourself.

Yup putting over your head.

Then the 1 million players that was connected to Sword Art Online gets a shocking news.
The inventor of SAO, Akihiko Kayaba tells all players that they can't get back to the reality, the real world until they complete the objective, completing the game by, conquering all 100 floors in castle Ainclad.(basically dungeon)

And if you die in SAO, you'll die in real life, through the Nerve Gear console's supersonic power or something like that.

So, Kirito here is our main character.

This is his avatar face until the system changes all players faces to their real faces.

My thoughts on the anime / Warning: it might contain some spoilers

I have been watching really good animes lately and this is gonna be in my list this year.

If I have to point out couple things, there weren't parts that bored me. In lot of animes, it starts or end very good but either early or late part of the anime, there is always that boring section.
Especially if it is a 25 episode or longer animes.
12 episode animes are busy squishing the plot in 300 minutes in total.

So start from finish, every episode had something interesting going on. I might think there might have been but I don't rememeber anything in particular that bored me or made me lose my interest.

Second thing, I loved the main character, Kirito.
I always love main characters or characters that are so cool.
I know it is a very general word but by this, they make me feel I want to be like them.

#fullofswag

He's serious lots of times but shows his sense of humor when needed.
That is always a trait I love about a character.

3rd, as you might or might not know,
This anime covers only 4 of the books in the series.

1st half, All happening in Sword Art Online, shows the love-line between Kirito and Asuna as well as characters will to survive and complete the game.

  This was mentioned in the anime, but in the world of despair, these two showed hope as well as love.

 This girl right here said that and made me think, maybe this is one of the reason I love this.

Majority of the animes in the world doesn't always stick to its original setting or plot.
This isn't a exception either.

In the light novel as well as the anime they divided the parts of the light novel and anime.

Only 2 parts are shown in the anime.
Part in Sword Art Online(in Ainclad), and Part in Alfheim Online which turns into a whole new world and new characters.(well only one important new one)

When they changed the opening half way through the anime, I was totally mindfucked.

THE FUCK ARE THOSE EARS I thought.

So what basically happened in SAO is that Kirito completed the game by killing Akihiko Kayaba.

He and the surviving comes back to reality but Asuna and 300 other players stilll didnt come back for some reason is still in bed unconscious. You will see why as the anime goes on.

So second half of this anime is about trying to get Asuna back to the real world.

One thing I could say is that it was like rapunzel.

During this process of saving Asuna, Kirito has to go to another virtual mmorpg world because Asuna is stuck there.

And that world is called Alfheim Online.

An extremely important character takes part in the second half.

Ripa aka Kirito's sister Suguha and they don't know that till end.

I totally fell in love with this character.plus she is also one of my favorite voice actors.

That element boosted my rating of this anime.

So second half of the anime shows the sister and brother partnership, the fact that suguha loves her own brother which I'm not even surprised at that kind of plot because ir is so common. It is so ironic that the same voice actor plays Kirino from Oreimo which is another BrotherXSister love.(In this case, it actually worse that SAO)

Suguha is so big that the 2nd ending was all about her.

But of course, Suguha is not Kirito's actual sister but still Asuna takes place in Kirito's heart.

By the way, in Japan marriage between cousins are legally allowed.

By the end, Kirito obviously saves Asuna and happy ending.

To me the story itself wasn't very new to me because I have watched Accel World, and the concept itself is incredibly similiar. If I watched this first, I might have rated SAO higher as an anime.

Overall, story was great, little disturbing it is similiar to Accel World. Cast and characters were definitely amazing, Soundtracks were very good too.

Definitely an anime I would suggest to anyone.
After this, it did make me think, I'M NEVER PLAYING MMORPGS AGAIN.






Interesting Info/News

There was a leak that season 2 is getting worked on. Obviously it is going to be about the next world, called Gun Gail Online, only the light novel readers like myself will know this.
Gun Gail Online is a first person shooter so I think it won't be anything like Sword Art or Alfeim.

This was a huge hit and had amazing numbers for Blu-Rays and dvds. It is no surprise that they are working on season 2.

Before Sword Art Online was a legit light novel, it was a internet book(published through the internet) and it was called "Word Gear"
It came out long time ago like 2002 around and it was originally took place in year 2010 not 2022.
This was first ADULT novel. It contained sex scenes with Kirito and Asuna as well as inappropriate scenarios. Of course, it was described in words but still.
This was actually mentioned during the interview with Reki Kawahara, the writer of sword art online.

 Yeah if things went properly here, who knows what might have happened. :)

All these stuff was redone after the actual light novel was published.

This won 2 straight years of the light novel award called "this light novel is amazing!"  このライトノベルがすごい!　（2012 and 2013 Runner up for both years was Toaru majutsu no Index)

It was a good anime but there were some criticism to anime though. Some minor stuff.

This was supposed to show the desperation of humans to survive. To be realistic people would have killed each other for items, money and groups.
It was supposed to show the selfishness of humans but people (HATERS) say it wasn't expressed very well.

People do say, anime turned the origin more into a love story than the action fantasy elements of the book.

All this minor stuff, people didn't even realise. Haters gonna hate.


Openings, Endings

The songs weren't spectacular but they were very good.

The 2 singers of the openings are the people who sang the 2 spectacular opening and ending of Fate/Zero  Oath sign by LiSa and Memoria by Aoi Eir

Crossing Field by LiSa Op 1 of SAO

Innocence by Aoi Eir Op 2 of SAO

The endings honestly didn't really catch my attention.


 Conclusion

Like I said, animes I've been watching lately are really good, I'm proud to bring this to the list.

Grade: A

Thank you for reading this long Review and BYEEE