Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
AngeVNs
I have always felt like I was in a weird middle ground as far as my opinion on the Sword Art Online series goes. People either seem to really hate it or really like it, while I fall somewhere in the middle. I usually find its overall execution okay and mildly entertaining, but overall the quality is not as good as I'd like.
I only watched most of the series because someone I am really close to really likes the series. I ended up watching lots of the show past the Aincrad arc through osmosis.
When I heard that Alicization was the closest the series got to reaching the potential quality of the first season’s Aincrad arc, I was got more interested. It is by far the longest arc in the series, and it definitely feels closer to a modern isekai, where the main character gets whisked away to ano…
Read at the source_Bubassotto_
The Return of Sword Art Online
I'd heard a lot about this continuation of the Sword Art Online: Alicization arc, and to be honest, my first attempt at watching it wasn't very positive. At the time, it felt like "more of the same," as if the work was just recycling ideas already explored before. I was already tired of the formula, so I ended up abandoning it. Only recently did I decide to give it another chance… and looking at it more calmly now, I admit I was partially wrong.
In fact, this new arc is better crafted than I expected. The world-building is more detailed, the narrative tries to be more mature, and the conflict has more weight, even bringing interesting discussions about consciousness, reality, and artificial intelligence. A greater and better development than in Gun Gale, fo…
Read at the sourcerose_kai
Season 3 of SAO might just be the greatest comeback of any media suicide that season 2 was. It brings back the fantasy of watching season 1 and greatly improves upon the character development that was so rushed during the Aincrad arc. It's essentially a "what-if" sword art online actually started as a true fantasy anime, with a new power system that meshes incredibly well with this new style.
Animation. Upgraded. Emotion. Upgraded. Storytelling. Upgraded. The dynamic created by Kirito and Eugeo is one thing that generic isekais always fail to execute upon when they're too focused on using the female characters at plot devices to upscale the main character. There is, of course, a fair share amount of that in Alicization, because well, its SAO. Duh.
If you can get through season 2 of SAO,…
Read at the sourceashleourke20
The anime was breathtaking. The art was great as well.
The plot started out ok and has some emotional moments.
The characters were still fun and the way they responded was great to.
I know some think bad of it, but it is not that bad.
Kirito, Eugeo, and Alice relationship was a good part of the plot.
great art, fun characters and interactions
The story and the premise for this season was a very interesting and helped build an verry interesting situation.
This season of Sao so far is almost as good as the first half of the first season
Read at the sourceRagnaCrimsonFan
(Potential mild spoilers ad, but ive marked the big ones)
I want to real quick give a shoutout to my man Reki Kawahara. I was not familiar with your game. I, like many, watched the first two seasons of Sword Art Online and said "ok. this is cool. but its got some issues." After all, while Kirito (the main character) is of course a great main character, I felt the rest of the cast was a bit weak. Also, the end of the aincrad arc was a little bit ridiculous. I mean, the villain forgetting his motivation for trapping a bunch of people in the game?? What kind of a nonsensical plot point is that! However, as I continued through the series that was sao, expecting more okness, alicization came along. And it BLEW ME OUT OF THE FUCKING WATER!
I have not been this surprised about a series this muc…
Read at the source0004-1
What SAO Should have been from the start, actually soo damn good.
By Far the Goriest season of SAO, with far more blood and brutal fights
Art - 10/10 The animation is STUNNING, its actually soo pleasing to the eyes, although all of SAO has good animation this season is truly top tier visually, even though it is quite bound by location, the locations that the story is set in has peak animation, the colour pallette has alot more blues and oranges than season 2 which had quite a dark orange and black colour pallette which personally just looked okay, the blue and orange pairing being the main colours makes the characters and locations stand out alot more.
Characters - 8/10 DEVELOPMENT??? We have this insane thing SAO hasnt found out about before and that is Character development we get new…
Read at the sourceCaptainSalty
In my opinion this has been the best of SAO. While being the weakest world from its predecessors, Alicization improves upon almost every other factor. It had much more world building and immersion than anything before it and is only continued further in the next season. The music as well heightens to another level in this season. Eugeo as a character was a breath of fresh air, easily making him one of if not the most likeable character in the series. Motivation, growth, etc., were are fantastic. The sound design is crisp and very stand-out. The sounds of swords clashing sounds intense, satisfying, and sharp. The pacing is amazing giving time to build upon the pair's relationship. Overall Alicization hits almost all of its notes right. Unfortunately the one thing that Alicization isn't as g…
Read at the sourcekireikana
I’ll talk a bit about the story:
The technological advancements in Season 3 are getting crazier, with AI being born and raised until it grows on its own like a human. It’s true that an intelligence created and trained is just a program following instructions, but it’s different when AI is born and raised to develop on its own. If before, humans had full control over AI, now AI can have its own personality and desires, wanting to take control of everything. It's completely insane.
In the first cour, I saw how ridiculous Kirito has become, addicted to these increasingly unrealistic technological developments. He works so much that he’s getting skinny, and he always thinks he's carrying his black sword everywhere, maybe even believing that wherever he is, he’s the Black Swordsman.
The seri…
Read at the sourceWhe3333
Spoiler-less, TL;DR, fast, simple, and easy-to-digest review:
Swords, Swords, MORE SWORDS!!!
6/10
Animation? Excellent (+++)
This is by far the season with the best art style and animation in the series... yet! Fight scenes are way superior to previous ones.
Characters? Ok (+) They learned their lesson from season two (eugh! what a trainwreck season) and somehow introduced some new decent ones. (Klein is still underloved pls more)
Story? Meh (-)
World building is better than the previous but not better than the first season. They went full (almost full) fantasy that made it distinct from others in the series, but I still prefer the first season. The payoff? IMO, watch the next season immediately. The story is not bad, but not good either.
Pacing? Meh (-)
This season has to have the s…
Read at the sourceShirogari
SAO is back at it again with yet another ridiculous and unrealistic technology. The "Soul Translator" can supposedly read human souls which the anime claims are electrons trapped in the cytoskeleton of cells which is definitely not how a soul would work. Aside from the unrealistic technology and weird idea about souls however, this is a fun anime to watch.
(You should watch the first two seasons of sword art online first but also the movie Ordinal Scale or some things may not make sense.)
The story is relatively convoluted. There's a lot of explaining about technologies that do not make sense to justify actions characters take. Aside from this the story is quite interesting and engaging with a completely different environment than in the past seasons of SAO. The pacing is very good with…
Read at the sourceWohMi
I originally watched this when it aired on Adult Swim, and while I was originally skeptical of it (seeing as how it is a Sword Art Online anime, which I have not enjoyed as much in the past,) I was pleasantly surprised by the character development, themes, fight choreography and story of Alicization. Eugeo is one of the more interesting deuteragonists in anime, and Kirito having a fresh start makes it less annoying, since you don't have to deal with the Harem-ing typical of other SAO parts. Despite me not really having watched/viewed other SAO media, I still felt like I could understand the story without being lost or having to go rewatch previous parts/clips.
There were a few moments in the show that follow the SAO formula, which admittedly had me less interested, and the following story…
Read at the sourceResting_Bonfire
Sword Art Online Alicization
Compared to many other anime, this one is one of the most difficult to rate. I'm always sure that the author has absolutely no idea what he wants to do and just chews through all the ideas without context, as long as something comes out of it. And the Alicization season is no exception.
However, I think this arc (including Underworld) is the best of all Sword Art Online, even though it has practically nothing to do with the original anime and is more a mixture of Soma (The Game) and Matrix. However, the author has finally managed to bring interesting ideas to the forefront and ruin them a little less. Especially the characters he has fleshed out a lot more here.
I will regret this sentence, but if this arc had been an independent anime that had NOTHING to d…
Read at the sourcemeg_lowde
Honestly, this initially had me interested. It started off as something new, exploring AI and this new world that Rath had created, and Kirito's involvement in it. I'm not a fan of memory manipulation as a plot device, but the premise definitely had me intrigued. Unfortunately Kirito is such an uninteresting lead character, and when we reach the tower and the abundance of fights as they work their way up it I just couldn't help but feel a little bored. Sure, the ending tried to inject some excitement and suspense back into the story, but I just didn't care by that point.
Read at the sourceSm1000
warning this review contains unspecific spoilers (i didn't include any names (besides the mc retaining a trait from previous installments) and events are as vague as possible with me still getting a semblance of a point across)
while it is significantly better than the past installments (not that that's saying much) it still suffers from a lot of problems.
pros:
- art is significantly better
- harem is toned down
cons: sorry I went on a little tangent here
- the main one is some character's actions making 0 sense, having no meaning other than making things able to play out in a certain way often hindering their efforts the largest example is a sacrifice that accomplished nothing, the character dies just for the characters they died to protect immediately start fighting to the death w…
Read at the sourceEvoStu
Minor spoilers ahead:
I loved the idea behind Sword Art Online, but was incredibly disappointed that it stopped being about Sword Art Online. We had a bunch of other games in the show where the stakes were not very high and that took the thrill away from it. That is why I like Alicization so much. Finally, Kirito is trapped in a lifelike game again where death in-game means he is likely to die in real life, and he is unable to leave. This time, he can't just run in and demolish everything with ease, it will take him a long time (from his perspective) to get out of the game and go back home. The idea of this season finally starts to feel like the original plot of Sword Art Online and I think that is what everyone wanted.
The characters (even Kirito) are better than they are/were in previou…
Read at the sourceUnlivedDisc03
I have absolutely know idea why I hear that people don't like this. SAO has been my favourite anime since 2016 and I don't think that will ever change. The entirety of the alicization arc including the war of the underworld is such an outstanding anime. The world, the characters, incredible visual effects and art quality, the perfect voice acting (especially from eugeo), the music, the ideas and the overall execution .Everything about it feels completely different from any other anime i've watched and will watch. This has always been my to go anime when going on 30 hour rides during vacation abroad. I may be biased since i've watched all of it episode by episode since episode 8 in 2018 and have about 200-300 hours watched of SAO alone. I've seen the first 14 episodes of the original sao li…
Read at the sourceFK420
okay so,i was harsh on the OG sword art (for good reasons).Unlike the OG however, alicization is a full 47 episode arc.it gives the appropriate time to witness and enjoy a well put together story,without skipping out on anything(OG got to floor 70 something out of 100 and cut out almost 30 floors of things that could've captivated and entertained millions of viewers).the new characters were refreshing.the story itself was interesting and enjoyable.i personally think A-1 studios could've done more on this series.Reki kawahara nailed it on this arc(finally!!!) and i'm looking forward to another series from him.
while my review may be short, I hope it will inspire a few people to give this anime a chance.
Read at the sourcemjsandagi
Writing this review over a year and a half after I completed reading the Alicization Light Novels, and watching the Anime, brings a flood of nostalgia and memories.
Sword Art Online Alicization was an extremely emotional arc, and it was, honestly, one of the best arcs in the series. Reki Kawahara's writing has come a long, long way since Volume 1, and although the anime does skip/hastily show some scenes, the anime has also shown some great improvements.
Firstly, the first episode of the season was a real hit. It was a great way to start the season, and it leaves viewers (And readers, since the LNs also started the same way!) wanting to watch it until the end. And it wasn't just the first episode. Every single episode was done to an extremely high standard, and, in my opinion, at no po…
Read at the sourceTerrordactylll
This has got to be one of the weakest seasons in SAO for me (yes even weaker than season 2). While Alicization did introduce some interesting concepts such as the creation of a bottom-up artificial soul, it ultimately felt a bit samey to the rest of the series. Kirito starting from nothing again surrounded by a new cast of (AI) characters really felt like a step back.
While Kirito's tendency to be overpowered was cut back a little bit, it still felt like too little, too late, and while Yugio and Alice were interesting enough characters, their inclusion meant that the existing characters were mostly ignored. The Pontifex felt like a pretty bland character, only seeking power for power's sake, and her actions did not always feel logical within the story. The underworld and Axiom church aren…
Read at the sourceIntrusted
Honestly, this season was a pleasant surprise. i cant say the rest of the alfhiem/aincrad/ggo/ordinal scale arcs though. It seems as if the author of Sword Art Online finally realized his characters are dogshit and he needs to go back to square numero uno, the fundamentals if you will, Kirito. In this arc kirito gets practically mugged by the leader of the "laughing coffin" (retarded name) and injected with that one poison which supposedly prevents you from breathing and kills you in almost an instant. The he narrowly dodged in the previous season with his pathetic attempt to save sinon from a sexual assault. here asuna supposedly fends him off (if not klein came or something?) but whatever happened must have happened quickly since the poison that should kill you in almost an instant didnt…
Read at the source
