Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
RedInfinity
|This review contains minor spoilers of the shitty story and characters|
Oh Sword Art Online, how you fooled millions of people into thinking that this show will be every gamer and anime fans' dream-come-true. We all came in, watched the first episode and thought " This actually looks pretty cool " , and continued watching like fish on a fishing rod. How wrong were we? Well, I will tell you, fellow readers, how the anime that received one of the largest fan-bases in recent times, holds the pinnacle of the word 'Overrated '; and I will do my best to convince you to NOT watch this anime.
Story: 2
Now let's begin this review with discussing about the 'gripping' story, that led such a large fan-base into picking up SAO. So, I am not going to talk about the synopsis, as MAl has it displayed…
Read at the sourceGozen_
Here it is! My first review here on the wonderful website on MAL and what better way to kick start my reviews then with one of the most controversial and possibly overrated anime of all time. Of course I'm writing about SAO.
The story in SAO at first glance seems very interesting and almost desirable. A video game is released in the year 2022 and has each gamer step foot in a virtual VRMMORPG( Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) This seems like an excellent setting for an anime and was something that got me excited for this anime. However what SAO does with this setting simply is the definition of wasted potential. Throughout all of SAO's main story arc it keeps drifting away farther from its core story line. So what is exactly the main story line in SAO? well,…
Read at the sourceTheDeedsOfMen
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a brave young boy. He was the best swordsman in the land and the manliest man of all. He overcame countless trials with little effort and won the hearts of many fair maidens.
Yes, it's time for Sword Art Online, the origin of many angry rants.
The premise doesn't sound too bad. Ten thousand players of a virtual MMO are trapped in the game and forced to complete it to escape, except that death in the game leads to death in real life. Just think about it: this could be a tragic story of struggle where death is behind every corner. A story of sacrifice and despair. A story of alliances and betrayal. A story of the struggle to retain humanity in front of impossible conditions.
...But why have any of that when you can have romance and harem…
Read at the sourcezuziako
This anime is like wish-fulfillment drug for male teenagers and adults who're addicted to online gaming and can't deal with real-life challenges.
It basically shows them what they want to see - a perfect male hero who is loved by all the girls (including his effing cousin), who can solve any problem, and despite only playing games since he was 10 - is still fairly handsome and thin (yeah, that's how it works!).
All the girls are cute, forgiving, compassionate and inferior in terms of skill and wits to the main male character. Even the main female lead, who stars of quite good and strong is sort of degraded through the series to this pretty princess-wife type of character who is only there to be either saved by a hero or abused by the villain.
The online world, despite of being an effin…
Read at the sourceDietrologia
Sword Art Online has become a phenomenon in the anime community. Since it has premiered it has gained both a large amount of fame and infamy. Nowadays it's really known for the latter, and seen as intensely mediocre by a lot of people. My thoughts on the matter probably won't be as articulate as some other people's, but I'll try my best to explain why I think SAO is a terrible anime.
When I first heard of SAO's premise, I was already put off. While I understand that it has potential, it just sounded very fanfic-y to me and not really that appealing, which is why it didn't really become one of those shows where I was like "MUST WATCH". Sometime later the infamy just caught up to me and I decided it wouldn't hurt to have a look-see.
The premise of SAO is essentially that some douchebag nam…
Read at the sourceLordAura
--The review contains minor spoilers--
Since I've seen a plethora of scores of 10 for this show, I thought I'd write what I feel is a more realistic review for this show. Sword Art Online is more or less the equivalent of a fanfiction in it's writing and quality. Whether people want to overlook it or not is up to the individual, but I believe it fails at the fundamentals for writing a good story. This review will go into details as to my opinions on why I feel this way.
1) Story - This is first major problem is the show. Let's start from the beginning shall we. The first arc consists of 14 episodes. The first 2 episodes are honestly pretty good and set up the plot of the show that should follow. You're introduced to the main characters and it shows mmo style of play. I mean with 2 episo…
Read at the sourceGotanon
Yes! Yeeees! Oh, let me taste your tears, Asuna!
Mm, your tears are so yummy and sweet!
Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness! Yummy~
In a world where series' like Harry Potter, or other real abhorrent fanfiction tittles the likes of Twilight sells well enough for multiple sequels, it shouldn't be a surprise then, Sword Art Online's popularity skyrocketing that is. Pretty posters, familiarity, perhaps male power fantasies and the like, etc. There are numerous factors that play a part in a works' popularity; but it's hard to pin-point just what exactly got SAO such hype. Especially since it becomes apparent that it was already losing it's focus just after the third episode. In a similar vein to SAO's sister in terms of popularity still that very same year, Guilty Crown also had an (ostens…
Read at the sourceHannahxBear
I've heard many things about SAO (Sword Art Online): There's either a lot of love or a lot of hate for it. Personally, I'm leaning a little towards the latter, but not fully on it. Before you start sending me hate mail or press the "Not Helpful" button, please hear me out.
As a gamer, and a fan of MMORPG's, I tried to keep my expectations not too high, because you know what they say: "The bigger they are, the harder they fall". Unfortunately, SAO fits this saying to a T, as it was one of the most disappointing anime that I've seen this year. Why? Well, why do think I'm writing this forsaken review?!
~~~~~~
Story: (3/10)
The story of SAO involves players getting trapped within an VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game), in which they are required to beat all…
Read at the sourceSavepoints
“A person is very strong when he seeks to protect something.” - Heathcliff
Sword Art Online; a show loved by many, yet perceived as one of the worst series ever created by a lot of people. The show certainly wasn’t perfect, but it was far from being bad, and I think a lot of the hate it receives is unfair, because it’s just people trying to point out every single little flaw and turn it into something huge.
Story: (7 / 10)
SAO is effectively divided into two large arcs, the first one being what the series was basically “advertised” to be; people are stuck in a game, and have to beat the game to be able to leave. Now, because this arc spans quite a long period of time, two things appear which are worth noting.
The first one is the slightly “weird” pacing off the show. At times you will…
Read at the sourceAscarde
I heard all this hype about Sword Art Online. Any anime site worth its salt has heard of it. It's vaunted as one of the best animes of 2012, and I heard pretty good stuff about it! However if there's one rule about anime is that the more hyped it is, the more crushing when it turns out to be a disappointment. SAO is one of these.
It started out with an interesting premise: ten thousand people are locked into a virtual reality game, with no law or order. They must beat the game in order to get out. At the forefront is Kirito, a skilled player and one of the original players of the game. It sounds good on paper.
The issue with this is that Kirito is a borderline Gary Stu. He's the Ace, the secret weapon of the players, and all the player's hopes rides on his shoulders. Okay, apart from bei…
Read at the sourceCamoBullo
Sword Art Online – it’s the anime where you either hate it or love it. On paper, it seems like a very good idea: ten thousand people are trapped in a virtual world with no way out other than completing all one hundred floors of the world which get increasingly difficult. Gamers everywhere would love this concept and as a gamer, I won’t lie when I say that Sword Art Online intrigued me. The first episode was very promising – beautiful art with some of the most gorgeous scenery, a nice tutorial for not only a newcomer to the game, but the audience as well and a main character that seemed very likable. The future looked bright for the series and I anticipated more.
And, in one fell swoop, the delight of the first episode vanished as it went on. And on.
That’s not to say that the entire seri…
Read at the sourceAnime_Troll
Sword art online is not one about action, but instead is a pseudo harem monomyth despite what the first episode suggests. It implores the same marketing tactic as Accel World, and Guilty Crown, where the 1st episode is merely a showstopper/crowd-pleaser with alot of eye candy and flashing lights as well as a misleading title, in order to accrue a sizeable fanbase. But if we ignore the 1st episode, and look at the anime as a whole it can be said that the anime was adequate for its intended purpose.
//Story
The story is quite simple, and it seemed to copy the core ideas of hack//sign, but to a lesser extent, that is it focuses more on romance rather than action after the 1st episode. The story seems to advance rather too quickly after the 1st episode, where it seems to bounce from the 1st f…
Read at the sourcePaxis
I heard of Sword Art Online from almost every single anime media when it released. People were singing praises about this apparently highly anticipated anime. Going in expecting an enjoyable experience, I was completely let down. SAO is probably the most overrated anime so far
Both the art and sound were done extremely well, as expected from such a high budget anime.
Being a gamer myself, i was intrigued by the story, but it was terribly executed.
To me, the characters are the greatest downfall of this anime. The main leads, Kirito and Asuna, are some of the most unrealistic and boring characters. Kirito, with absolutely no flaws, a ladiesman despite being a shut-in, changes his personality ridiculously. He acts completely different when facing different characters just to fit the requ…
Read at the sourcepetch
This is a review of Sword Art Online’s adaptation. I do not care for the light novels, this review is based entirely on the anime adaptation.
The Story (4/10)
The plot for this anime falls below that of an average seasonal anime. Sword Art Online begins with a good, interesting premise. The first two episodes are actually very promising. However, once you get past those initial episodes the show doesn’t really do anything of interest and feels like it was written by a sexually frustrated teenager. As I said, the concept is good and somewhat tragic. A new virtual reality MMO opens up and thousands of players begin grinding away, only to find they cannot log out of the game and are stuck in this virtual world. There are so many possibilities and interesting things to be done with this pr…
Read at the sourcePolyphemus
Well then. SAO is indisputably one of the most polarizing anime in recent memory. It has devout fans who think it's one of the greatest, haters who think it's trash, and a minority that just says "hey guys, can't we all just have different opinions?" I hate the first and last groups with a fiery passion. I feel like breaking down why I think it's awful, so I'm writing a review. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Story:
The premise was a somewhat generic one, and “trapped in a video game” has been done numerous times before, but SAO seemed promising. And then the plot did everything wrong. It utilizes time skips to avoid character development and many important events happen off screen and are never mentioned again or properly explained. Once Kirito was in a seemingly impossible to escape situat…
Read at the sourceLLYNCES
I don't really want to go into too much depth, but I'd like to give an overview of the series and give my opinions it. If you haven't noticed yet there are many negative reviews out there for this anime, and while many of them bring up some pretty fair points, I think some people are being a bit too harsh on it. Let me explain.
Yes it's a popular anime, yes it has flaws, no it's not perfect, but at the very least in my opinion it is enjoyable. The pacing is off, the beginning particularly feels rushed, there were moments where I thought I skipped an episode because of the time skips which made it difficult to really connect with any of the characters in the beginning, and there were some less than stellar instances where it felt like the anime was trying to make me care but failing hard.…
Read at the source_Rika
Once in a while, there comes along a title (be it movie, book or anime) that takes the audience by storm, sweeping numerous off their feat, leaving several with a bad aftertaste in their mouth and making a few pass the work off as ‘average’ or ‘mediocre’. Online communities, forums, chat rooms and every other nook and corner of the internet known to man turn into arenas of debates, discussions, fanboyism/fangirlism and flaming. It’s apparent that when something is popular, it doesn’t always get to bath in praises. With the acclaim, comes a sheer amount of criticisms. Also, it goes without saying that popularity doesn’t necessarily equate to quality.
Sword Art Online, abbreviated as SAO from this point on, is no exception.
SAO, the anime adaptation of a series of light novels of the sam…
Read at the sourceronlink
WARNING: Spoilers ahead; read at your own risk. (Or if you don't really care, then read away, I guess...)
Well, where shall I begin with this... I'll just say right now that this series (one which I had really high hopes for) ended up becoming absolutely horrid by the second half; each episode getting progressively worse than the last. But, in any case, let's discuss this shall we?
The story: It's basically just your typical MMO-genre type of series (think .Hack but with actual fighting as opposed to the characters just standing around and talking episode after episode). The first half of the series takes place in the world of Sword Art Online (hence the title) where everyone including the main character, Kirito, becomes trapped and in order to free themselves from their virtual imprison…
Read at the sourceBloodRequiem
Remember back in July I said that seeing the hype, this would probably become the next Guilty Crown? Well, reflecting on that now…I would like to sincerely apologize…to the Guilty Crown fans because Sword Art Online is nowhere near Guilty Crown’s level in terms of visuals and soundtrack.
As we all know, studio A-1 is not known for action based anime. Most of their signature works are slice of life romantic comedies. The character designs are reminiscent of those in Working!! despite the fact that this show markets itself as a serious action fantasy series. Action scenes heavily utilized flash frames in order to cut corners. Most of the time, the viewers are just shown the expressions of the characters instead of what is actually happening to the scene as a whole. In some instances, frame…
Read at the sourceMortsyn
Scavenge. Slay. Survive.
This is what Sword Art Online should have been about. It should have been an anime that was a pure MMORPG in anime form, as it was made out to be. What did we get instead? 55% slice of life, 25% romance, 10% action, 10% plot. SAO is quite possibly the most overrated and overhyped anime I've ever come across in my anime years. SAO is highly regarded by its fans as one of the best Light Novels ever, better than Fate/Zero, Monogatari series, Haruhi series, Kara no Kyoukai, Welcome to the NHK and Baccano for a few examples. Granted, I haven't read any of these works, but for some peculiar reason, I have an extremely hard time believing this. Why? Well, this will probably get me some flame for being biased, but because the anime is bad. Really bad. Now, some might say…
Read at the source