Sword Art Online

this series so far has been up and down but it stillis fun the way it incorerated the diferent people and different thoughts was cool. im still abit let down by the episodes were the story dosent move on. kirito is skilled but doesnt relise that all the girls he meets fall for him but hell probley marry asuna because shejust seems right for him and anothe annoying point is the cant have children. would be better to teach you own child cause when poeple get acustomed to life in SOA they would probably get boredand die anyway. so all in all ill give this a 5 star rating as it deserves so far

Sword Art Online (SAO) starts with an interesting premise - what if you had to play an MMORPG like it was real life? But it implements in such a way that requires about a mile of heavy rope hawsers to suspend your disbelief far enough to accept the premise. The players are stuck in the game until they die, and then they die in real life? That just doesn't play: outside factors in the real world would interfere too much. How are their real-life bodies being fed over "years" of gameplay? And the MMO servers haven't been cracked even enough to allow outside messages to come in? Sorry, I can't buy that there are actually years passing in the outside world, as implied in ep 8.

(Edit 14 October 2012) Now we're up to episode 15, and I have to admit they tied up a lot of these loose ends, at least enough for anime purposes. The hospital scenes in eps 14 and 15 make this whole premise a lot more plausible. But for someone who is coming at the series purely as an anime and without experience of the books, that's a long time to wait for

The only way to resolve those questions believably at this point is going to be a huge let-down at the end of the series that reveals that time was compressed to about 1 year per day IRL and the players that died were just locked out of the game permanently. And that's going to end up being a huge cop-out -- at least as bad as "Rideback" or "Clannad After Story". If they actually manage to find a sane way to end this without ending with "it was only just a dream", I'll have to add a star to my rating. (14-Oct-12: Done - 4 stars)

Apart from anticipating a bad ending, the series is a decent adventure/romance with a few plot holes and not much continuity (through ep 8). The main ongoing plot themes are a general prejudice against "beaters" -- beta testers who are seen by some as having unfair advantages in the game, and the relationship building between Asuna and Kirito. But other than that, the plots seem to be more of a "relationship of the week" or "battle of the week" plot line for Kirito. In other words - a series of vignettes, rather than a continuous flow. Perhaps there is just too much material in the manga to work with? There are hints in ep 8 that this is about to change - there is much foreshadowing of inimical forces aligned against Asuna and/or Kirito. So I have hopes that plot continuity is going to improve.

Also on the plus side, plot-wise, the prejudice against beaters is a serious conflict and not just some strawman for the hero to crush. In fact, it's probably the kind of battle Kirito can never win - a real fear of being killed in-game combined with the perceived unfair advantages of the beaters is the same combination that gives rise to anti-Semitism and other prejudices IRL.

(14-Oct-12): I should have waited a couple of more episodes before reviewing this. Starting ep 9 is when Kirito and Asuna start being bad-ass together and the plot concentrates on the main story. In retrospect, the early episodes are really just a group of character development stories for Kirito. I kinda wish we had a similar group of stories for Asuna though.

I'm quite happy with the animation quality. It's not always the most fluid, but the character designs are appealing, the animators make great use of lighting both for color tone and shadowing. Sunsets for example give everything, including the characters, a yellowy-orange tone and longer shadows. The action sequences are well-choreographed and the monsters have good variety and are truly disgusting/terrifying.

The opening and closing music is kind of meh..neither the opener nor closer are particularly inspiring. The opener is better of the two, but jumps around too much. it first comes off as a 70's arena rock anthem with no discernable chorus and a thin female voice as lead, then switches to some sort of a disco beat at the end. OTOH, the background music during the action is almost always appropriate and never annoying. It uses a wide variety of (probably synthesized) "instruments" and uses both the instrumentation and harmonies to effectively set the mood for each scene, so this is a plus. (14-Oct-12) - New opening and closing music are more conventional J-Pop, which for me is a plus. The opener is still a bit too "arty" for my taste, but I can't deny the production quality. Incidental music is still a big plus for the series.

The characterizations are a bit of a mix. the characters aren't quite one-dimensional, but it's obvious that in most cases they are defined by the needs of the plot, rather than the other way around. Kirito and Asuna are the cool kids, good at everything, destined to fall in love - but their interactions with each other and the other characters are believable in terms of their personalities. For example the bodyguard in ep 8 is a jealous snob obviously destined to become an enemy, but it's also clear that he is (at least until he is relieved of duty) honestly motivated by his duty to protect Asuna. The whole plot around them is plausible and interesting, but I can't help feeling that the only reason this character exists is to introduce the next set of adversaries, and not because he is of any interest for himself. Apart from Kirito and Asuna, all the side characters feel like they're just there as role players for the other two. The roles are well-fleshed, but there is nothing for these characters outside of that role - no secondary plot lines for anybody.

(ed. 14-Oct-12)
Overall, SAO is a fun series to watch even as a sequence of vignettes, and now that the plot has come together coherently, it'll be even more interesting. Despite some early incoherence, it's looking like an excellent series and a highlight of both the summer and fall seasons. I'm a bit worried about everyone having elf-ears in the new opener, though. The anime convention that anything non-human (demon, elf, persocom) has to have pointy ears is one of my pet peeves.

Not gonna lie, but I thought this anime was going to suck, but I finished watching the gundam 00 series and saint seiya omega I watched all that has been released so far, so I needed a new show. This show completely blew my mind, the first episode was sort of dull and such a lame concept, but it's amazing how far in depth they went with the whole mmo deal, the beta testers was a great way of showing the series how far in depth this series was thought out. Kirito is simply a badass in a different way though. He's a shy kid, that finds his power in the game, and immediately grows this cocky attitude but puts a little western twist as a lone gunman doing justice in new society. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes an actual online rpg.

Sword Art is a joy to watch. Not only are the characters engaging and grow as you watch the series but the premise is amazing. After the first few episodes I'd already decided I'd love to be in their situation. I'm sorry but the years to level 100 and fighting in an online game sound like way too good a time. Especially if you have the skills Kirito does!

Animation is crisp and clean. I feel the action scenes are too short but the episode is always done before I realize it which is my measure of a good anime. One of my favorites this year.

This show should be unwatchable. It's fairly impressive they took such a terrible concept and forged an amazing show from it. Granted, there's rough edges and plot holes, at the heart of it SAO is just a story about survival but overall I look forwards to new episodes. If you can stand some amazingly blunt geeky concepts (virtual world, cooking via a UI, MMO's) and teenage awkwardness, chances are you'll enjoy this show.

This anime manages to retain the classic sense of magnitude in the task, to be undertaken by the protagonist, which we all know and love. It makes everything the characters do feel epic. In this case it is done without resorting to them being repeatedly owned at first, only to gain some contrived partially explained incredible powers and "win the anime". Instead more emphasis is based on the danger that other supporting characters find themselves in as opposed to the protagonist himself who can shrug most anything of.