The title says it all. Any novel-to-anime adaptation, if you're read the original text, is going to fall far short of the source in terms of story and detail. This doesn't doom a series, or no adaptation would ever come out - any half-competent writer and director can make the resulting product entertaining while stripping out parts that would not adapt well to a video/audio medium.

In the case of SAO, this is done. But a whooooole lot of content is gone, and what's left is a pretty generic romance/heroic shounen story with a mildly interesting premise. Production values are decent - a solid voice acting cast gives life to the characters, and Yuki Kajiura's familiar rises can be heard during action-packed sequences.

But for all the bells and whistles, there's not a whole of interesting meat to it. Kirito and Asuna's love story is a decent one but even in the novels it devolves into a damsel-in-distress plus harem situation, which the author actually apologized for because he needed to sell copies and establish a franchise before he had room to write the stories he wanted. The SAO anime is no different, yet even less interesting.

If a second season is going to be made, I hope the writers take a good luck at the immense amount of source material they have to work with. A boy/girl romance and heroic struggle may put your foot in the door, but SAO has a wealth of interesting topics and storylines (Mother's Rosario, the Aincrad short stories) that deserve to be animated.

I don't have a lot of faith this studio will pull it off, because they seem to value sexy fanservice more than a good plot.

Beautiful and engaging, this series makes you see and think what some might do if trapped in a world where life is safe only if you engage the dangers that surround you. The main characters in this story pull at your heart strings as they struggle to escape this trap of epic proportions. Action, suspense, life, death, and love, this story keeps you hanging on every plot twist and turn, making you want more. I hope to see what challenges Kirito and Asuna overcome if they continue the series as far as the manga progressed.

This was one of my very favorite anime up until the second half. The beginning was awesome and so much fun, but the plot changed half way and it became disappointing and difficult to watch.

Significant flaws:
-The biggest letdown for me was how Asuna, who was so awesome, powerful, and cool, became totally helpless and pathetic in the second half.
-Towards the end it got really cheesy and everyone cried all the time.
-The final battle scenes were dragged out and exhausting, which made them loose all suspense and excitement.

Positive aspects:
-the animation is awesome and the movements are clean.
-the music is well done and fits the scenes
-Kirito's and Asuna's love in the first half is really sweet and romantic
-the original concept is really awesome!

This is one of the most overrated anime of all time, such a let down! It really started to go downhill after around episode eighteen or so, and it got so bad that it totally ruined the entire anime. I might rewatch the series up to the fourteenth episode, and not continue from there because I love the first half so much. I feel bad for giving SAO two stars ><

Anyway, I'd recommend Sword Art Onine if you are looking for a great anime concept, but only if you are willing to be let down in the end.

SAO probably has my favorite first few episodes in any anime. It hooked me right from the start with excellent visuals and an awesome story that no gamer could resist. It continued being solid for the first 14 episodes. Then they moved to AO...
I was kind of shocked honestly. The stakes aren't nearly as high, the villain is annoying, the character models aren't nearly as cool, and they took away Asuna's badassness. I could go on but I'll some it up by saying that the last 10 episodes were awful. Stop at 14.

First off this isn't the "BEST ANIME EVER", just to be clear.
With that being said though, it is still a great anime.
Sword Art Online, an adaptation of a short series manga worthy of being a recommendation on anyone's list. The anime revolves around Kirito, a teenage boy who is trapped in a virtual MMO game with 10'000 other players. The premise of the game is to fight up the tower of which they start in and reach the 100th floor, whilst avoiding death at all cost as dying in game results in dying in real life.

The anime story is quite solid, based around the concept of being able to be in a virtual game (Body and all) is a great start (who doesn't want to be able to go INTO a game right?). The anime is solely based on Kirito's journey in the game, which is its first downfall however, seeing as the other characters lacked a lot of depth that they should have gotten (Characters such as Klien and Egil, look like such interesting characters, but almost seem like strangers since we dont know anything about them..) However it is understandable seeing as this is a short series anime. Another problem with the story was the time jumps, as said previously the anime is a short anime, therefore it was necessary to do this, however I think that most people, including me would have preferred if the anime continued longer; which would have allowed us to continue to watch the journey of Kirito AS WELL as the other characters in the anime (I'm sure there were much more adventures and monsters). The only other character that gets any sufficient depth would be Asuna, Kirito's romantic interest, which is also a nice addition to the anime as there is a lot of romance elements in the anime which is very well done as well.

With this being said, the anime still does remarkably well. With the first few episodes being extremely engaging and entertaining with the introduction to a virtual gaming world, as well as the loss of friends and comrades. However the anime does lose this momentum as it goes onto its latter episodes, which is probably due to the lack of depth the anime actually gave to the characters and the world itself. Seeing as the animation in this anime is very beautiful with vast landscapes and bustling towns, the animation and artwork alone can be compared to that of other top tier anime.

All in all, the anime does well as it was very entertaining to watch. With an awe inspiring world that SHOULD have been showed off more (I think most viewers didn't really even care about the artwork, as it was not emphasized much.) and captivating journey of Kirito and Asuna, with the emotional short stories of friendship and loss. Sword Art Online is a must watch on my list, however the anime leaves viewers with a bit of an empty feeling at the end which is the thing that stops me from giving this anime a full 5/5, as everyone i believe, knows that this anime COULD have been and SHOULD have been even better.

(None the less, its still a great anime :] ) 4 / 5 stars :D

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So I've never actually been an avid anime enthusiast over a good portion of my life but I've been marathoning hundreds of hours of anime shows the past two weeks for a reason unbeknownst to me, maybe to induce myself into a depression or find the meaning of life. I do want to give my thoughts about Sword Art Online mostly because I feel it's message hit more at home with me. I've lived the experience as i've played MMORPG's over the past 10 years myself. I know what it is to find people with common goals and form new relationships that transcend the virtual space into reality. So it is kind of hard to talk about this anime series without spoiling some major plot points so I guess this review is more directed at other people who have already finished watching it. As I have just marathoned all 25 current episodes I don't know whether these were broadcast into separate seasons so I'll just split them by story arcs which would be Sword Art Online and ALfheim Online and reflect upon them separately. So skip the sections below if you really want to avoid spoilers.

Sword Art Online (episodes 1-14)


ALfheim Online (episodes 15-25)



I honestly enjoyed my time with Sword Art Online as I feel it's greatest strength is the way it conveys online relationships within a close community of players. The real death penalty of the game only amplifies the emotional bonds the cast of characters experience which truly brings out who they really are as humans beings and further implies the message that even though they live in a virtual world the experiences they had with each other are very much real life experiences.

Overall:
So first things first, I'm a fan of SAO and enjoyed what I saw of it (haven't read the light novel), but I do think that it's a bit overrated. All the praise SAO has been getting is a bit exaggerated in my opinion. Nonetheless, I still liked the show. I would actually give it a 3.5, but Crunchy doesn't allow that, so I guess I'll be generous.

Note: Spoilers are specific points that I complain about. May or may not contain spoilers (all the events are at the beginning though, so it doesn't reveal anything really)


Plot:
This show had MAJOR potential as many of you may have seen from the first episode. It was thrilling, eventful, and really well done. But then, everything sort of just went downhill from there. Don't let that sentence scare you; as I said, it's still a really enjoyable show. The pacing of the SAO arc was terrible. Things didn't flow together, time didn't seem to flow right. They could have done so much more if they expanded on the actual adventure and let us see more of the SAO world. Actually, it might have been better if they had the SAO arc as a 25 episode season. If given the time, SAO could have explained things better and created more atmosphere and emotion. The psychological aspect of SAO could have been expanded on. The first episode made me think that there would be something more in terms of watching how characters acted. The psychological aspect isn't really built upon and what they did try to do just ended up becoming filler because of the poor execution. That's a loss on SAO's part. It had such great potential that it didn't utilize.


Characters:
Cliche. Kirito's awesome and OPed. He's the hero. He's the one who saves everybody. Everything goes his way. But hey, that's a lot of animes. In doesn't take away from the experience. My problem was that he didn't have much character for the SAO arc. He was a bit too... dull. Most of the characters were actually kind of shaky. None had much personality, and all were pretty bland. There wasn't much character development, and that goes hand in hand with plot development. Again, the psychological aspect would have done wonders here. Still, some characters were really solid and worked well. Of course, some of these characters were filler and completely unneeded. Lisbeth for example was a filler character. Inter-character development could also have been worked on. The character designs were beautiful.


Visuals:
I loved the art style of SAO. It's just one of those styles that is easy to get used to and easy to like. The characters were designed well with everyone's personal styles displayed. It also let you get the feel of how they fought. Along with the characters, the landscapes are also beautiful. The art is very consistent throughout, and so is the animation. The futuristic gameplay animations were awesome. I enjoyed the little first person POV parts where we get to see the game from their own eyes. The fight sequences were nicely done which is always a plus.


Audio:
The voice acting for this show was pretty well done. Everything seemed right, and nothing came out awkward. Pretty run of the mill stuff. It's good I would say. As for the music, the little tracks played throughout the anime were fitting and timed right, helping to add some atmosphere. The opening and ending themes were pretty standard-- again, nothing special about it. They were good songs mind you, just not anything I instantly fell in love with.


Extra:
I didn't really consider the ALO arc in this review of mine because as I stated previously, SAO would have done better with 25 episodes devoted to the SAO arc. But to get the other season of this anime, here's some extra thoughts on the ALO arc. I stand by my previous statements about the visuals and audio. As for the characters, Kirito progressively got more solid, and his character became more well defined in this arc. Sugu was also a pretty solid character-- not sure why a lot of people dislike her. The villain, I agree, is just way too... cliche and shallow. He's just a creep. Definitely not the best villain. One problem that persisted through the SAO arc to the ALO arc was the lack of psychological development and the inconsistency of the characters' mentality. Anyway, the plot was not as interesting as the one for the SAO arc, and it had a pretty slow start, but once it picked up, I found myself sitting at the edge of my seat again as I waited for the next episode.