Sword Art Online Season 1 Review

A large percentage of the Anime community are also avid gamers, and will do everything possible to live their dreams as a mage, or warrior. As virtual games are getting more and more realistic, more and more gamers are dragged into the world of gaming. If now, in 2014, the Oculus Rift, and other virtual reality consoles are grabbing hold of the gaming industry, then what will virtual reality be like in 2020? Will we become consumed by the virtual world and abandon the reality for power ups and level grinding? Will games become so realistic that you can feel the world at your fingertips, smell the cool ocean breeze on your quest, and become more emotionally attached to the virtual community than your tragic reality? Sword Art Online, has already given us a possible reality in the near future.

The newly released Sword Art Online is the hottest game to come out in the year 2020, and has gamers camping outside stores to get one of the limited print releases of the game. The game is played on the newest console named the Nervegear, which enables players to have a full virtual reality experience, as if they were actually living in the game. Our main protagonist Kazuto Kirigaya, username Kirito, was one of the lucky few to test the beta version of the game, and logs into the game to live his dream as a master swordsman. After only a few hours of the game being online, players discover that the option to log out of the game is missing from the player menu, and are teleported by force to the plaza of the Town of Beginnings. Players are then confronted by the Gamemaster; a mysterious figure cloaked in red, with a face hidden with shadows, who tells them that their only escape if they complete the game, and all 100 floors of the floating castle of Aincrad. Anyone who tries to remove the Nervegear from the outside, kills the person wearing the Nervegear due to the microwave radiation released into the player’s skull. Also, if you die in the game, you die in real life. No respawns. No retries. A harmless experience, turned death game. The story stays in the SAO world for the first half of the 24 episode series, but then turns to another game, and gets sidetracked by filler through the series. A problem I had with the series was how it could not stay in one specific genre for very long. It turned into a mishmash of the gaming, romance, adventure, action moe, and harem genres, and could not decide what the series wanted to be.

Kirigaya Kazuto, aka Kirito, is our main protagonist, and an avid gamer. He’s the type of player you’d want to have fighting beside you, as he is a level grinder, and one of the top players in the Sword Art Online world. However, his character is very generic. And I do not say that lightly. Look at his qualities: Badass, overpowered, generous, protective, kind, and somehow attractive to every girl in the series, thus the harem. Kirito’s character is the stereotypical “perfect man” characterization. I do not have very many problems with this, except for the fact that Kirito cannot die because he is Kirito. Deadly boss, everyone else dies, Kirito survives because he is Kirito. It’s not just Kirito that has a generic character, it’s also our female lead, Asuna. Asuna starts off as an interesting character, being a badass and strong player, shy at first, but being able to take care of her own problems. But then she starts falling into the cardboard cutout tsundere genre near the halfway point of the first SAO arc onwards. Asuna had so much potential as a character, but the writers wasted most of it to make room for the all important Kirito. In the first opening, Asuna has screen time for over half the opening, but gets rarely any screen time in the series as a whole. Screen time for characters is another major flaw I find with the series. Characters sometimes get one episode at most, and then are cast into the bin of oblivion, and that’s disappointing, since some of the side characters have better writing than the two protagonists. You know something has to be done about characters when your final villain is about as threatening as a butterfly on steroids.

The animation for the series was done by A-1 Pictures, and is well done and consistent  for the entire series. Both opening animations are very well done, and the battle scenes, sword skills and other effects look amazing and bring to life the Sword Art Online world. No problems with the animation at all. Backgrounds were beautifully presented, and the scenery captured that “the new reality is the virtual game” aspect that the series was trying to give to the audience.

The soundtrack was done by Yuki Kajiura, and fits the series extremely well and includes orchestra instrumentals, choirs, and a little bit of electronic. However, her composition for the Sword Art Online soundtrack is not as good as other works such as her compositions for .hack//sign, or Tsubasa. Two songs stuck out from the rest in the OST, and those were the battle themes Swordland, and Luminous Sword. A visual accompaniment is more necessary for the Sword Art Online soundtrack, but, nonetheless, the soundtrack is still worth listening to. The Japanese dub was well done, but the English dub was a bit less well done than other dubs, however, you can still listen to it without problems, but I would still recommend the Japanese dub. The two openings and endings fit the series very well, especially the first opening, Crossing Fields by Lisa. The opening just adds a good kick to the beginning to every episode, and keeps you wanting more.

All in all, Sword Art Online, the hit anime from 2012, was a great piece of entertainment, but if you try to look at it from a reviewer’s standpoint, you won’t enjoy it as much as you would by just turning your brain off and enjoying the series. Sword Art Online was one of those series that tried to climb up the peak of Anime Greatness, with all us viewers expecting more and more from it, but then crashing back down. But hey, the ride down was sure a lot of fun. You can’t sit on the fence for Sword Art Online, you really can’t. You either love it or you hate it, or get torn down from the fence by either side. So, considering the categories of sound, animation, story characters, and my personal enjoyment, Sword Art Online receives an overall score of 8.14 out of 10, and a recommendation to stream rather than buy. If you’re really a fan of the series, and you know you like it, go ahead and buy it. Otherwise, you would be good just streaming the series. At this time, Sword Art Online is available for streaming over on Crunchyroll, and Netflix Canada, and has been licensed by Aniplex of America if you would like to buy the series.

And that’s a wrap up, thank you for reading. I will be posting reviews daily through the month of November, so stay tuned!

-Takami