Lately, I've been hearing a whole lot about some newer anime series, especially one called Sword Art Online, which I figured would be just another shallow battle anime. But, recently, I had some time on my hands, and I thought, “Why not?” and tuned into my favorite streaming website. I listened to a song called Crossing Field that I’d heard many times before, preparing myself to watch the episode the whole way through, even if it was boring.

Heck, was I wrong.

Before I knew it, I was three days older and stuffed with knowledge of everything that had happened in the series over the past 48 episodes, wondering why, why I hadn't watched the anime before now. Sword Art Online is easily one of the best series I’ve ever watched in my short life. It took a little bit of practically everything and packed it into a single, mind-blowing anime series. But, alas, even the best of anime has its flaws. There are a few things that hold Sword Art Online just inches away from complete, Utopian perfection.

Story

The story starts us out in the year 2022. The first thing we learn of is the release of a brand-spanking-new MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), titled Sword Art Online (SAO for short). At this point, the setting is quickly created: we’re in a future Earth in which people can stick a helmet (or NerveGear, as they like to call it) on their heads and be whisked away into the world of a video game, or virtual reality, in which they can control their avatar themselves. To players, it seems as if they actually, physically exist in the world of the game, save the fact that they can’t feel pain. Also, if they suffer injury or their HP bar hits zero, there are no consequences to their real bodies. This is because in reality, they remain unconscious as long as they’re in the game, and it’s their brain that’s doing all the work. So, it’s basically a modern version of the old sucked-into-a-story cliché. No, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Next, we meet our protagonist—a boy going by the name “Kirito” who we don’t really get a good look at until he enters the world of SAO. After seeing him, we wonder why he looks like he’s twenty years old when the story is supposedly about that teenager we already saw in the opening theme. But we keep this to ourselves and keep watching, hoping that we will run into the black-haired kid from the opening soon, because he looked really cool.

Then, after we get a feel for this “Kirito” as he interacts with another player named Klein, we begin to feel that something is wrong when neither Kirito nor Klein are able to log out of the game, and we receive the shock of our lifetimes as every player is teleported to a giant plaza in the middle of an in-game city known as the Town of Beginnings. Here, an enormous cloaked figure claiming to be the creator of SAO, Akihiko Kayaba, melts from the sky and drops a situational bomb on everyone playing.

“Hey! Hope you like my game! By the way, none of you can log out and are stuck living in my virtual world of Aincrad with no way to contact anyone in the real world! Heads up, if your HP hits zero here, you die in the real world, too! Have fun!”

This is when we all proceed to freak out. But, just when we’ve all lost hope—

“Oh, wait! One more thing! There actually is a way to get out!”

We all lift our heads expectantly.

“If you can complete the game, you’ll return to the real world! Just get all the way to the 100th floor of this giant floating metal castle thing and beat the boss! Try not to die!”

And as we all glare at him, with a look of, “Really? Thanks a bunch,” plastered all over our faces, Akihiko Kayaba melts into the sky once more.

But, no need to fear! He’s left an item for all of us! We open our inventories, and find an item called “Mirror”. We all immediately look into it, because that’s the presumed use of a mirror. And suddenly, everyone’s avatars are remade to match each player’s real-world appearance. To our shock, twenty-year-old Kirito is actually a kid! The cool one from the opening theme! Also to our shock, many of the female avatars are actually male in real life, so there are a good amount of boys in skirts now as well.

Thus, our adventure with Kirito begins! We follow Kirito as he works his way through Sword Art Online, meeting many charismatic female characters, developing his sword skills, and pursuing a relationship with a girl named Asuna, whom we find to be fantastic with a rapier. In the end, we all find out that Akihiko Kayaba was actually in the game the whole time, disguised as the commander of a large guild called the Knights of the Blood Oath, and he’s also the last boss. Kirito and Asuna both die after defeating him on only the 75th floor. The remaining 6,000 players out of a previous 10,000 (you know… the ones who haven’t died) are logged out of the game, and after two years, the infamous game SAO is completed.

So… our protagonists are dead. SAO has been completed. After a mere 14 episodes, is our story already finished?

Not at all! Both Kirito and Asuna are magically revived and Kirito wakes up in the real world for no particular reason other than… he broke the rules?

But Asuna is still asleep, so we have to have another arc. In this one, Kirito finds that Asuna, along with some other SAO players, are trapped in a new MMO called ALfheim Online, in which everyone is a fairy. Kirito joins the game, were he teams up with another fairy named Leafa (who, unbeknownst to him, is actually his sister-cousin from the real world, Suguha!) to save Asuna from a creep who has her locked in a birdcage at the top of a giant tree and wants to marry her while she’s sleeping. We end up spending the rest of season one, another ten episodes, fighting for this cause.

On to season two! At the end of season one, Kirito was given something called the World Seed by none other than game-maker Akihiko Kayaba, which allowed many other MMO virtual reality games to be created. Among these new MMOs is a game called Gun Gale Online (GGO for short) in which you are able to obtain many different models of guns and use them to shoot other players. Here, we meet Sinon, who initially seems to have green hair, but by the end it seems bluer. She’s also an amazing sniper. Then, to our surprise, we discover that something unkind is happening within the game, involving a person calling himself “Death Gun” who been shooting the strongest GGO players, and somehow causing them to die in the real world as well as the virtual one. Kirito is sent in to investigate, and is assigned an astonishingly female (looking) avatar. A gift for anyone who was wondering was Kirito might look like as a girl. There, he meets Sinon as well, and they work together to figure out what Death Gun is doing to kill people. The whole season is incredibly Sinon-based, and tends to have a bit more focus on her than on Kirito himself.

After this, we have a three-episode arc known as the Calibur arc, which is basically just a filler, and offers virtually no means of character development or connection to the overall story, other than a single appearance of the sword Excalibur afterwards.

Finally, we finish off with an arc titled Mother’s Rosario.  Kirito plays next to no role in this one, and it’s completely Asuna-based. Asuna is recruited by a guild calling themselves the Sleeping Knights, which consists of six people who say that they want to defeat a boss, all on their own, so they can all get their names on a big, black, virtual “wall of fame” before they are forced to disband for entirely mysterious reasons. We meet a short girl named Yuuki who is actually incredibly strong, and she intrigues us with her personality and hidden past. After delving farther into the world of science, especially a new utilization of virtual reality known as the Medicuboid, the series goes out with a bang, and season two is completed.

So, we have two seasons, five arcs and 48 episodes. The first arc was action-packed, exciting, and introduced interesting characters, but it was incredibly rushed—the players all spent two years of time in SAO, yet only 14 episodes represent that amount of time. After this, the once-astounding series pretty much gets hit by a train. The next arc, the ALfheim arc, is elongated to the point that you want it to be over halfway through. Next, the Phantom Bullet arc improves the series a bit by introducing an interesting character like Sinon, but the arc is ultimately elongated as well, and after a bit, we’ve heard enough about Sinon. We waste three episodes with the Calibur arc, and finally, the series does something right by creating a final arc called Mother’s Rosario, which gives us an insight on Asuna and her home life. It also spotlights a genuinely remarkable character for exactly the right amount of time before making you (or me, at least) cry your eyes out for the first time in the entire series. The only downside was that Kirito practically disappeared at this point. Overall, the series is intriguing, but it seems as if the important parts are rushed and the boring ones are drawn out. It probably would have been better suited to the title if the entire first season was dedicated to the events of Sword Art Online (the actual game), and both the ALfheim and Phantom Bullet arcs were split in half and placed next to each other (after the complete deletion of the Calibur Arc, of course). The plot was a bit inconsistent at times, and there were certain aspect that could have been explained in more depth (for example, Kirito’s resurrection).

Characters

Kazuto Kirigaya (Kirito): Our main character! The first thing we see involving him is the top of his head as he sits at his computer, and we get a peek at his personality as his sister-cousin bids him farewell, and he completely ignores her. We don’t actually hear him speak until he enters the game, and in his initial interactions with Klein, we find him to be the introverted-but-nice-in-an-awkward-way type. After Kayaba drops the afore-mentioned situational bomb, Kirito keeps fairly calm, leading us to believe that he’s a very coolheaded person. But, we then see him turn down Klein’s request to join his party, and suddenly, he has a mysterious side. Why doesn’t he want to work with anybody? Over the course of the story, we eventually realize that Kirito has an aloof, goofy side, and he’ll never abandon someone who seriously needs his help. We also discover that he tends to go a little bit stir-crazy during battles. The matter of how he came to do so is never directly addressed, but later in the story, it is mentioned that he only fights “for real” if somebody’s life is actually at stake. The beginning of the story focuses on him, but as it continues, he becomes less of a character and more like a part of the setting. The first arc is all about him, the second follows him but focuses on his sister-cousin, the third follows Sinon more than him, and the last hardly includes him at all. By the end of the series, we still have no clue who exactly he lives with besides his sister-cousin, because at one point it suggests that he might live with his grandfather, and at another, it suggests he lives with his sister-cousin’s mom. There’s no hint as to what might have happened to his real parents. Of course, this may be addressed sometime in the future of the series. Kirito is not very unique, considering he has many qualities of the stereotypical male anime protagonist: an introverted, kind person with an uncertain past whom all of the girls fall in love with. Still, his character design is fabulous and there’s something about him that draws us in; he’s definitely one of the best anime characters I’ve seen in a while.

Asuna Yuuki (Asuna): We meet Asuna very early on in the series, and though she is wearing a cloak over her head, we all know who she is anyway. When I was watching, I wondered why she was hiding under a cloak, and to this day, I’m still wondering. She was at first made out to be a rather mysterious, quiet character, but after defeating the first boss with Kirito, she loses the cloak and undergoes a sudden personality change that suggests that she wasn’t being herself when she was wearing a hood. It’s a good thing that she did change, because otherwise we would have had nothing but a female Kirito, but there was never really any explanation as to why she would need to be introverted in the first place. As the story progresses, we find Asuna to be a proud person who doesn’t like to rely on anyone, and who also happens to be very skilled with a rapier. She’s a great match for Kirito in the beginning, but she gradually begins to change. She goes from being a person who doesn’t rely on people to a person who absolutely needs someone to rely on. By the time we get to the ALfheim arc, Asuna has undergone a full transformation from an epically awesome warrior to a princess locked in a tower. She’s not a submissive princess, and she does have the guts to try and escape, but in the end, she completely depends on Kirito to save her. The ALfheim arc is definitely a low point in the series for her. Asuna never regains her amazing character from before until the final arc, when we finally get to see her work with a sword again. We also get a glimpse of her home life at this point, and this makes her a bit more relatable than she ever was before. Still, at the end of season two, we are almost left in a situation where it seems as if Asuna can’t really change any more. She’s a stagnant character. Asuna is an essential character to the story, but it seemed as if her character development was rushed to a point that we don’t really know her anymore. Most of her likably as a character branches from her natural charisma and nothing more.

Yui: Alright, the first thing to be said about Yui is that she’s absolutely adorable. I, personally, am incredibly glad that she was added into the story. Yui herself is a static character. We see her change a bit over the course of a single episode, but after that, her role is to be more of a motivator. Yui presses the plot forward when everyone is stuck, and helps motivate Kirito to delve into the technology of virtual realities. Kirito’s interest in the creation of MMOs ultimately stems from his desire to bring Yui to an existing state in the real world.

Suguha Kirigaya (Leafa): Suguha’s character was one of the strangest things about this anime, in my opinion. Suguha was raised as Kirito’s sister, but she’s actually his biological cousin. Suguha is driven to experience the virtual world herself by her brother’s persisting interest in it. She joins ALfheim Online, where she ends up meeting Kirito (but she has no clue that Kirito is actually Kazuto, her brother-cousin). After a few episodes, it is divulged that Suguha is in love with Kazuto, but he loves Asuna, so she cries to in-game Kirito. And, agonizingly, neither one of the two makes the connection that they may actually know each other in real life. Finally, Suguha realizes that “Kirito” is actually her cousin Kazuto after he reveals that he’s out to save a girl named Asuna, and immediately logs out, upset. Kirito follows her, and they have a heartfelt discussion about how Kirito had totally cut himself off from Suguha after discovering that they weren’t actually siblings. They make up within the next ten minutes, after having a sort-of duel in ALfheim, and the story continues. This is a bit of an awkward scenario to me, simply because it would seem that the two of them would have a brother-sister relationship, having been raised together, rather than a romantic one. This isn’t the first anime where I’ve found this situation (Nayuki’s relationship with Yuuichi from Kanon, for example), but I’ve also found that it always seems to be one-sided and never actually goes any farther than confession. It’s a predictable scenario, so I can’t help but feel that it only exists so Suguha can experience some form of character development, and that her character as a whole ultimately exists for the purpose of Kirito having another female to interact with when Asuna’s not around. She’s not a bad character, just cliché.

Shino Asada (Sinon): Sinon is probably one of the most interesting female characters in the series. We first see her as a little girl sniping down men with a huge gun, and the fact that she’s the only girl we actually ever see participating in Gun Gale Online makes her stand out even more. She seems very determined, and she develops a bit of a mystery factor for herself by stressing her disbelief that someone can be “strong enough to smile on the battlefield”. Then she wakes up in the real world, and we wonder where that strong girl from before went, since she immediately turns into a quiet, nervous girl who pukes at the sight of a gun. Then, she goes back in the game, and meets Kirito, and we realize that she’s kind of gullible and a very nice person who happens to be extremely well-educated in the subject of artillery. She seems to have so many sides that she’s just begging for us to figure her out. Though I can’t say this about many of the characters, Sinon seems to be completely resolved, without any significant loose ends (besides the lack of parents, of course). We find out that she had a traumatic childhood experience that triggers a PTSD attack whenever she sees a gun in the real world, but she is able to use guns in the virtual world without any problems. We find out that she is fighting to be the best in the virtual world, simply because she believes that she will be able to conquer her fear in the real world by this method. There’s always at least one character that exists as a sympathy tool in any anime, for the purpose of either relating with the main character or contrasting with the main character, and this character is generally the one that goes through the most drastic personality changes. In Sword Art Online, this character is Sinon. Her arc was well written, but in the end, it was almost overwritten. Sinon would be a perfect character had we not eventually just heard too much about her. Even so, she’s easily one of the best characters in the anime.

Yuuki Konno (Yuuki): Yuuki didn’t show up until the very end of SAO, but I was shocked at how beautifully she was constructed. Even in the small window of time that we knew her, she was easy to love, easy to understand, and easy to sympathize with. It starts when Asuna and the others head to an island on Aincrad so Asuna can challenge an unbeatable player that everyone calls Zekken. Asuna is surprised to find that Zekken is actually a girl, and even more so when that girl drags her off to meet the Sleeping Knights guild. Yuuki is already very charismatic, with her spunky attitude, but it’s not long before we realize that she’s hiding something. After she disappears from the game, Asuna rushes to find her in the real world, and discovers Yuuki’s sad reality. Yuuki’s story is one that is relatable to many, and her courage in her situation is admirable. The end of Yuuki’s story was also the most emotional scenes in either of SAO’s two seasons, composed in a gorgeous way that was both sad and enlightening at the same time. I personally believe that Yuuki is in competition with even Kirito for the title of best-depicted SAO character.

Music

The original soundtracks for both seasons of SAO were composed by Yuki Kajiura, a Japanese music producer. The soundtrack in itself isn’t very standout—its numerous orchestral and choral arrangements ring true to Kajiura’s musical style, and similar pieces can be found in the soundtracks of numerous anime series that she’s worked with, including Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero. This isn’t to say that SAO has a bad soundtrack. The music works well with the anime, and portrays the emotion that it’s supposed to. The battle themes especially are very bold and well-composed. There’s just no song in particular on the soundtrack that stands out over the others.

Throughout both seasons of SAO, there were a total of four opening themes and five ending themes introduced. Most of the opening themes are incredibly well done, though I felt that the second one, titled Innocence (and sung by Eir Aoi), lacked some of the energy that the others did. The one that left the biggest impression out of the opening themes was definitely LiSA’s song Crossing Field, which was used as the first opening. The third opening, Ignite (Eir Aoi) and the fourth, Courage (Haruka Tomatsu) were both amazing themes, but neither of the two managed to meet the standards that the original, Crossing Field, had set.

In regards to the ending themes, I felt that they didn’t really do much for the anime at all. The first, Yume Sekai (Haruka Tomatsu), was a nice song, but not a song worth listening to multiple times over. The third, fourth, and fifth themes, titled Startear (Luna Haruna), No More Time Machine (LiSA), and Shirushi (LiSA) respectively, were fairly unmemorable, but again, nice songs to listen to. The only ending theme that struck me as unique was the second, Luna Haruna’s Overfly. It has an inspiring feel that none of the other songs ever accomplished, and this makes it worth a second, third, and fourth listen (to infinity and beyond).

Acting and Animation

Generally, I’m not much into dubbed anime. I tend to believe that the Japanese, English subtitled versions capture the emotions of the characters better that a reproduction, and on the rare occasion that I feel an anime is worth being watched again, I may watch a dubbed version just to compare. Even so, I can honestly say that the English dub for the first season of Sword Art online is one of the best I’ve heard. I enjoyed it just as much, if not more than, the subtitled version. There hasn’t been a dub for the second season as of yet, but I’ll be anticipating it.

As for the animation, I’m no expert, but I found it to be incredibly well-orchestrated. The battle scenes are epic, to say the least, and Kirito’s facial expressions as he fights for his life are frightening enough to make me flinch.

Overall

I think that most of the fault in Sword Art Online lies in the fact that while the characters experience significant development, this isn’t always done in the best way. When the series tries to put emphasis on a single character’s story, like Sinon or Yuuki, it tends to push every other character into the shadows, turning them into nothing more than a piece of the setting. Besides that, the different arcs aren't timed out as well as they could have been, with some scenes rushed and some scene stretched out. Nevertheless, Sword Art Online is beautifully scripted and animated, and its wide variety of scenarios appeals to anyone looking to find their next, or even first, anime series. The plot line is intriguing, the characters are enigmatic, and each episode keeps you craving to see the next. Sword Art Online easily wins a spot in my top three anime series, and I’d recommend it to anyone who finds themselves bored at some point in their lives.