Sword Art Online

A huge castle made of stone and steel floating in an endless sky.

That was all this world was.

It took a vagarious group of craftsmen one month to survey the place; the diameter of the base floor was about 10 kilometers — large enough to fit the entirety of Setagaya-ku within. Above, there were 100 floors stacking straight upwards; its sheer size was unbelievable. It was impossible to even guess how much data it consisted of.

Inside, there were a couple of large cities along with countless small scale towns and villages, forests and plains, and even lakes. Only one stairway linked each floor to another, and the stairways existed in dungeons where large numbers of monsters roamed; so discovering and getting through was no easy matter. However, once someone made a breakthrough and arrived at a city of the upper floor, the «Teleport Gates» there and of every cities in the lower floors would be connected making it possible for anyone to move freely through these levels.

With these conditions, the huge castle had been steadily conquered for two years. The current front line is the 74th floor.

The name of the castle was «Aincrad», a world of battles with swords that continued floating and had engulfed approximately six thousand people. Otherwise known as...

«Sword Art Online»

Status

Anime: complete. (25 episodes subbed.)

Light novel: incomplete. (4 light novels, plus a few side stories and part of the fifth light novel.)

Thoughts - Overview

One definite fact about me: I'm a sucker for virtual world stories. And when I first saw Sword Art Online, I was instantly hooked, and so caught up in its story that it completely screwed with my mind. It took quite a while, as well as a combination of things (reading stuff online, including the light novels, as well as watching some other shows, especially Firefly, to take my mind off the show a bit), to finally shake off the "high" and permit me to examine SAO rationally.

And now that I can, I have this to say: Sword Art Online is bad. Actually, it's not just bad - it's absolutely terrible, a laughable excuse for a story, and, perhaps most disturbingly, it has improved my opinion of Gundam Seed Destiny a little - I guess that's because I now see just how bad a story can actually get.

I should explain. After all, this is pretty harsh criticism - especially given how obsessed with it I once was.

Thoughts - Aincrad

In the beginning, SAO looked incredibly promising. Not "best anime ever" promising, but more than good enough to earn itself a permanent position in the list of anime greats - kind of like, say, Fullmetal Alchemist. Stuck in a virtual world? Ignoring the logistics of the setup, the premise is very interesting, even if not incredibly original, and Aincrad is a beautiful and expansive setting, with amazing sword combat (hence, "sword art"). The first boss was a good example of this, with a very nice "raid" situation, and a good introduction of Asuna, later to become an important character.

Kirito, the protagonist - he too looked incredibly promising. Most notably, he was a former beta tester of the game, meaning that he's already well versed in the game from the get go - a very nice change from most shonen protagonists, who start out as loser underdogs and "surprise" everyone with their rapid advancement.

And unfortunately, this is about where the series starts going downhill - first slowly, then so rapidly you wouldn't believe it. Essentially, it seems that the light novel author had this great idea for a story, but had absolutely no idea what to actually do with the idea.

So where do I begin?

Well, I guess the overarching plot structure is a good start - Aincrad has 100 floors. Plenty of material to work with there, and a standard plotline ("clear all 100 levels, finish the game, get out") would've been just fine, even if not original. But no. Instead, we get extremely erratic jumping around, and in between episodes (or chapters), huge numbers of levels are implied to have been cleared, without any description.

Of course, since this makes for an extremely short story, the author instead opted to...make the story shorter. The Aincrad arc finishes after 75 floors, and the series shifts itself to new games, resulting in several new, vaguely similar arcs, such as Fairy Dance and Phantom Bullet (the latter is not covered in the anime). More original? I guess, but originality is absolutely no substitute for quality.

And poor quality shows every step of the way. Returning to Aincrad - Kirito becomes withdrawn, dedicating himself to clearing the game and shunning contact with others. He does join one guild, the Black Cats, but they all die off, leading him to become even more withdrawn. Which doesn't sound too bad, yes, but it's handled horribly. For starters, the Black Cats have only one girl - fine, as most gamers are male (explicitly established in game). But the one girl becomes attached to him, even sharing his bed with him, and only her death is explicitly treated as a tragedy - the others are a mere statistic. (Of course, Sachi's death is no less problematic, because she only serves as a source of angst for Kirito, rendering her character completely worthless otherwise.)

Does Kirito come out of his shell? Of course - Asuna, the only other character with more than a single dimension, pops up, and it's nail-bitingly obvious that she'll end up as a couple with Kirito. Which isn't really a problem per se - she's initially shown to be a completely legitimate fighter on her own, and she has her own sympathetic motivations - she views Aincrad as a prison, a waste of her real life. Thus, she isn't mere love interest material, and this becomes an excellent setup. (Notice how SAO is great with setups?)

But then Asuna falls for Kirito in a manner that feels a tad contrived (the erratic jumping around of the plot probably contributes a lot to this, as we don't see the development in their chemistry, and instead have to make drastic assumptions), and once this happens, her general badassery just...disappears. Her entire life seems to revolve around Kirito (cooking for him is a good example), and when in combat, she gets rendered helpless far too easily (e.g. against Kuradeel - she saves Kirito, but then ends up being saved by him soon after). Not to mention - she's the sub-commander of her guild, and she can't get leave without Kirito fighting for her freedom? Newsflash: she can make her own choices - this is how an MMO works. But no, it's obviously the men who have to make the decisions for her, and Kirito has to look all the more badass and caring for doing so.

And as for Kirito himself...sure, of course we expect him to be badass, and damned if his dual wielding ability isn't cool. But that doesn't handwave the rest of his character - in particular, his chick magnet nature. Throughout the Aincrad arc, we see random girls falling for Kirito left, right, and center, with no explanation other than, essentially, "he helped them a bit". Even ignoring the fact that he's supposed to be a solitary type who shuns others, there are a ton of males in Aincrad, many of whom would probably be glad to "help them a bit" - there is no reason Kirito should be unique in this regard (and honestly, he's not even that good-looking). Essentially, this marks Kirito as a potential Gary Stu type of character - an unrealistically flawless character whose primary function is to serve as wish fulfillment for the audience, a character for male viewers (particularly teenaged ones) to portray themselves as.

By this point, I may seem to be a bit long-winded in my criticism, and I probably am, but unfortunately, I am not even close to being finished. My current criticisms only extend up to ~episode 10 of the anime, and it takes a nosedive in quality from there. *shivers*

Where to begin now? Well, Kirito and Asuna end up adopting a kid named Yui, who's really an AI created for the purposes of managing the game, and who eventually ends up saving them from a random boss encounter, violating the protocols placed on her. (No explanation is given as to why the game's creator wants his AI in this form, of course.)

Now, obviously YMMV, but I myself utterly loathed Yui, to the core of my being - even back when I was obsessed with this anime. Her presence seemed utterly contrived (even by SAO standards) and pointless, essentially serving as Purity Sue lolicon bait. Every emotion generated around her felt forced to the utmost (especially when the whole "AIs can have emotions too? That's so sweet and sad!" drama is being played out), and I was thanking the gods when she finally got herself deleted...oh, wait, no, Kirito saves her. HOW???? Kirito has never been shown to have any technical competency (and even if he did, enough to operate a command-line interface and override protocols a master programmer spent years creating?), and this smacks of more Gary Stu traits. Oh, and did I mention that Asuna just cries the whole scene, being useless as always?

*deep breaths*

In any case, the arc reaches its finale abruptly (Heathcliff being Akihiko Kayaba is actually a nice twist, even if more attention should've been called to him earlier - though, given the lackluster cast, any such attention would probably have been a giveaway), and Kayaba finally meets peacefully with Kirito and Asuna. Here we get his motivational "why I did evil" speech, and it is frankly pathetic - we get some vague lines about how he wanted a world like this, where he could play God. Now, this might just be me, but he always had admin powers - he was always God in the world of Aincrad. Was he worried about people not playing the game, not giving him a chance to exercise those powers? Laughably stupid, given the demand for the game on the day it came out - and the fact that he just ended up playing the game along with them.

Anyways...thus Aincrad ends, a monument to wasted potential. Please note that, despite the previous wall of text, I still haven't mentioned three very promising characters, who sadly received virtually zero screentime and could easily merit more writing on their own:

• Klein, a noob who becomes inspired by Kirito and leads his own guild very competently
• Agil, a merchant who secretly helps out the lower classes
• Argo, an information dealer who is extremely notable for being the only female NOT in love with Kirito or just evil - she's just a friend of his, a former beta tester

Thoughts - Fairy Dance

The Aincrad terror is over, and peace forevermore? Nope...Asuna is mysteriously still stuck, and Kirito has to go and rescue her, another irritating sign of how much Asuna's role in the story has diminished - she is now canonically a damsel in distress. Apparently reversing the roles or something is unthinkable, since we all know how girls can't possibly be stronger or more useful than guys.

The new game is Alfheim, which is essentially just like Sword Art (indeed, built on the same engine) except with the gimmick of flying, a lot more different character classes (races), and a lot less emphasis on awesome sword combat. Oh, and no death trap scenario.

Kirito starts off the game by choosing the weakest class quite by accident, though this proves to be absolutely no trouble for him since his stats and items were miraculously transferred over, rendering him the strongest player in the game even before he's actually played any of it. More Gary Stuness. Yawn. And although he's rescuing Asuna, it clearly wouldn't do for him to not have a female swooning over him as he does so, so in her place we get Lyfa, who is really Kirito's cousin (though they don't know this until later).

And yes, you read that correctly: Kirito's cousin falls for Kirito, both in-game and IRL (though she doesn't become aware of Kirito's IRL identity until later). Now, I'm not saying stories can never have incest, but there is literally no reason to have it here - Kirito has already been portrayed as the most desirable guy of the millennium, and apparently, the Westermarck effect is completely alien to the light novel author. If Aincrad wasn't enough proof, then Fairy Dance certainly provides more than enough - Kirito is wish fulfillment taken to sickening levels.

Oh well.

The villain of this arc is one particular Nobuyuki Sugou, who in the real world is a corrupt executive that's going to marry Asuna (yep, Asuna is the rich daughter of a CEO...), and in Alfheim is the Fairy King, Oberon (which would make Asuna Titania). The Shakespeare references here are amusing - or would be, if the Fairy Dance arc looked any good; this guy is as generic and stereotypical of a villain as they come, with absolutely zero redeeming qualities to his name, and once again serves no purpose except to make Asuna in need of rescuing from the great and almighty Kirito.

I won't go into detail on the Fairy Dance arc; the plot is equally as generic as the villain, and the characters are even flatter and less developed than the ones in Aincrad. (And, oh dear Lord, Yui makes a return...) And we don't even get epic battles as compensation; Kirito vs General Eugene, the closest thing to it, becomes a curb-stomp battle for Kirito once he acquires his second sword.

And do I even need to start on the deus ex machina that is the final battle?

You know, at this rate, I should probably stop sporking Gundam Seed Destiny, it looks too good in comparison.

Summary

As a friend of mine said, SAO characters can only be sorted into three categories:

• Kirito
• Kirito's harem
• Relatively unimportant characters with almost zero screentime

Combined with the sorry excuse for a plot that SAO has - the only thing I can say is, I feel sorry for the animators and composers, for wasting their talents on this piece of crap.