Review of “Sword Art Online”

      Sword Art Online is an Anime series that was based on a Light Novel series written by Reki Kawahara. The series was dubbed in English and brought to North America via Aniplex. The premise of the show is that 10,000 players join the Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online (VRMMO) RPG entitled “Sword Art Online”. Once in the world the users suddenly find out that they are unable to log out. They then find out via the game developer Akihiko Kayaba that this was his intention and the only way out would be to beat the game. He also informed them of another mechanic: should they die in this world, they will die in the real world. 

      In the series they travel to two different game worlds, the first being Sword Art Online, the second being Alfheim Online. It also looks like in the second season they will be exploring two more games, which will be cool. 

      The series has a lot of nods to MMO players in the things said and done in the world. Also the story is actually paced fairly fast, which is a surprise from most Anime series. You rarely feel like anything being done is just “filler” as plot points usually are in every episode. The only unfortunate thing about the quicker pace is that they do miss opportunities to explore certain aspects of each world. I feel like from the first season we missed more of Alfheim Online than Sword Art Online. 

      The main character in the show is Kirito who is late-middle school/early high school aged student who loves VRMMO games. In the game he falls in love with another student Asuna and the majority of the plot is focused on the two of them once they meet. The show addresses some pretty serious concepts like what reality really is. They also talk about how to make the most of each day regardless of the circumstances. 

      The show did a great job of handling the dramatic points of the story. They didn’t dwell to much on them, but they did show the major impact that they had on the players. The brief flashbacks that occurred in the second half of the series help to illustrate the continuous impact that these events had. The first season was wrapped up quite nicely as far as the plot went and it could certainly lead to additional stories, but it could also just be the stand alone end of the series as well. 

      I’m really looking forward to the second season of this series. I watched the dubbed version of the series for this review, I’m not sure I will be able to wait for season 2 to be dubbed. Season 2 will be premiering in Japan this summer, and I’m sure it will be just as good as the first series.