Sword Art Online, the anime that everyone has come to hate. But why? For those who don’t know Sword Art Online (SAO) was an overly-hyped Anime that made it’s first debut in the Summer Season, July of 2012 and ended on the winter of 2012.
Episode count: 25
But why the hate? Personally, I do not have a clue. I actually was one of the people who LOVED the anime. It was the anime that gave me my beloved wifu, Asuna Yuuki. For what the Anime was in terms of: Art, soundtrack, story, and characters. I thought the Anime itself was pretty solid in all of these aspects.
PROS
Art was really well done, for an Anime of 2012. I thought the character design was really good, visually it was pleasing to look at.
The intro and outros to the Anime I thought were amazingly well done too. In fact, I have pretty much most of the songs played during the airing of Sword Art Online on my phone.
The characters, I thought were really lovable, because they were the same age as most people who do watch Anime. SAO had a multitude of different personalities within the Anime, ranging from shy to fully on perverted. Each character I thought showed their flaws and had strengths too. You can never have that emotionless character because then the anime would be boring and bland. Which I thought the developers did I great job in avoiding.
CONS
Although I thought the story was pretty solid. The plot and story itself lacked a lot for an Anime that was already too over-hyped. There were some really good ‘feels’ moments, which just pinched at the heart, but there were also really bad moments.
I for one, didn’t like how they magically teleported to floor-to-floor, I thought that was really lame. I believe they should have at the very least tried to put in two dungeon fights per episode, I think that would have made for a really good Anime because then it would show more of the struggle within the game to keep fighting to escape their death sentence.
Another glaring con is the second half of the Anime. It was too rushed, not complete, and overall just terrible. The Anime directors to SAO rushed the second half too quickly and didn’t take the time to actually work it out. Ultimately, I believe that was the death to the Anime.
WHY THE HATE?
Honestly, I don’t know why this Anime began the so-called ‘King of Hate’. SAO was a reasonably good Anime. But I understand where all this negativity is coming from, when you dig deeper into the Anime, you see a lot of flaws, and things that the directors skipped over just to save time and money.
You see the failure that was the second half to the Anime, and how poorly the overall story was until the very end. The only thing they did to salvage the Anime was they allowed the watchers to see Kirito finally meet Asuna after freeing her from ALO (Best moment). But other than that the story became cliche and assumed the narrative of the main protagonist gaining himself a harem, BORING.
With the first season long and gone, the second season came and went, received mixed reactions from the audience and to save themselves once again they designed SAO: Ordinal Scale. Which again saved their butt (I personally loved the movie). Now, they begin to milk the series for what it is.
But I’ll forever love this Anime. I think it’s one of the better Anime from 2010 to present and despite all the hate, people still watch and enjoy the Anime for what it is. This is what I think is important.
As long as we the viewers are still watching and enjoying the Anime, then I don’t see a problem with it. If if there is a crazy amount of hate, I genuinely loved the anime and would recommend it to new Anime people!
Stamp of Approval Earned,
– OOCentral
One response to “SAO | Why The Hate?”
Haha I love the 1st half of the anime. 2nd half was . . . Too sad, not seeing Asuna in action that is and the unnecessary harem.