Ok, I just spent an hour and a half writing a rant about Sword Art Online. As I don't want it to go to too much waste:
Ok, so I've finished Sword Art Online. My thoughts: Overrated, but still really good. It still feels like .hack if .hack weren't more about investigating the mystery as opposed to SAO's premise of basically fighting a war against the GM. At the very least, it isn't as batshit insane as .hack can get.
As for SAO, the characters are interesting, if underdeveloped, the action is good, the animation is good and it is definitely something I enjoyed. There really isn't anything positive I can say about the show that hasn't already been said.
However, it is not perfect. It is actually somewhat flawed. There are two moments in particular that pissed me off, but I'll get to that.
The characters are underdeveloped. Kirito's entire motivation in the SAO arc is stupid, but I'll get to why when I get to the moments that pissed me off later.
Asuna's development violates "show, don't tell." The first time we see her, she's quiet, timid and barely agrees to group with Kirito. The second time, she's far more confident and assertive to the point where she's a leader in the top guild. Ok, while I feel that Asuna is a good character, this is not why. We never see her development. We get a token explanation several episodes later, but its about five sentences and doesn't really make a lot of sense to begin with, being an eye-roll worthy "because of Kirito."
Hell, this wouldn't even be a big deal had they shown it. As it stands, it has minor sexist implications (she can only be strong because she has a man to motivate her), but as we see her start to come out of her shell in the first place because of Kirito, it's slightly forgivable and would be more forgivable had they actually shown her development.
When did she meet Heathcliff? When did Heathcliff invite her to the guild? How did she climb the guild's ranks? What does she do as a leader? These are all questions that are never answered. This is particularly egregious because the series is otherwise better than most novel based anime in following “show, don't tell.”
Then you have Egil and Klein, two characters I actually really liked. Egil gives the show's only other major violation of “show don't tell.” We're told that Egil did something major around the middle floors, but we're never shown what it is. Why did Egil do this? What did he do specifically? Again, never answered.
And Sochie, the last major character in the Aincrad arc? Well, I'll get to her.
Klein is flat. He really doesn't have any development to speak of. Moving on!
There should have been more than enough material from the original novels to expand the Aincrad arc to a full twenty five episodes, saving the Fairy Dance arc for a second season. They could have easily shown Asuna's Egil's developments, especially considering that they tell us about them, not to mention actually giving Klein some real development... though part of that might be because Klein is my favorite character.
Really, as it stands, Klein is basically a talking prop for Kirito to interact with, Egil is underdeveloped and Asuna is a major violation of “show, don't tell.”
Moving into the Fairy Dance arc, things are better about actually showing development, but only for one character. And even then, it's rather creepy development. I don't care that they aren't siblings, cousins is still creepy. The only other major new protagonist has one head scratching moment, but is no worse off than Egil.
Also, Sugo is a terrible villain. He's got the second part that pissed me off. That part is an attempted rape. Yeeaaaaaah, that's just lazy and, frankly, sexist writing. It's done entirely to paint him as a horrible human being... which had already been done in his damn introduction. We don't need to be shown him attempting to rape someone to be told that he's a monster. WE ALREADY KNEW.
The fact of the matter is that rape is a go to thing for writers who don't know any better. In this case, the attempt is the catalyst for something to happen... when there is so much more that they could have done instead. They could have Sugo attempt to kill the other characters instead. It works just as well and the only thing that would be lost is that one character doesn't act for the sake of the other in that specific moment, which would be a big deal... if that wasn't what the first character had been doing for the entire god damn story arc.
I apologize if that was somewhat difficult to understand. I'm trying to avoid spoilers her.
Moving on to the first moment that pissed me off, and I'm not worried about spoilers in this case since it happens in the third goddamn episode and is Kirito's entire motivation. So in this episode, we're introduced to a few characters who have playing at their own pace on their own. Sochie is shown to be scared in combat and the episode focuses on her.
The group befriends Kirito and Kirito hides his level to keep from alienating himself from the group. After some adventures, they decide to raid that floor's dungeon. They find a hidden room with a trap and they all die except for Kirito. Kirito blames himself for this, claiming that they died because he was arrogant (which he wasn't) and hid his level.
Beyond the stupidity of Kirito blaming himself for this (he suggested not going into the dungeon and tried to stop them from going into the hidden room without being ready), this episode is an example of “women in refrigerators.”
“Women in refrigerators” is a term coined by DC Comics writer Gail Simone, based on the time the super villain Major Force killed Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend and stuffed her body into a refrigerator.
Why is this a problem? Because Alex, Kyle's girlfriend, was only killed for this reason and she continues to be used to give him angst (which is particularly irritating to me as Kyle is my personal favorite Green Lantern and a major part of his history is a rather sexist trope). Not to mention the fact that Kyle's girlfriends have had a tendency to die until he started dating Soranik Natu (who hasn't been seen in a major appearance since she broke up with him).
“Women in refrigerators” is used outside this context to describe when a woman is killed, usually unceremoniously and with little to no reason outside of trying to development a male character. This is exactly what happened with Sochie.
Sochie was introduced in episode 3 and was the primary focus of that episode. At the end of the episode, her death is the major catalyst for Kirito's character development and is later used to give Kirito angst. Then you never hear about her after the Aincrad arc.
Hell, sexism of varying degrees is probably the biggest problem the show has. It can be quite minor (implications that Kirito is Asuna's entire motivation) to the examples I just explained, but it is a recurring issue.
Every woman that Kirito encounters, save the antagonists, falls in love with him. Even bit characters like Sakuya and Alicia fall for him. None of these characters receive any real character development outside of Asuna.
In fact, I feel that Asuna is the only strong female character in the entire show. The others either exist for no purpose outside of developing Kirito or falling for him for no good reason as the show makes no effort to show that Kirito and Asuna will ultimately be together (especially during the Fairy Dance arc. That was almost painful to watch at times), even in the goddamn opener.
I mean, I liked the show, but it is flawed. The sexism is inexcusable and I can only hope that if the series gets a second season, the Phantom Bullet arc sticks to what the series is good at: action and story. Hopefully it will also fix the issues with the poor character development.
And yes, I am well aware that I just wrote almost four pages complaining about the show.
EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention in my rant: The fact that its an online world doesn't really mean anything in the Aincrad arc.