I've recently tried to watch Sword Art Online. Had heard of it many times, often with praise. Now, I'm not one to drop shows mid season or even skip through episodes, and I generally like isekai slob and I even really enjoyed Shangri-la Frontier, which has a very similar concept. But man, SAO is just bad. The story telling is abysmal, so are the characters, so is the world, which normally plays a huge role in fantasy. Not in SAO.
There's is no sense of progression as Kazuto is established as already being a pro beta player and any leveling, traveling, etc. are non existent because the anime timeskips entire years on a regular basis. We never see him actually struggling or getting significantly stronger. He is as bland as tap water.
Any male sidecharacter either is jealous or wants to be his friend. Any female sidecharacter wants to get laid. Asuna is introduced as being a bad ass, but somehow ends up needing to be saved and put in the kitchen. Other girls meet Kazuto, fall in love, get their heart broken and disappear, never to be mentioned again, all in a single episode.
The world looks beautiful but none of the characters interact with it. You could change the background layer of every scene to basically aything and it wouldn't matter.
I bailed after the first season and skipped through the last two episodes of it. I'm happy for the people who enjoyed it, but I would rather watch The Beginning After The End than endure another second of SAO, which I think says a lot.
