Sword Art Online

When Nerve gear release their first fully-immersive MMORPG masses flock to buy the revolutionary game that engages all the players senses and is controlled by thought. However, after logging on the players soon discover that there is no way to log out, they are informed that if they wish to leave the game they must clear all 100lvls of the game. But they must do so without dying as death in the game equals death in real life  as the Nerve headset microwave their brains. The story follows Kirito a swordsmaster who had played in the beta and was actually the best beta player out there. After witnessing several people's death within the game Kirito is determined to complete the game and rescue every one from the game. Although at first shunned for the apparent advantage he had over normal players he eventually befriends Asuna, an equally powerful swordsmaster! Together they fight on the front lines to try complete the game but during there time fighting a love line starts to form!

One of my favorite anime happens to be among the .hack series. If you don't know, .hack is about an MMORPG game that starts behaving badly and sends people into comas and by golly are the similarities striking! It forces me to compare the two through out giving SAO (Sword Art Online) a lot to live up to!  But I do like the blurring of virtual and reality, it also means the characters can be put into impossible situations and come back out a live with the addition of a skill or power making anything possible! That doesn't stop people dying though. This show is dark and people are dying all the time as a constant reminder of how real Kirito's situation is! What is strange about this anime though is that you rarely see the front lines with the level bosses and such, instead we see Kirito on his 'Days off' leveling up or just relaxing around town, which is definitely better than just constant fight scenes! However, it does make it seem like Kirito doesn't really want to complete the game because he's never fighting the bosses!! Nonetheless, the tragedies and joy of Kirito's every day are adequately entertaining.
But Kirito himself is really flawed in an inexcusable manner! Whilst always trying to say how introverted he is and how he prefers to do things alone the anime doesn't show him doing anything on his own in fact he seems to have no difficulties in using his charming language to make all the girls around him fall in love! I'm sure it's unintentional, but it seems a lot like he's making himself a harem!! In every story arc it is Kirito who approaches people with out the slightest hesitation and whilst this in itself isn't a bad trait they cannot continue to label him off as a 'lone wolf' character! But don't get me wrong, I do like Kirito, it's just..... he is really not a 'lone wolf'!
One other thing that really irks me is this ongoing damsel-in-distress theme. Sure Asuna is a strong character who actually leads the fighting in her guild, but every other character we meet is a weak girl who needs Kirito's protection! I'm sure it's not just young girls who need protecting, it comes back to Kirito's secret harem really, doesn't it! But at least the girls are nicely designed. Cute clothes are an essential part of fantasy games, you know! Whilst the clothes aren't as unique and varied as those in .hack, they serve their purpose!
Whilst the focus is not on fighting, the fight scenes that do occur are nicely animated and full of a mix of sword skills and magic powers that make them fun to watch. The art style ticks all my boxes and the music fills up the anime when necersary. Whilst it is nothing compared to .hack it certainly has it's quirks. The biggest being that in .hack the errors are accidental in a way whereas the creator of SAO deliberately made his game into a game of life or death as some kind of sick sociology experiment! It's disturbingly dark in concept but is actually mostly quite cheerful! In fact I would even go as far to say that it should be more sinister! But maybe later in the series.