Finished Sword Art Online: a quite beautiful, vivid and colourful world. It has an interesting premise that serves the story well, creating a brilliant fantasy world and one that is truly tense at times. It is a very good Japanese animated television show. It does go at quite a pace, but has moments of calm and thoughtfulness. There are a lot of surprises and unexpected moments in the plot and narrative, which kept me gripped.
The title sequence and theme tune always got the blood pumping, lifted the spirit to another realm and set the mood for the show very well. The end credits had a very intriguing song — according to the subtitles, which nicely wound down the episode. The art of the title and credit sequences are very well done.
The world of Aincrad was realised wonderfully with a well drawn, painted and animated environment and setting. The places visualised were colourful and vivid, a treat for the eyes. There was an interesting treatment of the game-play graphics which popped up at times appropriate to the story: when the story had them duelling players and bosses.
There was a story there that was engaging, with drama, action, some tragedy and humour. The story was about people getting trapped in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game: an interesting, but potentially exclusive, premise. Yet it makes good use of the video games culture of its characters, and explains well, to the slightly-initiated, and potentially uninitiated, audience alike, making the hidden world of gaming more accessible in service to the story. It never felt like it was trying to be a game, or that the viewer was watching others playing a game. It was just the story of some people trapped and living their lives in a game, told well and with respect for the characters and their lives.
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