Maybe i’m biased because I absolutely adore the concept of virtual reality, but I liked Sword Art Online. Though it may have had issues, the music choices for its OPs and EDs were not one of them.
Innocence is the show’s second OP. Original opening followed by the full song (yes, there were other videos but they all sounded slightly off >.<).
The Geek Clinic 
Not only does this video share my opinion on SAO but it’s funny as hell to boot.
Through I haven’t watched all of the .hack series I’d probably say I prefer different aspects of each. I’m still not sure whether the orphans in SAO were MPCs or characters people were playing, which if that was the case, why would Kirito and Asuna care? Just thing like this made me second thought a lot of the actions in this series.
It’s funny because a lot of people prefer the first season, whereas I found the second season to be much better. Should it have continued after the first season? Meh. I enjoyed seeing more of the same characters and given the events that have already occurred I didn’t feel that any of the plot points were out of place. Should there have been such a dramatic change in setting and a forced feeling behind the show’s continuation? No, that was a terrible decision to make. However, that does not mean that the second season is bad. Where the first season had a large number of one-off episodes and one-off character appearances the second followed a more structured course and introduced new characters that were important to the story.
There were problems, yes, including effectively removing a main character from the story which is almost never a good idea. Having said that, in my opinion, the second season was simply presented better. If I could choose the overall plot of season one and the execution of season two, I would gladly do so. As a final note, I liked all of SAO’s music so…
As for why they would care about other people including NPCs…this is at a point where they don’t know if they are going to escape or not. The NPCs are effectively the people of the world that they now live in, making it natural to care for them. It’s probably not worth risking your life for known NPCs but in this case Kirito and Asuna far outclassed their opposition so that didn’t matter. And if they were real children…well, that’s pretty straightforward.
Have you seen Log Horizon? That’s the other VR anime on my radar at the moment.
Lol I really should have worded that last comment better. On second thought I can’t actually share the same opinion as that guy for, because of that very review’s suggestion, which not only introduced me to SAO but got me to watch it, I didn’t watch the second season :P. This is really bad of me I know but if you hadn’t watched the the series as a whole already he had some really convincing points and for me it just turned a 25 episode anime into a 14 episode anime. I guess when I was saying I shared his opinion I meant only his opinions of the first season. I know I’m changing the goal posts but it is what I was referring to as unclear as it was. I’m guessing you’d suggest I’d watch the second season as well though?
So yeah, for obvious reasons I don’t share his opinion on the second season, including the music, because I haven’t really watched it. Despite this there were still issues i had but only from my personal taste pile of complaints, as I said I find full romance stuff boring and for me those cabin episodes were pretty much that. I had heard of Log Horizon through a friend of mine but i never really looked into it but i guess with two referrals I shall have to give it a gander.
On a side note I’ve just finished my FMA Brotherhood Review which I’ll post this weekend. For now I’m just trying to cut it down to a reasonable size, it’s a bloody long one.
Hm. For someone who’s seen the first season and stayed away from the second because of reviews i’m not sure I would recommend watching the second. You’ve had all of these opinions thrown at you by other people and i’d be worried you would look for all the flaws you’ve heard about XD All I can say is that I enjoyed the second season (having watched all 25 episodes over the course of a day) and it’s entirely your decision as to whether you want to pick up SAO again.
Keep in mind I haven’t actually seen Log Horizon yet; i’m just interested in it. And i’m looking forward to your review! I should probably confess that I tend to skim-read long posts >.<
Yeah I do to but I would suggest the second paragraph just for some context on the original FMA anime, on yet another subject, I’ve nearly finished muvluv hehe.
Including Alternative? Holy crap, I though I read it fast 0_o
That was a very good SAO review, actually.
And yes – I adore Innocence! 😀
My response to that review is above, if you’re interested.
As for the music, I also quite like Innocence (it reminds me of Madoka Magica’s OP, Connect, actually) as well as the rest of SAO’s music. I don’t think any of their OP/ED choices were bad.
DouchbagChocoloat does some hilarious and also some rather decent reviews, I linked one of his videos to my latest EVA post because it was what triggered me to write it. His should you watch series are probably the funniest look on media I’ve seen since zero punctuation.
The funny thing about Sword Art Online is that from what I had seen and heard, the author originally intended it as a one-shot. Most probably, the light novel would had ended by the very first arc, and from what I had watched in the anime, it can definitely conclude right there if they want to. Since, it was so famous, the author ended making more content, resulting in the very controversial ALO arc. I heard the latter arcs after ALO has a more positive reception, but I couldn’t be sure how good are they since the anime didn’t manage to cover that. Then again, I think a second season is already greenlit (I saw MAL added it to it’s database) so we can probably check it out soon 🙂 Personally, I don’t really like the ALO myself Dx
I agree, the first season was complete and the series most definitely could have ended there. I can confirm that the third season is in the works, which i’m really looking forward to watching!