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At first the MC was interesting, not the common boring goody two shoes. He was coward, selfish, but craved for companionship and was afraid of loneliness.

Then everything fell abruptly when they revealed the disguise of the villain. The story lost all meaning. Characters were reduced to ash. The show became ecchi fan service with a useless new villain objectifying the female lead at every awakening moment of his appearance.

Basically, SAO became trash that I'd gladly give a negative infinity score if it's available on the scale. It's really hard to imagine any redemption for this show after the 1st season, which means I have not ... watched any sequels and never intended to.

This show brought refreshing air to a anime season filled with ecchis and brutal fights. That alone explained why my enjoyment of the show was 10/10 and I would be biased on some of its other aspects.

Next comes the story, personally, I found it beautifully written with subtle plot twists which I didn't see coming but wouldn't affect the story either way. The plot was a simple story of MC's coming of age while finding himself and pursuing his passion. Beneath that were nuances building up Yatora's and Ryuji's characters. After the show, I understood the writer's approach to art and how she made this ... whole plot an expression of an artistic motto.

I would say support characters didn't get much development so the ones at the center of the story could get the spotlight, if you think of the plot and character development as part of the final master piece, our MC Yatora is definitely at the center. What the plot done well was adhering to the principle of storytelling - show don't tell... or actually in this case show first before telling. They presented Ryuji's living environment before explaining to viewers what happened from his perspective. They also showed us Yatora for the full 12 episodes in various scenarios before using the last piece of art to convince us of an interpretation and representation of his character.

Now the show does have some weaknesses. Specifically, the characterisation of supporting cast was truly lacking, but that could also be viewed as intentionally left blurred and blended into the background just like Yatora's final art piece.

What impressed me the most about this show was how it remained lighthearted without common tropes of comedy, fanservice or fluff with moe or romance. It used a naked slice of life story and turned it into a masterful artpiece that could guide viewers to see through the same lens as the creator and receive the intended message.

If you paid attention to the techniques of various artpieces analysed in this series, you would have noticed they also explained the direction of the plot and characters.

Art was really impressive when the show balanced well different styles within the same frames of the anime throughout. However, that could have come at the cost of dropping in animation quality with characters' movements turn rather mechanical at times.

Sound was another outstanding feature of this show. I love both OP and ED; especially, the OP -Everblue by Omoinotake was highly addictive and sticky the more times I heard it.