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(this review contains spoilers)

Katoura-san was terrible because of how disappointing it was.
The first episode was AMAZING. It was so well put together, but then the rest, absolute horse shit.

The writers somehow think it's funny to have an old man mol„esting his little granddaughter. They make jokes about him touching her and feeling her up all the time. It's not funny! It's just sick! I couldn't help but cringe and these moments that were supposed to be humorous.

The other jokes suck because they're repetitive. Pretty much every other joke revolves around the fact that the main male protagonist is per„verted, and Katoura can read minds, ... so obviously it leads to some awkward situations. But they reuse this AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN. Literally, like 99% of the jokes in this anime are just that reiterated.

Other parts of the anime are just ridiculous beyond words!

There's this one part of the anime where Katoura reads the mind of a stranger by accident, and sees incredibly dark and grotesque things that causes her to faint. She then learns that there is a person in the city who is beating high school girls to a pulp and then leaving them there.

So, the show has a plot twist. The person doing it turns out to be one of the female police officers who is somewhat developed throughout the last two episodes. It was a slightly expected but decent plot twist. But right when you think the show is getting better, it gets worse.

Katoura realizes that the reason the officer is beating these girls is because she had a terrible, abusive childhood. We also learned from the previous character development that the officer is antisocial and has pretty much no friends. Basically, the officer is jealous of these girls so she beats them.

Katoura realizes this when she is cornered by the officer who is going to attack her. But Katoura pours out her heart to the officer and explains how people do care about her and if she were to open up, she would have more friends.

So, the officer feels ashamed and turns herself in.
Seems logical, right? Heh.

When she turns herself in, she takes on Katoura's advice and asks her coworker to lunch after she gets out of prison.

So, think about it. You're working with someone, and you JUST figure out that she's been BEATING HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS HALF TO DEATH ALL AROUND THE CITY, and then SHE ASKS YOU TO LUNCH. You would obviously turn her down, right?

Nooooo! The guy doesn't even act the least bit shocked that he figured this out about his coworker and takes her up on the offer and sees her off, like NOTHING HAPPENED.

NOTHING HAPPENED?! WHAT?!

What's worse is how repetitive this anime is.
Besides this, all the other tangents involve Katoura being sad and running away and her friends coming to get her. It's just that over and over again.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the art or the music/sound.
The story is just so terrible, repetitive, unrealistic, undeveloped, anticlimactic, lazy, and impossible to take seriously.

Sword Art Online has been a decent anime. I have not read the manga nor the novel, so my opinion is solely based on the anime and nothing else.

Story:
The story is alright. It's what I expected, and I liked how it took itself seriously, although, mostly. The first half, at least.
The story takes too many twists and turns, going from really calm, to very fast paced, but doesn't make the transition very well.

The first part of the story is them in Sword Art Online trying to survive. But then all of the sudden they get out and the anime seems to ... be at its end in the middle of the season. I mean, it has the ending you'd expect, but happens very early on. And then they go into a new game, which is where the story kinda drops a bit.

The first part of the story is alright, but not the best story. It's hard to go into the story too much without spoiling it. Don't go into this anime expected the best story in existence. So if you're major concern is an amazingly epic tale, you won't quite get that here. But it's still a decent story, you might want to give it a try.


Art:
Not much to say about the art style. I'm not a too huge fan of it, but it gets the job done. Sometimes the characters look a bit strange at angles, but usually it's fine.


Sound:
This was one of my favorite things about SAO. A great soundtrack. One worth putting onto my iPod. The music in the battle scenes are comparable to other epic works, like Lord of the Rings. This is definitely a soundtrack you'd enjoy, if you are a person like me who likes to listen to anime soundtracks.
Great soundtrack. I'd describe it as very "adventurous" and "epic." With a few more soothing tracks as well.


Character:
The characters and character development are pretty good. But they seemed to kill off my favorite characters, so I think I may be a bit biased in this area. The lovable characters are also pretty limited. It has a small main cast, but the characters it does have are good.


Overall Pros:
The best thing about this anime, in my opinion, is the action and music. If you're looking for any other genre, like romance or anything, the elements are in here, but are not the highlights. The soundtrack is great, and being a huge person on music, soundtrack is a big thing for me. If an anime has a bad soundtrack, I'd like it a lot less. But this one definitely has a good soundtrack.


Major Cons:
The only major con I could think of is there was a little bit of forced fanservicy type stuff. Basically, they decided it would be a smart idea to put sex in SAO, even though that doesn't really logically fit together. Because, if you know someone's age (and the protagonists are clearly under 18), then sex in the game would be against the law, although, they writer put it in there anyways. Basically, they added sex that doesn't logically make any sense.
Not really that big of a deal, but for a very strict person such as myself, I thought it was worth mentioning.


Final:
If I were to list recommendations for 2012 animes in 2013, Sword Art Online would surely be on that list, but not on the top.
It's a good anime, but falls a bit short in story, and a tiny bit short in the characters. Everything else is rather good.

If you're looking for new animes, you may want to look into Sword Art Online.