I just finished watching Sword Art Online. As someone who usually hates anime, I'm shocked at enjoyable it was. To start, the blatant Monster Hunter and FFXI references had me sold. The pacing was really hard to get use to for me at first, I thought I had been skipping episodes for a second.
Only complaints I have are how cliche the protagonist was, the blatant "Hey feel free to go crazy with rule 34" scenes that were set up from time to time, and the laughable 3d graphics for the crystal dragon and skull boss.
The very beginning and the middle part where the plot takes a turn were just surreal. It emulated the nostalgic feeling of playing an MMO for the first time. I actually felt like I was ten again chatting it up with my Monster Hunter buddies. The middle was tear jerking, the twist was rather decent and the way things "end" is so well executed. I'm at a loss of words not exactly because I think it's the best anime ever, but because my expectations were so low starting out.
