The first half of the season is truly a masterpiece, it's hard to even decide where to begin. I guess an easy starting point would be the first episode, the greatest twist in all of anime. You couldn't begin to imagine my shock, as some strange red liquid began oozing out of the sky and a large man was floating there. What he said next changed my life forever. He told everyone inside the game, that they would in fact be stuck inside the game until they beat it. However, if they were to die in the game, they would also die in real life. It was at this moment that the show skyrocketed to the top of my list, easily becoming the greatest anime of all time. That's only scratching the surface however. There's also the worldbuilding, which is incredible. There are 100 floors to the game, each of them a distinct experience with it's own players, NPC's and much more. Now you might be thinking, "wow, this is incredible! No work of fiction has ever been so ambitious, daring and managed to pull it off so successfully.". And you would be right. However, it doesn't stop there. I haven't even begun to talk about the incredible characters this show offers, with Kirigaya "Kirito" Kazuto, being on of the greatest protagonists in all of fiction, let alone anime. There is so much depth to his character, it would be impossible to explain it all in a single review. He is what's known as a "Beater", which is a term in the game for someone who was in the beta test of the game, and as such has an advantage over the normal people. This is a perfect representation of how gamers in society are treated, as through our own hard work have an advantage over other people, but the jealousy of others leads them to oppress us and put us down at every chance they get. This is something Kirito has to struggle with the entire series, which leads to him becoming a solo player, challenging the hardest content in the game completely alone. Because of his playstyle, his skills are so far ahead of everyone else, that he develops an entire skill to himself, the ability to use two weapons at once. While being extremely cool, this also further separates him from the other mere humans of the game, further representing how gamers work harder than everyone else to overcome the oppression they face, and then are discriminated against even more as we develop our own methods of being successful. Yuuki "Asuna" Asuna is another excellent character. She is everything a female character needs to be, she has maxed out her cooking skill and is very attractive. She is the ideal candidate for someone for Kirito to save, filling her role perfectly. After so many great episodes, we finally reach the conclusion of the first part. Kirito, being a gamer, has used his genius intuition to sniff out the final boss of the game, before floor 100. The reveal that it was not a boss at all, but was in fact a player in the game, working with other players to clear the game was truly shocking. When Kirito finally calls him out for being an impostor, they have an epic final showdown on floor 75, 25 floors before the game was supposed to end. When he finally overcomes his strongest opponent yet, he finds himself face-to-face with the man who created the game, who was naturally playing as the final boss. Kirito asks him the question on everyone's mind, "Why?". Why would he go through all this trouble, creating the first game of it's kind, just for it to be a death trap. Why force Kirito to struggle through everything, trying his hardest to save everyone despite the oppression he faced. However Kayabo Akihiko, the creator of the game simply replied that it was so long ago that he forgot why he even did it in the first place. This is another representation of how gamers are oppressed in society, yet there is no real reason other than simply the outdated thinking of society in general. There are many other great things about it that I can't go over in this short review, but that is where the first half ends.

This is where the good ends. The second half the season is utter garbage. Everything that made the first half is simply reduced to ash, as if it never existed in the first place. It would being too much pain for me to go into detail about this part, so I will leave it here.