Sword Art Online: Aincrad

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*WARNING: THIS IS A REVIEW AND MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. IT'S RECOMMENDED TO READ IF YOU KNOW ABOUT SWORD ART ONLINE ALREADY.*

Sword Art Online is a great Light Novel and the anime is also a great watch too. There is also the manga of Sword Art Online: Aincrad, which on the other hand is not too great. I'll tell you exactly why.
This manga would deserve a 7 compared to the Light Novel or anime. Many people take a 7 as a relatively low score, but it indeed is pretty high. I've read parts of the LN and I'm watching the anime. I will review ... and compare this from the anime, since it was nicely adapted from the LN.

The manga was good, but it lacked in many things, that the Light Novel and anime provided. This is what I mean when I say the manga is not as great compared to the LN or anime.
From any Sword Art Online fan, the basic story is about a boy named Kirito who gets trapped in the game Sword Art Online. If you die in the game world, you die in real life. The only way to escape Sword Art Online is to beat all 100 floors.
Based from the anime, the events that Kirito is involved in occur in the manga as well. Events such as, how the start of the was game, how Kirito joined a guild, or how Kirito met Asuna are all in the manga. The manga's tells of all these events, but they are presented not as great as the anime or LN did.
The story is overall the same and very good, except that the art, plot development, and character development bring it down a bit.
The art is not very good, and it is hard to tell what's happening because the art is very high quality. It sometimes gets a bit sloppy during the fighting sequences and is no match compared to the anime.
The character development is also something that brought the score of it down. A lot of the material and scenes feel rushed, on the other hand the anime and LN have much better pacing.
Also the lack of explanations bring the score down as well. From the anime there is an episode about Yui, the child that Asuna and Kirito found and started to care for her, is also included in the manga, well part of it. This is also apart of the Ln as a well written side story. There was about a page that showed Yui in the manga, but did not explain who or what she was. The only reason I knew it was Yui is because of the anime and LN. For any reader who hasn't watched the anime or read the LN, would most likely be confused. The manga is not fully updated online, but even if they put an explanation in, it would have been better to put it in at the time Yui was shown and not later on.

Overall, if you are a fan of the Light Novel series or anime series, and you can't get enough Sword Art Online, then I recommend you read it. If your just a regular fan reading the LN or watching the anime, then you might not find the manga as great. It's an okay manga on it's own, but compared to it's other versions, it's not as well done. To be honest, the LN and anime gives you a thrill when you read/ watch it, the manga sadly doesn't give the same feeling.

NOTE: I WILL UPDATE THIS WHEN THE MANGA IS UP TO DATE ONLINE (10/23/12)

You don't wanna read the review, then here. Some brief ratings to save you the time:

Story: 9/10
Characters: 6/10
Art: 7/10
Art/Panel Cohesion: 6/10

For the sake of keeping this as brief as the manga (that is to say very), I'll preface this with something the manga does not make clear itself: SAO's canon is a little confusing. The contents of the manga are volume 1 of the light novel, the original source material. The anime most people know does NOT start with volume 1. Let's just get into things.

Story - 9/10
The first volume of SAO, which is also the only content in the manga, is floors 74-75! If ... you know of the anime, this gives you a good idea. This is a manga adaptation of Reki's entry (SAO as we now know it) for a competition in 2002. People are trapped in a VR MMORPG game and when they die, they're killed in real life too. There's not much more I can say without spoilers, so here's some more vague comments on it.

The adaptation honestly keeps most of the 'world building' potential in terms of the players in the game, as well as the most interesting story beats. Yeah, it's basic by today's standards. But it was pretty good back then, and I do think it still holds up for a 12 chapter long manga. Some parts are adapted better than its anime counterparts and recontextualise certain nitpicked scenes in very neat ways that I much prefer (possibly the same way they're presented in the source material) and the dialogue makes the characters feel honestly more believable than the other media I've experienced. It's a straight to the point manga, so little else to add here!

There is one main flaw I dislike about it, and that's that in order to get the most out of this adaptation... you kind of have to already know about SAO. That's the same reason this review is marked as 'Mixed Feelings' and not Recommended. Someone who doesn't know of the franchise or even the first 12ep of the anime (which cover most of Aincrad, if not all of it) will not have a good grasp of what it's about.

Characters - 6/10
Well... it's SAO. Kirito, the protagonist is pretty standard, but he still has some stand-out moments which is a little surprising given how few chapters there are. Asuna (co-protagonist) is a little more dull here, but I found them all to be charming. They're sadly not much to write home about though (which is understandable due to the short length), so they're getting a pass barely above average.

Art - 7/10
This is one of the bits that gets slammed about the manga the most, and I... kind of get it? The art style is really dated, for lack of a better way to put it, as it resembles traditional manga and especially shounen. I honestly found it fairly charming. If the manga was any longer, it might have grated me more, but I liked the designs of some monsters shown. The fights were sadly both short and a little muddy however, which is a shame considering how packed the chapters are with them.

Art/Panel Cohesion - 6/10
Sometimes the panels flow REALLY well into one another (especially during important story bits), but then there's fights. It's hard to tell apart what's going on without going back and forth between panels a few times, but the entire rest of the manga is pretty well off.

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As promised, it's (hopefully) short and sweet. Again, I wouldn't read it if you don't already enjoy SAO's other media. It's nice, but... I'm not entirely sure what purpose it serves? I feel like it'd be better to either dedicate it entirely to fanservice for old fans, or make it a neat entry point for newer ones. As it is right now though, I can see someone completely new to SAO just getting confused by reading this.

Fun for me, but probably not for everyone. Hopefully you get something out of it too though!

Sword Art Online is a great series of light novels, but this manga adaptation is incredibly lacklustre. The main sticking part is the lack of quality in the art (I'm not expecting the same quality as abec's art in the LNs, but at least average manga quality), but there are issues with how the story has been distilled for the manga. Some moments are left without context, which would be confusing for someone who hasn't read the first two volumes of the LN series or watched the Aincrad arc of the anime.

As someone who has enjoyed the light novels and anime thus far, I can't ... find much to like at all in the manga.