YMMV / Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation

• Americans Hate Tingle: The English-speaking fans despise the anime, citing its Slice of Life elements, lack of meaningful character development, and flimsy plot as reasons why it's so terrible. In Japan? While it was still relatively poor, it at least did enough to increase the playerbase by a noticeable amount.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Apprentice is ultimately dealt with in rather mundane fashion. Not only does she pull off an undeniably stupid move that permanently cripples her, she does absolutely nothing for the rest of the finale until she is defeated when Itsuki recovers Rina. The only display of power she had was to worf a squad of AIS. The Darkers do more harm to the protagonists than she does!
• Bizarro Episode: The Animation is frequently seen as one to the main PSO2 plot. Nothing actually gets accomplished aside from some plot points that have very minor affect to the game's story^note The ending of the show sets up an excuse for Matoi to get Put on a Bus for the first half of EP4, and the show's characters make appearances in EPISODE 5 and EPISODE 6. Furthermore, the show frequently bends the established rules of the series for no discernible reason, such as Itsuki and Rina getting Photon powers^note the EP4 characters almost exclusively run on Ether as the Applied Phlebotinum of choice, Darkers having noticeably exaggerated power levels for the sake of drama and plot, and Apprentice being even more of an Anti-Climax Boss than even the game makes her out to be. This is part of the reason why some fans disown the anime and would rather watch Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle instead.
• Broken Base: The anime having Slice of Life elements became a huge turn-off for certain parts of the fanbase. The fact that it also takes place on Earth, in Japan, and stars a high school kid and his pals also had English-speaking fans crying "generic" til the cows come home. The fact that it's a Stealth Prequel is even more base-breaking because some believe it makes the anime worth watching for the additional background information, while others believe it degrades the Phantasy Star name even further by linking it to a generic Slice of Life show.
• Continuity Lock-Out: The anime isn't well focused on attracting new viewers/players, but rather those already familiar with the game and its upcoming content. This is prevalent in several areas where they expect the viewer to retain prior knowledge of PSO2 to "get" what happening.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Kouta and SORO are popular with fans, sometimes even better liked than the main characters themselves. Unfortunately, Kouta gets the short end of the stick in a lot of his appearances, and SORO gets shafted in Episode 5 in favor of RINA, reducing his role down to appearing in the opening and in the final episode.
• Funny Moments: Quest 6 has Koa receiving an invitation to enjoy a soak in the hot springs in-game from Rina, with Koa believing she would do so with her RINA avatar. This is accompanied by a cut-in of Dudu, the infamous item grinder clerk of the game, commenting on his luck. Rina then appears with her SORO avatar, and only soaks for a brief moment. This is accompanied by Dudu commenting on Koa's lack of luck.
• Growing the Beard: If you're willing to muddle through the first six episodes, all of which are generally considered mediocre at best, everything begins picking up extremely quick by Episodes 7 through 9, during which its overall quality also improves immensely.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Episode 7, Last Samurai, who last saw Mika Konoe in Quarry Free Field, wonders aloud if PSO2 has the Seiga Academy outfit as an available costume. When the first PSO2: The Animation Blu-Ray/DVD was announced alongside its included Item Codes, guess what costume it came with?
• Les Yay:
  • Rina Izumi is stated to have admirers male and female, among them fellow student council member Mika Konoe.
  • When Aika Suzuki transfers to Seiga Academy, one female student straight-up asks her for her views on lesbian relationships.
• Memetic Mutation: ゲイ^Explanation Shouta Aoi has a very strange pronunciation of the English word "day" in the opening theme, as it sounds like he says it with a "g" instead of a "d", making it sound like "gei". This is largely memetic among the Japanese fans.
• So Okay, It's Average: The anime can generally be graded by fans on two different scales: its quality as a Phantasy Star title, and its quality as a Slice of Life title. While the former scale is polarizing, the latter scale can fall squarely into "unremarkable" as far as the non-Phantasy Star fans are concerned, if not a tad bit higher.
• Special Effect Failure: The CGI is generally derided for being bad at times. Especially Episode 2's Rockbear, which is very choppily animated.
• Tainted by the Preview: "Ordinary High-School Student is forced to play a popular video game by the school's perfect Student Council President" sounds rather dull even as far as anime plots go, and fans of the game aren't that excited to watch a show where someone plays a game they're already playing. A Nico Nico Douga poll amongst Japanese picked PSO2: The Animation as the least-anticipated show of the season.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: If you didn't know Shouta Aoi(the male main character's voice actor) sang the theme song, you could very easily make the mistake that the singer is female.