Strong and competent protagonist

>strong and competent protagonist
>strong, attractive female characters
>awesome video game setting
Why don't you like SAO? There isn't a heterosexual reason to dislike it.

sadly she was in the wrong anime

Haremshit.

>melee beats guns

It doesn't require you to have a specific sexual orientation to differentiate a good story from a bad one.

Its a lightsaber

He's not competent.
The world just warps to make shit easy for him in spite of his incompetence.

Female characters are bait in shoddy harem tier story, the girls orbit a man who has no distinct qualities except those substantiated by fantasy.

i.e the LN and WN followers wanted the love of god for them to shape up the despair and tone of it being a death game every step of the way. In other words adapt Volume2 badly at least, but nope, we got what we got.

This. I wouldn't mind if he was better than anyone. But the way they handled it was stupid.

Thus suspension bridge effect, or evaluates the girls judgement of a decent protector in a shit world. Just give fucking reasons besides 'the only genuine guy' in the fucking world.

Fuck they killed off Eugeo cause another male hero in a harem story is a threat.

I am a gay misogynist.

>awesome video game setting

Best girl

>awesome videogame setting

user, the first series was set in an mmorpg with swords and only swords; no light magic, no dark, no healers, archers, lancers, stave wielders, brawlers or monks. It's like having a drinks menu consisting of water, tap water, spring water, ice water, tepid water i.e. absolutely fucking tasteless. Heck, I'm not even mentioning the other flaws like limited mobs and absurd pvp bullying; even before the murder begins, I can't see why anyone would buy the game.

I mean, accel world literally tortures you for fighting, and hub worlds and levelling are broken as shit, but it looks at least like it might be fun.

>strong and competent protagonist

He's neither, the world just wraps itself around him by being stupid relative to him.

>>strong and competent protagonist
Who wins because he broke the rules of the game for some fucking reason
>>strong, attractive female characters
Do they even do shit? I couldn't bring myself to watch past the first season, alfheim was utter garbage.
>>awesome video game setting
Which they didn't focus on, and instead went fairy shit.

>bad writing

>yet ANOTHER sword art online thread despite having one yesterday
just fuck my shit up senpai

...

>Do they even do shit?
The first half of season two only had one female character, Sinon, who is easily the best character in the series (at least, out of what the anime has covered - I haven't read Alicization). However, she doesn't really do much important fighting.
Then for the rest of the season, Asuna is the star of the show, but the focus is on real-life drama, with the in-game fighting tacked on as an afterthought.

Guys, don't forget that here's no specific job system, so technically anyone can train in taming pets, who can SAVE YOU FROM DEATH. AND HEAL YOUR ASS. Yet only 1 person in the WHOLE ALFHEIM ARC USES ONE. God, I hate SAO.

Strong female characters.
Did we see the same show?

Asuna had some value, then the writer just shits on her for a season and a half.

It was hard to do or something. Silica was one of the very few people who managed to tame an animal.

>>strong, attractive female characters
The girls are not even that attractive and sinon isn't really a strong female character mentally.

She ends up relying on Kirito just like every other female character. Shinon, like Asuna, may not be completely incompetent all the time like so many other SAO characters, but at the end of the day Kirito is still the big strong man that has to come in and rescue them.

>Strong female character

I always hated this fucking term. What the fuck does it even mean? No one is strong 24/7. People cry. People feel emotions. People get their feelings hurt. "Strong female characters" are the most boring fucking thing ever.

Actually the entire reason I dislike it is because the alfheim arc removed these points.

I am not a pedhophile

>strong and competent protagonist
no. He was an edgy cheater and an unbelievably insane hacker for no reason. Even if he was a beta tester, there's no viable reason for why he would be literally God simply on the basis that he made it higher than everyone else in the Beta, which somehow made literally every other player so dumb it's like they'd never played video games before. Kirito was strong and competent for the wrong reasons, if there even were reasons

>strong and competent protagonist
He's a fucking boring edgy loner gary stu light novel protagonist.
>strong, attractive female characters
They're bland and do nothing.
>awesome video game setting
It's a shitty setting. Only sword combat, the tired "if you die in the Matrix you die in reality" trope, doesn't really do much with the "set in a video game" setup; it's just a video game coat of paint on a pretty average fantasy setting.

>beater
>a fucking beater

>strong, attractive female characters
Fuck off tumblr.
The girls are old and busted and ugly mature bitches, while girls like Silica don't even get any screentime or fanservice.

Accel world makes sense as to why they keep playing. It grants legitimate power and opportunities in exchange for the shitty systems.

...

...

This.

Seriously, all of OP's statements are true... but the writing is utter shit, and the show wastes all that potential outright.

People here worship shows where stories and plot dont even exist, i wonder why they all of sudden put importance on writing when it comes to SAO

Literally the worst kind of Isekai bullshit.

Because that shit is supposed to matter in SAO. You can't judge a plot-driven action/romance/drama as though it were exactly the same as a slice-of-life or gag series, you fucking moron.

>its ok if plot doesnt exist in the shows i like
Is basically what you are saying

I never got why people liked the girls in SAO, apart from Sinon they're all really bland and boring, especially Asuna.

God, I hope I'm just falling for bait and you aren't really this stupid.

>strong
Kirito is strong in the same way that a sonic OC donut steel character is strong. He's a 14 year old who happens to be the strongest character in this video game, is the internet's most fuckable man, and is also an MIT-level hacker somehow who can do nothing wrong and never die and can duel wield swords.
>strong, attractive female characters
They have no personalities beyond "cute" and are mostly thrown away after their episode, except for Asuna, who ends up locked in a rape dungeon and turned into Yet Another Damsel In Distress.
>awesome video game setting
An MMO where a single person can take down raid bosses even though guilds are supposed to be a thing is at best a really dumb MMO and at worst broken.
8/10 bait thread, got me to stop jerking off to type.

>Why don't you like SAO?

The writer can't diferenciate a fantasy setting from a game setting, he writes scenarios that make perfect sense in a fantasy envoirement then puts them on the game setting where they lose all the meaning and become retarded. Same with the characters.

Dropped show half way because of this. Then picked second season (ignoring the 12 episodes I didn't see) cause Sion was hot. The very first episode and still the same issues, characters with a script as if they were on an actual battle rather than acting as people in a game. Managed to hold the arc cause SIon's ass, but couldn't go farther than that.

With the same premise .hack// did lot of better because it was people playing a game. Although that anime had its own issues.

Hey, some people prefer pure water for once instead of only having a rainbow selection of sodas.

A melee centric game gets to improve on the aspects of melee up to the point of being realistic. If this was a typical press-hotkey MMO it would be bad, but all the VR worlds given are full body experiences where actual kinetic skill does matter.

The only flaw here is that it technically requires a world where lag no longer exists or is at least minimized into the low double digits, so it will be really hard to replicate in real life.

>lancers, brawlers
But there are those.

The only thing that bothers me about the setting is the girl with the pet dragon. In a word where everyone else is limited to their blades and fists, she gets a pet dragon that can heal and buff her and fight enemies for her.

If she wasn't designed to be a noob shitter so that Kirito could look good helping her, Silica would be extremely broken just for having a magical creature helping her in an otherwise low-fantasy game.

Someone explain this bullshit.

Fucking this, nobody seems to apreciate her.

If it does weak damage and is primarily support then it doesn't matter, it's just like any other support system in any game. What might be unique is that they all seem to have very advanced AI and therefore might be smart enough to mimic the good choices that a real player might make rather than just being a dumb strictly-scripted NPC.

You are, as many people, completely misunderstanding the term. It's STRONG CHARACTER who is female. As in, not a cardboard cutout with tits who has no desires or thoughts of her own.
Sinon is the closest to this in SAO. However, the way this played out in the second season was to just repeat her hangups over and over and over for 13 goddamn episodes.

Because it's shit

>all those unnecessary moves

>unnecessary
They're making the bitch wet

this show is a fucking joke.

If you're that good why not show off a little? Being as efficient as possible against a bunch of noobs gets boring real quick.

>strong and competent protagonist
>strong, attractive female characters
>awesome video game setting

you are describing log horizon,and calling it SAO

WHAT THE FUCK IZ THIS? HOW CAN HE DO THAT? WHERE DID HE LEARN THAT SHIT? HOW CAN HE PREDICT BULLETS? HOW CAN HE MOVE FASTER THAN ALL OTHER HUMAN BEINGS?

I prefer my MC's asexual like Ichigo.

Pic related is how a real MC is supposed to be.

>gary stue generic uninteresting protagonist
>as if there aren't strong attractive female characters in other series
>generic video game setting

Why do you like SAO, OP? The characters are shallow and generic. The writing is also terrible and the premise of the show is thrown out the window for the sake of a harem in order to shallowly pander to anime fans.

>People here worship shows where stories and plot don't exist
I don't. I even hate shows with poorly written plots, let alone plotless ones.

But to answer your question on this supposed discrepancy you have to look at expectation vs reality. People often times go into plotless shows knowing its just that. SAO baited much larger expectations because of its first three episodes and then it reversed everything. It became another generic harem with uninteresting characters and poor writing. That's why its flaws are so apparent.

This. It was so fucking shit past the second episode. I wish I got my time watching this crap back

Star wars do it better.

It's a reminder of what could have been. I buy into the hype every time a new SAO announcement comes out even though I've been disappointed every time because I still have that faint glimmer of hope. The premises alone gets me interested every single time because they're strong premises, even if they eventually get thrown out the window.

Post moar kirito being awesome.

Agreed.

Also, I don't really mind SAO. If it didn't take itself so seriously I think Sup Forums would like it too.

isn't it a video game or some shit

maybe his character had a glitch that made him go upside down

I only hate it because reddit and gay YouTube anime reviewer say it's trash, I can't think for myself so I come here to hopefully be validated.

Honestly all anime is garbage so there's nothing wrong with SAO. I think half the reason why Sup Forums seems to dislike it is because there's not much to talk about it after it aired. I enjoyed the threads when it was airing but what the fuck else more is there to say about it now?

>character refuses to obey Frodo's laws
>anons get mad

SAO threads are pretty chill now actually. The airing threads were trash.

I expect the movie to be total trash too, but I'll still love SAO regardless. Despite all the glaring flaws, I just can't make myself hate it for some reason.

Progressive and Alicization, maybe?

i hope you are joking

This fanart is the single best thing to come out of SAO.

In that game (gun gale) you can see the trayectory of the bulets BEFORE they are shotted, so whit skills you can do that, he has incredible reflexes because he live in a life or death game for moths/years

Why does he look so different?

>showing trajectory of bullets
>in a shooting game

I thought Kawahara played games.

> HOW CAN HE PREDICT BULLETS?

user, there is a mechanic in the game LITERALLY called "Prediction Lines" just for that.; A-1 decides to not animate them because they are retards who like making new plot holes even for things well explained in the LN

This never made sense to me. Why would you ever make the exact path of a bullet visible before it's ever fired? Shouldn't emphasis be put on scouting out the environment and possible enemy locations rather than giving twitch gamers an unbelievably unfair advantage?

Prediction lines don't tell you exactly wherever the bullets go. And there's no way you can keep up with that firerate.

Because I'm not a 14 year old fag who wants to be a "pro gaymer" stuck in a shitty MMO

>Prediction lines don't tell you exactly wherever the bullets go.
They do if you're on the receiving end of it.

Progressive is super comfy

Didn't you know? Reki is a hip fella that also plays them interactive televisions. Don't question him.

>I thought Kawahara played games.
He thinks of cool scenes first, then tailors his "games" in a way that makes them possible.

That would make it ARMA. Gun Gale is very obviously not trying to be ARMA so there's nothing wrong with it adopting more arcade game mechanics, including the fact that ranged weapons uses a random cone of fire system that is tied to heartbeat. Realistic gunplay is unfun, hence why it is called gun "play". That might also be part of the reason why lightsabers or player-made melee weapons are even an option; they have no random element to them at all.

Not for old people playing pretend soldier, I guess.

Yes, you are a 25+ manchild virgin

I just watched SAO2 in the past two days. Put it off for a while because I didn't see how they could continue the story any further. The first part, about Death Gun, was absolutely shit writing. Within the 5 minute conversation Kirito has with that government guy in the very first episode, I had already figured out the method of how Death Gun was killing people and also the motive (I mean, Death Gun practically gives it to you in some of the first lines he says). By episode 2, as soon as I saw that beta cuck guy I knew he was involved. I assumed he was either the killer or working with the killer. Then in the 3rd episode when Kirito says that Death Gun was in SAO, I immediately assumed the beta cuck guy had a brother who was a PKer.

I was just frustrated the whole arc, because the case could've been solved in a matter of a day or two if they just put a fucking proper detective on the case. They could've easily gotten the IP logs to find the real location of Death Gun from the event at the bar in the beginning. And then, when Kirito realizes Death Gun is from SAO.. He doesn't even fucking tell his employer, who has AN ENTIRE LIST OF PEOPLE AND THEIR ACCOUNTS OF SAO PLAYERS. The list of players that transferred from SAO to CGG has to only be a few dozen, so they could've narrowed the list of suspects down right there. The whole story seemed awfully contrived.

The second part of season 2 which focused on Asuna and Yuuki was charming, though. Makes me wish that Asuna was the sole main character desu.

...

Kirito and his harem need to get raped and killed by goblins.

But we're talking about actual physical movement here, not some point-and-shoot with a controller.

Elf waifu is best waifu.

Kirito needs to get raped and mindbroken while his harem gets ntr'd and watches with disgust and arousal.

>The second part of season 2 which focused on Asuna and Yuuki was charming
Almost fell asleep while watching that

GGO was excellent though

I'd like it more if it didn't fucking use so many cliche tropes. Every arc he gets 2-3 new girls added to his harem. Which is weird, because he's in a relationship with Asuna and at times he seems very committed to it, but then most of the time he has a very cavalier attitude about other girls hitting on him.

Also, Kirito is kinda shit as an MC. Not the worst, but.. it feels kinda like they desperately try to not characterize him much so that viewers can self insert them into his story. I guess that's why he doesn't even attempt to dissuade any of the other girls? So that people can picture their own personal harem from playing vidjya?

Especially something like the sister with the brother complex and the forbidden-oh-actually-its-okay-we're-just-actually-cousins-love. That shit is straight up pandering.

It's still using a cone of fire system, that's just how it is. I was also surprised at first thinking that it was going to genuinely simulate ballistics and aiming, but I guess that might have looked really boring on-screen and it would require Kirito to be an order of magnitude more bullshit to be able to block bullets. With this system we can reasonably accept it as a typical game mechanic and that he can exploit it to do ridiculous things such as bring a sword to a gunfight.

GGO was a stylish arc that they clearly dumped all their animation budget in, wished it lasted longer than the almost filler-like Norse Mythos and Rosario arcs.

>I always hated this fucking term. What the fuck does it even mean? No one is strong 24/7. People cry. People feel emotions. People get their feelings hurt. "Strong female characters" are the most boring fucking thing ever.

>what is missing the nuance

>Almost fell asleep while watching that
Nigga you weren't charmed when they built a system that allowed her to experience the real world and interact with real people again? This shit is why VR is so interesting.

>Almost fell asleep while watching that
>Consists of Kirito dozing off on that chair
BRAVO KAWAHARA, BRAVO

Not really

But i enjoyed Jedi trap Kirito and sniper girl

SAO is about more than just some dude doing cool shit in a video game, even if those other premises aren't really explored in much detail.

Progressive is hilarious. Probably Kawahara's best work so far.