>Sup Forums hates this with a passion >decide I should watch it because gotta see for myself >starts off decent >MC is nothing special but not straight up repulsive by anime standards >starts getting better as the episodes pass >get to episode 13 or 14 or so >seems like they are finally going to start clearing floors properly and advance the plot >nope final boss reveals himself >final boss defeated with Deus Ex Machina >everything that had been built up is chucked into the trash instantly >now he's gonna go be a gay fairy in another game
Why? They could have made something good out of it if they didn't throw out everything they had spent time establishing like that. I imagined it would finally reach the point where the MC isn't stupidly overlevelled and we'd see some real challenges, but no. On top of it all the new world doesn't seem to have that whole "you die here you die IRL" so what's the point.
Is this why Sup Forums loathes it (apart from it being popular I mean)? Didn't seem much worse than a lot of stuff Sup Forums usually discusses without problems until this shit happened.
You know, I thought something about sword art online the other day but I forgot what it was.
Hudson Barnes
Even the popular opinion with normalfags is negative now. Only the most normal of normalfags enjoy it.
Jackson Hernandez
Watch gay fairly land, then watch as the only half way decent character from that series gets a countdown to rape.
Jayden Robinson
The worst part is how abrupt it ended, that the guildmaster was shady was obvious, but that he'd be the final boss AND go from unveiling him to defeating him in 10 minutes? Terrible.
Kayden Cook
>Is this why Sup Forums loathes it (apart from it being popular I mean)? Yea, pretty much. The series wasn't bad before the point you mentioned. Though I'd say the kid hacking the game was also bad.
Camden Hughes
If they'd at least tied that hacking in with why he could survive death, it would have been a little less shitty in terms of Deus Ex Machina, but they didn't even do that.
Benjamin Collins
Everything just felt unfinished. Everything just lasted one episode or two then was forgotten. For example his new sword he spent 2 episodes crafting is almost never used and when finally used seriously it breaks.
Josiah Fisher
Oh, I thought of what I was thinking of. You reminded me. That show makes no sense, they have fucking blacksmiths. It's virtual reality!
Asher Ortiz
>they have fucking blacksmiths Well how else are you going to make new equipment?
Ayden Turner
>Is this why Sup Forums loathes it? Yep, that and the MC is so amazing at everything every girl he encounters is dripping between the knees over him
Austin Phillips
>MC is so amazing at everything
I expected that would end as they climbed the higher floors since he wouldn't be so overlevelled, but that never happened.
Brayden Turner
SAO is the worst offender of "missed opportunities"
It would have been fantastic if it was just a little bit grittier and the threat of death much more present. Having Kirito be able to kill everything on his own with no trouble when whole clans were getting their shit pushed in was idiotic writing.
Like when he teams up with that low level clan, uses shit gear to hide that he's OP as fuck, and they get caught in a trap and die. That was nuts. Their guild master jumping off a bridge out of grief felt genuine. Even Kirito going on to solo the Christmas boss to try and save the girl made sense.
But all the potential is squandered
Nicholas Thompson
Kirito couldnt kill the Skull Reaper or Gleam Eyes alone. And he was good because he grinded up in the beta.
Gabriel Powell
>he was good because he grinded up in the beta. Beta stats were reset on launch so the only edge he had was knowledge (most of which was faulty because they changed mechanics)
And kirito wasn't even the highest level player, but he's constantly killing group bosses on his own. He rarely tastes failure and every woman is begging to suck his dick
Blake Davis
sao is good, looking forward to the next season
Ryder Kelly
Someone explain to me how, after that VR shit killed 3000+ people, they are still used? Someone then explain to me how the fuck the people running that shit are afforded enough freedom to even begin to hide one person captive in it let alone 300.
I didn't have a problem because I figured this would only be the first half when they are establishing the world, and then we'd be off into higher levels. That didn't happen though.
Caleb Cruz
>op gets it wrong again the show started sucking when they took out the threat of death around ep7(?) and made it a SoL harem show From there it took a free-fall from mediocre to garbage before becoming good again, but only because of how ridiculously stupid it was
Brandon Hall
Pretty sure the only three things he was actually good at were having a hyper reaction time because the writer studied professional fighting game players as a basis for all top tier game players like an idiot, some decent sword skills from his family's kendo side, and an autistic level of love for electronics hardware.
To the point where in the fairy shit he constantly needs his pet/daughter/ai thing to keep telling him how to use magic otherwise he sucks at it completely, the only reason he won after getting his shit stomped by admin privlages was the deus ex machina Kayaba brain clone lurking the internet, and in the gun game he used his sword to block bullet hitboxes like he did magic hitboxes because he never figured out how defensive spells work and sucks ass with a gun. Girls wanting his dick comes from being the protagonist self insert bait per the usual shitty writing.
Could have been so much better but he fucked it up with all the bullshit "muh feelings hurt" and harem crap.
Beta only covered early game cause they never got past floor 10, he just acts like any hardcore MMO autist who no-lifes. Which is what he did to grind.
While the game was running new VR sets were made using lower power hardware and not brain microwaves. The company that made SAO went completely under, the few people working there were saved by police to have bombs implanted in them to keep them working removed, and Asuna's dad bought the assets and servers to keep them running under his own company. Then the faggot in charge of that division sold out to do human experimentation on those 300 people under his boss's nose.
Trade off was the new headsets were kinda shitty in comparison for immersion.
Luis Rogers
>>MC is nothing special but not straight up repulsive by anime standards
That's exactly the problem. Kirito is completely inoffensive and there's nothing interesting about him. Literally every side character in SAO is more interesting than Kirito, but the series still has to focus on this faggot.
There is a repeating pattern where totally badass female characters turn into useless idiots once they meet Kirito. This is the squandered potential of SAO. If Kirito had been cut out, all of these awesome characters could have had great storylines.
If the creator felt having a male protagonist was so necessary, he should have made Klein the male MC.
Ethan Martin
>took out the threat of death Wait, what? It has been a while, but how did they do that? I thought the death mechanic was present through the end.
Elijah Foster
>he should have made Klein the male MC This is frequently suggested and every time I read it I am saddened by what could have been
Evan Barnes
Same reasons I have, and horrible pacing in general. Between episodes 1 and 2, they skip the first four MONTHS of the game, all the interesting parts like everyone figuring out how the game works and forming alliances. Log Horizon gets this right.
They spend 7 episodes building up backstory just to toss it out the window 6 episodes later. The only episodes worth watching are like 2-8.
Sup Forums hates it because it's shallow. There's very little in the way of character development, there's no character motivations, it's just a series of disconnected plot arcs where Kirito builds his harem, and then sometimes not even that. It has none of the qualities that we love about videogames.
Probably the simplest slam of SAO is its own namesake: Less than a quarter of SAO is about the game it's named after.
It's probably only popular because it's visible. It's even on Netflix!
Cooper Scott
>That's exactly the problem. Kirito is completely inoffensive and there's nothing interesting about him. Welcome to all . Enjoy your stay.
Adam Nguyen
>Sup Forums hates it because it's shallow kek, the moeshit with defense circlejerk force sure is full of depth amrite
Ryder Hughes
Not entirely true though user, most are pretty bad but Kirito was especially so.
Too bad we don't get more MCs like Favaro in Bahamut.
James Edwards
because Sinon gets no screentime
Julian Carter
We all are user. Klein is a bro.
He's too good for that faggot Kirito.
Anthony Williams
There's plenty of anime that have interesting male MCs. Only shows with shit writing like SAO have the inoffensive self-insert type MC.
Ryan Jackson
name one character that dies after yui was introduced without using google
Owen Ortiz
>because Sinon gets no screentime
Sinon is a qt, but what we really needed was more Lisbeth screentime.
Aiden Carter
Kirito goes into a coma because of the evil NSA.
The surviving Law guys try to train up a peasant army in preparation for the Chaos invasion (Chaos are led by the literal God of Darkness who is also an evil NSA agent who eats souls like rape).
They get rekt, but Kirito's harem save them with GM accounts and deebeezeee powerlevels.
NSA connect UW to the internet and get 50,000 American players to connect (it was advertized to them as a beta test for a new AO-rated VRMMO where you're allowed to slaughter anything and everything you like, with blood and guts), they mass murder UW residents and think it's hilarious.
To defeat them the main characters get 2,000 Japanese VRMMO players to connect. Despite the difference in numbers the Japanese are superior and win because Asian gamer damashii.
Then PoH (who is also an evil NSA agent) unleashes a zerg rush of Korean and Chinese gamers who were recruited by being told this is the a Korean VRMMO that's in beta test but evil Japanese hackers broke into the server, turned off pain dampening and are torturing their countrymen.
Even when some Japs who speak Korean try to explain the situation to them they don't listen because hurr japanese
The other NSA guys are surprised this works, they thought it wouldn't be worth it because they didn't think Japan is more different from Korea/China than European countries are from each other (hur)
Koreans and Chinese overwhelm Japs because this is every Jap's worst nightmare.
Kirito wakes up (thanks to the literal POWER OF LOVE from his entire harem) and wipes them all out in one attack though.
(Also PoH's motivation is that he's Korean and he hates Japanese so when he got stuck in SAO he decided to set up Laughing Coffin and have them and the clearers kill each other for shits and giggles because Nips killing each other is hilarious.)
Kirito and Asuna become gods because of x10000000 acceleration.
The AIs explore VR space with rocket dragons.
Jackson Peterson
It's got a good aesthetic and is probably amazing for the boys (and I'm fine with that. Western shows and movies that appeal to young/teenage boys specifically are surprisingly rare these days, and I wouldn't want that kind of drought in anime), but it regularly trashes its own character dynamics and tension building, and certain concepts in the game itself are just too offensive for anyone who's actually played an mmorpg to get over.
Log Horizon is definitely the superior execution of the concept, just because it uses actual concepts from the genre to create tension. High leveled pk'ers camping important progression spots and flat-out imprisoning people doesn't sound fucking terrifying, until you look at it in terms of actually living in the game as an immortal.
Juan Sullivan
Watch the later episodes, you're in for a "treat"
Joseph Anderson
I don't think any named characters die in SAO after Yui shows up
Levi Reed
>name one character that dies Well plenty die. The twenty nameless fucks in the skeleton centipede boss fight, the dozens and dozens while the couple was on honeymoon, Kayaba, Aids-chan, all but two of the sleeping knights, deeper in you could technically count Euegeo and Administrator as well.
They just don't die for really useful to the story reasons.
Ryan Scott
The real question is who logged into SAO after the first day?
Tyler Sanders
Oh and the people assassinated by desu-gun, they were technically named.
Anthony Garcia
It's even worse in the Playstation games. There, they give you a surprising degree of depth of customization, down to gender and choice of weapon. But then the cutscenes take over and all of a sudden, you're Kirito again.
Jaxson Carter
Hence, "named characters in SAO".
Jacob Sanchez
I have masturbated to a lot of suguha doujins
Isaiah Robinson
>apart from it being popular I mean This meme needs to end, this is not Sup Forums. Sup Forums likes plenty of popular anime but this shit is popular for no fucking reason. >Good animation >Good music >Great fighting scenes >God tier concept All that is fucking wasted because the story, the characters and pacing was shit. The world and vr concept were really fucking cool and interesting but it was wasted, SAO felt like a generic fantasy anime rather than a gaming anime.
Worst shit is the mc, I fucking hate everything about that gary stu faggot especially the fact he solos a fucking MMO, can somehow hack and makes every girl fucking wet within a foot of him. He pretty much cheats in the second season and then in the third one which made me drop it because a game about guns sounds cool but no he had to use a fucking sword. I hate how he ruined the main girl character, she started off pretty cool but was reduced to a cool little waifu who hide behind his skirt. I hate the voice actor because all he does is scream and seems to voice the same character in every Anime.
Like I said above the pacing was just shit. They rushed the hell out of everything and skipped loads of cool shit for crappy scenes like the mc getting married, adopting a daughter and living in the country. The villain's reveal was shit too, they pretty much did not bother to go through the rest of the games levels and just asspulled the main bad guy into the story. They also made him look like a fucking misunderstood good guy in the end.
The only reason to watch this Anime is because it funny because it is bad but even then it has it limits.
Jacob Sullivan
...
David Jones
>Great fighting scenes
They had way too many fucking panning stills when they were too lazy to animate things.
Josiah Perry
It was still more entertaining than your average Anime fight scene though.
Easton Roberts
I'm nitpicking but Heathcliff was a named character introduced earlier and SAO itself only lasted about an episode after Yui (which was bullshit), the problem wasn't that no one was dying it was that the people who died did so for no real fucking reason.
Tyler Martinez
>especially the fact he solos a fucking MMO Ah, those were the good ol' days. Clearly SAO was a blizzard game rather than some insane Korean industrial grinder.
Oliver Garcia
The problem is that the author put literally 0 thought into anything he wrote. By his own admission he just put in whatever he thought would get more dumbass otakus to buy his books.
Nathan Davis
Oh, ok. That makes sense. I thought you meant they discovered death wasn't real or something.
Isaiah Gray
Honestly, it's pretty clear that the whole death game bit was a desperate bid to keep subscriber numbers up at the end of beta, when they realized their game was incredibly poorly designed.
I don't think anyone who cares to post in SAO threads hasn't.
James Evans
Technically, he didn't die in SAO. His avatar died, but he didn't die as a direct result of that.
Bentley Rodriguez
>The "something special" Miki talked about for new years has kept me waiting all day >It's just a gay graphic on a newspaper GOD FUCKING DAMMIT MIKI! Can someone kill that motherfucker?
Nicholas Hall
Kawahara is a great world-builder, but an afwul storyteller. His loss, the fanfic writers' gain.
Also, here's a New Year's Kirito.
Thomas Sanchez
>By his own admission he just put in whatever he thought would get more dumbass otakus to buy his books. That makes no sense, considering SAO was a web novel that he earned nothing from, for years, before Accel World got published, and hid editor pushed him to publish SAO to.
SAO was just a web fanfic until AW, so this "it's just pandering for sales" argument makes no sense
Alexander Ward
Seriously?
Maybe it has some new info on it or something.
Anthony Allen
The show was actually good until Asuna fell in love with MC
Liam Perez
This is actually hilarious, cause their relationship has been retconned so many times, because at first Asuna was just some chick after Kirito's cock, that came out of nowhere. Now apparently they've known each other since floor one, and fought several bosses together, and should have practically been a couple, but split up because reasons.
Zachary Robinson
I don't like it because its unrealistic. MMOs are nothing like this and I can tell whoever wrote this never played one.
Cooper Harris
Farm mobs for rare drops.
Colton Hernandez
The strange thing is that I actually like Kirito, at lot. I cannot stand beta male MCs, and there are too many MCs who are pathetic and constantly self-doubting. (Guilty Crown, Valvrave, Accel World...You know the type, the gigantic loser.)
Kirito's bland as hell, but he isn't a faggot. And 'not being a faggot' and 'not being useless' are extremely high points in favor of him. My main issue with SAO is that it has no tension whatsoever - particularly no romantic tension, since we all know heroes have plot armor anyway - and that every subsequent girl is more interesting than Asuna.
It's fair to say that the author sort of wrote himself into a corner. The abrupt end to Aincraid is because he was submitting this as a WN, and now all subsequent stories - for what was initially meant to be a one-and-done deal - must fit into the framework, so there's only so much he can do.
Like, Kirito already has a designated love interest he knows for two years and goes through all kinds of trauma for. He can't possibly change his mind now, which is a real shame.
I'm surprised that we don't have more stories about a new protagonist set 'in the world of' SAO. For instance, GGO is actually told from from Sinon's perspective than Kirito's, and Sinon has a larger investment in things. It wouldn't be hard to introduce a new, unattached protagonist who can actually hook up with the girls.
Justin King
>Kirito finally meets a character better than him >she tries to steal his waifu >oh she actually has super aids and dies
Grayson Reyes
No it's terrible earlier on with Kirito being so op instantly that every encounter after Sachi's death to the Minotaur is just uninteresting. They throw away two years of wandering and focus on Kirito showing off just how strong he is. The only positives other than the first boss and Sachi are laughing coffin.
Bentley Robinson
My favorite part of SAO is when that girl dies of aids.
Benjamin Allen
I wouldn't go as far as saying that I like the character, but seeing an anime male character who isn't a complete wuss/beta/coward/loser is always a nice change of pace.
Also, how the fuck did you not start hating this shit once the AI showed up? Those episodes were so fucking bad. And that doesn't even include the super hacker thing either.
Benjamin Hernandez
I think there was tension, and not an insignificant amount, especially if you're not aware how long the series is. I at one point thought it was going to end with Kirito becoming a martyr.
Michael Jackson
>so there's only so much he can do.
Well, Progressive came around. Then he had the option of introducing Asuna after a literal decade, or he could retcon it so they meet at the start.
Mason Ward
Yeah, it's sort of the point. The author has to 'write around' Kirito, because Kirito cannot develop any further as a character. Literally all his trials are behind him.
This is why the main story of the Alicization arc has Kirito sit the entire fight out. He's just too powerful otherwise. When Kirito DOES wake up, he ends up annihilating the enemy army in a single Incarnation-powered attack.
Chase Thomas
>Rare drops So only a handful of people will have sub-optimal gear, while everyone else has shit store-bought gear? Meanwhile, player blacksmiths are known to to make the best gear anyways?
Nolan Moore
They were only in the game two years, weren't they? I'm pretty sure he meets Asuna at Level 1 like in the books.
Zachary Russell
How did they piss and shit while playing the game
Logan Phillips
I meant a decade in our world, because that's how slowly Progressive gets written.
He originally doesn't meet Asuna until she's already in KoB. Meeting her on the first floor is a retcon.
Bentley Wright
who wrote this shit also who has Ki fucked?
Austin Sanchez
Originally, he only started talking to her (or rather, she started hopping on his dick) a few months before the game ended, and he was surprised she knew his name.
Progressive retconned this.
Andrew Peterson
Wait what the fuck. Why is he so powerful? Is there some kind of global level or something?
Nathaniel Young
>Also PoH's motivation is that he's Korean This was changed. He's now a self-hating Half-Japanese.
Aiden Martinez
Korean grinder MMOs are always solo soul-sucking experiences though.
Lucas Gray
See, this is the thing that breaks SAO over it's knee. Incarnation is basically that thing from Accel World, where you use willpower to fuel attacks. Kirito, because of his love for his nakama and the power of his enishi, can perform complete bullshit with Incarnation. (This, by the way, is more powerful than anything the other girls can do - and they're using literal gods and goddesses as their player characters.)
When Kirito wakes up, he freezes the entire enemy army, and turns them into icy flowers before they shatter. (If I recall the Web Novel correctly - Correct me if I'm wrong.)
Jordan Lopez
Oh, so it's just shonen bullshit. I though he was soloing everything because he was level 99999 or something.
Nolan Clark
That to. Before he went into a comma, he and his party killed the strongest person in that world, and received a massive level up. But incarnation is also overpowered as fuck.
Bercouli could kill a guy by telling the server that he died 10 minutes ago, so no amount of health could save them.
Colton Baker
Shit, that completely slipped my mind.
Also, they missed out a huge opportunity in Alicization for Kirito's memory to be wiped and for him to start all over again. (Alicization is basically an isekai story, and the first time Kirito enters the realm is reminiscient of a reincarnation story.)
Like, for some reason, I find Ronye and Tiese incredibly hot, all the more because they're obvious rape-bait. Kirito's sempai, that girl who only shows up in one scene, clearly wants to hold him down and fuck him. There's just so much sexual tension there that goes wasted. (Also, he's obviously gay for Eugeo.)
Jose Ortiz
Half Korean? I think he was always a half.
Brandon Foster
No, in the web version, he was half Korean, half American. Light novel changed it to Half-Japanese/Half-American.
Luke Sanchez
I watched and read it, and dropped at the end of the first arc. Some battle scenes were nice enough but I can't really care apart from that.
David White
>only a handful of people You clearly haven't farmed enough. Are you going to let the chinese goldbots have all the fun? Back to work.
Jason James
Player made equipment is second only to raid drops.
Robert Gonzalez
Two
Christopher King
Incarnation disregards power-levels through "willpower"
Its why the Integrity Knights all have bankais which can level entire fucking armies and why the Kings of Pure Color could solo an entire Legion at once if they felt like it
Adam Barnes
years
Carter Hughes
worth
Aaron Clark
of
Camden Gomez
glopping
Wyatt Mitchell
semen
Easton Ramirez
So you're saying in WoW it was possible to solo a raid when you're not overleveled and overgeared? Because in SAO the content was locked behind raids.
Ian Russell
What do Japs have against haafus?
Mason Lewis
>Novel is called Sword Art Online >80% of it takes place in several entirely different games >Not a single one of them is even half as interesting as the original setting
Should have stayed in SAO and made the whole thing about clearing the floors and eventually building up to the last boss. Instead its just a rush to the conclusion with completely unsatisfying character development. All the stuff that happened in the years after the game started were interesting too, but you don't get more than a few bite sized morsels.
Hack author.
Bentley White
made
Blake Ross
>Unironically thinks a franchise should change names according to the story arc
SAO haters sure are fucking retarded, good thing they are minority