I unironically like SAO. I've liked it ever since I first saw it/read it. I like most parts of the story

I unironically like SAO. I've liked it ever since I first saw it/read it. I like most parts of the story.

What I enjoy most about SAO, though, is that the MC and Asuna actually ended up getting together in the middle of the first season. It wasn't filled with drama. It wasn't some kind of enormous plot line. They just got together and were happy with one another. That, plus the death of Sachi really sold me on the series.

I wish we had more shows with "romance" like in SAO. Characters get together at some point in the story and just stay together and face challenges together.

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but I hear the harem just gets bigger in the novels lol.

kill yourself, stupid faggot dduck fuck fuck you mom a slut whore cumdump you shitfuck asshole useless bum

I don't think the SAO arc itself is that bad, with a fast moving plot, a romance subplot that actually solidifies itself in the first half instead of fucking around until the end, and a clear villain and motivation for the plot to go forward, I'd say it is a classic example of an "isekai" done right.
Even the second arc as something of an omake to give more screentime to the characters wasn't bad.
Everything else though just falls in line with the usual isekai culprits in the name of excessive fanservice, introducing pointless characters, literally forgetting past developments, Alicization is basically everything wrong in Isekai.

>almost the entire relationship progression happens off screen in time skips
>the author didn't plan it as a series and retroactively gave kirito a harem despite him being locked down romantically
The romance is some of the biggest wasted potential in the story. I wish it were anything like what you described.

what was the point of posting this?

But it is the way I described it. The "harem" is mostly just other girls who got interested in him too. Isn't this kind of shit normal for minor-celebrities? The only real contender other than Asuna is his cousin.

The romance feels pretty pointless with Kirito's ever growing harem.
Instead of developing the relationship between Kirito and Asuna a new girl get's introduced who quickly starts lusting after the main character while Asuna disappears to the background for the majority of that arc.
What's the point of getting the main character in a stable relationship when it doesn't prevent him from getting into romantic situations with other girls?

>What's the point of getting the main character in a stable relationship when it doesn't prevent him from getting into romantic situations with other girls?
But isn't that quite normal? He doesn't do anything with the other/new girls. He still goes back to Asuna at the end of the day.

Don't be delusional. The only romantic pair is Asuna. Kirito would never end with a different girl, he wouldn't end with Suguha and he wouldn't end with Alice either. Besides, Reki already said he will finish the story with their marriage.

Oh, I know that Suguha won't end up with him, but Suguha is the only one of the other girls that actually ends up close enough that she could be seen as a contender. The other girls are mostly like a teenager having a crush on a celebrity.

The only other contender is Alice but Asuna has still managed to defend her claim on boyfurendo. Sugu is just another beta orbiter type and still has to contend with the fact that its Forbidden Love. She puts in effort into denying it to friends, despite it being obvious enough to make Liz suspicious.

I like SAO too. I don't really understand how SAO solidified itself as the most awful series of all time in peoples' heads.

Kirito isn't even a bad MC. The worst is when people call him edgy.

How would Alicization get adapted? 2 cours with 24 episodes each or one big 48-52 episode series?

I feel the same way. I think part of the reason why SAO ended up being so badly thought of is that it had and still has a large number of people who love it zealously. Certain groups that deal with anime dislike overzealous fanboys (remember the hate towards Naruto and Bleach) and end up disliking it. That dislike turns into memes that gets perpetuated forever. Now add on the people who legitimately don't like it as well, and the series gets the perception that it's one of the worst ever made.

>Kirito isn't even a bad MC. The worst is when people call him edgy.
A lot of criticism towards Kirito came because of the oddities in the "game" itself. Many viewers think that MMOs must be the way they have been for us since WoW, and that the game was completely unreasonable.

but the kind of relationships that develop are basically on the brink of sex every time.

During this arc Kirito meets a new girl, the main heroine of this said arc.
While the story progresses Kirito and the new girl start getting closer while they overcome many hardships. Asuna is is not involved and is just watching from the sidelines.
When the story arc is about to end and it looks like the heroine has started to develop feelings for Kirito, she discovers he already has a girlfriend.

This happens pretty much every new arc.
While during the entire arc the relationship between Kirito and the new girl has been developing, Kirito has spend very little time on-screen with Asuna, who is his girlfriend.
The relationship between Kirito and Asuna feels very weak how quickly Asuna becomes irrelevant as soon as a new girl appears.

The new girl will never get anywhere with Kirito because he already has Asuna, but his relationship with Asuna will also never develop because he spends more time with the new girls than with his girlfriend.
That's what annoys me.
Ether do a harem or stick to the main girl. Don't try to half-ass both.

>I wish we had more shows with "romance" like in SAO. Characters get together at some point in the story and just stay together and face challenges together.
That's what pissed me off about oreimo or whatever it's called. Mc and his f2f had a thing going and I enjoyed watching it but then the author just goes and fucks it all up with his incest fantasies

I feel like two 24/36 episode cours would be the best

Expel rage

I've watched SAO for the first time a few days ago after avoiding it for the longest time and I had my fun with it. The the thing I enjoyed the most was the development of the Asuna/Kirito relationship up to the point where she wants to jump his dick. It was cool to see her in different stages from the beginning to them meeting again with her being the second in command, to where she came to his rescue after being poisoned. You could feel the character progress. Same for some of the other characters.

The power fantasy part did its job for the most part, but there was plenty of unintentional humor with how utterly hamfisted Kirito was pushed to be the misunderstood loner with inner turmoil who gets to shine oh so brightly with his awesome vidya skills, complete with an ojousama older-than-him waifu, backup harem and low maintenance vidya daughter. First half of S1 was a nice romp overall, 2nd half was somewhat marred by how over the top the villain was, as if he had jumped out of of a parody. The end of S1 tied the emotional themes together nicely and left of with a good feeling. I can certainly see its entertainment value and enjoyed the ride, but still kinda amazing that SAO of all things was the LN series that managed to catch on in a big way. I wonder what SAO did better than all the rest?

Btw I wondered during this scene how bad her breath must have been after waking up after 2+ years in a coma.

>bad her breath must have been after waking up after 2+ years in a coma.
EESH

>I wonder what SAO did better than all the rest?
High production value, the LN was relatively early, and it was by an author that already had another popular novel that was getting an adaption - Accel World.

In terms of the story, SAO did the start of the series very well. The first episode gripped people hard and that despair led to Sachi's death episode. This was then followed up with Asuna's romance. This combination pulled people in, and the people already invested in it were much less likely to drop it or just dislike it.

I agree, that sounds plausible. It rode the oncoming wave at just the right time and as you said, the early stuff was done pretty well. The setting was a clever iteration of what dot//hack did years earlier, by taking the whole population hostage instead of some select few, the drama with the party wipe was timed right and didn't overstay its welcome and the Asuna romance and her as a character were done nicely as well. The powerwank wasn't strongly present, up until the boss fight with the "lol btw I can dual wield" and Kirito became Online Jesus. It went somewhat downhill after that, but still had some good points among some hilariously awkward stuff. As far as comparable animu go, I enjoyed Danmachi a bit better. Bell is shown to work his ass off harder than Kirito ever did and the Minotaur fight had more gravitas than the dual wield boss fight in SAO. What Danmachi lacks though, is a well done romance, at least as far as I saw in the respective anime.

To me, Danmachi doesn't approach near SAO levels. There was never this feeling of pressure in Danmachi. Danmachi felt more like a happy-go-lucky show, whereas early SAO was a pressure to figure this awful situation out.

I didn't really care about the "powerfantasy" aspects of it too much, because the characters were still vulnerable. Just think of that time Kirito needed to be saved by Asuna. I just wish they had done more about the first game.

The only portion of ALO I enjoyed were the character interactions, and Suguha. The actual game and story aspect of it was just boring.

two years

Yeah, the initial setup of the SAO portion added that sense of danger with the permadeath aspect. Death in Danmachi wasn't really a focus like it was in SAO. The atmosphere in that regard was done well in SAO. It lost that trump card though, when SAO, the game, ended. 2nd half of the season rode the "impeding NTR of doom" angle instead, including an amoral psychorapist antagonist and the possibility of brain washing. What carried the Alfheim portion was the Suguha plot, though it became somewhat silly in the way all was set up as a big joke to shit on Suguha, by making her fall love with Elf Jesus Kirito, in order to overcome her love for oniichan. Speaking of which, you'd think she'd have become suspicious when this new mysterious Spriggan was named "Kirito" turned up. At least some nice drama happened when it all blew up. The rest of the Alfheim stuff was meh.

>They just got together and were happy with one another
This doesn't happen enough in manga and anime, I like it.
The first arc of SAO was neat, wasn't a huge fan of the rest.

Am I the only one who thinks kirito really looks like ghost banri?

He was using his gov-exempt NerveGear to get into ALO as he didn't have a Amusphere yet, which is a big point against suspicion. There was no reason at the time for her to believe that her !brother that always dresses in all black would be the same as the black fairy that dresses in all black and wields a big black sword. But that made him a good replacement because he seemed to embody all the desirable aspects of her oniichan.

Forever thirsty and masturbating in the next room over.

Compared to the many garbage battle harems that come out every year it's not hard to see why SAO got so popular off of it's first 12 episodes. Other anime where there's romance almost always never show them getting together at all which imo is pretty annoying.

It's pretty amazing how far a strong start can get you. Kinda like, say, Naruto and Bleach, that started off with a few strong arcs as well and then you got the readership in a sort of Stockholm Syndrome-like lock and can string them along for quite some time, forever hoping it'll manage to recapture your initial feelings when you first started. Mind you, I'm not above that sort of behavior, just making an observation.

Whoops, that was meant as a reply to

The thing is that people are interested in the superficial aspects of a story. The most important thing is to get the foot in the door, because even stories that start out the same later down the line diverge. Characters make different decisions and the story becomes about something else. This is why a strong start is very important.

Glop

13 episodes with a lot of cut content.

Today i will remind them who is best girl

> only real contender other than Asuna is his cousin

What? No. Sugu literally has the least possible chance since its made clear at the end of the Fairy arc that he's more or less creeped out by her admitting she has feelings for him.

The only people other than Asuna that are even in the game are Sinon and Alice, And ever they have a snowball's chance in hell

A-1 isn't dumb enough to do that.

I wonder who's the fortunate souls who got to pump Ronye and Tieze

So will Sugu get paired off with the comic relief beta orbiter (what a catch!), or will she die an old maiden because none can compare to glorious oniichan, king of the gaming world?

...

The OC Donut Steel has a better chance of dethroning Asuna and stealing Kirito than any of the regular girls

>he calls you partner at the True Ending

I hope she stays forever alone, if only to perpetuate the memes

Well said

...

This is why Progressive and the Sugary Days short story anthology exists, that's literally VOLUMES of non-stop Kirito and Asuna relationship stuff.

Gameverse is best continuity
You can choose your waifu
Philia is best gameverse

Why is sugu the only one that doesn't play as a character that looks like herself? Even sinon made an avatar that looks like herself. Are they all just self inserting retards?

I choose my own waifu.

My nigga

Only Sinon is, the rest are using their SAO character data on The Seed network so obviously their avatars look like them

That image. I can see it clearly now. Next, he'll dual wield 2 swords with one hand, thus he can dual dual wield 4 swords at once. How can anyone compete?

>Gameverse is best continuity
Very much

K-kotomine?

IIRC he tried triple wielding with his teeth and said he can't do it because it felt like they'll break

Already beaten before SAO was even a thing.

>the death of Sachi
fuck you for reminding me
fuck this series

>google the image thinking it's photoshopped
>it's not
HOLY SHIT

"Holy fuck! The mysterious new player clad in all black, who is brokenly overpowered and wields a big sword and sometimes dual wields, who happens to have the exact same character name as beloved oniichan in SAO did is actually oniichan!? Who'd have thunk!"

You have to wonder what they were even talking about since he woke up.

> before SAO was even a thing.

>First Sengoku Basara game came out in Japan in 2005

>SAO first written in 2001

When will people stop fucking underestimating the age of this franchise?

It allowed this miracle to still exist so yes certainly the best

He literally told her noting about SAO and she didn't ask because she assumed (with him being upset about the whole Asuna thing) that he was traumatized by the experience.

She didn't know his character name, or his wardrobe colors, or about duel wield

I thought it was 2002? Or was that when he first published it?

If I recall he wrote it for an LN contest in 2001 but only threw the web novel up in 2002

Ah that makes sense.

Furinkazan is stupidly well co-ordinated. Like even IRL they sync well.

Cute Donutsteel

I tried to make my OC a sexy cake but I'm not sure if I succeeded.

Not bad.

Delete this before Reki see's and shuts down the gameverse!!

Never. I will not stop until I get a bed scene

Reki would kill to preserve Asuna as top wife

I've always liked it and wanted to do lewd things to sugus butt

How's the game?

Like Freedom Wars but with a bit more content and with SAO paint

Congrats on having terrible taste.

youtube.com/watch?v=1A5mM9j54zA

>You have to wonder what they were even talking about since he woke up.
That he got a girlfriend named Asuna, and that's about it. Did you think he was going to start telling his family all about it the moment he woke up? That he'd start regaling them with tales of boss fights where people died? That he'd boast about the murderers he'd helped apprehend or personally killed? That he'd tell them all about the unique skill he kept hidden as long as possible because he didn't want to be hounded, even though it might have saved a few more lives if he revealed it earlier? That'd he tell them all about the guild that he got killed because he was too afraid they'd find out he'd lied about his level to properly warn them that a chest was too dangerous for them to open?

Even with the good times that Kirito and his friends managed, SAO was quite an ordeal. None of the survivors are going to be eager to discuss it with other people. People who'd have a difficult time fathoming what it was like for the people trapped, or how varied the experience could be. People who would most likely be either judging them or pitying them.

Close, he started writing what became the first novel in fall of 2001, and finished in early April 2002. He then posted it online in the fall of 2002 and started writing more for the series when people liked it.

>there are people complaining that Kirito and SAO characters are in Fatal Bullet
What?

The gameplay is a lot of fun, but it's lacking content compared to HR at least. There are far fewer sub quests of just hanging out with the cast, and most of them are locked behind affinity.

There seems to be less events than HR which is a shame. Gameplay is literally a better Freedom Wars so I'm still having a fun time though.

Either butthurt that Fatal Bullet wasn't Freedom Wars 2, or people who are triggered by SAO in general

They're the ones who expected a FW2 game or dislike the series.
Which in itself is fine, is just that this game it's also a fucking SAO game so I don't know what they expected.

>triggered by SAO in general
>March 2018

Are people really this pathetic? I'll be the first to admit the series isn't great but some of these e-celebs and their band-wagoners talk like it is the worst thing ever writtern, while ignoring all the other LN. MMO, and Isekai franchises that do the same thing but worse than this one

I'd have expected top at least mention his character name and a general outline of what happened. Also, the first sentence out of Asuna's rapist fiancee's mouth was "fuck yeah, you're THE Kirito, hero of SAO in the flesh! I'm so glad to meet you!" Since Kirito didn't know about his connection to the whole game at this point and didn't bat an eye about being addressed as such, I thought it was a given that his character's name was common public knowledge at this point. So yeah, I thought Sugu should fucking well recognize the name "Kirito" in some capacity.

Speaking of which, I'm also kinda amused how they handwaved over the fact how he convinced Asuna's dad that he was someone important to his daughter. "Hay there, you don't know me but I banged your daughter in VR! Mind letting me visit her daily at her bedside while she's still comatose? I'm not anyone suspicious, honestly!"

My only complaint is that you can't bed Kirito

It's so dumb. You're buying an SAO game and complaining that it's based on SAO.

Oberon knew that because he was the head of the VR branch of the company that acquired the now defunct creators of SAO and thus had access to all the player data. Obviously he would know shit about what happened that the general public wouldn't.

Come on user, these aren't plot holes as much as things that were pretty clearly explained. Is SAO of all things too complex for you?

>I thought it was a given that his character's name was common public knowledge at this point.
Only Asuna's family knows about it, because they happen to own the servers that SAO was running on, and Kirito couldn't really barge into the hospital room and spend time there without telling their family about the relationship, and he probably got Kikouka (that one government employee who shows up in S2 and in the OVA and movie) to vouch for him.
Lots of things, including character names and shit have been kept under wraps by the government. In the Extra Edition, Kikouka even mentions how he'd been using government resources to keep reporters and interviewers away from SAO survivors for the sake of privacy.

Reread what I wrote:

>Since Kirito didn't know about his (= the fiancee) connection to the whole game at this point and didn't bat an eye about being addressed as such, I thought it was a given that his character's name was common public knowledge at this point.

The point is those aren't financially successful and popular. SAO is terrible, but thriving.
>missing the point completely

Unfortunately I don't think this kind of mentality will go away any time soon as long as e-celebs keeps harping on about SAO. I know a good portion of the people complaining about the series haven't even seen the show but will follow along with the crowd. Shamefully that was me a few years ago until I actually watched the anime so this kind of shit does exist.

Yeah, the fact that Kirito has a harem of girls around him but completely goes for the absolute monogamy route is one of the only things I genuinely like about him. Maybe it's just my searing hate of haremshit and their cancerous rotting of anime in general though.

The government or specifically Kikuoka's agency had the SAO incident very tightly wrapped up. No-one apart from those involved actually knew of the name Kirito since the government kept it in relative secrecy to protect their privacy. It was explained in the 1 hour OVA

>>Since Kirito didn't know about his (= the fiancee) connection to the whole game at this point

Except he did, he didn't know Sugou was Oberon but he knew Sugou worked for Asuna's dad (since he fucking walked into the hospital room with him), who is the CEO of RECT which he knows acquired Argus (because "electronic giant acquires company behind death game" probably is public knowledge). So like anyone with half a brain he probably assumed

>This guy knows my character name because he is a subordinate of the guy who owns the company who bought all of SAO's data and thus probably has access to said data

I legit want to take Kirito to bed with me goddamnit. Implement this as DLC please I would happily pay money for it. The scene doesn't have to be romantic, just platonic is fine. Just throw the Kiritofags a bone please.

Are you seriously claiming the likes of Mahouka and Infinite Stratos AREN'T popular and successful?

Could have fooled me

SAO is not even that bad. People just need a boogeyman to hate like the jews, SJWs, alt-right, nazis you name it.

Not the same user but I'm pretty sure what he's saying is that a game that's has a lot of premise like FW got shafted for FB (is what a few of the people who played FB think)