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Chiibi wrote:

Sora was the most entertaining character. And the music was very cool. But sign was so freaking boring sometimes. :/

I can agree with that when I rewatched it. I spent a lot of time wanting the characters (Tsukasa) to do something. I did think there was something interesting hidden under it though with the characterisation of Tsukasa and Subaru, but with modern expectations you better hope for more, and not at a snail pace.

I hear stories about the connection gender can have with MMOs, and it feels like SAO kind of really pulled away from the people playing different gender thing, or really characters greatly different from the real world versions.

Okay so I enjoyed this show, I just wanted to open with that.

Here's my guess at why some people dislike it that hasn't been mentioned and it kind of reminds me of when Zac once was on ANNCast talking about how he liked SAO at the beginning but it went sour for him at one point.

- I think when you FIRST start watching SAO, you think this kind of show can have 'mainstream' appeal. It's can be dark, gritty, and characters are put in a dangerous situation. (I'll come back to this).But then you take Kirito and Asuna and they take a break and start playing house a bit. This feels a lot less main stream and probably more otaku baitish.

- The conclusion of Aincrad you could argue may have been anticlimatic to some. It was done kind of cool I thought but it's not hard to see why some people feel like it was just cut short.

- Most people I've heard complain about this show really like the first half but HATE the second half. My guess is because Kirito is in an MMO again but you take away all the danger and excitement he had in Aincrad fighting for life and death. Also as mentioned by others, you take a powerful woman like Asuna and you just lock her up.

Basically the plot of this show seems kind of unsustainable. I've only watched the anime, but I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before spoiler[Kirito gets stuck in ANOTHER mmo he can't log out of. ]

I've only watched the first episode of SAO, and I expect I will enjoy the show when I do watch it. However, what totally turned me off from watching more after the first episode is that the premise seemed impossible to me. More so than any other anime I've seen, for me it just wasn't possible to maintain my suspension of disbelief. The issue I had was that it seemed absurd that one person could build these headsets that can fry people's brains, and somehow could get them built and sold without anyone noticing, and then with a month of time and presumably lots of headsets to work with (from people whose brains were already fried) no one is able to figure out a way to remove them. Basically, the show tried to give a scientific premise for the scenario the characters are in, but there is no way such a premise could work, and for me the first episode just left me thinking how absurd the premise was. That contrasts with .hack, which just didn't give an explanation for how someone could be trapped in a game world. In .hack you are basically left to assume there is a metaphysical explanation for characters being stuck in the game, which works fine since I can't say something metaphysical is necessarily wrong (i.e., someone's consciousness might truly be something separate from their body, in which case perhaps it can end up stuck in a game world). If SAO had gone that route, or had a supernatural explanation for what was going on, or more of a sci-fi explanation with the technology being presented as something beyond understanding, then I think I could have accepted its premise. But the first episode instead tried to make it seem like a potentially real thing, an in making it seem understandable it ended up making me see it as absurd. I don't think this is at all why most people who don't like SAO don't think highly of it, and again I think I will enjoy it when I do eventually watch more of it, but that is why the show gave me a bad first impression.

I think it's perfectly plausible that a genius inventor could sneak in a hidden feature with no one noticing. And if they did notice he could just lie about its function.

The Nerve Gear only became able to fry brains after SAO launched. It's not something that'd come up in product testing.

Vaisaga wrote:

I think it's perfectly plausible that a genius inventor could sneak in a hidden feature with no one noticing. And if they did notice he could just lie about its function.

The Nerve Gear only became able to fry brains after SAO launched. It's not something that'd come up in product testing.

That part seemed implausible, but not beyond what I would accept in setting up the premise of a fictional scenario. It was when the first episode ended with a statement that a month passed that my suspension of disbelief was shattered. With thousands of people stuck wearing the devices, there have got to be scientists working furiously to find a way to save these people. Those scientists would have access to numerous copies of the device from people whose brains were already fried. Even if the devices are damaged when the brain frying function is triggered, a group of dedicated scientists would certainly be able to figure out how they work. Since the SAO world (the "real" world, not the in-game world) seems intended to be basically our world, I know that scientists just aren't that incompetent. There just is no way such a problem could exist and not be solved, no matter how much of a genius the creator of the devices is. To me SAO just needed some explanation beyond what it gave, anything really, for me to believe that these devices could stay on these players for so long (e.g., a reason why society doesn't care about the players, some supernatural means for the devices to be unremovable, some conspiracy covering up that people are trapped in a game, a threat from the creator that something worse will happen if people interfere in his game, etc.).

Let's say there were people at work trying to 'disarm' the Nerve Gears like you say (and there probably were). Unless they were 100% sure they could deactivate it, do you think they'd risk killing a person for a live test? There are trained bomb experts that know how to defuse all sorts of explosive devices, but their success rate is not 100% (they'll even opt to evacuate the area for a controlled detonation rather than outright defusing it).

Plus, I do recall Kayaba saying that any sort of tampering with it would set it off.

I would say of course they wouldn't leave all those people trapped for a month or more, especially since they were in danger of being killed while in the game. And they would be very sure they knew what they were doing before they tried to remove one of the devices. They would have replicated them, tested them thoroughly, and the removal team would have practiced extensively. Even though tampering with the device would set it off, it can't possibly be foolproof. Even if Kayaba is the smartest person in the world and the best electrical engineer to ever live, it just isn't physically possible to build a device in a way that can't be overcome. Given the scale of the event, the team of people that would be assembled to solve the problem would certainly be capable of finding a workaround.

My issue isn't that the characters can't just be freed from the game, or even that the characters have these devices on their heads and they can't be removed without killing them. There are plenty of ways to explain that. My issue is that the most obvious hindrance to the villain's plan, the most clear way he could be defeated, isn't even mentioned. There could be lots of reasons why all the other smart people on Earth can't or won't find out how to get these devices off these peoples heads. Giving us any of the countless possibly explanations would be fine. But the show gave us none of them (in the first episode . . . again, I haven't seen more).

We like to think we can overcome everything, it is what stories try and tell us. But no government is going to disclose the full information about something they cannot beat, it risks copycats and makes the government look fallible. So you can bet the facts of nervegear death-trap would be kept fairly low key. All we have to know is that they were told and were witness to that any tampering with the gear at all would cause it to activate, and the hit to government reputation would be far too drastic for a government to try every conceivable angle of removing it if each time it killed a kid. It would be like trying to cure a mental disability if each time you likely failed the child would instantly drop dead.

Chiibi wrote:

SAO for me was what I wanted from .hack//sign. I'm sure I'll get yelled at for this but sorry; the pacing was slow as molasses and Tsukasa's emoness got on my nerves after a while...

I don't know of anyone who would yell at you for this. Even among fans of the show, these were common criticisms.

Dessa wrote:

My second problem is with Kirito. Saying he's a "Gary Stu" is the easy way to explain it, even if it's not complete. He very much has that "too perfect" feel. He just happens to be the best player in the game. He just happens to earn a one-of-a-kind skill. He just happens to have a bunch of "hot" girls fall for him. The list goes on.

I see this kind of complaint a lot and not just about SAO. But what would be more interesting to watch for a whole season: Joe Schmoe player muddling his way through just surviving or the elite players or the potential game-beaters, trying to actually beat the game? To put it another way, people love to watch pro sports specifically to see the Kiritos of those respective sports do their amazing things. Kirito starring is just the VRMMO version of that.

Now, that being said, you won't hear any argument from me that his awesomeness is carried almost to the point of being a joke as the series progresses. But at least the series does make some attempts to explain how Kirito figures out to apply skills learned in one game to another.

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Before I move past Aincrad, I should probably address the pacing problems. I understand that most of the early episodes are flashbacks in the novels. Not even that, but more a separate novel of short stories. You can't really say, though, that this excuses the pacing problems.

Attack on Titan, also, has a similar format. In the manga, after the initial introduction, it skips to the end of their training, and the attack where spoiler[Eren first becomes a Titan]. Throughout the first few volumes, we get flashbacks to their time training, meeting the other main characters. In the anime, like with SAO, the events are presented in chronological order. Yet, unlike SAO, the pacing doesn't feel wrong. So you can't say that it was because they reordered the presentation of events that the pacing is off.

I disagree that the two cases are even comparable. I've read the source material for SAO, and that storyline makes a lot more sense the way the anime did it. That interim content is actually pretty important to character and setting development in SAO, whereas the AoT didn't really need much extra clarification.

I will admit that at the time I first watched the series I thought it has pacing problems, too, but seeing the way the finished product was put together alleviated a lot of those concerns.

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Oh, forgot about my third "bother" of PB: the fact that the government is sending a CHILD into a dangerous situation. Regardless of his past experience, there's nothing indicating that they got his legal guardian's permission for this, which would be required for a minor.

Setting aside the fact that Kirito is almost legal at that point (he has to be at least 17), that's one of those things you just have to accept as an anime fan. After all, it's not like hundreds of other anime out there (especially mecha series!) would also be in violation of that principle if you want to nitpick. . . Rolling Eyes

A couple of other points that I would address have been covered by others, so I'll avoid redundancy.

Calathan wrote:

There could be lots of reasons why all the other smart people on Earth can't or won't find out how to get these devices off these peoples heads. Giving us any of the countless possibly explanations would be fine. But the show gave us none of them (in the first episode . . . again, I haven't seen more).

Would point out, though, that such explanations are outside of the scope of the story.

Ah, yes, I have to add: after seeing SO many naive, young shounen heroes fail and fail and FAIL AGAIN because "they have so much to learn" from a teacher who is likely to die or something like that, it's actually refreshing to have a hero like Kirito who is actually competent at what he does. He's intelligent too and knows more than we do as we watch him....so we don't find ourselves yelling at the screen "Stop being an idiot, why do you not learn!?"

It's just something new. For me, at least.

I watched a couple of episodes. So far its better than many other series. Has a much more engaging story than Log Horizon, which I found extremely dull.

Almost every complaint can be chalked up to the writing, specifically the characters. I am of the firm belief that most shows with an amazing second-half had a slow or bad first-half (Steins;Gate, Fate/Zero (somewhat), Princess Tutu, Clannad as a whole, Shiki, etc.) and most shows with a great start usually end pretty "meh" (Durarara, Unlimited Blade Works, some would argue Attack on Titan, but I would disagree). This is mostly for 20 to 35 episode runs as a shorter show can easily maintain consistent quality, and a longer show has so many ups and downs that it's hard to say that one keeps getting better or worse.

With this in mind, usually for an amazing show, the viewer has to be patient through the lackluster first half, but it's usually the characters that make it so easy to do so. I never complained about Steins;Gate because I found Okabe and Kurisu to be unique and interesting throughout.

Kirito just wasn't. Neither was any other member of the main cast (who I may as well label as Kirito's harem). With other such shows full of harem tropes archetypes and a self-insert protagonist, there was a gimmick if the show was popular (all the harem girls are monster girls for example). Other shows like this that were popular had the girls given more personality than your typical stereotypes (it's difficult to really argue that Shirou Emiya has much intrigue behind him, but his supporting heroines are extremely interesting and fun to watch, especially Saber), or gave the main lead a way of being relatable while still being his own person (Kyousuke from Oreimo is a good example up until certain events of season 2, Tomoya from Clannad had some amusing traits, etc.). Kirito likes Video Games and is a badass. Aside from that, he follows the "what action would a main character take" guidelines to a T.

I agree with you though. This isn't a huge detriment to the show. It does get a little better in season 2, but at that point, many people have made up their minds. If the show wasn't this popular, it wouldn't be this hated. There are lesser-popular shows that never receive this level of hate (Future Diary is by far the most loathsome show I've watched, yet critics never judge it as harshly as this).

Key wrote:

I see this kind of complaint a lot and not just about SAO. But what would be more interesting to watch for a whole season: Joe Schmoe player muddling his way through just surviving or the elite players or the potential game-beaters, trying to actually beat the game? To put it another way, people love to watch pro sports specifically to see the Kiritos of those respective sports do their amazing things. Kirito starring is just the VRMMO version of that.

Unlike sportsmen Kirito is not real. He is not an actual person who has achieved excellence in some trade thanks to talent and hard work. He is a fictional character intentionally written in a certain way to achieve some purpose in the story and get a reaction out of the reader. So in this case, when beating the game is a foregone conclusion, if you want to create suspense, better write a character that actually struggles against the odds, and make both the odds and the character overcoming the odds seem natural.

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So in this case, when beating the game is a foregone conclusion, if you want to create suspense, better write a character that actually struggles against the odds, and make both the odds and the character overcoming the odds seem natural.

Kirito does struggle though. It's not as often as other protagonists but it does happen. He does make mistakes, his actions are not flawless, and he would have died a couple times without the help of other characters.

For me, the suspense of a main character dying (for good) is always going to be present in an action series, because, while it's rare, it has happened before in other shows. And it's quite scarring, personally.

jl07045 wrote:

Unlike sportsmen Kirito is not real. He is not an actual person who has achieved excellence in some trade thanks to talent and hard work.

Do you actually see all of the training and effort that a pro athlete puts into becoming what he/she is? Aside from the occasional documentary, you don't. You only see the end result of that.

Same with Kirito. Just because he's fictional doesn't me that he doesn't have a (fictional) background explaining how he got to be so good. The anime series makes it clear at several points that he did an awful lot of hard-core grinding to get on the top of the heap, as well as having plenty of experience both from beta-testing this game and from playing previous ones that a lot of the other players in the setting don't have. Sure, he's got natural talent, too, but so do all of those pro players, and the Progressive novels are making it clearer that the person who actually has the greatest blessing of natural talent is Asuna.

Now, I will admit that they could have shown Kirito's struggles a bit more, but another point that the Progressive novels emphasize is that Kirito played as much as possible with a hefty safety margin. (And really, doing anything less under the circumstances would have been idiotic.) Hence seeing him struggle too much would have made no sense in this case since he's usually "playing down."

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