I blame the adaptation and FMA's toxic MAL fanbase more than anything. That people wanted more birthing SAO Progressive, a floor by floor version of the story says the original story was good. As for the toxic part of the FMA MAL fanbase, when SAO passed FMA's rating, they started a multi pronged attack on SAO's reputation to lower it's rating (like they did for anime rated better than their favorite). SAO ratings did recover over time.
I loved the first season, both halves. It took me multiple attempts to watch the second season because I was a lot less fond of the idea of switching to a gun based game. In time I gave it a second shot and kept watching till I caught up with all the seasons and am very pleased I have done such. I have enjoyed it so much I have picked up all the SAO Progressive Lite Novels detailing the story through the levels of Aincrad we never saw in the original lite novels nor anime, I'm loving them. SAO has become one of my favorite franchises. Thanks bro this TH-cam content creator for pointing out the original lite novel series has a lot of internal monologue the anime didn't cover. Makes me want to go read them now. I wish they kept making more anime seasons but since I am unsure they will, I will pick up the books to read the continuing stories the anime.
Hey thanks for watching! I think the source material will always be better than the adaptation. But the anime did make the story super accessible. Now we just need the vr game!
I dropped it near the end of season 3 because i was watching it right before midterms, but I honestly think it gets too much if a bad rep. Did it start to feel overdone after they got out of Alfheim? For sure, but that doesnt mean I didnt enjoy the GGO arc or any of the ones that followed it. Some parts weirded me out a bit but it's really not as bad as people make it out to be.
@@duskkoala I don't believe I ever watched the movies, pretty sure I was saving them for when I finished the series (which I never ended up doing.) Although this video might have sparked enough curiosity for me to pick it back up again.
There we're a few moments that pulled on the heart strings to say the least, Yuki's death, Eugio death we're the most prominent imo. But the ending or the point Kirito and Asuni decided to stay in the Underworld for 200 years was emotional too.
I've only seen the first season of SAO, so the first two arcs. I first watched it once in high school and I remember really liking it. I missed season 2 when it came out but resolved to rewatch season 1 later and then check out S2. In that interim, I chatted with more people about it and heard some more opinions on it and I had my eyes opened to a few things. When I finally got around to that rewatch, I made it halfway through the Alfheim arc before I stopped. I couldn't go further. And to be clear, it wasn't that arc specifically that was the problem. The problem was a very simple yet massive issue that was layered throughout the whole show. In a way, it gave me a new appreciation for the show, but yes, I do kind of hate it now. The problem is that Kirito is the quintessential Mary Sue. And when I say Mary Sue, I mean the _actual_ definition of the term. I know it's a name that gets overused to mean "overpowered" or "too perfect", which isn't the accurate meaning and - as you point out - isn't a bad thing in and of itself as demonstrated by other shows that make good use of overpowered protagonists. The actual meaning of a Mary Sue and the reason that being "too perfect" gets conflated with it is "Character that everything and everyone revolves around". That's this show. That's Kirito. The plot, all these people trapped in a virtual game with life or death stakes with no escape unless they win? It's not something that gets deeply explored and it's not something that we see a lot of perspective on. As mentioned here, it's not well paced. Because it's all just a device to make Kirito look cool. Anything that doesn't serve that purpose doesn't matter. The action, all these different games with different classes, weapons, features, spells, abilities, bosses, etc? Filler. All of it just fills space until Kirito does something. He gets assists from time to time, but he's always on top, always in control, always the star. Obviously the main character is going to be the big focus but good grief, other people do exist and can have moments to shine. The action just too often makes Kirito the only competent hero. That's not even getting into some of the ridiculous feats that Kirito pulls off that should be beyond his skillset. And that brings us to the worst offender. The characters. A lovable colourful and fun cast of characters across the board that all exist to make Kirito look better when he stands next to them. Talented people are shafted. Clever people look foolish. People who take any kind of issue with Kirito turn out to be the worst scumbags possible. A guy beats Kirito in a fight once and he turns out to be physically unbeatable for that to be considered possible. And of course the girls. Intelligent, independent and assertive until Kirito is slightly nice to them and they all almost immediately fall head over heels for him, assumedly giving birth to a whole generation of 'nice guys'. Every single one of them ultimately there to be saved by Kirito in one way or another. Every single one of them regularly treated like possessions by the plot, objects by the camera and sex toys by the villains. Again, all of it just to glorify how nice and heroic Kirito is and none of it really exploring them and their perspective beyond how they can be used by the writer to make Kirito more perfect. So yeah, whether conscious of all these issues or not, I suspect some to all of that is a big part of why people hate Sword Art Online. Because Kirito is a giant Mary Sue. And the use of a Mary Sue is horrible horrible writing
I would have loved to explore Kirito’s normal everyday life. Like how different he is without the crutch of sao for his personality. I think him having a bad school life would have gave him more depth. And motivation to be the best in the game.
I definitely agree with the Mary Sue analogy, looking back at it, there definitely is truth to it. However, I think SAO got the "Nickelback treatment", it was really popular until people started sharing what they didn't like about it. Most people I know absolutely loved it after first watching it, but the more and more they read other people's opinions about it, they liked it less and less. Don't get me wrong, the Mary Sue part is very true, but I think many people's first impression was very positive. Also, the Alice Arc actually has a lot of depth to it, while Kirito is still OP, other characters get a lot more meaning and personality. Also, yes, the Harem part is very unnecessary (mentioned in my comment), but the relationship with Asuna was really cute and heartwarming. Romantic stories get a bad wrap nowadays, but I think SAO's main characters worked really well together and were very likeable. With all that said, I think your comment holds a fair point
You really never understood what Sao actually about. It's not about a boy (loser, useless, non talented, mentally weak and has no experience with the tech) who's going to play the game and get from weak to stronger throughout the game. It's about a boy (smart, talented, has been playing video games and building machines from childhood and mentally strong) who's going to make the real world and virtual world a lot more closer. And remember one thing. In the real world your physical attributes makes you stronger. But in the virtual world your mental attributes makes you stronger. So don't try to mix both power system together. And you are saying that someone who's mentally strong, smart has a lot of experience , talented. Shouldn't be the strongest. Is there any logic behind that? And you expect a zero to hero type MC who has no experience or IQ is going to do all these shit? Why can't you accept a strong and talented MC? Sao isn't an anime that's zero to hero. It's about hero to superhero. Of course he'll be the star and main focus of the show. It's not Naruto Shippuden or some shit where they'll put all the focuses on the side characters. Even though they did focused on Sinon, asuna, eugeo, Alice more than kirito. They also focused on other characters like leafa, Klein, yuuna, yijji. But kirito isn't their shadow or something so he'll get the spotlight more often. As for why he gets girls. firstly there's only 4 girls loves him. Or used to love him. And there's reason of course. Cuz he's handsome, strong, smart, responsible, has a good personality and is able to communicate in the right tune needed. If that doesn't make a girl like you then what else would? Unlike other anime those girls didn't fall for nothing. There was beautiful reasons behind them as well. And they has shown their thoughts about it too unlike other anime where they just act like it's totally normal. The girls in this anime doesn't pop out of nowhere. Btw how many girls did kirito kissed? Are you really going to call it a harem? They are just friends and these shit happens with friends. But the anytuber made silica looks like his lover while she's like a younger sister. And most importantly he didn't go to steal someone else's girl. It's the girls who choose him. He didn't choose. He's loyal to asuna. You guys didn't saw an actual harem. And as for the story. I think you didn't understood it. That's why you think it's badly written. while it's actually perfectly written. You owe the author a big apology.
@@tanvirt17.06 You clearly understand the mastery of writing that this show represents on a level beyond the ken of mere mortals. Far be it from me to strip you of your divine nirvana, brother. I'm not apologising though. Partly because I don't know where the author lives and I ain't no stalker.
I think you're right about the Mary Sue Kirito, but I think that's not all of it, Kirito actually has some development through the Sachi arc (first 3 episodes lol), and how he is always solo bc he can't really get with other people, so he gives it a chance to be with other people and they all die, that's so hard, and I love the redemption of being able to get with more people from there on. HOWEVER, that's only the first 3 episodes and I'd like to explore more of that face of him or be able to explore more deeply other characters instead of just "hey look at me, I'm cool I'm gonna save you all" like it is from there on. Later you can see him feel emotionaly weak by his own and has to rely on asuna some times, which is again great, but we only get to see few scene from that... and Alfheim on, it's all a mess. I really enjoyed the progressive movie tho, it gives a really nice reboot to the series exploring more of Asuna's character withouth leaving kirito on the side and I hope they rebooted the whole Aincrad arc like so.
As a VR enthusiast, I've always found the concept of SAO really interesting. Using technology to escape reality only to be trapped in a virtual world is so ironic. The world may not be real, but to the people who perceive it with all of their senses, it is real. I've tried reading the light novel and I thought the first 3 chapters were really immersive. However, then the timeskip happened and I realized that this wouldn't be a story about survival. The only piece of SAO media that I genuinely loved was the first Progressive movie. THAT was the story I've been wanting to see. It focused solely on Asuna adapting to the new environment and touched on the existential questions, too.
it's not interesting it's messed up and sick. only a monster would come up with a messed-up idea. at end of the day it would be a waste of money to kill your consumers. who is gonna keep buying your VR tech if you kill them?
Something I realized about SAO is that it's technically an Isekai anime. While a virtual reality game, it's still a world that our MC gets sent to and is trapped there, forced to become OP in order to face dangerous threats and so on. The 3rd season takes it to a whole new level with a new virtual reality where the NPCs are copies of actual humans, unaware that they are in a fantasy world simulation. I can understand and even agree with the criticisms that SAO gets, because later material (like the Progressive movies) and even the SAO Abridged series showcase those flaws. But with the right timing, premise, and even with a different take on the Isekai genre, I think SAO found a fanbase that simply accepted it for what it is.
@@duskkoala It's decent and I love the premise. But when watching the Progressive movies that came out a while back, the characters ended up having more personality and emotional reactions that the first season struggled to have. I think if SAO was remade with different voice actors, they could improve on it. But it's nowhere near the worst, or even bad, animes out there.
I like how none of the critcisms are valid, in fact if we apply them against " good " anime these anime would be considered bad Mushoku tensei literally has every single " flaw " SAO has yet it's not hated lol
I still think Asuna as one of my favorite protagonist. At least here in the US, anime wasn’t crazy popular like it is now. I think if it did come out now it wouldn’t stand out as much as it did back then
@@duskkoala Well, that's about where all the things i remember end, after catching the Death Gun it just revolves around playing the new VR game and then there's the "thing" [spoiler - read more] that makes the season 3 - Alicization happen. "thing" - geting hit with a needle with some deadly drug
I'm thinking about watching only season 1 and then playing the psp game that picks up from floor 76 to 100. It seems to be really good at the start, as everyone keeps praising the first season alone.
I was in the service when SAO was first airing, I'd head back to the barracks waiting to check in on the latest episode cuz the dub hadn't even started yet and my most recent memories were the Alfhiem arc. I believe we all reach a time when that character that always prevails, always gets the girl, always has the answer is what we need to see and hear. Its wish fulfillment, do all the things we would struggle with in our real lives, make us feel like maybe we could be like him when we fall to our lowest. The service was rough but as I struggled and fell and picked myself up again, I started to realize it was okay that I didn't have the innate gifts that let Kirito thrive in the environment he found himself in. And as I racked up scars but hard won triumphs too, I couldn't really relate or project onto Kirito anymore: everything just seemed to fall in his favor, he seemed too...perfect. I gravitate more towards flawed characters these days, not even just the heroes but the villains too cuz despite having so little going for them-they prevail through ingenuity and sheer grit. When I'm at my lowest, nursing bruises and watching the latest episode in my room I can think...if they can pull through, maybe I can to.
Hey thanks for watching! I would recommend watching the school anime video next. And I totally get that certain series we can grow out of. And it does get harder to find characters to relate to. But rewatching Kirito v heathcliff still felt just as exciting to watch
I just recently became acquainted with this anime and I will say that the first 2 seasons (for me) were excellent until I read LN. I still like them, but I understand that the way the story is shown in LN and in the anime is clearly a lot of confusion. Because of this, I don’t like season 3, because in LN, literally half of the entire arc is internal monologues of characters that for some reason they refused to adapt. In the first seasons, internal monologues weren’t as prominent, but still a lot. And this is probably the main problem of this anime, the directors were unable to properly adapt the LN, because they simply threw out the internal monologues. But I’ll add on my own behalf that I still don’t understand the kind of hate that is being poured out on this anime, although it seems to me that what’s being hated more is not the anime itself, but the fact that it gave the green light to the isekai genre. From the point of view of history, the anime is very good, there are a number of very important aspects that are highlighted in it and in general it is easy to watch, but it is still hated mercilessly, although recently, people like you have begun to wonder why so many hate and it turns out that many themselves cannot understand why, simply because everyone says so. And yes, I agree with you that the moment of popularity of the SAO will come again.
I kept hearing the LN was good. I still really like it. Top anime moment is when Kirito reveals dual wielding. It was just really popular and it became the thing to do. Did SAO abridged help with that? Possibly. But I think SAO is one of those series has lasted beyond that. Much like Attack on Titan. Which use to get hate from the non anime fans.
@@duskkoala I probably didn’t express myself quite correctly, I like SAO. And I don’t consider it a bad anime, but on the contrary, very good. I mentioned LN because it describes many moments very well, especially through monologues, which for some reason were not adapted into anime, season 3 especially suffers from this. It’s just that as much as you understand the internal state of the characters, their motives, etc.. from monologues, the motives, goals, etc.. of the characters in the anime are just as unclear to you. And this is downright frustrating, if they had adapted at least 20 percent of the most important monologues, the anime would have benefited from it.
@@duskkoalaThe abridged is overrated and not that funny. Sense all the jokes are that the characters are poorly written assholes that are 1 dimensional racists. And overall it’s regarded as “the best anime abridged” when it doesn’t do anything different or creative. While the main series is great! And still going while the abridged is rotting were it belongs
@@duskkoala you would miss a lot if you skip to Alicization, the anime already does a rather poor job of portraying kirito from the light novels source material let alone if you skip half the anime
SAO fans has this strange grip over its fans Sunk cost fallacy hits hard Many other shows where they have op characters or mc who is defyinging the odds They build up for those fights but in SAO, they just happen and thats it Novels are meh read and anime that came after just went more worse than novels Its not worst show out there but definitely not the best or greatest of all time like many has said it to be Its more like Friends/BBT of anime Moment you create better taste and look back, you will ask yourself "Why i watched this shiet"
If you are like that you will never enjoy any shows because you will always be critical and comparing the masterpieces to every average show. I'm for sure you hate demon slayer. Better to stop using social media. Even going outside will not save you. Just be content and happy on what life throws at you. Comparison is the thief of joy
For me personally, Kirito's progression makes no f*cking sense. How do you overpower an adult (Sugou) and make him piss his pants by putting a knife on his neck; beat what's essentially a cyborg (Eiji) in Ordinal Scale just by practicing kendo for a week but couldn't fight off a maniac with a syringe?
Allow me to regale you with a discourse on the lamentable spectacle that is Sword Art Online. Verily, I must opine that this televised dramatization is akin to a banquet of canine fecal matter served upon fine china. Its narrative structure, akin to a labyrinthine maze constructed by an inebriated rodent, leaves one in a state of perpetual befuddlement. The characters, caricatures masquerading as protagonists, lack depth akin to the shallowest of puddles in the street. One is compelled to exclaim, with the utmost decorum, that this production is a disservice to the art form it purports to represent. Indeed, one is left pondering whether one's time would have been better spent partaking in a leisurely stroll through the most dreary of locales, rather than subjecting oneself to the drudgery of Sword Art Online.
Goku was not "overpowered" in Dragonball. He was strong, but not unbeatable and there were times where he was disadvantaged, outmatched, and sometimes REALLY close to dying, so no, he wasn't OP. He didn't even win every fight. And to top it all off, his strength was exceptional for a reason, but even then he wasn't unbeatable. He even had weaknesses like his tail which he eventually overcame. Goku wasn't just "too strong", his victories were earned and if you're comparing that to Kirito, you should watch the series again.
It’s typical shonen writing. That are twist and outliers. But new power to fit the situation is nothing new. Why so defensive over Goku, a fictional character? I’m very interested in the psychology of it. It’s kind of my thing.
@@duskkoala I'm not being defensive, I'm stating facts. You can't call a character overpowered when they're not able to effortlessly get over everything. You'd have poor media literacy to not see the difference between a character like Goku, and a character like Kirito.
I kind of wish SAO would for the lack of a better term get a remaster. Where all the current seasons and films would get more spacing. Like the SAO arc would get more episodes focusing on Kirito leveling up and episodes focusing on the other characters like Asuni and the others. In general in the SAO arc a lot of the floors we're jumped past in the story and I do get why. the ALO and GGO arcs already tacked that for the most part same with the 3rd and 4th season but it would still be cool to see a rework of the 1st arc
It does feel like the world and concept of SAO had a lot more put into it. I agree I would love to see Kirito level grind. Instead of just showing up 20 levels ahead of everyone else.
@@duskkoala after reading through the comment section in here i gotta say a lot of the issues people are having with it could be resolved with a rework. like the inner monologues being incorporated, the side characters getting more screentime (like Sachi and that guild forgot the name sry) and in general less time skips in the Aincrad arc. Imo Seasons 2-4 did for a good part resolve these issues especially season 3 and 4. But having said all of that SAO had it's issues in hindsight and I think they got blown out of proportion. A main subject that I think has to be mentioned too is that I see some cultural differences too. and AOT was a major factor
Sword Art Online: Progressive Movie - Aria of a Starless Night This is a movie that retells the beginning of Sword Art Online from Asuna's perspective. Why a prim and proper mommy's girl who had no experience with video games managed to get trapped in Sword Art Online, how she went from a girl who had no idea how to navigate her menus to a leader of a major guild, and more details about everything that happened leading up to the final battle against the first floor boss. Another SAO progressive movie came out covering a few more floors, but I didn't like that one as much.
sao is hated because they LEFT the SAO game half way through the FIRST season and then had like 4 more season. they had ALO, GGO and the Alice one and that forgot the main thing about the SAO series, the GAME ITSELF SWORD ART ONLINE. the series skipped a LOT of the fun to watch and important stuff like how did he NOT DIE AFTER BEING KILLED level up where does he do it quests bosses fights how does he learn skills where did he drop his MAIN SWORD. how did he get close to the government. the anime left so much uncovered that its super annoying it could've been very interesting to watch kirito learn how to do things and become the OP mc that he is. the anime did become good again at the 3rd and 4th season where the main plot was about the game and things about it like they explained how they level up they had different "skills" and the story was about kirito and his friend using they're swords, mind and skills to win the fights. every fight had a meaning to everything it was the way that they should've does the ALO arc and the 2nd season in my opinion.
I always thought it would make a good jrpg. Just because so much happens. I had forgotten about his first guild being wiped out too. I wish it showed how he even got out of that one
It would have been a legendary anime much talked about discussed if it has only been one season And tat too done properly , and end with Asuna and Kirito ending together . The author should have branched off the mc to other new characters bringing new themes , personas .
The only thing that's super unrealistic about the show is the game getting funding to keep running the servers.... One guy having control over all of that is so fucking unrealistic, and keeping it running with god knows what money for 2 fucking years is even more so.
I think if you can get past the overuse of fan service shots, and the cousin crush, the rest of the story is fine. Asuna arguably is the main protagonist of the second half of season 2, so both her and Kirito have story arcs where they’re helpless and need saving, assuming you actually watched all of it.
@duskkoala It is worth it for the Mothers Rosario (second half of season 2) storyline. Probably the best part of SAO in my opinion. It's almost hard to believe it's the same writers.
Honestly, SAO was on of my first if not THE first anime I've ever watched. Honestly, I loved it very much! However, I do wish the aincrad arc was more spaced out. I feel like it was too rushed, and jumped around a little too randomly. Where the show loses its audience, is the alfheim arc and I could see why. It was pretty random, making Asuna pretty useless for the most part. Nonetheless, I watched every season of SAO, and I still enjoy it to this day.
Thank you for watching! What do you think is the second best part to watch? And I do think that videos back then influenced people who didn’t watch SAO. All they probably saw was a review and never gave it a chance. But to those of us that did watch it, that world is still unforgettable (︶ω︶)
I think the Alicization war arc, both part 1 and 2 was definitely entertaining to watch. (at least for me) I enjoyed how they had characters from all seasons of the anime, and even some characters from ordinal scale. It was pretty refreshing to watch!
for me personally I didn't surprised to how this title goes. since the beginning it has many huge plot holes that I believe a lot of people already knows. at first people defended with saying "it's fine, it's still good" forgetting that trying to build big title with holes from the beginning never gonna end well, it's like waiting a bomb to explode, and then finally it's start to crumble
That’s really good criticism for the anime. From other watchers comments, it seems part of the problem was how it was adapted. I’m tempted to give the light novels a chance. I’m just bad a retaining what I read from books
I love it! I love the universe in SAO, the story in it, how all what's happening affect the real world in SAO, and how all of that changes the future... What I believe people hate is how the anime is focusing a lot in the relationship between Kirito and "his harem", how all the girls love him, and leaving the main story aside or in the background... One thing I wondered myself was "why aren't there any showcase about how Kirito got to be important for the government? Why the government got involved? Why the existence of the game affected the government?"... None of this was "important" for the anime, for the first season, I believe it was ok, but on the rest of the seasons the main plot shouldn't have been "Kirito and his harem", there were so many topics that would have made the anime more interesting, but they decided to just stay on the "happy situations" & "harem" side... 🤷🏻♂️ On the Alicitation season they redeemed, and now the main topic is not "Kirito's harem" (mainly because he's now practically married), but it became better for me, like "finally! I wanted to see these topics!"...
I was wondering about the government thing. I think if it were some real life scenario, he would not be allowed to go back to school. I’m use to the harem trope, but it seemed more forced than most anime.
@@duskkoala ikr? I was thinking the same, why is he still going to school??? that's exactly the problem with the anime (I haven't read the novel, that's why I focus on the anime), they try to force the harem trope just to have more "weebs" to watch it... that's why it's got the hate of a lot of people, there are so many interesting topics to focus about, but they decide to keep using the harem trope...
If I were to give rating on SAO's seasons I'd give S1 (100/10), S2 (8/10), S3-4 boring. The alice thing is what made me hate the last 2 seasons, the animation is fire tho its just the story that made me hate it.
I think we’re all use to even homemade animations. So story is what can make a series stand out. At the time SAOs story was pretty unique. A lot more simplified than .hack was too.
80 percent of hate is because of bandwagoning, 10 is because they don't like the uncomfortable parts of the show but we've all been on the net long enough to know it's highly plausible if not possible for the hard r to be a legitimate threat in this situation and not even a minor one but probably a major one as well as order 66, but disliking an element of a story for personal reason doesn't make an anime bad, and finally the last part are people who generally don't like self insert anime etc, so yeah Sao popularity in a nutshell
Dude thanks for watching! I think a lot of the people who hated it didn’t even watch it. It’s kind of how the my hero fanbase turned a lot of people off with their dance videos. But the anime itself is really good.
@@duskkoala right i remember when i first heard of my hero i thought it wasn't gonna be good then i saw a review from a trusted tuber, and was like "oh, oh this is legit"
Insightful video! I just finished SAO's first season and enjoyed both the Aincrad and Alfheim arcs. It boggles my mind why this series is hated so passionately. I came back into anime in 2023 and picked up Is It Wrong.. In a Dungeon season one cheap in a Sentai sale and thoroughly enjoyed it. IMDb recommended SAO for fans of that show and I went into SAO blind not knowing about the hate heaped upon it. I've just watched MB's videos and others trashing SAO but me, I still love it. Yeah, the bro-crush subplot was weird but not a dealbreaker. Exciting episodes had me eager to watch the next. On to Season 2!
Goku may be Overpowered but his enemies always were even stronger so he still had a challenge, same with deku who had to first learn how to us one for all while kirito is op from the start and never had a real match
Kirito would get crushed by every other protagonist. Except Subaru. Whom he could kick the crap out even without superpowers. Because Subaru fails at life so bad. That he can't even end it all.
Aincrad Arc: 7/10 ALfhim Arc: 5/10 Phantom Bullet Arc: 6/10 I forgot the one that comes here bc its so unimportant to the story. Mother's Rosario: 9/10 Ordinal Scale 8/10 Alicization: 9/10 War of The Underworld: 8/10 Overall, Mother's Rosario has and always will be my favorite arc, which is probably my bias showing because Asuna is my favorite character. I think the anime improves over time and the new arcs moon cradle and unital ring were actually very enjoyable to read. I guess I'll see how they translate to anime when it finally gete adapted.
I suggest giving Gun Gale Online Season 2 a chance. Because I've watched Gun Gale Online before Sword Art Online, my perspective is different as I accept it as an entirely different Adaptation with a different Cast and main protagonist centred more around Modern military weapons such as the Anti Tank Rifle, RPG, Grenade Launcher, etc and of course the team work.
Hate is a strong word, I remember actually being really hyped for the first and second season of SAO and then over time it just got predictable and boring, and I just moved on to other shows.
i personally like the show i like the fighting since most new gen anime is just "oo wow he went so fast we couldnt even see him" and we dont even get it animated we just see line go forward go curb go shiny sound go woosh then metal on metal onga bonga the show revolves around the main character (like most anime ive seen) but that doesnt mean its bad to me it only means one less point in writing ive herd some people complain about the animatione but i find it decent over all i find it as a 7/10 and while some people say that its a bad score 5/10 is decent soo 7/10 is good but not *GOOD*
I still really like it. I do remember it became popular to hate it. Same with attack on titan. While there are problems with every anime, I think people trashed it because it was popular
I used to hate it. And sometimes it does popped up how flawed it is. But now that looking back at it again. It is unquestionable that this is the base of what many anime that nowadays have..... And it isn't really that *BAD* compared to other series as well.....
"SAO is the Nickelback of Anime." -- Me If you're wondering "What's Nickelback?" then I will enlighten you. Nickelback was a wildly success and popular band that everyone said they hated. You probably know them from the "Look at this graph/photograph" meme.
Gun gale arc was carried by the villain. Deathgun was so cool. The entire Arc with Yuuki is my favorite in the entire anime, very sad, but Yuuki is still my favorite character in SAO. The mothers rosario episodes will always be the best in my opinion. However season 3 and 4 were freaking FIRE. the progressive movies were awesome. Ordinal Scale, the final battle was the best part. Yeah....the alfiehm arc in season 1 was...not that good. The Excalibur arc I only liked because it had actually mythology refrences and I love Excalibur. SAO was my first anime, so naturally its one of my favorites. Not sure how credible I am though...the only animes I have watched are: Sword Art Online Attack on Titan Demon Slayer Your Lie in April My Hero Academia Violet Evergarden
And SAO still holds up as a modern anime. I stopped at Gun Gale, but I’ll give it another shot. Have you seen dot hack? I have a short on it. It was made around the same time as the SAO light novels. It’s a pretty good representation of an mmo
Popular if you like dramatic irony, the only reason why SAO is still relevant, even that the author is trying to rewrite his own creation with Progressive, is SAO Abridge that is still popular till this day. In other words, SAO is popular because people make a joke out of it.
Maybe for the English speaking audience? In Japan the marketing and product release is still going. It does seem to have slowed down. But it still sells. Which is good if you’re a fan. More Asuna figures are coming!
@@duskkoala That explain the recent SAO movies Progressive, where Asuna is the main character instead of Kirito, he is in the sideline, more being a mentor figure, that not speak much, now I understand why the author is trying to rewrite the story, isn't purely for trying to get better his writing, only to sell more Asuna merchandise.
@@TheKeyser94 you got that entire thing wrong......He started writing SAO in like 2000 and the first SAO progressive light novel was released in 2012, the same year season 1 of the anime released
@@BlackBladeSombra The whole timeline when he writing this is so convoluted that is really make hard to believe what he actually saying is true, for example when he began to write Alicezation, is basically the same timeline that you are giving now. Is he savant to write hundreds of pages? Or he is making this out of his ass.
alot of people just watch it for action but the science behind it is the most amazing part how they explain everything and also te fact that if you watch it and you dont exactly understand it you might be able to believe this is actually possible. only sad part was that the first ark was to short the real sao could have been longer for my opinion.
everyone forgets that sao is no original anime. its the adaption of a light novel. The episodes are what they are, with the time skips, cause thats how the book is written. I mean the book starts on level 74 and then has some back calls here and there
I personaly like SAO, but SAOA is much better of course. Point 1: the story is good. Point 2: the seasons have the same feeling (it's action with a lick of romance) unlike fruit of evolution (1st season is action and then romance, the second is only romance with a lick of action) they just couldn't keep it between seasons. Point 3: it's one of the first animes that got me into watching anime.
It still holds up too. There’s another anime where the guy plays a vr game. But he can log out. I’ve been meaning to finish it. I think it’s somewhere in the comments. A player in a penguin suit poisons him
What I love about SAO is it had an actual reason to be an isekai that wasn't just lazy plot setup, you can see how being trapped has affected *everyone* in the story, it's not just the mc who was teleported in, and there are constant references to the real world, because it is ultimately everyone's goal to try and escape, even the people who are too afraid to risk their lives do their best to support people by gathering and distributing information or running necessary shops for the fighters with the exception of the news articles in episode 1, players are given no info on the outside world at all, it's pure speculation what the situation is like outside of sao as time passes in the anime people talk more and more casually about how their life was before everything went down, some people don't even seem bitter about the situation, asuna even says "our old world" at one point because I wish it was only 1 season long, even as a 12 year old kid with no concept of what makes a show good or not couldn't understand the point of watching past season 1 if death has no meaning anymore, it was just people playing video games
Right?! The world itself was so good! I do wish they explored more of how other players handled the game. Sachs’s story was really realistic of how a normal person would handle SAO. Thanks for watching!!!
I'm of the idea that it was the Alfheim Arc that was the problem. The Aincrad Arc was fairly good. Then it fell off during the Alfheim Arc due to Sugou the pervert and the incest angle with Leafa being into Kirito - Although given a little thought Asuna being turned into a Damsel in Distress is justified due to her being trapped in an entire world controlled by her captor without anything that could be used as a weapon and it's been a while since I've seen it but I think Sugou censored her view making it so that she saw the keypad to her cell (birdcage) the numbers were blurred out so she couldn't see them. I can understand if people who saw it as going too far and dropped it there hated it. But then the Gun Gale, the second Alfheim arc (That one that briefly took the spotlight off of Kirito and gave it to Asuna) and certainly the Alicization Arc redeemed the series. The Gun Gale Alternative spin off, starring the pink powerhouse Llenn is excellent. Overall, in my opinion, it's far from being a masterpiece like Code Geass or the various Fate series but other than Alfheim it's not bad enough to deserve the amount of hate it receives either. It's a solid mediocre anime.
the anime SAO just wasnt represented properly from its sources this applies to Magical index as well, around its release studios focused way more on Fanservice then the real content after all how else did Fairy Tail managed to last so long.....in some sense SAO is like Tokyo Ghoul last season just wasnt represented properly.
To put it short and sweet, it's because it's fanfiction-y. Kirito gets W after W with little to no sacrifice or challenge. Asuna is a complete blank slate character with no personality aside from being a Tsundere a couple of times. Same for all the chicks in Kirito's ever growing harem. There is nothing to their character other than wanting to jump Kirito's bones. Not to mention all the rapey stuff mixed in with straight up actual pedophilia in the fairy dance ark. Take out that stuff and actually have Kirito struggle for something, it probably wouldn't get near as much hate. As of rn tho, it's a 13 year olds wet dream self insert fanfiction
I do think it was aimed at a younger demographic. Where something like Re:Zero is for someone a couple years older. I just want to explore the world the game takes place in. Without the brain frying function (;ﾞ°´ω°´)
Aincraid was so good it's the only arc that I liked. In the elf arc kirito did not even train and was able to overpower the sprigann general which is absurd. Asuna became a damsel in distress instead of the cool warrior she was in aincrad.Also the over sexualisation of female characters ruined the elf arc
There's nothing wrong with a character being a damsel in distress and it's not like she stayed one for the rest of the series lol, heck Kirito himself needs saving from her later in the story, yet no one complains Also lol what a prude complaining about " muh sexualization"
The thing is, the anime for better and worst apparently adapted the fitst SAO light novels that were rushed with even the author admitting they were rushed as they were originally submitted in a contest and he had to remove alot of content to make the deadline. So he started the progressive novels which are basically sao but better before the abridged version came along. The anime ironically followed the original LNs to a T for better and worst and I'm sure if you read the original LNs and the progressive ones afterwards, you're likely going to say the originals are bad but the progressive ones are good. Overall it's no wonder the sao anime is hated cause it wouldn't shock me the LN series would be hated if the author never bothered to imrpove his writing through the progressive series. Atm, I'm enjoying the sao spin off sao alternative GGO (LN) more so than the main story and my only exposure to the main story was the anime which i thought was alright back then but after looking at the criticisms of other individuals and looking/hearing from LN readers how much better the novels are and that the anime didn't represent the stort properly.....yeah I'm sort of indifferent towards the anime now. So far I'm enjoying abridged and ggo more than the original anime or main story but i still believe the main story is much better in it's source materials than what the anime shows and the anime itself is entertaining in some aspects despite the story is definitely not that great. It wasn't my first anime but i guess you can say it was one of the first anime I've seen on Netflix. I do hold some nostalgia for sao and i do respect it for introducing me to ggo and the abridged version
There was also a stigma to liking anime back then too. At least in the US. Attack on titan was also something people use to make fun of. And even among the anime TH-camrs at the time. Now it’s so normalized if you like it no one really says anything
Another reason SAO flopped is because SAO was not the main series for the author at the time. The publishers made his other project first Accel World and made SAO on the side because why not, even though he had not finished writing it and or building the plot enough for it to make sense.
I use the "this is my first anime" excuse to justify why I gave it a 9/10. But I actually do just like it. But you're right, there is no problem with liking SAO. everyone has their own opinion and that's okay. Sometimes an anime being complete dogshit or something obscure that they relate to can make it more enjoyable for them rather than others. I gave Watamote a 9/10. I gave Yosuga no Sora an 8/10. Heck, I gave the holy grail that is Kings game a 7/10 *used to be 9 but dropped the score rewatching it.* I don't mind if people think certain anime's suck, to them that is true and to others it's different. I don't debate anime's much, I just accept their opinion.
It's definitely a case of "popular to hate", it's by no means flawless but it's definitely got a lot going for it, here's what I think: First half of Season 1 I really like but the second half aka the Alfheim arc is... not great (I think this is where a lot of the online hate comes from), I think Season 2 has a really strong first half with GGO whereas the second half I have more mixed feelings on - I think the emotional stuff with Yuuki is really powerful but outside of that the second half does have parts that feel quite padded and filler-y to me. Alicization is absolutely fantastic, best season and Alicization: War of Underworld is pretty good though I'd say the first half of the Alicization arc is the stronger part, mainly because of Eugeo, he's great, his death still hits hard...
I’ve been wanting to watch Alicization! I think the world of SAO itself made it really popular. Even now the mmo world would be pretty fun to explore in an actual game. Dude I miss 2012. Simpler times
For me the series blew its load to quickly. They killed the main villain and beat the death game to quickly. After the final boss the steaks just weren't there anymore. The parody of SAO is hilarious though.
This made me laugh lol. I don’t mind that the series kept going. But it’s like Kirito wasn’t phased by being stuck in the game force two years. Instead of ever wanting to put on the headset again
I actually went and tried out SAO myself to see if it really deserve the hate people give it or not and oh boy it ABSOLUTELY deserves ALL the hate because of how trash it is season 1 was meh cool concept, MC getting OP the instant he gets into the game, finds a cute girl wah wah wah. Second season, trash absolute trash and dog water. I had to drop it because of how bad it was.
Even the writer said that he wanted session 1 to be more about them going through all the floors and why people mostly hate it cuz the games have more characters that they could have put it in the anime but it was made fast so yea thats y people have mix feelings about soa
OP characters can exist in good media. The problem is, you can't have their OP characteristics or nature serve as part of the A-conflict (at least, usually). Phineas and Ferb is a good example. They are OP and generally can and will do whatever the hell they want, and nobody can really stop them. Hence, that aspect is almost never the A-plot of any given episode. The A plot is either Candace or Perry the Platypus and the pharmacist guy. Phineas and Ferb generally are in the background of the episodes, helping to tie the various plot threads into a single episode. In One Punch Man, Saitama's strength and impossible abilities are generally not the focus, instead, the A-plot is always the struggle and growth of the heroes Saitama's aligned himself with, while the B-plot is either machinations of the hero and villain organizations, or of Saitama looking for some level of fulfillment, usually denied because he is too strong. Dragonball Z is a power fantasy, no doubt, but calling Goku OP in his universe is generally not correct. Mostly because he's not alone at his power scaling, and is generally facing enemies that are at least able to fight him as an equal, if not overpower him entirely. Sword Art Online just fails on this level.
I know that I am way late to this video but I would like to share my opinion even if no one sees it. Sao is my all time favorite anime, and the anime that got me into anime. I have heard many opinions of people hating sao and took that into account when I rewatched it. I can see the issues with it where Kirito is centered on and overpowered. I personally think that having the main character over step the side characters all the time can get annoying, but this does get better in the Alicization arc where Kirito quite literally does nothing 😅 and gives the side characters a chance to shine. When he does finally get back in the game he does show a lot of faults that seemed invisible before, I believe the developers saw the mistake they made and tried to fix it. I also understand the hate on gun gale online, it did feel like I was watching a different anime. Still, I love the originality of sao and all its arcs, they have lovable characters and if you hate Kirito overstepping his place alicization if a must watch where the side characters get much more spotlight. Even after rewatching it and realizing all its flaws, I couldn’t stop watching it. Sao will forever be in my heart and I really recommend it to people who haven’t finished it or haven’t started it. If you seem stuck and bored at an arc, I understand, either push through it or look up a summary and go to the next arc, you really don’t know how much you are missing out.❤
I read all the comments! The Kirito vs Heathcliff fights is still one of my favorites! And the fact that he’s also played by the English voice actor of Guts makes that fight even more fun. I’m still looking forward to watching past the fun series. I didn’t keep up halfway through it
I was like 16 or 17 when I first watched SAO back when it came out. Thinking about how long ago thst was makes me feel a little depressed. Anyways, I actually enjoyed the first two seasons. I stopped around Gun Gale Online or whatever it was called. I don't remember why. Probably because I bought into the hate or I lost interest in it. But ever since then I've been seeing in the internet the anime getting so much hate and it made me think that maybe it was terrible the whole time and I just didn't realize it st the time. To be fair, I started to get into anime in my late teebs so I didn't watch a lot of anime like most kids growing uo did. Recently I was thinking about SAO and decided to give it a watch again, over 10 years later to see if people were correct or wrong about it being bad.
I still really like it! It also still has a pretty active community. Partly because VR gaming is more relevant now. And we just celebrated the actual day the game ended
I like SAO, to be fair the 2nd main arc (ALO) was a bit of a shock but it also has good parts. And the 3rd main arc (GGO) was quite intresting as well. Seeing a world with modern firearms was cool. Let alone seeing Kirito defeat them with a lightsabre going full Jedi. But the last arcs we're some of best (Alicication and War of the underworld) But I do get that points that we're made and yeah Kirito was a bit OP but the story did support that with the fact that he was a beta tester and one of the better ones back then. and again in ALO due to the stats he retained. And GGO he showed that due to the fact that he had years of experience on VR by then. IT would have been nice to get more time and more perspective in the 1st arc but hindsight is always 20/20. Over all I enjoyed watching it and imo it aged pretty well and to a degree it's predicting the future pretty well too. I'd reckon a full dive VR like in SAO is something we might see in the near future. and IF that happens it would be awesome to see SAO ALO and GGO be turned into real VRMMORPG's (just not the part where the IG death is the IRL death).
I think SAO had the perfect storm of good character design, good animation, memorable opening, interesting plot, and amazing world building. I’m not sure if the other games he plays are a bit lacking. Also Kirito working for the government felt a little silly. Are the films worth watching?
@@duskkoala the SDF plot point was indeed a bit silly but keep in mind Kirito didn't know he was working for the government. He thought he was working for a private company. and the audience didn't learn that it was a front till Asuna and the prof went to find him. Imo it was interesting especially finding out the guy from the ministry of internal affairs was a luitenant colonel with the JSDF and heading a project like the underworld. IT explained why he was so interested in Kirito. the one part that was a tad far fetched was the fluctlights imo (don't quote me on this) as they suddenly figured out how the human consciousness worked without a lot of background lore. tho they could have started work on that during the 2 years SAO was happening or even well before that. We just don't know
@@duskkoala regarding the movies not sure I still need to watch them. tho I've heard good things. I should probably note that I only watched the anime this week (started on Wednesday and finished it on Saturday) so i have been trying to catch up on everything and seeing if it's still alive or dead. was glad to find out the community is still alive and more content is possibly coming this year in Q2-4 or next year.
@@duskkoala I watched the movies last night and yes worth it. I do need to say that the 2 progressive movies do not feel like they fit within the continuity of Season 1 as some key aspects are different (I won't say what cuz I don't wanna spoil it). tho they can still fit to a large degree it's just a matter of which overrides which. But Ordinal scale is definitely part of the continuity and takes place between the Death gun and Alicization Arcs. as aspects of it come back in Season 3 and 4. so have fun watching them
i once made a "what if" meme for deviantart for if the idea for sword art online was though up and made by Rebecca sugar the creator of Steven universe.....looking back i really REALLY wish that was our reality!
S1 (actual SAO arc) was great. The GGO part of S2 was also solid. You know, long-lasting franchises generally "grow" with their audiences. Like S1-2 SAO was aimed at teens. It would make a lot of sense for the story to grow into exploring some of the more mature, existential aspects of real and virtual life, align more towards young adults. But no, with each installment, it seems to further degenerate into "OVERPOWERED PEOPLE SCREAMING LOUDLY WHILE FIGHTING", "POWER OF FRIENDSHIP", "POINTLESS OVEREXAGGERATED DRAMA" and other typical bullcrap. That's why beyond the good parts of S1 and 2 (and the GGO spinoff about the tall girl who plays a shorty), SAO doesn't really exist for me.
Sword art online was popular, does that mean few of the haters saying it dosen’t deserve to be popular and have flashy animation and art? I agree with the pacing but the rest is very great.
My deepest regret was that SAO was among the first anime series I watched in late adolescence, especially in a time where I had hype in watching new anime material at that time (FMA, Code Geass, etc.). The concept and the premise were good. The execution and delivery of the series was downright bad. It didn't had character development for anyone in the series. Additionally, they left Aincrad way more early than was supposed to. Every other season where the main characters transported to a different game (ALO, GGO, Underworld) was just a repetive pattern of the first half of the first season. Obviously, I lost interest in watching the canon series after GGO season, despite liking several soundtracks and openings before I quit. Thankfully, SAOAbridged restored what little remaimed of my love for this series.
That’s kind of the way I felt about dbz. Especially through the rewatches. SAO’s strong point was that Aincrad was actually interesting and the main focus of that first part. Where something like dragon ball has futuristic cities and tech that are never really explored.
@@duskkoala Never thought how DBZ had some flaws. Good observation. Still, I listen to SAO soundtracks occasionally. "The First Town" was kind of good music for tavern ambience. "Every Day Life" was quite the relaxation music that I would listen in an afternoon or summetime period, especially when sleeping under the shade of a building or a tree. "Luminous Sword" and "Sword Land" were quite the soundtracks for epic battle.
Okay so. Aincrad: 9/10 Fairy Dance: (2nd half of s1):7/10 (ill explain) Phantom Bullet: 8/10 Mothers Rosario:9.5/10 Ordinal Scale: 9/10 Alicization:9/10 War of the underworld: 9/10 The reason why I say all of the arcs are 8s or 9’s is just because of the stories being told are that good, and how throughout that whole time, asuna and kiritos bond just grows more, and more, and more both online and irl, and they also get closer to their friends as well. Fairy Dance (2nd half of s1) is the outlier and let me explain. Yes, the complexity of Suguha and Kirito was weird, but once you get past that, youd realize that the story is good, and no, Asuna wasnt a damsel in distress, in the beginning yes, she cried for kirito to come save her, because remember, she was 17, having some fucking creep all over her, touching her and making her uncomfortable, and she didnt even know if kirito was even alive. We see her overcome those fears and attempt to breakout multiple times. Even finding out Kirito was there to save her, found a way to still help him and everything. Fairy Dance as an arc is overhated
Thanks for watching in 2025! I think the world fairy dance took place in was mid to Aincrad. Aincrad is a world I would actually want to play in. Without the whole death thing
This anime change my teen years fr, sao and naruto is the reason why im in and enjoy anime until now season 1 and season 2 are great i enjoy this in my country wayback 2015 every weekend after that in afternoon i go in computer shop and play my favorite video game,,, the nostalgia^^ 😭 btw thank you for this video love it 🫶
That’s the same way I was affected by the sunrise anime like outlaw star and bebop. It’s good to go back and remember how you connected with them in the first place. Thanks for watching!(•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑
@@duskkoala and one thing, that time i have a girlfriend we both love sao and our call sign is Kirito (me) Asuna (my gf) and we texting and talk a lot about sao everytime and every minute and we both excited when weekend comes cuz is sao time hahahahaha
To me, I'm one of those people who didn't hate it just never got into it. I respect the show and it's fans but when I tried to watch it, I just couldn't get hooked.
I love this series and always have, so I was always confused on why people trash on it. When I was listening to people's arguments to understand why it's bad, I noticed that with some logical thinking and a bit of empathy the flaws all of their arguments could easily be explained. Anything else was just opinion, and most of the time they weren't even true to themselves, they were just recycled opinions of the masses. I even studied up on cinematography and storytelling to see if there was anything objectively wrong in the series and what I did find was wholly insignificant. I saw this anime as amazing when I first saw it, and I love it more and more every time I watch it again (and I am referring to all arcs in all seasons when I say this). Throughout all of the years, I have seen this series receive so much undeserved hate, it's time to stop. I always defend this series. Thank you so much for defending this series (or at least calling out the senseless hate). It means a lot to me.
I wouldn't disregard Kirito being OP just because it's been done in the past. It can be done if it's done right, and IMO it was not done right here Goku in Dragon Ball was incredibly strong, but equally naive and stupid. It really wasn't hard to trick him. Once he starts fighting, all tension is gone, the problem is he didn't always realize that he should be fighting, or in later cases he thinks he needs to fight more than he actually does, which leads to more unwanted trouble Saitama in OPM is incredibly strong, but he's usually just not around, off focusing on his own thing until he has time to come around. Once he starts fighting it's all over, but the problem is that he isn't always there to actually be fighting Kirito doesn't really have this. He's level headed enough to think things out before acting on them on top of being strong enough to do everything that needs to be done. That's not necessarily a bad thing for a *character,* it works for Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen, but it only works for *him* because he isn't the protagonist, whereas Kirito is. Yeah, he occasionally gets frustrated and he occasionally gets distracted, but these aren't really consistent character traits They actually had the chance to fix this in Alfheim, but they just didn't. They could've just made it so Kirito never learns the new systems introduced, including flight and magic, or for some reason can't use them, so that he's really strong, but is held back by a technical limitation. Instead, he masters them a few minutes after using them
Watch Accel World, it has its flaws but it’s still 10x better than SAO, I was never a fan of SAO after the first season because it just felt so poorly written and like some kids Wattpad story but the creator seemed to learned from his mistakes and improved with Accel World but again it’s not perfect, I hope his next project is a perfected gaming anime.
As someone already Said, SAO is basically glorifying Kirito , he is literally Mary Sue, BUT SAO IS AS FAR NOT AS BAD AS OTHER ANIME, the reason is that people did like it. They didn’t see the problems until they talked about it. But do you wanna know bad animes? How about Kämpfer, its a bad anime full of stupid fanservice and no actual good story. The actual story in the manga is bad too, dont watch it. Or how about mf ghost, where the main protagonist is substanceless and it gives fanservice over a specifically to the audience told 17 yo girl… Or how about initial d season 4- end where it was just rich snobs driving against normal people with their amateur build cars. There are far worse anime on can watch, i would therefore not be too hard on SAO, since it was for most people a enjoyable show.
SAO is hated because of its legacy. It's been ten years of everyone chasing SAO's success and i'm sick of it. This has lasted far longer than pokemania, the dark magical girl craze, the mecha boom of the 80's, the evangelion rip-offs, the Haruhi rip-offs, the original harem genre, the big three of Shonen Jump, and more. And it just keeps worse and worse. With a prostitute, hot spring, and toilet isekai being things now. Also the time skips in season 1 were intentional. The original novel went from the battle with the penis measuring monster. To the black cat guild arc, to Kirito and Asuna hooking up, to the reveal of Kayaba being Heathcliff. Silica, who was 12 at the time of Aincrad which means it was illegal to bone her even in Japan. And Lisbeth were retconned into the story and SAO progressive fills in the two years. Also Kirito was overpowered. But he has long been power crept by the likes of Ainz and especially Yatogiri. Oh yeah, and there was much raping done in the series.
Sao is actually my favorite and I likened alfhiem. It's not perfect but I could pick at any anime and find something I didn't like. I don't think it's fair to single out sao
SAO is arguably one of the worst anime series of all time (alongside Akame Ga Kill, Fairy Tail, and Berserk 2016) mainly due it's overly straightforward and generic plot revolving around a young male nerdy gamer who's apparently really been doing his homework on MMORPG's by reading the game manuals in order to know exactly where all of the secrets and power ups to get ahead of the other players were located in every given game world in the series. Along with the fact that he also happens to be a socially awkward individual, that is until he eventually discovers his true calling with women considering every girl he meets, whether it'd be his main love interest Asuna, to the sword's saleswoman Lisbeth to even his own sister (technically they're actually cousins but still) etc. The fact that the pacing of the series is absolutely absurd further escalates why SAO is often deemed an utter failure since in the first episode the plot goes from floor 1 all the way up to floor 20 in episode 2 with little to no explanation regarding character development and personal growth for any of the main characters. Which brings me to the next major flaw of the series in that the protagonist remains a static, one dimensional, good guy with no relatable personal struggles or undergoing any significant character development that encompasses his shallow, flat and unrelatable character. Last but not least probably one of the worst flaws in SAO has to be the fact that the series only goes downhill each season since in every given saga it's the same fucking thing from last season only even worse. Kirito needs to go into a virtual game world, defeat the bad guy and save girl to add to his shitty, fucking Ash Ketchum harem of girls who can't seem to get enough of his irresistible charms. It went from him being a badass, insanely overpowered swordsman in season 1, to a jedi knight in a COD esque MMORPG to now once again being an overpowered swordsman on a quest to save a virtual girl while also developing a yaoi/bromance relationship with his best friend Eugeo in season 3, like that's anything new. SAO is a series that literally does everything that implements the ideas from a typical Isekai formula but turns it into a shitty romance, harem esque, multi genre series that completely fails at every given turn and anyone who's looking for a more complex, thought provoking, non-linear narrative with an interesting and relatable protagonist as well as side characters look at something like Re: Zero because SAO definitely isn't the series you're looking for. For my overall given rating for each of the SAO seasons it goes from 4.5/10 for Season 1, 4/10 for Season 2 and 3.5/10 for Season 3 and honestly the only anime series I can think of off the top of my head that are downright worse than SAO (and other given anime I listed earlier) would be Nisekoi and School Days.
Thanks for watching! What’s your opinion on dot hack? There’s also this other vr game anime that I can’t remember the name of. I just remember the mc gets poisoned by someone with a giant penguin avatar
@@duskkoala To be honest I have no idea what dot hack is nor do I know anything about the other given vr anime that you've mentioned to me. Unless it's My life in another world with my smartphone which I haven't seen yet but I've heard also has an overly straight forward, generic plot revolving around a socially awkward nerdy gamer, who's also a flat, one-dimensional protagonist who's whole story revolves around saving girls from the bad guys to add to his shitty harem.
In season 1 the story is all about everyone tried to achieve same goal with their own way,.. i think that make it interesting while the other games not
The fact it went on for song long The fact that INCEST is part of the foundation of this series 😅 Also don’t compare progressive MCR to regressive SAO, different level
I generally use this anime as a litmus test for good taste. As in if you think it was GENUINELY good story writing/telling then I assume you are just yet to experience actual good shows. If you're watching just for fun because you like the idea of VResque deathgame and the animation then it's alright really, but no denying the sheer wasted potential of such a cool concept for me.
I’m a year late but I wish they would’ve made the actual sword art online game storyline longer. Maybe instead of jumping into another game after 14 episodes with a weird cousin not cousin romance it would’ve not been as hated. Honestly all the seasons aren’t bad, but for some reason I could NOT get into gun gale. It had a cool concept and good character of sinon but it was a snooze fest. I rewatched all of it and am on aliceization, it’s actually pretty good so far
Wait did you watch the video? The first arc should have been the 24 episodes. Crossing field playing during Kirito’s fight with Heathcliff! Best scene in the anime
Goku actually trains. Kirito is pure stat increase with nothing else. Like, he knows proper kendo, but in a game that actually allows it, does he use it? Nope, he uses the games presets instead. Harem's are dogshit in general. It is a crutch to base a story on. Much in the same vain as fan service. "Cousin that he calls his sister in real life" Was legal at the time in Japan, so no, not a fantasy. He got stabbed? Where is his prowess? Even marking real life, he had been in plenty of life or death situations before. He easily had advantage in speed and reaction over weirdo. So what happened? People aren't impressed by someone good in a game while being dogshit irl. Like we wouldn't expect dodging a bullet, but dodging a knife strike? Hell, not getting criticaled by one at least. What happened is he froze. He is not some god, he is someone that knows a game really well and attributed stat points. That isn't special. At the time, SAO was low A high B. But now? Low C to mid D. Like, if it had released today, It would be dropped as low tier isekai trash not even worthy of a second season. Hell, maybe you aren't aware of this, but trapped in a game had entries before SAO. The earliest I know of was .hack//sign, it predates SAO by 10 years anime to anime. Most people just aren't aware of that. Also, between the 2, I'd say .hack did miles better fleshing out the story and world. Like out of the 100 floors, what all did we see? under 10? Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to write all the way to floor 100. It is like they got bored and wanted to do something else. It just isn't good story writing.
Check out the short I made on .hack! You are right though. If SAO came out today, it probably wouldn’t be remembered like it is now. There is an over saturation of gaming anime
To me, SAO is like a rollercoaster. There are some stuff that I don't like to the point of me temporarily dropping it (the harem stuff, Asuna getting pushed to the side while Kirito's with another girl, the anime adaptation of the Alicization saga), but I still believe that its high points/best parts were season 1 & the movies. Especially, when they do Kirisuna stuff.
![The Genius of Sword Art Online (Abridged): Fixing What's Broken [Part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/46jzSn9SLlg/mqdefault.jpg)
I can’t fully hate SAO because despite all its faults, it birthedSAO abridged and I absolutely love it
The abridged actor for Kirito is what I remember more than the actual series till this recent rewatch 😂
I think that is a good way to think about it.
no hate, sao is still trash
I blame the adaptation and FMA's toxic MAL fanbase more than anything. That people wanted more birthing SAO Progressive, a floor by floor version of the story says the original story was good.
As for the toxic part of the FMA MAL fanbase, when SAO passed FMA's rating, they started a multi pronged attack on SAO's reputation to lower it's rating (like they did for anime rated better than their favorite). SAO ratings did recover over time.
sao abridge is dogshit, its what happens when unfunny uncreative people are not put in their place
I loved the first season, both halves. It took me multiple attempts to watch the second season because I was a lot less fond of the idea of switching to a gun based game. In time I gave it a second shot and kept watching till I caught up with all the seasons and am very pleased I have done such. I have enjoyed it so much I have picked up all the SAO Progressive Lite Novels detailing the story through the levels of Aincrad we never saw in the original lite novels nor anime, I'm loving them. SAO has become one of my favorite franchises. Thanks bro this TH-cam content creator for pointing out the original lite novel series has a lot of internal monologue the anime didn't cover. Makes me want to go read them now. I wish they kept making more anime seasons but since I am unsure they will, I will pick up the books to read the continuing stories the anime.
Hey thanks for watching! I think the source material will always be better than the adaptation. But the anime did make the story super accessible. Now we just need the vr game!
as someone who got into anime in 2022 loved sao not of fan of alfheim but legit every other arc or season has been epic cant wait for more.
Wait are they making more SAO???
i think so end of s3 it did say "kirirto will return"@@duskkoala
@@duskkoala iirc there is at least one more Main arc that didn't get an anime adaptation it's called the Unital ring arc. And possibly more films
@@duskkoalathere should be atleast one more season
I dropped it near the end of season 3 because i was watching it right before midterms, but I honestly think it gets too much if a bad rep. Did it start to feel overdone after they got out of Alfheim? For sure, but that doesnt mean I didnt enjoy the GGO arc or any of the ones that followed it. Some parts weirded me out a bit but it's really not as bad as people make it out to be.
I’m looking forward to getting through it. Did you also watch the movies?
@@duskkoala I don't believe I ever watched the movies, pretty sure I was saving them for when I finished the series (which I never ended up doing.) Although this video might have sparked enough curiosity for me to pick it back up again.
You failed your midterms and life.
Deal with it.
@@LUCKO2022 I'm actually a straight A student but whatever floats your boat lol
Honestly for me GGO was probably the strongest written part out of what i saw so far.
I love the anime all the way
Same! I was hyped watching it again. And got emotional during the ending :)
There we're a few moments that pulled on the heart strings to say the least, Yuki's death, Eugio death we're the most prominent imo. But the ending or the point Kirito and Asuni decided to stay in the Underworld for 200 years was emotional too.
I've only seen the first season of SAO, so the first two arcs. I first watched it once in high school and I remember really liking it. I missed season 2 when it came out but resolved to rewatch season 1 later and then check out S2. In that interim, I chatted with more people about it and heard some more opinions on it and I had my eyes opened to a few things.
When I finally got around to that rewatch, I made it halfway through the Alfheim arc before I stopped. I couldn't go further. And to be clear, it wasn't that arc specifically that was the problem. The problem was a very simple yet massive issue that was layered throughout the whole show. In a way, it gave me a new appreciation for the show, but yes, I do kind of hate it now.
The problem is that Kirito is the quintessential Mary Sue.
And when I say Mary Sue, I mean the _actual_ definition of the term. I know it's a name that gets overused to mean "overpowered" or "too perfect", which isn't the accurate meaning and - as you point out - isn't a bad thing in and of itself as demonstrated by other shows that make good use of overpowered protagonists.
The actual meaning of a Mary Sue and the reason that being "too perfect" gets conflated with it is "Character that everything and everyone revolves around". That's this show. That's Kirito.
The plot, all these people trapped in a virtual game with life or death stakes with no escape unless they win? It's not something that gets deeply explored and it's not something that we see a lot of perspective on. As mentioned here, it's not well paced. Because it's all just a device to make Kirito look cool. Anything that doesn't serve that purpose doesn't matter.
The action, all these different games with different classes, weapons, features, spells, abilities, bosses, etc? Filler. All of it just fills space until Kirito does something. He gets assists from time to time, but he's always on top, always in control, always the star. Obviously the main character is going to be the big focus but good grief, other people do exist and can have moments to shine. The action just too often makes Kirito the only competent hero. That's not even getting into some of the ridiculous feats that Kirito pulls off that should be beyond his skillset.
And that brings us to the worst offender. The characters. A lovable colourful and fun cast of characters across the board that all exist to make Kirito look better when he stands next to them. Talented people are shafted. Clever people look foolish. People who take any kind of issue with Kirito turn out to be the worst scumbags possible. A guy beats Kirito in a fight once and he turns out to be physically unbeatable for that to be considered possible.
And of course the girls. Intelligent, independent and assertive until Kirito is slightly nice to them and they all almost immediately fall head over heels for him, assumedly giving birth to a whole generation of 'nice guys'. Every single one of them ultimately there to be saved by Kirito in one way or another. Every single one of them regularly treated like possessions by the plot, objects by the camera and sex toys by the villains. Again, all of it just to glorify how nice and heroic Kirito is and none of it really exploring them and their perspective beyond how they can be used by the writer to make Kirito more perfect.
So yeah, whether conscious of all these issues or not, I suspect some to all of that is a big part of why people hate Sword Art Online.
Because Kirito is a giant Mary Sue. And the use of a Mary Sue is horrible horrible writing
I would have loved to explore Kirito’s normal everyday life. Like how different he is without the crutch of sao for his personality. I think him having a bad school life would have gave him more depth. And motivation to be the best in the game.
I definitely agree with the Mary Sue analogy, looking back at it, there definitely is truth to it. However, I think SAO got the "Nickelback treatment", it was really popular until people started sharing what they didn't like about it. Most people I know absolutely loved it after first watching it, but the more and more they read other people's opinions about it, they liked it less and less. Don't get me wrong, the Mary Sue part is very true, but I think many people's first impression was very positive. Also, the Alice Arc actually has a lot of depth to it, while Kirito is still OP, other characters get a lot more meaning and personality. Also, yes, the Harem part is very unnecessary (mentioned in my comment), but the relationship with Asuna was really cute and heartwarming. Romantic stories get a bad wrap nowadays, but I think SAO's main characters worked really well together and were very likeable. With all that said, I think your comment holds a fair point
You really never understood what Sao actually about.
It's not about a boy (loser, useless, non talented, mentally weak and has no experience with the tech) who's going to play the game and get from weak to stronger throughout the game. It's about a boy (smart, talented, has been playing video games and building machines from childhood and mentally strong) who's going to make the real world and virtual world a lot more closer. And remember one thing. In the real world your physical attributes makes you stronger. But in the virtual world your mental attributes makes you stronger. So don't try to mix both power system together. And you are saying that someone who's mentally strong, smart has a lot of experience , talented. Shouldn't be the strongest. Is there any logic behind that? And you expect a zero to hero type MC who has no experience or IQ is going to do all these shit? Why can't you accept a strong and talented MC?
Sao isn't an anime that's zero to hero. It's about hero to superhero.
Of course he'll be the star and main focus of the show. It's not Naruto Shippuden or some shit where they'll put all the focuses on the side characters. Even though they did focused on Sinon, asuna, eugeo, Alice more than kirito. They also focused on other characters like leafa, Klein, yuuna, yijji. But kirito isn't their shadow or something so he'll get the spotlight more often.
As for why he gets girls. firstly there's only 4 girls loves him. Or used to love him. And there's reason of course. Cuz he's handsome, strong, smart, responsible, has a good personality and is able to communicate in the right tune needed. If that doesn't make a girl like you then what else would? Unlike other anime those girls didn't fall for nothing. There was beautiful reasons behind them as well. And they has shown their thoughts about it too unlike other anime where they just act like it's totally normal. The girls in this anime doesn't pop out of nowhere. Btw how many girls did kirito kissed? Are you really going to call it a harem? They are just friends and these shit happens with friends.
But the anytuber made silica looks like his lover while she's like a younger sister. And most importantly he didn't go to steal someone else's girl. It's the girls who choose him. He didn't choose. He's loyal to asuna. You guys didn't saw an actual harem.
And as for the story. I think you didn't understood it. That's why you think it's badly written. while it's actually perfectly written.
You owe the author a big apology.
@@tanvirt17.06 You clearly understand the mastery of writing that this show represents on a level beyond the ken of mere mortals. Far be it from me to strip you of your divine nirvana, brother.
I'm not apologising though. Partly because I don't know where the author lives and I ain't no stalker.
I think you're right about the Mary Sue Kirito, but I think that's not all of it, Kirito actually has some development through the Sachi arc (first 3 episodes lol), and how he is always solo bc he can't really get with other people, so he gives it a chance to be with other people and they all die, that's so hard, and I love the redemption of being able to get with more people from there on.
HOWEVER, that's only the first 3 episodes and I'd like to explore more of that face of him or be able to explore more deeply other characters instead of just "hey look at me, I'm cool I'm gonna save you all" like it is from there on. Later you can see him feel emotionaly weak by his own and has to rely on asuna some times, which is again great, but we only get to see few scene from that... and Alfheim on, it's all a mess. I really enjoyed the progressive movie tho, it gives a really nice reboot to the series exploring more of Asuna's character withouth leaving kirito on the side and I hope they rebooted the whole Aincrad arc like so.
As a VR enthusiast, I've always found the concept of SAO really interesting. Using technology to escape reality only to be trapped in a virtual world is so ironic. The world may not be real, but to the people who perceive it with all of their senses, it is real.
I've tried reading the light novel and I thought the first 3 chapters were really immersive. However, then the timeskip happened and I realized that this wouldn't be a story about survival.
The only piece of SAO media that I genuinely loved was the first Progressive movie. THAT was the story I've been wanting to see. It focused solely on Asuna adapting to the new environment and touched on the existential questions, too.
Is that the latest movie?
@@duskkoalaIt came out in 2021 (Aria of a Starless Night)
it's not interesting it's messed up and sick. only a monster would come up with a messed-up idea. at end of the day it would be a waste of money to kill your consumers. who is gonna keep buying your VR tech if you kill them?
Something I realized about SAO is that it's technically an Isekai anime. While a virtual reality game, it's still a world that our MC gets sent to and is trapped there, forced to become OP in order to face dangerous threats and so on. The 3rd season takes it to a whole new level with a new virtual reality where the NPCs are copies of actual humans, unaware that they are in a fantasy world simulation.
I can understand and even agree with the criticisms that SAO gets, because later material (like the Progressive movies) and even the SAO Abridged series showcase those flaws. But with the right timing, premise, and even with a different take on the Isekai genre, I think SAO found a fanbase that simply accepted it for what it is.
I like it. All around it’s a pretty decent anime too.
@@duskkoala It's decent and I love the premise. But when watching the Progressive movies that came out a while back, the characters ended up having more personality and emotional reactions that the first season struggled to have.
I think if SAO was remade with different voice actors, they could improve on it. But it's nowhere near the worst, or even bad, animes out there.
I like how none of the critcisms are valid, in fact if we apply them against " good " anime these anime would be considered bad
Mushoku tensei literally has every single " flaw " SAO has yet it's not hated lol
I still think Asuna as one of my favorite protagonist. At least here in the US, anime wasn’t crazy popular like it is now. I think if it did come out now it wouldn’t stand out as much as it did back then
Mushoku tensei maybe has the "flaws", but it's one of the main things about it and that makes them not flaws. but SAO is more about the game itself.
@@animationmaster_4 what kind of mental gymnastics is this
The Alfhaim arc never existed.
It was just season 1, then straight to gun gale. Nothing else
Was gun gale worth watching? I never got past ep 6
@@duskkoala Well, that's about where all the things i remember end, after catching the Death Gun it just revolves around playing the new VR game and then there's the "thing" [spoiler - read more] that makes the season 3 - Alicization happen.
"thing" - geting hit with a needle with some deadly drug
I'm thinking about watching only season 1 and then playing the psp game that picks up from floor 76 to 100.
It seems to be really good at the start, as everyone keeps praising the first season alone.
That dosen’t work
I was in the service when SAO was first airing, I'd head back to the barracks waiting to check in on the latest episode cuz the dub hadn't even started yet and my most recent memories were the Alfhiem arc. I believe we all reach a time when that character that always prevails, always gets the girl, always has the answer is what we need to see and hear. Its wish fulfillment, do all the things we would struggle with in our real lives, make us feel like maybe we could be like him when we fall to our lowest.
The service was rough but as I struggled and fell and picked myself up again, I started to realize it was okay that I didn't have the innate gifts that let Kirito thrive in the environment he found himself in. And as I racked up scars but hard won triumphs too, I couldn't really relate or project onto Kirito anymore: everything just seemed to fall in his favor, he seemed too...perfect.
I gravitate more towards flawed characters these days, not even just the heroes but the villains too cuz despite having so little going for them-they prevail through ingenuity and sheer grit. When I'm at my lowest, nursing bruises and watching the latest episode in my room I can think...if they can pull through, maybe I can to.
Hey thanks for watching! I would recommend watching the school anime video next. And I totally get that certain series we can grow out of. And it does get harder to find characters to relate to. But rewatching Kirito v heathcliff still felt just as exciting to watch
Thing is kirito definitely isn’t perfect he has tons of moments where he fails and even in the GGO part he has trauma about the people he killed.
Stop yapping
My younger brother & I love watching SAO we hope season 5 comes soon 😊
Even the movies? Show him my death of the week short with Sachi. I moved around a lot of the audio from the clips to make it work.
I just recently became acquainted with this anime and I will say that the first 2 seasons (for me) were excellent until I read LN. I still like them, but I understand that the way the story is shown in LN and in the anime is clearly a lot of confusion.
Because of this, I don’t like season 3, because in LN, literally half of the entire arc is internal monologues of characters that for some reason they refused to adapt.
In the first seasons, internal monologues weren’t as prominent, but still a lot.
And this is probably the main problem of this anime, the directors were unable to properly adapt the LN, because they simply threw out the internal monologues.
But I’ll add on my own behalf that I still don’t understand the kind of hate that is being poured out on this anime, although it seems to me that what’s being hated more is not the anime itself, but the fact that it gave the green light to the isekai genre.
From the point of view of history, the anime is very good, there are a number of very important aspects that are highlighted in it and in general it is easy to watch, but it is still hated mercilessly, although recently, people like you have begun to wonder why so many hate and it turns out that many themselves cannot understand why, simply because everyone says so.
And yes, I agree with you that the moment of popularity of the SAO will come again.
I kept hearing the LN was good. I still really like it. Top anime moment is when Kirito reveals dual wielding. It was just really popular and it became the thing to do. Did SAO abridged help with that? Possibly. But I think SAO is one of those series has lasted beyond that. Much like Attack on Titan. Which use to get hate from the non anime fans.
@@duskkoala I probably didn’t express myself quite correctly, I like SAO.
And I don’t consider it a bad anime, but on the contrary, very good.
I mentioned LN because it describes many moments very well, especially through monologues, which for some reason were not adapted into anime, season 3 especially suffers from this. It’s just that as much as you understand the internal state of the characters, their motives, etc.. from monologues, the motives, goals, etc.. of the characters in the anime are just as unclear to you.
And this is downright frustrating, if they had adapted at least 20 percent of the most important monologues, the anime would have benefited from it.
@@duskkoalaThe abridged is overrated and not that funny. Sense all the jokes are that the characters are poorly written assholes that are 1 dimensional racists. And overall it’s regarded as “the best anime abridged” when it doesn’t do anything different or creative. While the main series is great! And still going while the abridged is rotting were it belongs
I love all of SAO but however if I could get rid of anything it would be ALO
Thanks for watching in 2025“ヽ(´▽｀)ノ”
@ yeah I’m on a SAO high recently
this is my favorite anime. does not deserve the hate.
It’s already one of those shows that people heard of but haven’t seen yet.
First season and Alicization rocks, but I felt like every other season should of been a spinoff with a new protagonist.
Would I miss anything if I just skip to Alicization? You all are convincing me to watch it instead of doing the research for the next video 😂
@@vidgamenate ggo was good
@@duskkoala you would miss a lot if you skip to Alicization, the anime already does a rather poor job of portraying kirito from the light novels source material let alone if you skip half the anime
It’s just nostalgic for me being my 2nd anime but the flaws are really obvious while I try to ignore them
You should check out dot hack legend of the twilight and dot hack sign! See how you like the world of that game!
i dont care what anyone says i will always love this animae
It’s so good! And aside from some plot holes, this anime still holds up to current series
you both are cl0wns then enjoy your dookie hot garbage anime then lmao, keep c0ping cl0wns
SAO fans has this strange grip over its fans
Sunk cost fallacy hits hard
Many other shows where they have op characters or mc who is defyinging the odds
They build up for those fights but in SAO, they just happen and thats it
Novels are meh read and anime that came after just went more worse than novels
Its not worst show out there but definitely not the best or greatest of all time like many has said it to be
Its more like Friends/BBT of anime
Moment you create better taste and look back, you will ask yourself
"Why i watched this shiet"
I get that all the time making the shorts. I’ll go back and watch something and forget how cheesy it was. But I think they’re still worth watching.
If you are like that you will never enjoy any shows because you will always be critical and comparing the masterpieces to every average show. I'm for sure you hate demon slayer.
Better to stop using social media. Even going outside will not save you. Just be content and happy on what life throws at you.
Comparison is the thief of joy
For me personally, Kirito's progression makes no f*cking sense.
How do you overpower an adult (Sugou) and make him piss his pants by putting a knife on his neck; beat what's essentially a cyborg (Eiji) in Ordinal Scale just by practicing kendo for a week but couldn't fight off a maniac with a syringe?
Hey thanks for watching! I think someone said his leveling makes more sense in the light novels. I’m actually curious to read them.
Then it was luck.
Allow me to regale you with a discourse on the lamentable spectacle that is Sword Art Online. Verily, I must opine that this televised dramatization is akin to a banquet of canine fecal matter served upon fine china. Its narrative structure, akin to a labyrinthine maze constructed by an inebriated rodent, leaves one in a state of perpetual befuddlement. The characters, caricatures masquerading as protagonists, lack depth akin to the shallowest of puddles in the street. One is compelled to exclaim, with the utmost decorum, that this production is a disservice to the art form it purports to represent. Indeed, one is left pondering whether one's time would have been better spent partaking in a leisurely stroll through the most dreary of locales, rather than subjecting oneself to the drudgery of Sword Art Online.
I like when Kirito uses two swords to fight
(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
Sao is overhated and its really fucking good
I do wish we saw Kirito make it to the last floor
Goku was not "overpowered" in Dragonball. He was strong, but not unbeatable and there were times where he was disadvantaged, outmatched, and sometimes REALLY close to dying, so no, he wasn't OP. He didn't even win every fight. And to top it all off, his strength was exceptional for a reason, but even then he wasn't unbeatable. He even had weaknesses like his tail which he eventually overcame. Goku wasn't just "too strong", his victories were earned and if you're comparing that to Kirito, you should watch the series again.
It’s typical shonen writing. That are twist and outliers. But new power to fit the situation is nothing new. Why so defensive over Goku, a fictional character? I’m very interested in the psychology of it. It’s kind of my thing.
@@duskkoala I'm not being defensive, I'm stating facts. You can't call a character overpowered when they're not able to effortlessly get over everything. You'd have poor media literacy to not see the difference between a character like Goku, and a character like Kirito.
I kind of wish SAO would for the lack of a better term get a remaster. Where all the current seasons and films would get more spacing.
Like the SAO arc would get more episodes focusing on Kirito leveling up and episodes focusing on the other characters like Asuni and the others. In general in the SAO arc a lot of the floors we're jumped past in the story and I do get why. the ALO and GGO arcs already tacked that for the most part same with the 3rd and 4th season but it would still be cool to see a rework of the 1st arc
It does feel like the world and concept of SAO had a lot more put into it. I agree I would love to see Kirito level grind. Instead of just showing up 20 levels ahead of everyone else.
@@duskkoala after reading through the comment section in here i gotta say a lot of the issues people are having with it could be resolved with a rework.
like the inner monologues being incorporated, the side characters getting more screentime (like Sachi and that guild forgot the name sry) and in general less time skips in the Aincrad arc.
Imo Seasons 2-4 did for a good part resolve these issues especially season 3 and 4.
But having said all of that SAO had it's issues in hindsight and I think they got blown out of proportion. A main subject that I think has to be mentioned too is that I see some cultural differences too. and AOT was a major factor
Sword Art Online: Progressive Movie - Aria of a Starless Night
This is a movie that retells the beginning of Sword Art Online from Asuna's perspective. Why a prim and proper mommy's girl who had no experience with video games managed to get trapped in Sword Art Online, how she went from a girl who had no idea how to navigate her menus to a leader of a major guild, and more details about everything that happened leading up to the final battle against the first floor boss.
Another SAO progressive movie came out covering a few more floors, but I didn't like that one as much.
sao is hated because they LEFT the SAO game half way through the FIRST season and then had like 4 more season.
they had ALO, GGO and the Alice one and that forgot the main thing about the SAO series, the GAME ITSELF SWORD ART ONLINE.
the series skipped a LOT of the fun to watch and important stuff like how did he NOT DIE AFTER BEING KILLED level up where does he do it quests bosses fights how does he learn skills where did he drop his MAIN SWORD.
how did he get close to the government. the anime left so much uncovered that its super annoying it could've been very interesting to watch kirito learn how to do things and become the OP mc that he is.
the anime did become good again at the 3rd and 4th season where the main plot was about the game and things about it like they explained how they level up they had different "skills"
and the story was about kirito and his friend using they're swords, mind and skills to win the fights. every fight had a meaning to everything it was the way that they should've does the ALO arc and the 2nd season in my opinion.
I always thought it would make a good jrpg. Just because so much happens. I had forgotten about his first guild being wiped out too. I wish it showed how he even got out of that one
@@duskkoala exactly they just forgot about it and left it like it didnt happend like 2 eps after
It would have been a legendary anime much talked about discussed if it has only been one season
And tat too done properly , and end with Asuna and Kirito ending together .
The author should have branched off the mc to other new characters bringing new themes , personas .
The only thing that's super unrealistic about the show is the game getting funding to keep running the servers.... One guy having control over all of that is so fucking unrealistic, and keeping it running with god knows what money for 2 fucking years is even more so.
That and people still playing games with their nerve gear after the sao incident. It would be outright banned.
I think if you can get past the overuse of fan service shots, and the cousin crush, the rest of the story is fine. Asuna arguably is the main protagonist of the second half of season 2, so both her and Kirito have story arcs where they’re helpless and need saving, assuming you actually watched all of it.
Still can’t get past the gun game. I do want to finish sao. It still holds up to modern anime
@duskkoala It is worth it for the Mothers Rosario (second half of season 2) storyline. Probably the best part of SAO in my opinion. It's almost hard to believe it's the same writers.
Honestly, SAO was on of my first if not THE first anime I've ever watched. Honestly, I loved it very much! However, I do wish the aincrad arc was more spaced out. I feel like it was too rushed, and jumped around a little too randomly. Where the show loses its audience, is the alfheim arc and I could see why. It was pretty random, making Asuna pretty useless for the most part. Nonetheless, I watched every season of SAO, and I still enjoy it to this day.
Thank you for watching! What do you think is the second best part to watch? And I do think that videos back then influenced people who didn’t watch SAO. All they probably saw was a review and never gave it a chance. But to those of us that did watch it, that world is still unforgettable (︶ω︶)
I think the Alicization war arc, both part 1 and 2 was definitely entertaining to watch. (at least for me) I enjoyed how they had characters from all seasons of the anime, and even some characters from ordinal scale. It was pretty refreshing to watch!
for me personally I didn't surprised to how this title goes. since the beginning it has many huge plot holes that I believe a lot of people already knows. at first people defended with saying "it's fine, it's still good" forgetting that trying to build big title with holes from the beginning never gonna end well, it's like waiting a bomb to explode, and then finally it's start to crumble
That’s really good criticism for the anime. From other watchers comments, it seems part of the problem was how it was adapted. I’m tempted to give the light novels a chance. I’m just bad a retaining what I read from books
I love it! I love the universe in SAO, the story in it, how all what's happening affect the real world in SAO, and how all of that changes the future...
What I believe people hate is how the anime is focusing a lot in the relationship between Kirito and "his harem", how all the girls love him, and leaving the main story aside or in the background...
One thing I wondered myself was "why aren't there any showcase about how Kirito got to be important for the government? Why the government got involved? Why the existence of the game affected the government?"... None of this was "important" for the anime, for the first season, I believe it was ok, but on the rest of the seasons the main plot shouldn't have been "Kirito and his harem", there were so many topics that would have made the anime more interesting, but they decided to just stay on the "happy situations" & "harem" side... 🤷🏻♂️
On the Alicitation season they redeemed, and now the main topic is not "Kirito's harem" (mainly because he's now practically married), but it became better for me, like "finally! I wanted to see these topics!"...
I was wondering about the government thing. I think if it were some real life scenario, he would not be allowed to go back to school. I’m use to the harem trope, but it seemed more forced than most anime.
@@duskkoala ikr? I was thinking the same, why is he still going to school???
that's exactly the problem with the anime (I haven't read the novel, that's why I focus on the anime), they try to force the harem trope just to have more "weebs" to watch it... that's why it's got the hate of a lot of people, there are so many interesting topics to focus about, but they decide to keep using the harem trope...
I would dare to say that it's the producer's fault, or the director's fault... not the anime itself...
Im interested in the light novels to see what wasn’t adapted. Have they been released in English?
@@duskkoala seems like they have... but I haven't read them yet...
If I were to give rating on SAO's seasons I'd give S1 (100/10), S2 (8/10), S3-4 boring. The alice thing is what made me hate the last 2 seasons, the animation is fire tho its just the story that made me hate it.
I think we’re all use to even homemade animations. So story is what can make a series stand out. At the time SAOs story was pretty unique. A lot more simplified than .hack was too.
80 percent of hate is because of bandwagoning, 10 is because they don't like the uncomfortable parts of the show but we've all been on the net long enough to know it's highly plausible if not possible for the hard r to be a legitimate threat in this situation and not even a minor one but probably a major one as well as order 66, but disliking an element of a story for personal reason doesn't make an anime bad, and finally the last part are people who generally don't like self insert anime etc, so yeah Sao popularity in a nutshell
Dude thanks for watching! I think a lot of the people who hated it didn’t even watch it. It’s kind of how the my hero fanbase turned a lot of people off with their dance videos. But the anime itself is really good.
@@duskkoala right i remember when i first heard of my hero i thought it wasn't gonna be good then i saw a review from a trusted tuber, and was like "oh, oh this is legit"
I blame digibro and mother's basement
Also responsible for making people hate asterisk war
Insightful video! I just finished SAO's first season and enjoyed both the Aincrad and Alfheim arcs. It boggles my mind why this series is hated so passionately. I came back into anime in 2023 and picked up Is It Wrong.. In a Dungeon season one cheap in a Sentai sale and thoroughly enjoyed it. IMDb recommended SAO for fans of that show and I went into SAO blind not knowing about the hate heaped upon it. I've just watched MB's videos and others trashing SAO but me, I still love it. Yeah, the bro-crush subplot was weird but not a dealbreaker. Exciting episodes had me eager to watch the next. On to Season 2!
I heard the movies were also good! I think why I really like it was because of the world of the game. Reminds me of Oblivion.
Honestly I think the problem is more with the adaptation than the actual source material.
It probably never was going to be perfect. Even dot hack has its problems
Goku may be Overpowered but his enemies always were even stronger so he still had a challenge, same with deku who had to first learn how to us one for all while kirito is op from the start and never had a real match
Even in dot hack sign, Tsukasa got beat down by the knights in that game. But I do think him being really good at the game is part of the isekai
Kirito would get crushed by every other protagonist. Except Subaru. Whom he could kick the crap out even without superpowers. Because Subaru fails at life so bad. That he can't even end it all.
He never had a "real match" because he's never come to beat much of bigger foes, obstacles or bosses alone.
Aincrad Arc: 7/10
ALfhim Arc: 5/10
Phantom Bullet Arc: 6/10
I forgot the one that comes here bc its so unimportant to the story.
Mother's Rosario: 9/10
Ordinal Scale 8/10
Alicization: 9/10
War of The Underworld: 8/10
Overall, Mother's Rosario has and always will be my favorite arc, which is probably my bias showing because Asuna is my favorite character. I think the anime improves over time and the new arcs moon cradle and unital ring were actually very enjoyable to read. I guess I'll see how they translate to anime when it finally gete adapted.
The progressive movies were actually better than all of the first 3 arcs of the show. For me movie 1 is a 9/10 and 2 is an 8/10.
I needed this list!
I suggest giving Gun Gale Online Season 2 a chance. Because I've watched Gun Gale Online before Sword Art Online, my perspective is different as I accept it as an entirely different Adaptation with a different Cast and main protagonist centred more around Modern military weapons such as the Anti Tank Rifle, RPG, Grenade Launcher, etc and of course the team work.
Hate is a strong word, I remember actually being really hyped for the first and second season of SAO and then over time it just got predictable and boring, and I just moved on to other shows.
It was being pushed as a major franchise. And I think being put along side something like AOT helped and hurt it’s longevity.
I really enjoyed this show and even after rewatching I still really enjoy SAO season 1. Can’t say that for the rest.
Is season 1 the best season?
@@duskkoala yes the first season is the best alheim online was mid and I didn’t enjoy Gun gale online but I haven’t watch alicasation yet
i personally like the show i like the fighting since most new gen anime is just "oo wow he went so fast we couldnt even see him" and we dont even get it animated we just see line go forward go curb go shiny sound go woosh then metal on metal onga bonga
the show revolves around the main character (like most anime ive seen) but that doesnt mean its bad to me it only means one less point in writing ive herd some people complain about the animatione but i find it decent
over all i find it as a 7/10 and while some people say that its a bad score 5/10 is decent soo 7/10 is good but not *GOOD*
I still really like it. I do remember it became popular to hate it. Same with attack on titan. While there are problems with every anime, I think people trashed it because it was popular
I used to hate it. And sometimes it does popped up how flawed it is. But now that looking back at it again. It is unquestionable that this is the base of what many anime that nowadays have..... And it isn't really that *BAD* compared to other series as well.....
And it’s time of those series that still stands out amount thousands of other series
"SAO is the Nickelback of Anime." -- Me
If you're wondering "What's Nickelback?" then I will enlighten you. Nickelback was a wildly success and popular band that everyone said they hated. You probably know them from the "Look at this graph/photograph" meme.
I’ve liked Nickelback since Hero!
Gun gale arc was carried by the villain. Deathgun was so cool. The entire Arc with Yuuki is my favorite in the entire anime, very sad, but Yuuki is still my favorite character in SAO. The mothers rosario episodes will always be the best in my opinion.
However season 3 and 4 were freaking FIRE. the progressive movies were awesome. Ordinal Scale, the final battle was the best part.
Yeah....the alfiehm arc in season 1 was...not that good. The Excalibur arc I only liked because it had actually mythology refrences and I love Excalibur.
SAO was my first anime, so naturally its one of my favorites.
Not sure how credible I am though...the only animes I have watched are:
Sword Art Online
Attack on Titan
Demon Slayer
Your Lie in April
My Hero Academia
Violet Evergarden
And SAO still holds up as a modern anime. I stopped at Gun Gale, but I’ll give it another shot. Have you seen dot hack? I have a short on it. It was made around the same time as the SAO light novels. It’s a pretty good representation of an mmo
@duskkoala I have not, but I'm definitely going to add that to my watch list
So I’ve only seen the first 2 seasons because the other ones are just weird but the first 2 are great and you can’t change me mind.
That first arc does so much that a lot of series can’t do in 50 episodes. My favorite part is Kirito getting the chance to end the game early
SAO Abridged parody version by Something Witty is better than the original.
Original still holds up to the newest anime
@@duskkoala no
Popular if you like dramatic irony, the only reason why SAO is still relevant, even that the author is trying to rewrite his own creation with Progressive, is SAO Abridge that is still popular till this day. In other words, SAO is popular because people make a joke out of it.
Maybe for the English speaking audience? In Japan the marketing and product release is still going. It does seem to have slowed down. But it still sells. Which is good if you’re a fan. More Asuna figures are coming!
@@duskkoala That explain the recent SAO movies Progressive, where Asuna is the main character instead of Kirito, he is in the sideline, more being a mentor figure, that not speak much, now I understand why the author is trying to rewrite the story, isn't purely for trying to get better his writing, only to sell more Asuna merchandise.
@@TheKeyser94 you got that entire thing wrong......He started writing SAO in like 2000 and the first SAO progressive light novel was released in 2012, the same year season 1 of the anime released
@@BlackBladeSombra The whole timeline when he writing this is so convoluted that is really make hard to believe what he actually saying is true, for example when he began to write Alicezation, is basically the same timeline that you are giving now. Is he savant to write hundreds of pages? Or he is making this out of his ass.
alot of people just watch it for action but the science behind it is the most amazing part how they explain everything and also te fact that if you watch it and you dont exactly understand it you might be able to believe this is actually possible. only sad part was that the first ark was to short the real sao could have been longer for my opinion.
I would sit through Kirito going through the 99 floors
everyone forgets that sao is no original anime. its the adaption of a light novel. The episodes are what they are, with the time skips, cause thats how the book is written. I mean the book starts on level 74 and then has some back calls here and there
He says interesting. Still haven’t gotten around to reading them
I personaly like SAO, but SAOA is much better of course. Point 1: the story is good. Point 2: the seasons have the same feeling (it's action with a lick of romance) unlike fruit of evolution (1st season is action and then romance, the second is only romance with a lick of action) they just couldn't keep it between seasons. Point 3: it's one of the first animes that got me into watching anime.
It still holds up too. There’s another anime where the guy plays a vr game. But he can log out. I’ve been meaning to finish it. I think it’s somewhere in the comments. A player in a penguin suit poisons him
What I love about SAO is it had an actual reason to be an isekai that wasn't just lazy plot setup, you can see how being trapped has affected *everyone* in the story, it's not just the mc who was teleported in, and there are constant references to the real world, because it is ultimately everyone's goal to try and escape, even the people who are too afraid to risk their lives do their best to support people by gathering and distributing information or running necessary shops for the fighters
with the exception of the news articles in episode 1, players are given no info on the outside world at all, it's pure speculation what the situation is like outside of sao
as time passes in the anime people talk more and more casually about how their life was before everything went down, some people don't even seem bitter about the situation, asuna even says "our old world" at one point because
I wish it was only 1 season long, even as a 12 year old kid with no concept of what makes a show good or not couldn't understand the point of watching past season 1 if death has no meaning anymore, it was just people playing video games
Right?! The world itself was so good! I do wish they explored more of how other players handled the game. Sachs’s story was really realistic of how a normal person would handle SAO. Thanks for watching!!!
I'm of the idea that it was the Alfheim Arc that was the problem. The Aincrad Arc was fairly good. Then it fell off during the Alfheim Arc due to Sugou the pervert and the incest angle with Leafa being into Kirito - Although given a little thought Asuna being turned into a Damsel in Distress is justified due to her being trapped in an entire world controlled by her captor without anything that could be used as a weapon and it's been a while since I've seen it but I think Sugou censored her view making it so that she saw the keypad to her cell (birdcage) the numbers were blurred out so she couldn't see them. I can understand if people who saw it as going too far and dropped it there hated it. But then the Gun Gale, the second Alfheim arc (That one that briefly took the spotlight off of Kirito and gave it to Asuna) and certainly the Alicization Arc redeemed the series. The Gun Gale Alternative spin off, starring the pink powerhouse Llenn is excellent. Overall, in my opinion, it's far from being a masterpiece like Code Geass or the various Fate series but other than Alfheim it's not bad enough to deserve the amount of hate it receives either.
It's a solid mediocre anime.
And it’s really popular in Japan. I wish they explored more about the limited release of SAO. And how people like the kids in the orphanage got it.
the anime SAO just wasnt represented properly from its sources this applies to Magical index as well, around its release studios focused way more on Fanservice then the real content after all how else did Fairy Tail managed to last so long.....in some sense SAO is like Tokyo Ghoul last season just wasnt represented properly.
That’s the kind of insight I was looking for! Mostly because the narratives in novels are a lot different then the normal anime direction :)
@@duskkoala Welcome
To put it short and sweet, it's because it's fanfiction-y. Kirito gets W after W with little to no sacrifice or challenge.
Asuna is a complete blank slate character with no personality aside from being a Tsundere a couple of times.
Same for all the chicks in Kirito's ever growing harem. There is nothing to their character other than wanting to jump Kirito's bones.
Not to mention all the rapey stuff mixed in with straight up actual pedophilia in the fairy dance ark.
Take out that stuff and actually have Kirito struggle for something, it probably wouldn't get near as much hate. As of rn tho, it's a 13 year olds wet dream self insert fanfiction
I do think it was aimed at a younger demographic. Where something like Re:Zero is for someone a couple years older. I just want to explore the world the game takes place in. Without the brain frying function (;ﾞ°´ω°´)
Aincraid was so good it's the only arc that I liked. In the elf arc kirito did not even train and was able to overpower the sprigann general which is absurd. Asuna became a damsel in distress instead of the cool warrior she was in aincrad.Also the over sexualisation of female characters ruined the elf arc
I think that the world of Aincraid was super fleshed out. Which is why it really stands out in the whole series.
There's nothing wrong with a character being a damsel in distress and it's not like she stayed one for the rest of the series lol, heck Kirito himself needs saving from her later in the story, yet no one complains
Also lol what a prude complaining about " muh sexualization"
The thing is, the anime for better and worst apparently adapted the fitst SAO light novels that were rushed with even the author admitting they were rushed as they were originally submitted in a contest and he had to remove alot of content to make the deadline. So he started the progressive novels which are basically sao but better before the abridged version came along. The anime ironically followed the original LNs to a T for better and worst and I'm sure if you read the original LNs and the progressive ones afterwards, you're likely going to say the originals are bad but the progressive ones are good.
Overall it's no wonder the sao anime is hated cause it wouldn't shock me the LN series would be hated if the author never bothered to imrpove his writing through the progressive series. Atm, I'm enjoying the sao spin off sao alternative GGO (LN) more so than the main story and my only exposure to the main story was the anime which i thought was alright back then but after looking at the criticisms of other individuals and looking/hearing from LN readers how much better the novels are and that the anime didn't represent the stort properly.....yeah I'm sort of indifferent towards the anime now.
So far I'm enjoying abridged and ggo more than the original anime or main story but i still believe the main story is much better in it's source materials than what the anime shows and the anime itself is entertaining in some aspects despite the story is definitely not that great. It wasn't my first anime but i guess you can say it was one of the first anime I've seen on Netflix. I do hold some nostalgia for sao and i do respect it for introducing me to ggo and the abridged version
There was also a stigma to liking anime back then too. At least in the US. Attack on titan was also something people use to make fun of. And even among the anime TH-camrs at the time. Now it’s so normalized if you like it no one really says anything
Another reason SAO flopped is because SAO was not the main series for the author at the time. The publishers made his other project first Accel World and made SAO on the side because why not, even though he had not finished writing it and or building the plot enough for it to make sense.
Also the Dub is just terrible doesn't give the anime the justice it deserves just watch it in Sub.
Do you think abridged series had any effect on the perception of SAO in western countries? It’s a topic I would like to explore.
@@duskkoala Most animes at that time had an abridged so I doubt it affected it other then playing into some of its own memes I guess
It's a great anime, I've never really cared what others like or not, I don't have a herd mindset.
Exactly, who cares what others say. If I like it, I like it. There's nothing others can do to change it.
I genuinely loved every part of SAO nobody can change my mind.
Were the movies good? I’ve been wanting to watch them!
@@duskkoala all the movies are good
I use the "this is my first anime" excuse to justify why I gave it a 9/10. But I actually do just like it.
But you're right, there is no problem with liking SAO. everyone has their own opinion and that's okay.
Sometimes an anime being complete dogshit or something obscure that they relate to can make it more enjoyable for them rather than others.
I gave Watamote a 9/10. I gave Yosuga no Sora an 8/10. Heck, I gave the holy grail that is Kings game a 7/10 *used to be 9 but dropped the score rewatching it.*
I don't mind if people think certain anime's suck, to them that is true and to others it's different. I don't debate anime's much, I just accept their opinion.
Yes! For me I love the world. And the characters are really well designed.
SAO progressive is vastly underrated, and that is a hill I will die on.
Still haven’t gotten to it yet. Keep hearing it’s really good
It's definitely a case of "popular to hate", it's by no means flawless but it's definitely got a lot going for it, here's what I think: First half of Season 1 I really like but the second half aka the Alfheim arc is... not great (I think this is where a lot of the online hate comes from), I think Season 2 has a really strong first half with GGO whereas the second half I have more mixed feelings on - I think the emotional stuff with Yuuki is really powerful but outside of that the second half does have parts that feel quite padded and filler-y to me. Alicization is absolutely fantastic, best season and Alicization: War of Underworld is pretty good though I'd say the first half of the Alicization arc is the stronger part, mainly because of Eugeo, he's great, his death still hits hard...
I’ve been wanting to watch Alicization! I think the world of SAO itself made it really popular. Even now the mmo world would be pretty fun to explore in an actual game. Dude I miss 2012. Simpler times
For me the series blew its load to quickly. They killed the main villain and beat the death game to quickly. After the final boss the steaks just weren't there anymore. The parody of SAO is hilarious though.
This made me laugh lol. I don’t mind that the series kept going. But it’s like Kirito wasn’t phased by being stuck in the game force two years. Instead of ever wanting to put on the headset again
I can’t listen to kirito without hearing a docile eren Yeager 🤣
He was everywhere at this time! My favorite being Sugo in .hack legend of the twilight and Henry in fire emblem awakening
but I love SAO abridged!
Wait a minute...
Did they end up finishing it? The last one I saw was Kirito vs Heathcliff
(//°ꈊ°//)
@@duskkoala they're still on it xd
I actually went and tried out SAO myself to see if it really deserve the hate people give it or not and oh boy it ABSOLUTELY deserves ALL the hate because of how trash it is season 1 was meh cool concept, MC getting OP the instant he gets into the game, finds a cute girl wah wah wah. Second season, trash absolute trash and dog water. I had to drop it because of how bad it was.
Ultimately I just want to explore Aincrad more than anything. And see how people formed things like laughing coffin
Calling it “trash” is not a credible statement.
Even the writer said that he wanted session 1 to be more about them going through all the floors and why people mostly hate it cuz the games have more characters that they could have put it in the anime but it was made fast so yea thats y people have mix feelings about soa
I think the light novel readers were saying that the anime loses the inner monologue that Kirito has
OP characters can exist in good media. The problem is, you can't have their OP characteristics or nature serve as part of the A-conflict (at least, usually). Phineas and Ferb is a good example. They are OP and generally can and will do whatever the hell they want, and nobody can really stop them. Hence, that aspect is almost never the A-plot of any given episode. The A plot is either Candace or Perry the Platypus and the pharmacist guy. Phineas and Ferb generally are in the background of the episodes, helping to tie the various plot threads into a single episode.
In One Punch Man, Saitama's strength and impossible abilities are generally not the focus, instead, the A-plot is always the struggle and growth of the heroes Saitama's aligned himself with, while the B-plot is either machinations of the hero and villain organizations, or of Saitama looking for some level of fulfillment, usually denied because he is too strong.
Dragonball Z is a power fantasy, no doubt, but calling Goku OP in his universe is generally not correct. Mostly because he's not alone at his power scaling, and is generally facing enemies that are at least able to fight him as an equal, if not overpower him entirely.
Sword Art Online just fails on this level.
I was just talking about Perry the Platypus today lol
I never knew they hated Yuki also😭
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I know that I am way late to this video but I would like to share my opinion even if no one sees it. Sao is my all time favorite anime, and the anime that got me into anime. I have heard many opinions of people hating sao and took that into account when I rewatched it. I can see the issues with it where Kirito is centered on and overpowered. I personally think that having the main character over step the side characters all the time can get annoying, but this does get better in the Alicization arc where Kirito quite literally does nothing 😅 and gives the side characters a chance to shine. When he does finally get back in the game he does show a lot of faults that seemed invisible before, I believe the developers saw the mistake they made and tried to fix it. I also understand the hate on gun gale online, it did feel like I was watching a different anime. Still, I love the originality of sao and all its arcs, they have lovable characters and if you hate Kirito overstepping his place alicization if a must watch where the side characters get much more spotlight. Even after rewatching it and realizing all its flaws, I couldn’t stop watching it. Sao will forever be in my heart and I really recommend it to people who haven’t finished it or haven’t started it. If you seem stuck and bored at an arc, I understand, either push through it or look up a summary and go to the next arc, you really don’t know how much you are missing out.❤
I read all the comments! The Kirito vs Heathcliff fights is still one of my favorites! And the fact that he’s also played by the English voice actor of Guts makes that fight even more fun. I’m still looking forward to watching past the fun series. I didn’t keep up halfway through it
I was like 16 or 17 when I first watched SAO back when it came out. Thinking about how long ago thst was makes me feel a little depressed. Anyways, I actually enjoyed the first two seasons. I stopped around Gun Gale Online or whatever it was called. I don't remember why. Probably because I bought into the hate or I lost interest in it.
But ever since then I've been seeing in the internet the anime getting so much hate and it made me think that maybe it was terrible the whole time and I just didn't realize it st the time. To be fair, I started to get into anime in my late teebs so I didn't watch a lot of anime like most kids growing uo did.
Recently I was thinking about SAO and decided to give it a watch again, over 10 years later to see if people were correct or wrong about it being bad.
I still really like it! It also still has a pretty active community. Partly because VR gaming is more relevant now. And we just celebrated the actual day the game ended
I like SAO, to be fair the 2nd main arc (ALO) was a bit of a shock but it also has good parts.
And the 3rd main arc (GGO) was quite intresting as well. Seeing a world with modern firearms was cool. Let alone seeing Kirito defeat them with a lightsabre going full Jedi. But the last arcs we're some of best (Alicication and War of the underworld)
But I do get that points that we're made and yeah Kirito was a bit OP but the story did support that with the fact that he was a beta tester and one of the better ones back then. and again in ALO due to the stats he retained. And GGO he showed that due to the fact that he had years of experience on VR by then. IT would have been nice to get more time and more perspective in the 1st arc but hindsight is always 20/20.
Over all I enjoyed watching it and imo it aged pretty well and to a degree it's predicting the future pretty well too. I'd reckon a full dive VR like in SAO is something we might see in the near future. and IF that happens it would be awesome to see SAO ALO and GGO be turned into real VRMMORPG's (just not the part where the IG death is the IRL death).
I think SAO had the perfect storm of good character design, good animation, memorable opening, interesting plot, and amazing world building. I’m not sure if the other games he plays are a bit lacking. Also Kirito working for the government felt a little silly. Are the films worth watching?
@@duskkoala the SDF plot point was indeed a bit silly but keep in mind Kirito didn't know he was working for the government. He thought he was working for a private company. and the audience didn't learn that it was a front till Asuna and the prof went to find him. Imo it was interesting especially finding out the guy from the ministry of internal affairs was a luitenant colonel with the JSDF and heading a project like the underworld. IT explained why he was so interested in Kirito. the one part that was a tad far fetched was the fluctlights imo (don't quote me on this) as they suddenly figured out how the human consciousness worked without a lot of background lore. tho they could have started work on that during the 2 years SAO was happening or even well before that. We just don't know
@@duskkoala regarding the movies not sure I still need to watch them. tho I've heard good things. I should probably note that I only watched the anime this week (started on Wednesday and finished it on Saturday) so i have been trying to catch up on everything and seeing if it's still alive or dead. was glad to find out the community is still alive and more content is possibly coming this year in Q2-4 or next year.
@@duskkoala I watched the movies last night and yes worth it.
I do need to say that the 2 progressive movies do not feel like they fit within the continuity of Season 1 as some key aspects are different (I won't say what cuz I don't wanna spoil it). tho they can still fit to a large degree it's just a matter of which overrides which.
But Ordinal scale is definitely part of the continuity and takes place between the Death gun and Alicization Arcs. as aspects of it come back in Season 3 and 4.
so have fun watching them
i once made a "what if" meme for deviantart for if the idea for sword art online was though up and made by Rebecca sugar the creator of Steven universe.....looking back i really REALLY wish that was our reality!
That’s so cool! Did you have anything drawn for it?
@@duskkoala not that i posted on the internet and can show you rn, i'm not very good at replicating other people's art style's
S1 (actual SAO arc) was great. The GGO part of S2 was also solid.
You know, long-lasting franchises generally "grow" with their audiences. Like S1-2 SAO was aimed at teens. It would make a lot of sense for the story to grow into exploring some of the more mature, existential aspects of real and virtual life, align more towards young adults.
But no, with each installment, it seems to further degenerate into "OVERPOWERED PEOPLE SCREAMING LOUDLY WHILE FIGHTING", "POWER OF FRIENDSHIP", "POINTLESS OVEREXAGGERATED DRAMA" and other typical bullcrap.
That's why beyond the good parts of S1 and 2 (and the GGO spinoff about the tall girl who plays a shorty), SAO doesn't really exist for me.
Really like this comment. Power levels are definitely a thing that shonen fans prioritize now
Sword art online was popular, does that mean few of the haters saying it dosen’t deserve to be popular and have flashy animation and art? I agree with the pacing but the rest is very great.
I still wish they got to the final floor of Aincrad. Even with the knowledge of Hayaba
My deepest regret was that SAO was among the first anime series I watched in late adolescence, especially in a time where I had hype in watching new anime material at that time (FMA, Code Geass, etc.). The concept and the premise were good. The execution and delivery of the series was downright bad. It didn't had character development for anyone in the series. Additionally, they left Aincrad way more early than was supposed to. Every other season where the main characters transported to a different game (ALO, GGO, Underworld) was just a repetive pattern of the first half of the first season. Obviously, I lost interest in watching the canon series after GGO season, despite liking several soundtracks and openings before I quit.
Thankfully, SAOAbridged restored what little remaimed of my love for this series.
That’s kind of the way I felt about dbz. Especially through the rewatches. SAO’s strong point was that Aincrad was actually interesting and the main focus of that first part. Where something like dragon ball has futuristic cities and tech that are never really explored.
@@duskkoala Never thought how DBZ had some flaws. Good observation.
Still, I listen to SAO soundtracks occasionally. "The First Town" was kind of good music for tavern ambience. "Every Day Life" was quite the relaxation music that I would listen in an afternoon or summetime period, especially when sleeping under the shade of a building or a tree. "Luminous Sword" and "Sword Land" were quite the soundtracks for epic battle.
I didn't mind SAO, I just didn't like the repeated trope of making the villains being creepers.
Think of it from a Japanese perspective. Thats probably a villain you would most likely find irl
Okay so.
Aincrad: 9/10
Fairy Dance: (2nd half of s1):7/10 (ill explain)
Phantom Bullet: 8/10
Mothers Rosario:9.5/10
Ordinal Scale: 9/10
Alicization:9/10
War of the underworld: 9/10
The reason why I say all of the arcs are 8s or 9’s is just because of the stories being told are that good, and how throughout that whole time, asuna and kiritos bond just grows more, and more, and more both online and irl, and they also get closer to their friends as well.
Fairy Dance (2nd half of s1) is the outlier and let me explain. Yes, the complexity of Suguha and Kirito was weird, but once you get past that, youd realize that the story is good, and no, Asuna wasnt a damsel in distress, in the beginning yes, she cried for kirito to come save her, because remember, she was 17, having some fucking creep all over her, touching her and making her uncomfortable, and she didnt even know if kirito was even alive. We see her overcome those fears and attempt to breakout multiple times. Even finding out Kirito was there to save her, found a way to still help him and everything. Fairy Dance as an arc is overhated
Thanks for watching in 2025! I think the world fairy dance took place in was mid to Aincrad. Aincrad is a world I would actually want to play in. Without the whole death thing
This anime change my teen years fr, sao and naruto is the reason why im in and enjoy anime until now season 1 and season 2 are great i enjoy this in my country wayback 2015 every weekend after that in afternoon i go in computer shop and play my favorite video game,,, the nostalgia^^ 😭 btw thank you for this video love it 🫶
That’s the same way I was affected by the sunrise anime like outlaw star and bebop. It’s good to go back and remember how you connected with them in the first place. Thanks for watching!(•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑
@@duskkoala and one thing, that time i have a girlfriend we both love sao and our call sign is Kirito (me) Asuna (my gf) and we texting and talk a lot about sao everytime and every minute and we both excited when weekend comes cuz is sao time hahahahaha
To me, I'm one of those people who didn't hate it just never got into it. I respect the show and it's fans but when I tried to watch it, I just couldn't get hooked.
I do think it has its place as a +13 plus anime. And later popular shows like demon slayer are more like +16 purely for the violence.
SAO top ten isekais for sure. Also very flawed no cap.
Thes another anime like sao where they can log out. I don’t remember what it’s called. But I’ve been trying to find it
"full dive" or VRMMO might be the right search terms. There's one in the current season, Shangrila Frontier.
I love this series and always have, so I was always confused on why people trash on it.
When I was listening to people's arguments to understand why it's bad,
I noticed that with some logical thinking and a bit of empathy the flaws all of their arguments could easily be explained.
Anything else was just opinion, and most of the time they weren't even true to themselves, they were just recycled opinions of the masses.
I even studied up on cinematography and storytelling to see if there was anything objectively wrong in the series and what I did find was wholly insignificant.
I saw this anime as amazing when I first saw it, and I love it more and more every time I watch it again (and I am referring to all arcs in all seasons when I say this).
Throughout all of the years, I have seen this series receive so much undeserved hate, it's time to stop.
I always defend this series.
Thank you so much for defending this series (or at least calling out the senseless hate). It means a lot to me.
It’s time to bring out the Asuna shirts! But really Kirito duel wielding and fighting Kaiyaba to finish the game we’re the most hyped moments!
I wouldn't disregard Kirito being OP just because it's been done in the past. It can be done if it's done right, and IMO it was not done right here
Goku in Dragon Ball was incredibly strong, but equally naive and stupid. It really wasn't hard to trick him. Once he starts fighting, all tension is gone, the problem is he didn't always realize that he should be fighting, or in later cases he thinks he needs to fight more than he actually does, which leads to more unwanted trouble
Saitama in OPM is incredibly strong, but he's usually just not around, off focusing on his own thing until he has time to come around. Once he starts fighting it's all over, but the problem is that he isn't always there to actually be fighting
Kirito doesn't really have this. He's level headed enough to think things out before acting on them on top of being strong enough to do everything that needs to be done. That's not necessarily a bad thing for a *character,* it works for Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen, but it only works for *him* because he isn't the protagonist, whereas Kirito is. Yeah, he occasionally gets frustrated and he occasionally gets distracted, but these aren't really consistent character traits
They actually had the chance to fix this in Alfheim, but they just didn't. They could've just made it so Kirito never learns the new systems introduced, including flight and magic, or for some reason can't use them, so that he's really strong, but is held back by a technical limitation. Instead, he masters them a few minutes after using them
Being a gamer is his plot armor. Imagine if Kirito spent his time playing FPS games instead
Watch Accel World, it has its flaws but it’s still 10x better than SAO,
I was never a fan of SAO after the first season because it just felt so poorly written and like some kids Wattpad story but the creator seemed to learned from his mistakes and improved with Accel World but again it’s not perfect, I hope his next project is a perfected gaming anime.
I think a lot of the appeal is wishing an actual game would let you be that interactive. The closest thing we have to that is vr chat.
Ahh sao, the golden goose for anime e celeb back in the days.
And the anime still holds up! It’s why we still see Kirito figures in stores
As someone already Said, SAO is basically glorifying Kirito , he is literally Mary Sue, BUT SAO IS AS FAR NOT AS BAD AS OTHER ANIME, the reason is that people did like it. They didn’t see the problems until they talked about it. But do you wanna know bad animes? How about Kämpfer, its a bad anime full of stupid fanservice and no actual good story. The actual story in the manga is bad too, dont watch it.
Or how about mf ghost, where the main protagonist is substanceless and it gives fanservice over a specifically to the audience told 17 yo girl…
Or how about initial d season 4- end where it was just rich snobs driving against normal people with their amateur build cars.
There are far worse anime on can watch, i would therefore not be too hard on SAO, since it was for most people a enjoyable show.
I think the bad press from a lot of people online has died down. Now if you like SAO it’s not a big deal. Sam with AOT
The same reason I hated Nirvana even while people cried about Kurt. I like SAO though.
SAO is hated because of its legacy. It's been ten years of everyone chasing SAO's success and i'm sick of it. This has lasted far longer than pokemania, the dark magical girl craze, the mecha boom of the 80's, the evangelion rip-offs, the Haruhi rip-offs, the original harem genre, the big three of Shonen Jump, and more. And it just keeps worse and worse. With a prostitute, hot spring, and toilet isekai being things now.
Also the time skips in season 1 were intentional. The original novel went from the battle with the penis measuring monster. To the black cat guild arc, to Kirito and Asuna hooking up, to the reveal of Kayaba being Heathcliff. Silica, who was 12 at the time of Aincrad which means it was illegal to bone her even in Japan. And Lisbeth were retconned into the story and SAO progressive fills in the two years.
Also Kirito was overpowered. But he has long been power crept by the likes of Ainz and especially Yatogiri.
Oh yeah, and there was much raping done in the series.
Thanks for watching! My favorite genre is 90s space anime. I do think Kirito is a better hero than Tsukasa from dot hack
Sao is actually my favorite and I likened alfhiem. It's not perfect but I could pick at any anime and find something I didn't like. I don't think it's fair to single out sao
Did you get a chance to watch dot hack? Legend of the Twilight is my favorite. It’ll scratch that mmo anime itch
Yep@@duskkoala
The show is really good at making characters you hate so much, you start to celebrate whenever that character gets beat.
Still a huge Kirito fan
after reading 16.5, 4:14 gains a new light...
Lol I had to skip to that part to see what you meant
SAO is arguably one of the worst anime series of all time (alongside Akame Ga Kill, Fairy Tail, and Berserk 2016) mainly due it's overly straightforward and generic plot revolving around a young male nerdy gamer who's apparently really been doing his homework on MMORPG's by reading the game manuals in order to know exactly where all of the secrets and power ups to get ahead of the other players were located in every given game world in the series. Along with the fact that he also happens to be a socially awkward individual, that is until he eventually discovers his true calling with women considering every girl he meets, whether it'd be his main love interest Asuna, to the sword's saleswoman Lisbeth to even his own sister (technically they're actually cousins but still) etc.
The fact that the pacing of the series is absolutely absurd further escalates why SAO is often deemed an utter failure since in the first episode the plot goes from floor 1 all the way up to floor 20 in episode 2 with little to no explanation regarding character development and personal growth for any of the main characters. Which brings me to the next major flaw of the series in that the protagonist remains a static, one dimensional, good guy with no relatable personal struggles or undergoing any significant character development that encompasses his shallow, flat and unrelatable character.
Last but not least probably one of the worst flaws in SAO has to be the fact that the series only goes downhill each season since in every given saga it's the same fucking thing from last season only even worse. Kirito needs to go into a virtual game world, defeat the bad guy and save girl to add to his shitty, fucking Ash Ketchum harem of girls who can't seem to get enough of his irresistible charms. It went from him being a badass, insanely overpowered swordsman in season 1, to a jedi knight in a COD esque MMORPG to now once again being an overpowered swordsman on a quest to save a virtual girl while also developing a yaoi/bromance relationship with his best friend Eugeo in season 3, like that's anything new.
SAO is a series that literally does everything that implements the ideas from a typical Isekai formula but turns it into a shitty romance, harem esque, multi genre series that completely fails at every given turn and anyone who's looking for a more complex, thought provoking, non-linear narrative with an interesting and relatable protagonist as well as side characters look at something like Re: Zero because SAO definitely isn't the series you're looking for.
For my overall given rating for each of the SAO seasons it goes from 4.5/10 for Season 1, 4/10 for Season 2 and 3.5/10 for Season 3 and honestly the only anime series I can think of off the top of my head that are downright worse than SAO (and other given anime I listed earlier) would be Nisekoi and School Days.
Thanks for watching! What’s your opinion on dot hack? There’s also this other vr game anime that I can’t remember the name of. I just remember the mc gets poisoned by someone with a giant penguin avatar
@@duskkoala To be honest I have no idea what dot hack is nor do I know anything about the other given vr anime that you've mentioned to me. Unless it's My life in another world with my smartphone which I haven't seen yet but I've heard also has an overly straight forward, generic plot revolving around a socially awkward nerdy gamer, who's also a flat, one-dimensional protagonist who's whole story revolves around saving girls from the bad guys to add to his shitty harem.
In season 1 the story is all about everyone tried to achieve same goal with their own way,.. i think that make it interesting while the other games not
That’s right. And I think the government would shut down all vr gaming after SAO ended
The fact it went on for song long
The fact that INCEST is part of the foundation of this series 😅
Also don’t compare progressive MCR to regressive SAO, different level
Kirito is just step bro“ヽ(´▽｀)ノ”
they should keep the full story of the SAO and all season on same spot. death game , thats why they remake SAO season 1 ans 2 full story
Did it come out already?
Okay okay, I love SAO so much. It was like one of first animes to start. People should really stop dising on the og goat.
It was still fun watching it for the video. I think for the most part the hate for SAO died back in 2016
The worst part of the second season is the lightsaber battles are better than new Star Wars 😢
I forgot about the lightsabers 😦
I generally use this anime as a litmus test for good taste. As in if you think it was GENUINELY good story writing/telling then I assume you are just yet to experience actual good shows. If you're watching just for fun because you like the idea of VResque deathgame and the animation then it's alright really, but no denying the sheer wasted potential of such a cool concept for me.
I think part of it is that we would want to make ourselves op playing the game. It’s just differing it from the outside
I’m a year late but I wish they would’ve made the actual sword art online game storyline longer. Maybe instead of jumping into another game after 14 episodes with a weird cousin not cousin romance it would’ve not been as hated. Honestly all the seasons aren’t bad, but for some reason I could NOT get into gun gale. It had a cool concept and good character of sinon but it was a snooze fest. I rewatched all of it and am on aliceization, it’s actually pretty good so far
I heard the later parts are so much better. I’ll make my way through it eventually
I love SAO regardless and so does my father. Da fuq you mean its bad
Wait did you watch the video? The first arc should have been the 24 episodes. Crossing field playing during Kirito’s fight with Heathcliff! Best scene in the anime
@@duskkoala I saw the full anime
Goku actually trains. Kirito is pure stat increase with nothing else. Like, he knows proper kendo, but in a game that actually allows it, does he use it? Nope, he uses the games presets instead.
Harem's are dogshit in general. It is a crutch to base a story on. Much in the same vain as fan service.
"Cousin that he calls his sister in real life" Was legal at the time in Japan, so no, not a fantasy.
He got stabbed? Where is his prowess? Even marking real life, he had been in plenty of life or death situations before. He easily had advantage in speed and reaction over weirdo. So what happened? People aren't impressed by someone good in a game while being dogshit irl. Like we wouldn't expect dodging a bullet, but dodging a knife strike? Hell, not getting criticaled by one at least. What happened is he froze. He is not some god, he is someone that knows a game really well and attributed stat points. That isn't special.
At the time, SAO was low A high B. But now? Low C to mid D. Like, if it had released today, It would be dropped as low tier isekai trash not even worthy of a second season. Hell, maybe you aren't aware of this, but trapped in a game had entries before SAO. The earliest I know of was .hack//sign, it predates SAO by 10 years anime to anime. Most people just aren't aware of that. Also, between the 2, I'd say .hack did miles better fleshing out the story and world. Like out of the 100 floors, what all did we see? under 10? Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to write all the way to floor 100. It is like they got bored and wanted to do something else. It just isn't good story writing.
Check out the short I made on .hack! You are right though. If SAO came out today, it probably wouldn’t be remembered like it is now. There is an over saturation of gaming anime
alicization was really good
I keep hearing it’s what sao was meant to be
To me, SAO is like a rollercoaster.
There are some stuff that I don't like to the point of me temporarily dropping it (the harem stuff, Asuna getting pushed to the side while Kirito's with another girl, the anime adaptation of the Alicization saga), but I still believe that its high points/best parts were season 1 & the movies. Especially, when they do Kirisuna stuff.
And I think part of it is that name sao is tied to that first game. Are the movies worth going back and watching?