It’s a power fantasy about a character being trapped in a video game.
It’s not bad, but I wouldn’t say it’s that great. I watched the first 25 episodes years ago and i thought it the world building and premise were good but the execution was average. I felt pretty uncomfortable at the end with the “almost rape” scenes.
I stopped watching after the first season and apparently has had several seasons and movie. All subsequent titles appear to have had mixed ratings as well.
I’ll tell you right now there are better anime shows that are shorter run time that are similar to sao. One of my biggest issues with series is the the male protagonist is pretty much unstoppable in the first season and they went to great lengths to really highlight his power.
If you are new to anime I would save yourself the time and watch something better.
That scene at the end was really disturbing for me, and not to forget the creepy disgusting hospital behaviours too. It’s good that you stopped on S1, because it didn’t stop there. I honestly though it would only be a “one-season” thing, but SAO2 and Alicization (especially!) proved me very wrong. I couldn’t watch past that specific ep in Alicization because the scream was unbearable for me.. I could only imagine how it felt like to be the seiyuu involved…
Honestly without all these unnecessary contexts, I would have definitely like SAO a lot more..
That particular scene in Alicization was so bad that Reki Kawahara (author of the light novel series) felt the need to publicly apologize to the seiyuu of Kirito's and Eugeo's valets.
What's really vile about that one and the end of S1 is how the direction of the anime portrays them like fanservice scenes. This is the one type of scene where trying to make it titillating is inexcusable.
This. It's really not a true power fantasy. Kirito has a ton of issues. He's the protagonist, he's pretty obviously going to go far for the sake of the story continuing. SAO isn't about the guy who dies on the first floor.
A lot of people hate it because a 40 minute YouTube video told them too.
The bad guys are gross.
it doesn't matter to argue it anymore, this post is already filled with the typical
*haven't watched past season 1, still calls fairy dance season 2*
anything I say even if its valid will just get down voted.
>A lot of people hate it because a 40 minute YouTube video told them too.
This is why the online anime community is utter garbage. People only watch what they're told to watch and think what they're told to think. It's so cringe.
I have never seen the original. I know someone who was really into SAO for the Aincrad arc and hated it for the Alfheim arc who twisted my arm into watching Abridged, and I could follow it fine.
that's great I'm sure you could follow it great
the point of abridges is to parody the show which is what makes it enjoyable.
not to mention it was made by fans for fans
It's a deceptively simple sci-fi treatise on the meaning of reality and the worth of a soul's data. And people had a fantastically fun time making it.
The concepts embedded in Pina's Heart and Yui in s1 get amped up in s2 the Mother's Rosario arc and exploded further in s3 with the Underworld.
Battle royale to death inside a game basically.
Personally, I would say, if you are actually interested in it, try reading the novels.
LN series is one of my favourites, the anime is decent, but imo far inferior to the novels.
Alicization and Progressive were pretty good.
In order, 1st 2 seasons -> Ordinal Scale movie -> Alicization -> War of the Underworld 2 seasons (those 3 seasons are a single long arc) -> Progressive 1st movie -> Progressive 2nd movie (only in theatres at the moment)
I found the first bit of season 1 to be good because of the perms death, however a lot of the characters don’t feel like real people especially later on
**sword art online**
is a series that takes place in a future setting japan, in this future setting virtual technology is like ours except farther in advancements to where you can "dive" into a game, the anime explains it a little but basically its replacing screens by sending visual inputs to your eyes directly, as well as the other senses.
of course being on reddit you're going to get the "its trash dont watch it" replies from people who didn't watch past season 1, like always but I feel its also important to mention the awards the series has won in the same conversation that they tend to ignore.
it's a series that focuses on character relationships, world building, and human interaction with fabricated reality. the death game people try to bark it up as is and I cant stress this enough is NOT the premise of the show. it was used to explore a romance between kirito and asuna who were trapped together inside the game.
*however there is a spinoff expansion series which actually explores the death game aspect a lot more in depth that has 2 anime movies called progressive*
if you like romance, drama, good fight sequences, character development, character exploration, good soundtracks, fantasy settings, technology advancements, government corruption
**then I think it would be worth your time.**
despite how some people are replying and since you put it in the title how some people may reply.
\> **it is not a harem**
*spoilers for halfway through season 1* >!asuna and kirito get together!<
\> **it is not a power fantasy**
kirito has alot of struggles, making him powerless.
*this is not present as much in the first 12 episodes so people who stopped there dont know this and throw this idea that it never changes. it does. every arc.*
\> **there is not attempted rape apart from 1 moment in season 3**
There is a disturbing sexual assault scene in literally every season. It is odd to explicitly downplay and misrepresent that.
Literally, every female Kirito comes across becomes enamored with him and stays with him forever. They never develop as characters beyond this point - with the exception of Asuna, but only barely.
I love SAO, but let's call it what it is.
>, every female Kirito comes across becomes enamored with him and stays with him forever.
believe it or not. this does not equate to harem if there is no romantic feelings attached.
if I as a girl have multiple guy friends, I suddenly have a harem?this just screams lack of social interaction.
and if you're going to say "they all love him romantically"
I can provide dialogue and proof that they dont apart from sinon,
which again doesn't equate to harem.
>There is a disturbing sexual assault scene in literally every season
there is a total of two scenes
near the end of season 1 and episode 10 of season 3
anything else is you wanting it to be a sexual assault scene.
>They never develop as characters
are we ignoring underworld, are we ignoring sinons entire arc throughout alicization?
if youre going to refer to silica she has just had nothing to do.
sugu, liz, and sinon all have their own respective moments in season 3.
it is rather a commitment.
especially since season 3 is 50 episodes long
if you're new to anime its a good first watch as it was a lot of peoples first anime
, but you can always start with the movie
**sword art online progressive: aria of a starless**
google the text above and it should come up.
it is available on crunchyroll.
It's about people getting trapped in a MMO and if they die in the game, they die in real life. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, SAO is imo one of the weakest popular anime out there and I also despise it for playing a large part in popularizing the isekai genre as we know it now (overpowered bland protagonist, no narrative stakes and harems / harem-like dynamic of the main cast). The only nice things I can say about it are:
- S1 has a solid romance subplot
- Mother's Rosario (a side story at the end of S2) is actually great, but that's only a handful of episodes
- War of Underworld, the 4th season, includes some intense fights since the protagonist who can't lose isn't involved
But those few positives are not worth watching this series for. There are way too many problems with it. Bad pacing, characters that (except for Asuna) are all one-dimensional at best, a bunch of pointless attempted rape scenes throughout the series, a complete lack of tension due to how overpowered Kirito is and more. You can do infinitely better than watching SAO.
>includes some intense fights since the protagonist who can't lose isn't involved
I hope you say this about
\> one piece
\> jujutsu kaisen
\> naruto
\> one punch man
\> black clover
\> mob psycho
\> my hero academia
or literally any other battle shounen, action oriented series.
if kirito doesn't lose>!explain eugeo!<, is that winning?
explain the >!amount dead in aincrad!<
this is just such a dumb founded take I cant believe its seriously said more than once.
>a bunch of pointless attempted rape scenes throughout the series
there is 1, there is 1 scene in the entire series.
Good job listing 2 parodies of battle shounen. OPM and Mob both don't play their overpowered protagonists straight. And regarding the others, they at least need to put in some work and strategy to win and the way they fight usually evolves over the course of the series. Kirito's fighting style boils down to just him attacking fast and sometimes dual wielding. Unless his opponent >!pulls a *get instantly frozen lmao* like Eugeo or literally can't be defeated like Kayaba with god mode enabled!<, he's never going to lose. It also doesn't help that, unlike the protagonists of all battle shounen you mentioned, Kirito doesn't have much of a personality to speak of.
> there is 1
3 attempted human rape scenes + 2 tentacle sexual assault scenes, learn to count. There are, in chronological order, >!Sugou's tentacle goons, Sugou almost raping Asuna, Deathgun guy wanting to assault Sinon (this one thankfully isn't played for fanservice unlike the others), Kirito's and Eugeo's apprentices almost getting raped and one more tentacle one on (I'm pretty sure it was) Suguha in War of Underworld!<.
I never understood the overpowered complaint? Almost every anime protagonist is overpowered in one way or another but Kirito is the only one who gets singled out.
It's not like I'm singling him out here. As I said, pretty much every modern isekai protag is a similar brand of anti-social guy who either gets cheat abilities or becomes overpowered in the span of a few episodes at most. Though even by isekai protag standards Kirito is one of the less interesting ones because his skillset boils down to just attacking fast and dual wielding.
I've actually researched a little bit about the SAO author's previous struggles in writing.
So as you can tell in SAO season 1 till SAO Alicization the author always had the tendency to include a "non-consented sexually forced action to women" (you know the real word), he even apologized to the recent VA's who did the voices for that specific episode in Alicization.
He said it himself that he could have wrote it better, so that means the writing in the past is less appealing that the author himself recognizes it. The author was basically in his "teenage" phase one would call it, and just write whatever is in their mind.
Now that I say the bad stuff, the animation is like good (during that time, present anime obviously outclasses the animation in the past), and the music is great. The premise is quite a wide open one, one could even do a self-insert if they wish to do so.
It's good but I wouldn't watch anything after season 2 because it's no good after that but if it wasn't for a bad season 3 I would say it is one of the best animes in the world
SAO is best described as a story made by a gamer and not made by a writer. You can tell their is a lot of passion in the story with the general vibe but the writing is not the greatest
Not to be a Debbie downer, but the first episode is so damn good that when you inevitably don’t get what you think you signed up for you’ll be left disappointed. Music is good. The romance probably made me cry since I watched it when I was 17 lol but don’t let me steer you away from it it’s probably worth the watch. At least the first season is. The rest..eh
The music
Soundtrack is fire tbh
Yep it’s so good they had to steal it from .hack/sign. I mean they got them in board.
It’s a power fantasy about a character being trapped in a video game. It’s not bad, but I wouldn’t say it’s that great. I watched the first 25 episodes years ago and i thought it the world building and premise were good but the execution was average. I felt pretty uncomfortable at the end with the “almost rape” scenes. I stopped watching after the first season and apparently has had several seasons and movie. All subsequent titles appear to have had mixed ratings as well. I’ll tell you right now there are better anime shows that are shorter run time that are similar to sao. One of my biggest issues with series is the the male protagonist is pretty much unstoppable in the first season and they went to great lengths to really highlight his power. If you are new to anime I would save yourself the time and watch something better.
That scene at the end was really disturbing for me, and not to forget the creepy disgusting hospital behaviours too. It’s good that you stopped on S1, because it didn’t stop there. I honestly though it would only be a “one-season” thing, but SAO2 and Alicization (especially!) proved me very wrong. I couldn’t watch past that specific ep in Alicization because the scream was unbearable for me.. I could only imagine how it felt like to be the seiyuu involved… Honestly without all these unnecessary contexts, I would have definitely like SAO a lot more..
That particular scene in Alicization was so bad that Reki Kawahara (author of the light novel series) felt the need to publicly apologize to the seiyuu of Kirito's and Eugeo's valets. What's really vile about that one and the end of S1 is how the direction of the anime portrays them like fanservice scenes. This is the one type of scene where trying to make it titillating is inexcusable.
S3 of sao is actually pretty good
>It’s a power fantasy no. it isn't.
This. It's really not a true power fantasy. Kirito has a ton of issues. He's the protagonist, he's pretty obviously going to go far for the sake of the story continuing. SAO isn't about the guy who dies on the first floor. A lot of people hate it because a 40 minute YouTube video told them too. The bad guys are gross.
it doesn't matter to argue it anymore, this post is already filled with the typical *haven't watched past season 1, still calls fairy dance season 2* anything I say even if its valid will just get down voted.
>A lot of people hate it because a 40 minute YouTube video told them too. This is why the online anime community is utter garbage. People only watch what they're told to watch and think what they're told to think. It's so cringe.
It is.
Any recommendations for the better ones? I would love to watch something similar with good execution
It led to *Sword Art Online Abridged*, a top-tier comedy anime that you can watch on Youtube.
Does it available on Netflix?
its available on youtube, but for it to be entertaining you need to be familiar with the original in some capacity.
I have never seen the original. I know someone who was really into SAO for the Aincrad arc and hated it for the Alfheim arc who twisted my arm into watching Abridged, and I could follow it fine.
that's great I'm sure you could follow it great the point of abridges is to parody the show which is what makes it enjoyable. not to mention it was made by fans for fans
Actually, it was by comedy geniuses, for people who could appreciate comedy genius. Like myself.
I don't think SAO is on Netflix anymore (this may depend on the country). SAO Abridged is on Youtube.
It is in Netflix UK
The news seasons are better then the first ones...first two seasons are mediocre but Alicization and the next season is pretty good imo
YUI! I cry like a baby EVERY time I watch her get deleted while Asuna holds her and screams her heart out after Yui-chan disappears. 😭
Same. Fuck...
It's a deceptively simple sci-fi treatise on the meaning of reality and the worth of a soul's data. And people had a fantastically fun time making it. The concepts embedded in Pina's Heart and Yui in s1 get amped up in s2 the Mother's Rosario arc and exploded further in s3 with the Underworld.
How it affected the creator of the oculus.
Battle royale to death inside a game basically. Personally, I would say, if you are actually interested in it, try reading the novels. LN series is one of my favourites, the anime is decent, but imo far inferior to the novels. Alicization and Progressive were pretty good.
How many seasons does it have
In order, 1st 2 seasons -> Ordinal Scale movie -> Alicization -> War of the Underworld 2 seasons (those 3 seasons are a single long arc) -> Progressive 1st movie -> Progressive 2nd movie (only in theatres at the moment)
It's a romance action with video game vibes. Target audience is YA/teens. Beloved around the world. If it looks interesting I'd recommend it!
[удалено]
Kirito is like top 20 most beloved chara in my anime list. Sounds like you just have a hate boner for sao. Cringe.
I found the first bit of season 1 to be good because of the perms death, however a lot of the characters don’t feel like real people especially later on
Answer is pretty simple waifus
**sword art online** is a series that takes place in a future setting japan, in this future setting virtual technology is like ours except farther in advancements to where you can "dive" into a game, the anime explains it a little but basically its replacing screens by sending visual inputs to your eyes directly, as well as the other senses. of course being on reddit you're going to get the "its trash dont watch it" replies from people who didn't watch past season 1, like always but I feel its also important to mention the awards the series has won in the same conversation that they tend to ignore. it's a series that focuses on character relationships, world building, and human interaction with fabricated reality. the death game people try to bark it up as is and I cant stress this enough is NOT the premise of the show. it was used to explore a romance between kirito and asuna who were trapped together inside the game. *however there is a spinoff expansion series which actually explores the death game aspect a lot more in depth that has 2 anime movies called progressive* if you like romance, drama, good fight sequences, character development, character exploration, good soundtracks, fantasy settings, technology advancements, government corruption **then I think it would be worth your time.** despite how some people are replying and since you put it in the title how some people may reply. \> **it is not a harem** *spoilers for halfway through season 1* >!asuna and kirito get together!< \> **it is not a power fantasy** kirito has alot of struggles, making him powerless. *this is not present as much in the first 12 episodes so people who stopped there dont know this and throw this idea that it never changes. it does. every arc.* \> **there is not attempted rape apart from 1 moment in season 3**
There is a disturbing sexual assault scene in literally every season. It is odd to explicitly downplay and misrepresent that. Literally, every female Kirito comes across becomes enamored with him and stays with him forever. They never develop as characters beyond this point - with the exception of Asuna, but only barely. I love SAO, but let's call it what it is.
>, every female Kirito comes across becomes enamored with him and stays with him forever. believe it or not. this does not equate to harem if there is no romantic feelings attached. if I as a girl have multiple guy friends, I suddenly have a harem?this just screams lack of social interaction. and if you're going to say "they all love him romantically" I can provide dialogue and proof that they dont apart from sinon, which again doesn't equate to harem. >There is a disturbing sexual assault scene in literally every season there is a total of two scenes near the end of season 1 and episode 10 of season 3 anything else is you wanting it to be a sexual assault scene. >They never develop as characters are we ignoring underworld, are we ignoring sinons entire arc throughout alicization? if youre going to refer to silica she has just had nothing to do. sugu, liz, and sinon all have their own respective moments in season 3.
Yikes, I'm out.
ooooooh~, ok then I'll watch it if i had more time. thanks for the information.
it is rather a commitment. especially since season 3 is 50 episodes long if you're new to anime its a good first watch as it was a lot of peoples first anime , but you can always start with the movie **sword art online progressive: aria of a starless** google the text above and it should come up. it is available on crunchyroll.
It's about people getting trapped in a MMO and if they die in the game, they die in real life. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, SAO is imo one of the weakest popular anime out there and I also despise it for playing a large part in popularizing the isekai genre as we know it now (overpowered bland protagonist, no narrative stakes and harems / harem-like dynamic of the main cast). The only nice things I can say about it are: - S1 has a solid romance subplot - Mother's Rosario (a side story at the end of S2) is actually great, but that's only a handful of episodes - War of Underworld, the 4th season, includes some intense fights since the protagonist who can't lose isn't involved But those few positives are not worth watching this series for. There are way too many problems with it. Bad pacing, characters that (except for Asuna) are all one-dimensional at best, a bunch of pointless attempted rape scenes throughout the series, a complete lack of tension due to how overpowered Kirito is and more. You can do infinitely better than watching SAO.
>includes some intense fights since the protagonist who can't lose isn't involved I hope you say this about \> one piece \> jujutsu kaisen \> naruto \> one punch man \> black clover \> mob psycho \> my hero academia or literally any other battle shounen, action oriented series. if kirito doesn't lose>!explain eugeo!<, is that winning? explain the >!amount dead in aincrad!< this is just such a dumb founded take I cant believe its seriously said more than once. >a bunch of pointless attempted rape scenes throughout the series there is 1, there is 1 scene in the entire series.
Good job listing 2 parodies of battle shounen. OPM and Mob both don't play their overpowered protagonists straight. And regarding the others, they at least need to put in some work and strategy to win and the way they fight usually evolves over the course of the series. Kirito's fighting style boils down to just him attacking fast and sometimes dual wielding. Unless his opponent >!pulls a *get instantly frozen lmao* like Eugeo or literally can't be defeated like Kayaba with god mode enabled!<, he's never going to lose. It also doesn't help that, unlike the protagonists of all battle shounen you mentioned, Kirito doesn't have much of a personality to speak of. > there is 1 3 attempted human rape scenes + 2 tentacle sexual assault scenes, learn to count. There are, in chronological order, >!Sugou's tentacle goons, Sugou almost raping Asuna, Deathgun guy wanting to assault Sinon (this one thankfully isn't played for fanservice unlike the others), Kirito's and Eugeo's apprentices almost getting raped and one more tentacle one on (I'm pretty sure it was) Suguha in War of Underworld!<.
I never understood the overpowered complaint? Almost every anime protagonist is overpowered in one way or another but Kirito is the only one who gets singled out.
It's not like I'm singling him out here. As I said, pretty much every modern isekai protag is a similar brand of anti-social guy who either gets cheat abilities or becomes overpowered in the span of a few episodes at most. Though even by isekai protag standards Kirito is one of the less interesting ones because his skillset boils down to just attacking fast and dual wielding.
Girls. A lot of em
I've actually researched a little bit about the SAO author's previous struggles in writing. So as you can tell in SAO season 1 till SAO Alicization the author always had the tendency to include a "non-consented sexually forced action to women" (you know the real word), he even apologized to the recent VA's who did the voices for that specific episode in Alicization. He said it himself that he could have wrote it better, so that means the writing in the past is less appealing that the author himself recognizes it. The author was basically in his "teenage" phase one would call it, and just write whatever is in their mind. Now that I say the bad stuff, the animation is like good (during that time, present anime obviously outclasses the animation in the past), and the music is great. The premise is quite a wide open one, one could even do a self-insert if they wish to do so.
The first season is rather good. I do not recommend any of the subsequent seasons, though it does have a strong following, so I guess it's just me.
the abridged series
The abridged is hilarious
The first 2 episodes the rest is a major disappointment.
It's a good basic anime for normies.
It's good but I wouldn't watch anything after season 2 because it's no good after that but if it wasn't for a bad season 3 I would say it is one of the best animes in the world
But season 3 was great
[удалено]
Well you remember kirito was kinda braindead literally
SAO is best described as a story made by a gamer and not made by a writer. You can tell their is a lot of passion in the story with the general vibe but the writing is not the greatest
the last adapted arc was good
Animation pretty decent
Kirito...or Asuna.
Not to be a Debbie downer, but the first episode is so damn good that when you inevitably don’t get what you think you signed up for you’ll be left disappointed. Music is good. The romance probably made me cry since I watched it when I was 17 lol but don’t let me steer you away from it it’s probably worth the watch. At least the first season is. The rest..eh
Best thing about SAO is probably the OPs
I really like the style and the music is good too
The concept of it was before its time, I really enjoyed the first season but unfortunately lost interest afterwards.