Sword Art Online

You say that as if it's something unique. People act differently depending on who they're around, that's a universal truth, and most people who are socially conscious but aren't naturally sociable will go a bit farther to make themselves more appealing to others. It's something I do and I'm certainly not unique so others undoubtedly do it as well.

Besides, having anime merchandise on display will potentially lead to better conversations as its something people can latch onto as a mutual interest. The same holds true for all hobbies. Having a figurine from an anime in your room is no different than having a video game console or football or what have you in your room from that standpoint.

Your facade is probably something along the lines of "oh, I won't be a dick at this moment, or suggest something kinda creepy when it's inappropiate, or not bother to talk to this person about X because I know they aren't into it, or won't because we're in a professional environment, etc." which is hardly even a facade, it's just not being fully honest.

I basically strive to eliminate as many mutual interests as possible aside from universal ones(like sex, even though I actually hate sexuality because reasons) or at least, really popular ones, like ball sports(in which I will usually have very little clue about what's going on and just barely pass by simply being present and following others' reactions) in order to bring as little conflict as possible while also setting myself up as a mystery. Almost no one in real life actually knows about my interests, and because they don't have anything like that to go on for identification, they start trying to fill in details with their imagination and emphasize the admirable aspects, making me seem higher than they are(I think it was called putting on a pedestal or something) and also making me more difficult to approach by people that don't have high enough self-esteem, leading to less required interaction with them while also having them around as people that care enough to bring me benefits when I need them, like when I'm lost, need money, need connections, or whatever.

If I had a Sword Art Online figurine around, there are several results upon discovery that can lead to defamation.

1:The person who also likes it, that is more likely to be more public about their interests and also talk about it with me when they shouldn't be, like when I'm talking with pretty much anyone else at all.

2:The person who hates it that gets a Broken Pedestal moment and as a result complains like hell about the difference between who I present myself as and what I turned out to actually be, whether who I actually am conceived in their minds is at all accurate or not.

3:The person that isn't really into it but is okay with it, but also likes anime in general and otherwise shares several tastes with me, has a similar problem to the first one but isn't quite as bad due to being more general in subject matter, making it easier to deny interest in X, but not, say, Y, in public.

4:The person who has no clue about what Sword Art Online even is, but is into mainstream anime like Dragonball Z and One Piece and thus recognizes it. May have results similar to #2 or #3.

5:The person who sees anything anime-related whatsoever and completely dismisses me as being a maturity stunted morally reprehensible introvert(not that this is actually false.)

6:#5 but specific to anime that they believe is the cancer of anime today. Expect shaming related to shitty light novels and moeblobs.

7:The person who doesn't care, at all. The best outcome, but not something to expect often enough.

etc.

As a result, the only people I have actually enjoyable, honest, and disposable interactions with is over the internet.

edited 4th Jan '15 11:06:06 PM by YuukiAsuna

From our Marry Them All page:

"Sword Art Online has a special sidestory entitled There is but One Ultimate Way where Asuna and all of Kirito's female friends basically pull him into the Underworld VR realm to share him, so that they all can tell him how they really felt about him and get married."

Is this true?

It's not actually canon I think? I'm not sure; it contains Alicization spoilers, so I didn't really read it.

But it's actually a thing that exists, right? It's not some doujin or an officially sanctioned work by some other author or something?

It is a thing that exists.

I don't remember its details though, other than "oh man college and stuff is totally gonna separate us" "hey lets use Hyperbolic Time Chamber to spend enough time with each other before then"

I think it was some remnant of the WN, or something, and even then considered a "what if"

I've split the character page. There is now enough space to fill stuff. Characters extend to NPCs like Freyja, and the Sleeping Knights guild was overlooked from what I'm reading on the unsplitted page. Bosses should probably go in the Antagonists page with a Floor bosses subsection, etc.

edited 28th Jan '15 8:17:41 AM by AnoBakaDesu

Looking at the Sinon figurine prototypes—without color it is just a typical swimsuit figure with legging extensions. Is it just me or that is the intention of her character design?

Okay, ultra dumb question since I haven't gotten to see it yet.

In Phantom Bullet, what's preventing Death Gun's account from being traced/banned?

Common sense. Like they mentioned fairly early on, it's absurd to think that a person could kill someone else IRL from within the game.

Because reasons.

I would be hopeful and say something like "I haven't seen it myself but I'm sure there must be a good explanation" but I don't trust the author to write a good story after Aincrad (and even then) so... yeah. I don't recall anyone mentioning it in the numerous recaps I read in this thread so my answer is "Because reasons".

Even so, if you have a serial killer on the loose and you only have one lead then you can damn well believe that the police are going to investigate it no matter how absurd it is. "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

edited 6th Feb '15 5:59:06 PM by Zelenal

Technology and online gaming are so advanced and pirate-y at that point in the story, none of the people actually playing these games has their head on straight.

So everyone's insane and/or mildly retarded.

...

I'll buy it.

The reason they give in the story is "the company behind GGO is American so we don't have jurisdiction and they're so incredibly secretive that we have difficulty contacting them without it."

That... What?

While my knowledge of this subject is admittedly extremely limited, that sounds like major bullshit to me. Given the situation, I would think that the Japanese government would simply have to petition the US government to either grant them access to the necessary information or to launch their own investigation.

I always assumed that Kikuoka was lying about that since he doesn't work for who he says does. Did the anime include Kirito mentioning how he followed him once and found that out?

edited 6th Feb '15 7:23:26 PM by doineedaname

It's sort of true to life. A foreign government can't force a private company to disclose information on its users and what exactly are they going to say? "There's a rumor going around that someone is killing people THROUGH YOUR GAME! Yes we already checked and it's not actually physically possible but for reals, guys!"

While it's impossible for Death Gun to be the killer, it's obvious that he's related to the killings somehow. It was pretty much the only lead they had so one would think that the Japanese government would petition the US government for access to that information.

It's not "This guy's using your game to kill people even though it isn't possible", it's "this guy is attack players in your game at the exact same time that they're being killed in real life and it's happened far too many times to be a coincidence."

Uhm... wow. After all the trouble to split the Characters page, nobody is caring enough to put entries in the new subpages.

edited 8th Feb '15 5:39:53 PM by AnoBakaDesu

Seems to sum up GGO fairly accurately. Digibro did a 4 part series which was very biased but brought up a fair number of legitimate points about things in GGO that don't make a lot of sense, which I'd link to except his channel is currently down.

Kawahara doesn't really care about factual accuracy, or anything much besides what will make the stories more marketable. that's not an accusation, he's pretty much said so himself (though not in those exact words).

Too bad too- Digibro's 4-part series is incredibly entertaining to just watch! The fact that he himself is very familiar with MMORPG's makes him hate SAO all the more!

edited 9th Feb '15 8:27:07 AM by kyun

his channel should be back up eventually. mr. enter had his channel taken down too but got it back eventually. he will soon return to share his burning hatred of SAO with us all :v

Youtube channels have gone back up before, in a matter of weeks. His will go back up in time.

You know what I'd love to see? An MMO structured like SAO was. I'd like to see guilds with actual purposes and goals since they just kind of exist in every MMO I've played. I'd love to see guilds that are trying to clear the game as fast as possible and guilds who stick around the mid levels and explore to try and find things the <Front Liners> missed and ones that stick near the low levels and work on the item making and enchanting. I would love to see a structured setup of guilds like that since it would make it easier to decide what guild you want to join and it'll be obvious why you quite a guild to join another (provided you didn't quit one front line guild to join another or something like that).

I would love that so much and while the system has to exist to make that more reasonable, it would never happen even if said system existed.

Yes, because MMO's can't be 'cleared'. You're thinkin the wrong kind of rpg.

Does anyone remember if anyone is ever shown sneezing in SAO, ALO and GGO? I'm currently writing a fic where someone sneezing is a plotpoint, and I thought I'd ask the brain trust first since it's faster than checking every episode.