Sword Art Online

I agree. They were both badass on their own but, when they were together, not only were they incredibly adorable but they were also godly levels of badass. Had the World Tree been winnable, they probably could have taken it together given how Kirito did on his own when it was unwinnable.

I still think Asuna should have managed to escape and then had something make it to where Sugou needs to be defeated in Alfhiem Online first before he can be arrested. Like, have him use the NervGear and then set it up so that he'll die if it's forcibly removed while he's logged in so they would need to defeat him in the game to force a log-out.

I think that what Kirito did to him was incredibly satisfying. It's kind of the reason why I like SAO more than .hack, which was ridiculously boring - Full of barely-animated talking heads - and more than a little pretentious. The writer clearly knows what the viewers want, and gives it to 'em. (I know that in Kirito's shoes, I'd have flat-out murdered him and slept the sleep on the innocent.)

I do think that it'd have made very little sense for Asuna to escape, though. I know that the Damsel in Distress thing sticks in the craw, but her character was basically Level 1 in everything, and they were up against someone with Admin powers. She managed pretty well with what she had.

As an aside, I actually rather like that Kirito isn't a moral paragon. Too many shows try to have the hero be a paragon in everything - I'm looking at *you*, Gundam - and they come off as short-sighted, whiny and more than a little stupid and hypocritical. (Guilty Crown, Valvrave...I could go on.) Protagonists who act the way the viewer would, in their shoes, are much more palatable; there's no reason why the protagonist of a show has to bow to crippling societal pressure and ingrained guilt, even in shows. That kind of reeks of self-censorship.

When there's a chance to give righteous payback to someone who's Done You Wrong, you should milk it for all it's worth. A thing I really, really like about SAO is that it doesn't have the unspoken - "Stop playing games, *nerd*! The real world is *so* much better!" - that .hack and nearly all Western gaming-related material have. (Like in Ready Player One, for instance. Terrible message.) In SAO, virtual reality is, in fact, the most awesome thing ever - And it's actively acknowledged that yeah, it's great!

That's more honest, to my mind. (I'm fairly certain that if the Amusphere really existed, a large chunk of the world's population would stay in there until they died of sheer exhaustion.)

edited 9th Aug '14 8:02:08 AM by iridium248

Well, Korean MMO players have been historically known to game so hard they drop from the stress of going 36+ hours without sleep.

The VRMMOs are great but they really aren't as great as the real world for a variety of reason (the main one being that the feedback your senses get is nowhere near as great so what you experience from your environment is rather muted). The show even kind of addresses this fact in S2E1 (the only episode of Season 2 that I've watched). Asuna states something along the lines of holding Kazuto's hand in real life feels infinitely better than holding his hand in a VRMMO. In fact, that's why Kazuto wanted to become a hardware developer and improve the VR systems so that way he could bring Yui into the real world.

Anyway, so I've been playing Grand Chase recently where I play as Ronan. After some level, you unlock his Erudan Sword skill which, in his 1st Job, gives him a glowy BFS and changes your specials and increases your damage. I'm telling you guys this because his Level 3 Special (whose name I don't know) reminded me greatly of Starburst Stream. At one point, I even used it against a boss and managed to kill it right at the point where one more attack would have killed me. It was glorious.

ok, after watching the latest episode, there's something that's been bugging me since the previous episode - where the heck is the government in all this? is the guy in the glasses even supporting Kirito, or did he just go "here's your mission, find Death Gun, kthxbye"? it kinda bothers me that the only one potentially at his side is the nurse.

and also you'd think Kirito would report his findings, but i guess i can let it slide since he was freaking out and visibly shaken about the revelation he had after the first tournament match.

I could have sworn the guy in Guilty Crown made some bad moves when he was depressed or something

and Valvrave has a rapist as the protag

ALSO

OMIGOSH DIS EPISODE

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH RECAP

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH FLASHBACK SCENE CUT DOWN BECAUSE RECAP TOOK THE TIME (of course they probably did it on purpose to save budget or something...though it's still better showing this flashback instead of just telling the audience it like it was done in the novel, the execution wasn't complete though...)

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHH KIRITO IF ONLY ASUNA WAS THERE TO HUG YOU BACK TO SHAPE

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

The reason why I haven't watched past S2E1.

Seriously, why didn't Asuna come along? The entirety of the first two arcs was dedicated to showing how Kazuto and Asuna do not want to be apart if they can help so why in the world are they apart now? The conversation should have gone something like this:

"Hey, Asuna, I need to check out another MMO but it shouldn't take long. I'll be back soon enough."

"Okay. I'm going with you."

"But-"

*glare* "I'm going with you."

"... Okay."

edited 9th Aug '14 5:18:39 PM by Zelenal

• Asuna being more emotionally secure (this is a total assumption, there are no implications or anything that suggest this would be the reason)
• Having to pay for both of their equipment (can be easily fixed by making the lightsaber cost a lot lower)
• Only one contestant at a time in the preliminary matches (they can meet back up for the main event though)

Writer reasons:

• Reduction of tension (this is the biggest one, a lot of the thriller aspect would disappear if you know that the even-more-OP-than-Kirito-alone duo is there to deal with the threat)
• Reduction of lasting emotional conflict (during the period of time the plot takes place)
• Not being able to write more than two main characters at once for some reason
• Not being able to show off Kirito as much (the writer goes to great lengths to show off how awesome and cute Kirito is, that's not quite so easy to do with Asuna sharing the spotlight and when there's even ANOTHER heroine involved, though I personally would do it by showing Sinon get super jelly over Kirito being an Asuna-magnet and therefore less time with Asuna for her)
• Potentially undermining the VRMMOs are Serious Business theme with a lighter tone

Things that would be TOTALLY AWESOME if it happened anyway:

• YURI HIJINKS!
• Asuna squeeing all over Kirito's GGO avatar with gratuitous Kirito blushing leading to a miscommunication subplot revolving around Mistaken for Gay (by Sinon)
• Another character design for Asuna
• A lighter, more comedic atmosphere
• Getting to see a sword duel between Kirito and Asuna (in the same last battle as the most recent episode's, where it doesn't actually matter who the winner is)
• FEELS

That's a little less SAO flavor and more Shoujo manga flavor though, and probably wouldn't fit very well in with the rest of the series. And people would complain even more about the plot or lack of focus on it.

edited 9th Aug '14 6:09:01 PM by YuukiAsuna

So the Watsonian reasons really aren't reasons at all (at least not ones I buy) and the Doylist reasons basically boils down to "Kawahara isn't a good enough writer." Seriously, every problem you listed is one that can be overcome without resorting to making Asuna out OOC (seriously, even my mother, who isn't that great at analyzing anything, thinks that her staying behind is OOC).

Welp. Won't be the first time that I loved a work to death when it started but it eventually just disappointed me and it won't be the last. C'est la vie.

...I now want a fanfic rewrite where Asuna is involved with GGO.

edited 9th Aug '14 6:18:37 PM by MurkyMuse

I'd kill for that if it was well written. Hell, I'd do it myself if I didn't have more important things to do.

I'm pretty sure there's no way around the (lasting)emotional conflict and loss of tension problems unless you change the antagonist and/or Sinon's and Kirito's problem, and even then. It's sort of why the True Art Is Angsty mindset (or rather, the Comedy Ghetto mindset) exists.

Maybe it's just me, but that duel between Kirito and Sinon reminded me of a certain other sword vs gun duel from a certain other currently ongoing anime.

"My weapon's a gun. A sword can't beat a gun, that's fact."

"Ehhh? Whazzat? You beat your gun? GAHAHAHAHA."

"UHHEEHEEHEEHEE."

Someone make this a thing please.

I don't get it.

Oh don't mind me. Just making references.

...

And now I want this.

aren't you the same guy who hates the relationship between kirito and asuna

unless you want to see sinon NT Ring kirito or something

Episode 6:

SAO II's pacing is really slow, so I'm not going to rant about flashbacks from S1 to save my time.

On the related note, Kirito having a flashback about the Laughing Coffee. Apparently, it's ok to kill Laughing Coffee members but not a really crazy guy that Sinon killed. However, they didn't managed to defeat all the Laughing Coffee member, only some of them. They also got more than 10 teammates killed from that fight. But who cares about them, they're irrelevant.

Kirito then gets rather depressed for some reason. You know, out of most Heroic BSoD I've seen, this is one of the least justified reason for Heroic BSOD. He still won (Because the bullets missed him for no reason) and managed to reach the final with Sinon. Wait, there's something unusual here.

I'm going to abridge this one, the final ends with Kirito sliced Sinon's bullet that was targeting on Kirito's leg. After some conversation, Sinon decided to forfeit the match for Kirito's sake. I believe the ending ends with Death Gun from Laughing Coffee watching it.

the "emotionally fired up and still wins anyway(or rather, gets even better at winning)" thing is pretty common in anime (particularly shonen)

as far as Kirito is currently concerned, killing Laughing Coffin members was NOT okay

The series is presenting it as morally ambiguous: possibly the right thing to do, but nonetheless unpleasant. A necessary evil. You're certainly not supposed to be cheering for him in that scene anyway. Sinon's past is presented the same way, and obviously is meant to mirror the situation exactly.

The poor writing here isn't that it happened the way it did, but that it didn't happen earlier. It's slightly hard to believe that Kirito has been perfectly suppressing this all this time.

I find it fairly reasonable if I consider how Kirito's put Aincrad behind him, only for remnants of it to show up before him again, becoming a trigger. He's also actually pretty functional even when Asuna is out of his reach, so there's at least some kind of consistency there.

He was also suppressing it in SAO itself, during the first arc. You'd think it'd have come up when, I don't know, a Laughing Coffin member is trying to kill you and then you kill them in self-defense. You might call that a trigger.

I didn't see the effort to purge Laughing Coffin as morally ambiguous; rather, it is "merely" a taxing and traumatic experience. That it is morally justified doesn't take away the gravity of being there: of watching people take each other's lives in a fit of violence. That messes people up, even when they're doing the "right thing."

Still, it's something that you would've expected to rear its head sometime sooner—either when Kirito first met Leafa, or when he transformed into Gleameyes, or when he killed Kuradeel (there's precious little time to think the raid on Laughing Coffin could've been after that).

Yeah, I suppose morally ambiguous isn't really the right term. More like, people are always going to wonder in the back of their minds if that was truly the best solution, because it's something you can't take back.

Oh Of course. Sinon is finally showing signs of falling for Kirito.

Kirito isn't a character. He is AXE Body Spray.