I have a funny relationship with SAO. I hate the everloving hell out of it, and love it at the same time, begrudgingly.
I think most people who call themselves gamers of the MMO variety can agree with me in that Kirito was tolerable in the first season, because he was this big empty slate that we could project ourselves on. Even if you were bad at MMOs, even if didn't have Korean-Boxbox-2kawaii4u reflexes, most of us who watched that anime, or at least cared enough about it to hate it, probably liked playing MMOs alone.
I did. I had a guild once. Once. I watched this anime after I got my warrior up to about 40 in Tera. For me, this anime was like the story of my life, minus the harem.
The point is, the first season hit such a deep note with alot of people, and while a good number of people decided they had it with SAO's bullshit by the second arc, alot of people didn't-- not because it was good, but because they could relate to it to heavily.
This is where SAO started to fall apart. The third arc, the GGO one, was awesome. I liked Asada Shino. Her story could have been told better, but it was cute. Yeah, she broke down into a panic attack when a school bully hinted at bringing a model of a gun to show her, and yeah, it created a large dissonance between the tone of the anime, and the story being told, but considering that she's like, 15? It's forgivable. Yeah. 15 year olds overreact. I can see that.
About half of that arc should have been done differently, but the shortcomings of that arc aren't the constant reminders that SAO was a thing, or that Kirito gets all of the ladies, or the over-the-top drama about becoming stronger (which seems like a PSA for the rest of the world to take games seriously imo), it was the tone. It felt like watching a bunch of kids in business suits pretending to be secret agents.
The whole sexual molestation thing at the end felt shoehorned in, as if the series needed a villain, and the producers just threw their hands up and said 'well, yeah I know he's death gun, but we need to make our audience hate him even more. We're going for a serious tone, so we'll just go as over the top with the most cartoony angle imaginable'. The final result was the final (real) episode looking like a joke, a really inappropriate joke.
The third arc was basically the gang getting together getting a sword while the writer wanked off about how great his series and what it has accomplished was. It felt more like fanfic material that a 15 year old would produce than something that needed to be made.
The final arc was alright. The pacing annoyed me, as, after a week of waiting, some episodes just felt empty, while others had way too much covered, because the writers finally realized that they had 2 episodes left and they still haven't revealed the fact that Yuuki is actually... I'm not going to spoil it.
More wank about this special full dive engine that destroys the user's brain. Of course, Kirito knows about it. He knew all along, because he's Kirito. At the end of the series, I wanted to smash out some fanfiction on my keyboard more than ever, but realized I have standards. It annoyed me how the best character in the entire series, aside from a few wank-heavy moments, didn't get the spotlight she deserved. Even when she did, she was overshadowed, constantly, by the other two, more important (to the author) leads.
At the end, it felt alot less like the Zekken arc, and more about the How-Asuna-And-Kirito,-But-Mainly-Kirito-Conquered-Another-Cute-Girl arc.
I guess I should be glad, though. Asuna at least got the screentime she deserved. The character who was arguably more important than Kirito to the story, after four arcs, finally got a little bit of recognition. Good job guys. You know how to treat your characters well.
Overall, SAO is wank. Having said that, I must add that SAO is wank that most people (like me, albeit angrily) tolerate, because as far as animes that take places in MuMORPuGers go, nothing comes close as far as how easy it is (was) to relate to.
