| SAO arguably played a huge role in popularizing the isekai genre and a lot of anime characters have a striking resemblance to Kirito. Whether it’s the hairstyle, outfit, or overall demeanor, it feels like Kirito’s design has become a template for many anime protagonists. Do you agree that SAO is the most influential anime, or is there another series that you believe has had a greater impact? |
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No, in terms of anime overall Astro Boy is the most influential anime, it set the standard on how anime should look and what it should be and codified many tropes. |
| "Is Sword Art Online the most influential anime?" Not at all.  |
Serafos5 hours ago
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| Nope, but it's the most influential to the modern isekai, even though SAO isn't an isekai per se. All the tropes followed by the generic isekai started with SAO, or at least got popular because of SAO. |
| If you're a fanboy, please don't waste my time. Watch more movies, please. Perhaps, this is hell. |
| overlord gives more weight to non human design show but i'd say it's still the sales in japan that churns out what we see today. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Well there's Sally the witch the first ever Magical girl anime and first shoujo anime.  And Akko chan the first magical girl ever on Manga. |
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| No. I don't even think SAO started the isekai trend. It started a trend of video game themed anime from 2012-2015, but I believe it is more likely that Re:Zero is what caused the isekai boom, starting in Spring 2016. Konosuba in the season before that also was a major contributor. Spring 2016 is also the season where anime started to noticeably decline in quality. Boku no Hero Academia also started to air in Spring 2016, which was a very American-influenced anime. |
ForgotEyeWasHere5 hours ago
Rather than isekai, I put SAO as the most influential immersive VRMMORPG themed series, which encouraged that sub-theme of the major video-game theme.. so I disagree with the argument that SAO played a huge role, or even a small significant role in popularizing isekai theme.. The character design influence... maybe.. I agree many similar titles with OP-MCs have similar design.. but can't say for sure if they were influenced by SAO unless creation timeline, artists involved etc are analyzed.. Being as popular as it was during initial hype run, there are certainly ways in which it influenced anime, though it's popularity waned significantly after the first couple of titles in the franchise.. So, most influential it ain't... But, I also can't pinpoint one title as being most influential.. I can say for one theme, i.e. harem.. High School DxD is one of the most influential anime of that theme.. there are other titles that contributed.. but I think it's most popular one would be High School DxD.. |
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| When it comes to Isekai & Video Game Theme we can't argue with that. |
| SAO is responsible for this wave of isekai in the past decade, but that's it. Didn't really influence much outside of its own genre. While there are series like Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Sailor Moon, Gundam, etc, which have impacted the entire medium and not just their respective genres. So no, SAO is not the most influential anime. |
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| i thought mushoku tensei is the godfather of isekai? |
| Everyone looks similar to Kirito because it's a very generic face, combined with typical Japanese black hair, a trendy hairstyle and some cool clothes. As much as I love Sword Art Online, I don't think it's been as big of an influence for character design as some people claim. There have been more than enough characters who look like Kirito even before the SAO anime got released.    |
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| not sure cuz the first Isekai I ever watched was Mondaiji Tachi pretty solid mediocre but kind of entertain |
| Even if it was that, the anime still sucks. |
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Reply to deg
i thought mushoku tensei is the godfather of isekai?
| @deg Most tropes MT and SAO use were not created by these 2 series, they just popularized it. And yes MT is generally considered to be the most influential isekai due to the fact that SAO does not feature traditional fantasy isekai tropes, nor reincarnation. |
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Reply to SimplyBrazen
@deg Most tropes MT and SAO use were not created by these 2 series, they just popularized it. And yes MT is generally considered to be the most influential isekai due to the fact that SAO does not feature traditional fantasy isekai tropes, nor reincarnation.
| @SimplyBrazen ye true they just popularize it, older anime like hack sign predates sword art online same is true with older isekai like escaflowne, inuyasaha, fushigi yugi, magic knight rayearth and many more |
| No, but there is alot of good hentai fan art of it online, which is the only thing that actually matters to me. |
| Probably dragon ball z inspires almost every modern shounen using many of its tropes. |
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Reply to Styx_Paradise
@SimplyBrazen Most influential isekai being MT has to be a joke. Re:zero came wayy earlier, and has always been wayy more popular than Mushoku ever will be. It typically started the isekai outburst.
| @Styx_Paradise The only reason Japanese authors decided to borrow certain fantasy tropes for their isekai is all cuz of MT's reputation and impact in Japanese audiences. Re Zero is more popular in the west, but that doesn't mean it has influenced the genre more than MT, cuz it hasn't. Mushoku Tensei's web novel started around the same time as Re:Zero's web novel did, which was sometime during 2012, so your argument of it being older is also false. |
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