Sword Art Online Episode 17 Discussion

Offline

Jul 2012

48248

SAO isn't a harem.

sigh.

Haha LOL Nice sarcasm.

Surely I don't need to explain that SAO is aimed at the Shounen audience, so there is no particular reason for girls to like it, doesn't mean they can't like it, only that I can understand their not liking it.

My friends like it because "Kirito-kun" is "hot". ._.

As for your standing by your point. You do realize that your point would not only include SAO, but even every single shoujo manga in existence, since "technically" none of them were strong from the start since everyone starts as a baby. Your argument is a perfect example of the "moving the goalpost" logical fallacy. Someone proved you wrong, so you moved the goalposts back to some theorized beginning in order to maintain your position.

I was just saying that everyone starts out weak. It's not possible for one to be strong from the start. That would apply to all mangas/animes I suppose? o.o

I have a great deal of sympathy for people for whom English is a second language

But I'm not? It's my first. LOL.

Nov 4, 2012 7:21 PM

#454

Offline

Oct 2012

4937

meepsheep said:

SAO isn't a harem.

sigh.

Haha LOL Nice sarcasm.

It's not a harem, harems are multiple love affairs where generally the MC never makes a decision on either of them, he is just Mr nice guy and girls adopt feelings for him, he still has his one and only Asuna, you are just trying to pull this apart, but the fact its not labelled as a harem never was and never will be is enough proof.

Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Game, Romance

I see no Harem.

Nov 4, 2012 7:22 PM

#455

Takuan_Soho

Offline

Oct 2012

6648

BloodRequiem said:

It's understandable with you being a female.

Playing the gender card eh?

Not really. It would be using the "gender card" if I tried to use it to invalidate her point, but she did that on her own.

I really meant it as just an acknowledgement that people see the same things differently, and I was trying to be sympathetic to her position while disagreeing with her.

To explain: if she were to argue that SAO was a harem animation, while I would disagree personally, I could understand why a female may see it as such even without their having to make an argument why this is the case. (Personally I don't think it is since there is no confusion as to who Kirito likes, and there is absolutely no chance of his ending up with anyone but Asuna, but I am honest enough to recognize that Kawahara has created a Pseudo Harem for fan-service).

Now as a guy this doesn't really bother me, but I wouldn't argue this point with a female because I can understand why a female would really find it annoying. That is all I meant.

Nov 4, 2012 7:24 PM

#456

Offline

Jul 2012

48248

It's not a harem, harems are multiple love affairs where generally the MC never makes a decision on either of them, he is just Mr nice guy and girls adopt feelings for him, he still has his one and only Asuna, you are just trying to pull this apart, but the fact its not labelled as a harem never was and never will be is enough proof.

Does the "multiple love affairs" have to be true? o.o Can't a bazillion girls just fall for a guy? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=harem

Just because it isn't labelled doesn't mean it can't be. Example: Fall Season's Sakurasou. Not labelled as Ecchi although it totally has it. Little Busters as well? I've heard some things, haven't confirmed them.
SAO can also be Ecchi if you throw in the evidence.

Nov 4, 2012 7:32 PM

#457

Offline

Oct 2012

4937

meepsheep said:

It's not a harem, harems are multiple love affairs where generally the MC never makes a decision on either of them, he is just Mr nice guy and girls adopt feelings for him, he still has his one and only Asuna, you are just trying to pull this apart, but the fact its not labelled as a harem never was and never will be is enough proof.

Does the "multiple love affairs" have to be true? o.o Can't a bazillion girls just fall for a guy? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=harem

Just because it isn't labelled doesn't mean it can't be. Example: Fall Season's Sakurasou. Not labelled as Ecchi although it totally has it. Little Busters as well? I've heard some things, haven't confirmed them.
SAO can also be Ecchi if you throw in the evidence.

SAO isn't an ecchi .. omg, have you even watched the show you are you just hating on it? because if you are don't bother coming to discussion boards if you don't know what you are talking about.

There was not a bazillion girls falling for 1 guy there were 3 if that, that even showed some sort of affection for Kirito and half the time they were just being friendly except for one or two who don't need to be named if you actually watched the show.

Every time 've watched a harem 95% of the time end without a conclusive relationship ending, SAO is an Exception because by half way through Asuna and Kirito are a pair, you see no other females after that, except for his cousin really.

I think you are just trying to pull out the bad points of this show, it's not an ecchi, its not a harem it's a romance, where Mr good guy Kirito saved the lives of a few females who adopted some feelings towards him.

You can scream harem all you like, but it's not, they back away the second they realize he is with Asuna or it just doesn't go anywhere, which is what the majority of harems end up in the direction of going.

SAO is the exception because he actually ends up with someone, and the rest of the hole fucking series is them working together through obstacles.

Stop the hate and gtfo.

Nov 4, 2012 7:40 PM

#458

Offline

Jul 2012

48248

SAO isn't an ecchi .. omg, have you even watched the show you are you just hating on it? because if you are don't bother coming to discussion boards if you don't know what you are talking about.

Isn't the fanservice enough to speak for itself? lol
Fanboys. Fanboys everywhere.

Harem still means: More than two girls liking one guy. I don't think it necessarily means he's confused with his feelings and he can pick one. Why not? I've seen harems with the girl/guy picking someone.

Every time 've watched a harem 95% of the time end without a conclusive relationship ending, SAO is an Exception because by half way through Asuna and Kirito are a pair, you see no other females after that, except for his cousin really.

Oh and two more girls later on :D

It's not hate. It's pointing out what I think is true.

These aren't bad points of the show, but I can give you legit reasons if you want.

Nov 4, 2012 7:44 PM

#459

Offline

Oct 2012

4937

It's fine, I'm sure you actually like the show, but that urban dictionary thing you linked me practically proved my point:

A genre in manga and anime where a single (often ordinary) guy is liked
and followed by bunch of girls (3 or more) who are all madly in love with him.
The girls often fight each other to get the guy's attention.

All I'm saying is, which is my argument, that it's not an ecchi, but then again suguha fan service was bordering on it I'll agree with you on that haha, but anyways Harem, It's definitely not, it simple cannot be, it doesn't follow the genre of Harems, sure if later on all these girls started fighting asuna for Kirito's attention and he had mixed feelings for some of them and couldn't make an educated decision on who to choose than yeah.

I'd be back in this thread screaming harem haha but that's not the case hun, just see how it pans out, its been a great 18 episodes already, this series has a lot of hate for some reason ,I don't know, but lets not bring up points that don't exist, you might as well continue to make a mountain out of a mold hill.

But I'm glad I can actually have an in depth discussion with you, regardless of different views / opinions.

Nov 4, 2012 7:47 PM

#460

Offline

Jul 2012

48248

vbyo said:
It's fine, I'm sure you actually like the show, but that urban dictionary thing you linked me practically proved my point:

I don't hate the show. I don't love it. It's more like idk yet. :S It hasn't proven to be that great to me yet. That's why my final rating stands between 4 and 6 at the moment.

A genre in manga and anime where a single (often ordinary) guy is liked
and followed by bunch of girls (3 or more) who are all madly in love with him.
The girls often fight each other to get the guy's attention.

Notice the "often". So it doesn't necessarily have to happen? I'm assuming.

I'd be back in this thread screaming harem haha but that's not the case hun, just see how it pans out, its been a great 18 episodes already, this series has a lot of hate for some reason ,I don't know, but lets not bring up points that don't exist, you might as well continue to make a mountain out of a mold hill.

Alright alright. Y'know, every show has a lot of hate. I got used to it. The more popular it is, the more hate you'll see.

But I'm glad I can actually have an in depth discussion with you, regardless of different views / opinions.

Same with you haha.

Nov 4, 2012 7:52 PM

#461

Offline

Oct 2012

4937

meepsheep said:
I don't hate the show. I don't love it. It's more like idk yet. :S It hasn't proven to be that great to me yet. That's why my final rating stands between 4 and 6 at the moment.

Everyone has different tastes, so I can understand and relate "not know why" but relate as to why you might not love it, me I like it.

I prefer to watch 2 people spend a hole series together going through obstacles than 2 people going through obstacles who obviously like each other but cannot come to terms with it.

Notice the "often". So it doesn't necessarily have to happen? I'm assuming.

It doesn't have to happen yeah, sometimes it never does, but here those girls have no chance, so that's why I'm more leaning towards the romance genre of this show, I'm not going to deny there are times where SAO is bordering Harem, but it never crosses that line, Kirito or the girls never cross that line.

Alright alright. Y'know, every show has a lot of hate. I got used to it. The more popular it is, the more hate you'll see.

Of course, bigger the show, the more people who like it, but also the more people who hate it.

It's always good when you can have a constructive conversation, other people should start observing and taking down notes :P

Nov 4, 2012 7:55 PM

#462

Takuan_Soho

Offline

Oct 2012

6648

vbyo said:
It's fine, I'm sure you actually like the show, but that urban dictionary thing you linked me practically proved my point:

A genre in manga and anime where a single (often ordinary) guy is liked
and followed by bunch of girls (3 or more) who are all madly in love with him.
The girls often fight each other to get the guy's attention.

All I'm saying is, which is my argument, that it's not an ecchi, but then again suguha fan service was bordering on it I'll agree with you on that haha, but anyways Harem, It's definitely not, it simple cannot be, it doesn't follow the genre of Harems, sure if later on all these girls started fighting asuna for Kirito's attention and he had mixed feelings for some of them and couldn't make an educated decision on who to choose than yeah.

I'd be back in this thread screaming harem haha but that's not the case hun, just see how it pans out, its been a great 18 episodes already, this series has a lot of hate for some reason ,I don't know, but lets not bring up points that don't exist, you might as well continue to make a mountain out of a mold hill.

But I'm glad I can actually have an in depth discussion with you, regardless of different views / opinions.

Actually definition number 3 from the urban dictionary would prove her point. As for this being etchi. Compared to ToLoveRu or Hagure, no, and my personal opinion would be no, but from a female POV? Listening to the guys going on about the shower scene. I wouldn't dream of arguing against any female who defines this as etchi. As I said above, people see things differently. Age differences, Culture differences, and yes, Gender differences.

Now that being said, her argument that SAO is a level up manga as defined originally on the last page is totally and completely false. There is no different opinion possible. The original argument specifically said "at the beginning of the animation", Meep "shifted the goalpost" to some never shown pre-animation and even LN point, that in itself makes her point invalid. Now there may be some logic behind it, but that in itself doesn't not the argument valid. It would be like my saying SAO sucked because Suguha died. What? Is this a spoiler? No, it just is logical that all people will die, so logically eventually we will reach a point where she dies, so SAO kills its female characters.

That argument is stupid no matter what possible differences there may exist between people.

Nov 4, 2012 7:58 PM

#463

Offline

Oct 2012

4937

Takuan_Soho said:

vbyo said:
It's fine, I'm sure you actually like the show, but that urban dictionary thing you linked me practically proved my point:

A genre in manga and anime where a single (often ordinary) guy is liked
and followed by bunch of girls (3 or more) who are all madly in love with him.
The girls often fight each other to get the guy's attention.

All I'm saying is, which is my argument, that it's not an ecchi, but then again suguha fan service was bordering on it I'll agree with you on that haha, but anyways Harem, It's definitely not, it simple cannot be, it doesn't follow the genre of Harems, sure if later on all these girls started fighting asuna for Kirito's attention and he had mixed feelings for some of them and couldn't make an educated decision on who to choose than yeah.

I'd be back in this thread screaming harem haha but that's not the case hun, just see how it pans out, its been a great 18 episodes already, this series has a lot of hate for some reason ,I don't know, but lets not bring up points that don't exist, you might as well continue to make a mountain out of a mold hill.

But I'm glad I can actually have an in depth discussion with you, regardless of different views / opinions.

Actually definition number 3 from the urban dictionary would prove her point. As for this being etchi. Compared to ToLoveRu or Hagure, no, and my personal opinion would be no, but from a female POV? Listening to the guys going on about the shower scene. I wouldn't dream of arguing against any female who defines this as etchi. As I said above, people see things differently. Age differences, Culture differences, and yes, Gender differences.

Now that being said, her argument that SAO is a level up manga as defined originally on the last page is totally and completely false. There is no different opinion possible. The original argument specifically said "at the beginning of the animation", Meep "shifted the goalpost" to some never never shown pre-animation and even LN point, that in itself makes her point invalid. Now there may be some logic behind it, but that in itself doesn't not the argument valid. It would be like my saying SAO sucked because Suguha died. What? Is this a spoiler? No, it just is logical that all people will die, so logically eventually we will reach a point where she dies, so SAO kills its female characters.

That argument is stupid no matter what possible differences there may exist between people.

I'm not sure who you are agreeing with here? XD but yeah SAO vs ToloveRU or Highschool of the dead, its obvious which is more ecchi, suguha's shower scene was just fan service, and was extremely over done.

It would be like my saying SAO sucked because Suguha died. What? Is this a spoiler? No, it just is logical that all people will die, so logically eventually we will reach a point where she dies, so SAO kills its female characters.

Made me laugh XD

Nov 4, 2012 7:58 PM

#464

Offline

Sep 2012

10121

Just want to say that I read a survey done by Tsutaya, a huge national chain of bookstores, which mined the sales data of >13 million of holders of its membership card to find information about the relationship of its LN sales and gender. SAO is the third most popular LN series for females. The magazine which publishes this survey concludes that lots of women find many aspects in SAO that appeal to them despite, or even because of, the cast of many cute girls falling for Kirito.

So here you go, I think the females in Japan are actually more sophisticated than many of us think. They would not shun a novel just because it looks harem-ish. They do not see the novel in one-dimension way and they know there can be more than one way to enjoy it.

So MAL finally starts locking news threads that are only a few weeks old?

I wonder where was the announcement of this change? Or we are seeing yet another case of changes made that impacted users but not communicated to them?

I wonder how long people would put up with this.

As much as I have a bunch of information to share about anime announced recently I cannot share it in news board, and the anime series is too disorganized and chaotic to share information except with people already interested in the particular series.

Nov 4, 2012 8:02 PM

#465

Offline

Jul 2012

48248

The original argument specifically said "at the beginning of the animation", Meep "shifted the goalpost" to some never never shown pre-animation and even LN point, that in itself makes her point invalid.

Sure, you can win that argument. I don't really know what I just talked about in the past few hours. Needed something to do instead of studying. :P I can't really back it up either. XD

Nov 4, 2012 8:02 PM

#466

Offline

Oct 2012

4937

symbv said:
Just want to say that I read a survey done by Tsutaya, a huge national chain of bookstores, which mined the sales data of >13 million of holders of its membership card to find information about the relationship of its LN sales and gender. SAO is the third most popular LN series for females. The magazine which publishes this survey concludes that lots of women find many aspects in SAO that appeal to them despite, or even because of, the cast of many cute girls falling for Kirito.

So here you go, I think the females in Japan are actually more sophisticated than many of us think. They would not shun a novel just because it looks harem-ish. They do not see the novel in one-dimension way and they know there can be more than one way to enjoy it.

Maybe its the romance genre tag that got them interested? just going out on a whim here, but that's irrelevant, every culture is different, and the Japanese sales are the majority of the sales they give a crap about.

Who knows, girls might love that harem genre and ecchi, we just judging it from a westerners POV where you can barely show tits on the television without some christian condemning you.

PS, not starting a religious debate but come on, we knows its true :P

Nov 4, 2012 8:02 PM

#467

NotDolphy

Offline

Mar 2012

521

Clearly, SAO is the sophisticated reader's light novel of choice.

Nov 4, 2012 8:13 PM

#468

Offline

Sep 2012

10121

RMNDolphy said:
Clearly, SAO is the sophisticated reader's light novel of choice.

Remember what I said, I said the readership is MORE SOPHISTICATED THAN perhaps you and I and many people here think.

symbvNov 4, 2012 8:22 PM

So MAL finally starts locking news threads that are only a few weeks old?

I wonder where was the announcement of this change? Or we are seeing yet another case of changes made that impacted users but not communicated to them?

I wonder how long people would put up with this.

As much as I have a bunch of information to share about anime announced recently I cannot share it in news board, and the anime series is too disorganized and chaotic to share information except with people already interested in the particular series.

Nov 4, 2012 8:18 PM

#469

Offline

Sep 2012

10121

vbyo said:
Maybe its the romance genre tag that got them interested? just going out on a whim here, but that's irrelevant, every culture is different, and the Japanese sales are the majority of the sales they give a crap about.

Who knows, girls might love that harem genre and ecchi, we just judging it from a westerners POV where you can barely show tits on the television withMout some christian condemning you.

Or perhaps the girls do not necessarily love harem genre, but they just do not find it that repelling to the extent of not liking the aspects which appeal to them. There are other possibilities. As I said, the female readers seem to be more sophisticated and they do not allow one aspect they do not enjoy from stopping them enjoying things they like in the novel.

My whole point is before we use our social and moral standard or our perception/bias of what Japanese society and youth culture to judge a product of the Japanese pop culture, it is better to keep an open mind and certain humility that our point of view may not be always the single valid, or right, standard. Speculating that females will most definitely not like SAO or even hate it, and then come up with even more speculations about why it should be the case is like an exercise of willful ignorance to me.

symbvNov 4, 2012 8:22 PM

So MAL finally starts locking news threads that are only a few weeks old?

I wonder where was the announcement of this change? Or we are seeing yet another case of changes made that impacted users but not communicated to them?

I wonder how long people would put up with this.

As much as I have a bunch of information to share about anime announced recently I cannot share it in news board, and the anime series is too disorganized and chaotic to share information except with people already interested in the particular series.

Nov 4, 2012 8:20 PM

#470

Offline

Oct 2012

4937

symbv said:

vbyo said:
Maybe its the romance genre tag that got them interested? just going out on a whim here, but that's irrelevant, every culture is different, and the Japanese sales are the majority of the sales they give a crap about.

Who knows, girls might love that harem genre and ecchi, we just judging it from a westerners POV where you can barely show tits on the television withMout some christian condemning you.

My whole point is before we use our social and moral standard or our perception/bias of what Japanese society and youth culture to judge a product of the Japanese pop culture, it is better to keep an open mind and certain humility that our point of view may not be always the single valid, or right, standard. Speculating that females will most definitely not like SAO or even hate it, and then come up with even more speculations about why it should be the case is like an exercise of willful ignorance to me.

I agree, with you, that's what my point was meant.

Nov 4, 2012 8:40 PM

#471

NotDolphy

Offline

Mar 2012

521

symbv said:

RMNDolphy said:
Clearly, SAO is the sophisticated reader's light novel of choice.

Remember what I said, I said the readership is MORE SOPHISTICATED THAN perhaps you and I and many people here think.

Yeah, 'cause I totally thought Japanese girls were barbarians before reading they dig SAO.

I'm not trying to be a jerk (honest!), I just thought your choice of words was funny. I remember reading Shonen Jump has a large female demographic, so this kind of thing is hardly unprecedented.

Nov 4, 2012 8:50 PM

#472