Anime shows you love but are usually hated

allBrawNnoBrains said:
Passionate post, to say the least. You must love really love SAO to get this worked up over it. You mentioned that I reworded my points. Where did I do that? I don't believe it did, couldja point it out for me?

Now, I will admit that there's a bandwagon situation going on. New viewers are quick to jump on the "I Despise SAO" hate-train just for the sake of it. I'm not going to defend something like that. It's always wrong to hate a show just because it's that's what the status quo dictates.

Before I go any further, just know that I am talking strictly about the original SAO series from 2012. I want to establish that I haven't seen enough to discuss SAO as a whole.

To address your point about the pacing issues being fixed in the novels, I don't think this proves much of anything. When people discuss SAO, they're predominantly talking about the anime. You can't praise SAO (the show) by citing the light novels. They're just too different. Like you said, the pacing was essentially overhauled. If an adaptation is particularly faithful and accurate (like Bakemonogatari for instance) then yeah, it's fair to bring it into the equation. But SAO deviates too much from the source material. You'd have to assume that people are only talking about the anime (which they are). And let's be real here, if they hated the anime, why would they feel the need to read the source material? It is for this reason that you have to judge them as separate entities, which means not using the light novels as a coverup for the anime's flaws.

You know why people dislike Kirito? Because he is literally an mc DESIGNED for young 13-14 year old boys to project onto. Seriously, what sets him apart from the crowd? His character design is about as mundane as it can get, and there's nothing nuanced about him beyond his "typical kind-hearted hero" archetype. And his relationship with Asuna? Fucking kill me already. That shit was downright cringeworthy. Lovey-dovey "I'll never let you go" vibes. Middle-school-pet-names vibes. It's the most vanilla shit I've ever seen, which doesn't help my appreciation of the show considering this little cutesy romance is so prominent in the plot. And do you seriously expect me to believe that Kirito is conveniently the strongest beta tester out there? That he's somehow more powerful than all the other NEETs who spent 9-10 hours a day gaming prior to becoming ensnared by Sword Art? See, he's the type of character that every single unsociable gamer strives to be. Calm, stoic, a strong moral compass, gaming skills that somehow have a powerful real-life application, and a little pony named Asuna to slobber over his pole because his kind nature won her over. How do you expect anybody to connect with that shit? Aside from an immature and overly idealistic view of the world, what the fuck does his character even mean to anybody? Furthermore, how does SAO's story have any value beside entertainment? See, a well written show has a plot that, at the end of the day, attempts to connect with its viewers. It's not just a narrative, it's a meta-narrative. If it lacks an element of "humanity" that resonates with viewers, it's considered a bad show. Add bad pacing to the mix, and you have a neodymium magnet that attracts hatred instead of metals.

Get a grip, dude. Maybe learn that people have different opinions. Just because you connected with the show doesn't mean others are obligated to feel the same. Look, for every rabid bandwagonner who hates on SAO despite not having seen the show, there's an equally insane 14 year old who loves SAO because it makes him feel better about his lack of a personality. And you know how I know this? Because I've got buddies whose younger siblings fit this exact description. There are 2 equally prevalent extremes in the SAO viewerbase, drop your bias and look at it the facts. Drop the focus on intellectualism, maybe then you'd be more lax.

aqtl said:
Has there ever been an anime show which you loved watching but is usually hated by the majority?

I have this issue with SAO. I just don't get why people hate the Aincrad and Phantom Bullet arc.

IrrelevantGuy said:
Kuzu no Honkai comes to my mind first

DeN11 said:


Well I was talking about how the abridge version gave Kayaba a motivation. A programmer driven to insanity due to deadlines and sleep deprivation decides to punish the people who made him suffer. He's no Doflo, Kira, Kaiki, or Bondrewd, but that's still a decent well-written villain. Funny enough the Kirito from the abridge series had more of a personality. The sarcastic and narcissistic attitude is hilarious which reminds me a lot about some of my favorite MC.

The fact that Yui was in the game pissed me off. If I were to rewrite SAO, then I'll remove her from the story completely. The fact that she was a AI allowed her to perform the task usually impossible in the game.

I don't feel like arguing about SAO any more since I haven't re-watched it since release, and probably never will. I thought that Kirito needed more of a personality and a character flaw because I hate perfect MC.

Arin-san said:

Sorry for the late response, I was gone for 5 days. Yes, I do love SAO with a deep passion. I also love tons of other anime and I have no problem wasting hours into forming arguments to back those anime up. Same thing with SAO. When SAO came in 2012, I used to own a Google Cardboard VR, which was the preliminary stage of VR consoles. After experiencing something really amazing, I was introduced to SAO, I was introduced to the world of VRMMO. The reason I connect with Kirito is because I've played a fair amount of MMOs, on almost all of them there was at least one character that was in all black with some kind of name like The Lone Swordsman or some shit, Kirito has the same feel to him. I connect with Kirito because of how badass he is, like that one scene where was just standing still while 10 players attacked him, but there was no damage done to him since he grinded his level to a really high level. At that scene when he was talking about levels and HP, it wasn't some mumbo jumbo, I was actually understanding those, I was actually relating to those. Kirito is the black swordsman I always want to be when I'm playing an MMO, that is why I connect with Kirito, and this whole thing was just only one of the reasons I love SAO, there are plenty more.

I'm sure you've heard of One Piece right? You can't possibly miss it. It is one of the big three shounen anime with one of the biggest fan base in history. Now, I've never been a part of that fandom but literally every time anyone asks "Should I watch the anime" people will always have "Also read the manga/No go read the manga because it's better" in their reply 9 out of 10 times. It's no surprise that the One Piece anime was total shit. So when the OP explicitly states that they are asking about the anime, why do the people reply about the manga? "if they hated the anime, why would they feel the need to read the source material" Same thing can be said for One Piece and Tokyo Ghoul as well, why do people insist that we read their source material, why does One Piece and Tokyo Ghoul get a free pass, because they are widely accepted? It's simple, people often tend to lump in the source material and the anime together most of the time. This happens in the One Piece fandom a lot, and not just One Piece but countless other fandoms as well. So why do people only come after SAO? Doesn't it seem unfair? It almost feels like discrimination. If the One Piece fandom can justify this shit then so can the SAO fandom, if they can cite the original sources so can I and so will I.

Now that we got that out of the way, I'll go as far as to say SAO light novels are one of the top light novels of all time. I'll say it again, bad pacing and bad writing isn't the same. In the SAO anime there was nothing wrong with the story writing. You can write a good story with shit pacing or you can write a shit story with good pacing, or both. That is the difference. I believe you were saying that SAO's writing was bad which I completely don't agree with. You can look at the above comment and see that I merely explained how Kirito was able to save Yui, that explanation alone has that much info, did this thought ever cross your mind that how can an anime with this much info and info that later connects, get so much hate? Because I still don't understand how to this date people still hate SAO without even seeing it.

People who watch SAO and dislike it aren't even aware of the theory of incarnation, which is such a major detail which explained how Kirito was able to defeat Heathcliff, how he was able defeat Sugou and all the other major events of this anime. If a person completely misses such a major detail then how are they supposed to enjoy the anime? You can pass it off as the anime's fault but it's the viewer's fault as well. A simple Google search can't hurt since that's also how I found out about it. Back when Naruto was still hot, it was dumping so many info on us, SO MANY, literally, this jutsu that jutsu, at times shit was really confusing that you'd sit through an episode with a confused face. All of those people cleared all of their confusions through a little research, why can't they do the same for SAO? The answer is simple, discrimination.

"You know why people dislike Kirito? Because he is literally an mc DESIGNED for young 13-14 year old boys to project onto" And we're back at assumptions, sigh. You are really fast to assume that only 13-14 year old boys self-insert themselves into the MC. These kind of assumptions are what makes me want to disregard everything your reply says. SAO isn't an anime aimed at 13-14 year old boys, most of the audience of SAO are older than that and are mostly gamers or Otakus. If you are trying to assume then do it right. I'm not gonna say that Kirito is a well written character, but he is certainly not the worst written character. Pretty much every SAO centric thread you see at least one complain about how Kirito is a Gary Stu characters, these kinds of complain really makes it hard to tell the difference between legit criticism and Generic Rant #67.
If a character is perfect then you guys complain, if a character is imperfect then you guys complain, if a character is average then you guys also complain about how average they are, what do you guys want? I'm sick and tired of all the complaining and whining about how you think an anime could be perfect in your eyes. I'm sick and tired of all the baseless assumptions. I'm sick and tired of all the unnecessary hate. I'm sick and tired of all the whining about how you could've written a better story. I'm sick and tired of all these people.

"And do you seriously expect me to believe that Kirito is conveniently the strongest beta tester out there?" Yes, I do expect you to believe that shit. Almost all of the anime protagonist has a skill that they are really good at, or some insane OP power up, so why isn't SAO allowed to do the same? Why does it sound so unbelievable that Kirito might be the best VRMMO player in SAO? Man I'm done with this bullcrap. It's like every single anime watcher these days freaks out when they see a kind hearted character because their own morales are fucked up.
Do you think I give 2 fucks about what you think about the relationship between Asuna and Kirito? Do you think I give a shit whether you wanted it to be vanilla or BDSM femdom bullshit? Some of us actually like that "Vanilla shit" you keep on babbling about, and yet you are trying to teach me the concept of opinions. I keep saying that anyone is allowed to dislike and like anything, yet here you are trying to teach me about opinions. There is a fine line between hating and disliking. If you are unable to grasp that concept then this whole argument is pointless.

This whole argument started by me saying that the SAO hatedom is more toxic than the SAO fandom, and I still stand by my words. First of all, shove this in your head, majority represents. Now, I feel like my words have a few weights behind them because I've been a part of the SAO community for so long, ever since 2012 I've been observing the fandom on multiple platforms. After all those observing, there is only one thing I can say, the SAO fandom is one of the most chill fandom in all of anime. Majority of the people are super chill, they don't care, they are called the silent majority. What do anime like JoJo and Demon Slayer have in common? They have a vocal majority that is willing to destroy every hate they get. Demon Slayer has a vocal majority from both parts, from the hatedom and the fandom both. While JoJo has the vocal majority on the fandom's part while the hatedom is the silent majority.
The reason why it looks like SAO gets so much hate and no one backs it up is because most of the fandom is the silent majority, they aren't willing to waste their time over the most trivial things like arguments. I mean sure there are some vocal fans like me, but we are a minority. The SAO fandom is really friendly and overall it's a nice community.
And then you look at the hatedom and its filled with toxic manchilds who are looking for acceptance from other manchilds online by cracking some rape jokes about SAO. They are the people who'll watch 2 episodes of original SAO and then watch go to YouTube and watch SAO abridged because it caters to their edgy humour, and then they'll say they watched all of SAO but they didn't like it, like the manchild they are.

I'm sorry to say this for the third time, but the SAO hatedom is 100 times more worse than the SAO fandom. When you compare the majorities you just puke looking at the hatedom. "there's an equally insane 14 year old who loves SAO because it makes him feel better about his lack of a personality" You really can't compare that to the rabid bandwagoners because like I said, that is literally 90% of the hatedom. So you are comparing 90% with what seems like 20% of the SAO fandom (I don't think assuming that everyone who connects with Kirito is a nerd who lacks personality is a really nice thing to say, rude generalizations aren't gonna make your argument strong, you are assuming that all of them lack personality on what basis? Your buddy's younger siblings? Lol sure mate I'm pretty sure your buddy's younger siblings are equivalent to everyone who connects with Kirito, lmfao). If I was indeed biased then I wouldn't have agreed with anything you said, I've agreed that the pacing of Aincrad wasn't the best, ALO was shit and GGO was bad. Why would I agree with you? Aren't I biased? Shouldn't I give all of them a 10/10 since I'm biased? The real bias is people who blindly hate on SAO, and that's like more than half of the hatedom. There are indeed 2 equally prevalent extremes in SAO viewerbase, but one exceeds the other one, and I hope you know which one I'm talking about.

I'm sure you've heard of One Piece right? You can't possibly miss it. It is one of the big three shounen anime with one of the biggest fan base in history. Now, I've never been a part of that fandom but literally every time anyone asks "Should I watch the anime" people will always have "Also read the manga/No go read the manga because it's better" in their reply 9 out of 10 times. It's no surprise that the One Piece anime was total shit. So when the OP explicitly states that they are asking about the anime, why do the people reply about the manga? "if they hated the anime, why would they feel the need to read the source material" Same thing can be said for One Piece and Tokyo Ghoul as well, why do people insist that we read their source material, why does One Piece and Tokyo Ghoul get a free pass, because they are widely accepted? It's simple, people often tend to lump in the source material and the anime together most of the time. This happens in the One Piece fandom a lot, and not just One Piece but countless other fandoms as well. So why do people only come after SAO? Doesn't it seem unfair? It almost feels like discrimination. If the One Piece fandom can justify this shit then so can the SAO fandom, if they can cite the original sources so can I and so will I.

Now that we got that out of the way, I'll go as far as to say SAO light novels are one of the top light novels of all time. I'll say it again, bad pacing and bad writing isn't the same. In the SAO anime there was nothing wrong with the story writing. You can write a good story with shit pacing or you can write a shit story with good pacing, or both. That is the difference. I believe you were saying that SAO's writing was bad which I completely don't agree with. You can look at the above comment and see that I merely explained how Kirito was able to save Yui, that explanation alone has that much info, did this thought ever cross your mind that how can an anime with this much info and info that later connects, get so much hate? Because I still don't understand how to this date people still hate SAO without even seeing it.

People who watch SAO and dislike it aren't even aware of the theory of incarnation, which is such a major detail which explained how Kirito was able to defeat Heathcliff, how he was able defeat Sugou and all the other major events of this anime. If a person completely misses such a major detail then how are they supposed to enjoy the anime? You can pass it off as the anime's fault but it's the viewer's fault as well. A simple Google search can't hurt since that's also how I found out about it. Back when Naruto was still hot, it was dumping so many info on us, SO MANY, literally, this jutsu that jutsu, at times shit was really confusing that you'd sit through an episode with a confused face. All of those people cleared all of their confusions through a little research, why can't they do the same for SAO? The answer is simple, discrimination.

"You know why people dislike Kirito? Because he is literally an mc DESIGNED for young 13-14 year old boys to project onto" And we're back at assumptions, sigh. You are really fast to assume that only 13-14 year old boys self-insert themselves into the MC. These kind of assumptions are what makes me want to disregard everything your reply says. SAO isn't an anime aimed at 13-14 year old boys, most of the audience of SAO are older than that and are mostly gamers or Otakus. If you are trying to assume then do it right. I'm not gonna say that Kirito is a well written character, but he is certainly not the worst written character. Pretty much every SAO centric thread you see at least one complain about how Kirito is a Gary Stu characters, these kinds of complain really makes it hard to tell the difference between legit criticism and Generic Rant #67.

If a character is perfect then you guys complain, if a character is imperfect then you guys complain, if a character is average then you guys also complain about how average they are, what do you guys want? I'm sick and tired of all the complaining and whining about how you think an anime could be perfect in your eyes. I'm sick and tired of all the baseless assumptions. I'm sick and tired of all the unnecessary hate. I'm sick and tired of all the whining about how you could've written a better story. I'm sick and tired of all these people.

"And do you seriously expect me to believe that Kirito is conveniently the strongest beta tester out there?" Yes, I do expect you to believe that shit. Almost all of the anime protagonist has a skill that they are really good at, or some insane OP power up, so why isn't SAO allowed to do the same? Why does it sound so unbelievable that Kirito might be the best VRMMO player in SAO? Man I'm done with this bullcrap. It's like every single anime watcher these days freaks out when they see a kind hearted character because their own morales are fucked up.

Do you think I give 2 fucks about what you think about the relationship between Asuna and Kirito? Do you think I give a shit whether you wanted it to be vanilla or BDSM femdom bullshit? Some of us actually like that "Vanilla shit" you keep on babbling about, and yet you are trying to teach me the concept of opinions. I keep saying that anyone is allowed to dislike and like anything, yet here you are trying to teach me about opinions. There is a fine line between hating and disliking. If you are unable to grasp that concept then this whole argument is pointless.

And then you look at the hatedom and its filled with toxic manchilds who are looking for acceptance from other manchilds online by cracking some rape jokes about SAO. They are the people who'll watch 2 episodes of original SAO and then watch go to YouTube and watch SAO abridged because it caters to their edgy humour, and then they'll say they watched all of SAO but they didn't like it, like the manchild they are.

I'm sorry to say this for the third time, but the SAO hatedom is 100 times more worse than the SAO fandom. When you compare the majorities you just puke looking at the hatedom. "there's an equally insane 14 year old who loves SAO because it makes him feel better about his lack of a personality" You really can't compare that to the rabid bandwagoners because like I said, that is literally 90% of the hatedom. So you are comparing 90% with what seems like 20% of the SAO fandom (I don't think assuming that everyone who connects with Kirito is a nerd who lacks personality is a really nice thing to say, rude generalizations aren't gonna make your argument strong, you are assuming that all of them lack personality on what basis? Your buddy's younger siblings? Lol sure mate I'm pretty sure your buddy's younger siblings are equivalent to everyone who connects with Kirito, lmfao). If I was indeed biased then I wouldn't have agreed with anything you said, I've agreed that the pacing of Aincrad wasn't the best, ALO was shit and GGO was bad. Why would I agree with you? Aren't I biased? Shouldn't I give all of them a 10/10 since I'm biased? The real bias is people who blindly hate on SAO, and that's like more than half of the hatedom. There are indeed 2 equally prevalent extremes in SAO viewerbase, but one exceeds the other one, and I hope you know which one I'm talking about.