This series means anything to you, /a/? Do you like it? Do you

I unironically like the Yuuki arc and the movie even more. Rest is rather shitty but I kinda enjoy the LNs nonetheless. The anime series is not so much.

I read the first book when they started getting officially released in English. I didn't completely hate it I did finish it after all but I also didn't like it enough to continue with the series.

>>160099062
Oshiite!

i can't believe the abriged version even with that shitty internet humor managed to have a way better ending and character development not to mention an actual real explanation on why the creator of the game trapped everyone in the game

>>160100711
And I Can't Believe it's Not Butter!

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I obstinately hated it for the longest time but I can accept its mediocrity now that some years have passed. Hell, I may even be up for a rewatch sooner or later. Leafa NOT Sugu is best girl.

>>160099062
asuna was the only waifu i actually fell in love with when i was 16

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>>160099062
I only watched the first season. I only care about the cute romance between Kirito and Asuna. I don't take the plot seriously or care about any of the other characters.

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>>160099062
I ignored it when it aired because of the massive circlejerk then shit storm it bred here, but I started watching it last week out of curiosity. It was actually pretty fucking great for the first 12ish episodes until the out of nowhere "final" boss fight and them leaving SAO. If that was the end of the show I could have said it was a decent series, but it really shit the bed after that. Not only did it throw away a substantial cast of characters, an actually interesting setting and premise, and all sense of risk and danger, but the sudden tone shift was jarring to the point of nausea. I went in knowing it went to shit but god damn, I underestimated it. I'm on the fairy arc and I don't know if I can keep watching; it's like an entirely different show that just ripped off the main characters and premise of another show.

I legitimately loved the first 14 episodes.

First arc is good.

>>160099377
Yuuki arc and the first couple of episodes are pretty fucking amazing. The rest is just waifu trash. It doesn't really help that the show is filled with plot holes

I like the manga.

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First arc was meh. A1 fucked up the adaptation by just mashing together all Aincrad short stories, which resulted in an inconsistent clusterfuck with random timeskips and mood going back and forth between muh death game and merry harem adventures.
Knife ears arc went off the rails.
The rest is meh with some decent moments. I vaguely remember that the beginning of the Alicization arc was pretty fun, but I never finished reading it.

Progressive on the other hand is pretty solid and I'd love to see an animu adaptation. It fixes a lot of problems the original had.

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It's enjoyable trash, I'm waiting on the BD's of Ordinal Scale though.

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It's pretty good. I wouldn't rate it as high as I did the first time I saw it if I were to see it for the first time today, but I don't think I would've disliked it either.

unironically top 3

>>160099062
I remember waiting for that one translator to finish translating Sachi's chapter. I think they were already translating GGO, but that one chapter still wasn't done.

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>>160102660

>>160099062
I love how mad it makes people and hope they adapt the entire series so more people get mad

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I could give a rats ass about this show with the exception of Sinon/Asada Shino.

She made GGO for me and is top tier waifu material.

>>160099062
SAO Abridged was pretty good. I had a good laugh.

>>160104779
Sinon is Yoko Littner done right

>>160104884
>implying yoko was every slightly wrong.
Back to highschool.

The entire story should have been about Aincrad, not this shitty MMO-of-the-arc format.
Should've have explored the psychological angle further as well as flesh out the world and different factions, add floor politics and make other characters just as, if not more relevant, than the main characters in terms of impact on the story.
The Asuna/Kirito battle couple was nice in theory, but everything about it's execution was terrible.
Both are shallow characters and their romance has no substance whatsoever.
Asuna turned into a damsel hiding behind her man the moment they got together, was kidnapped immediately afterwards for an entire arc, and does not participate in the other games as Japan is physically incapable of portraying people in a relationship so its one excuse after another to keep them from spending too much time with each other.

Any other female characters are walking caricatures without any depth and just add to the completely and utterly unnecessary as well as annoying haremshit antics because the author has no idea how to write female characters.
Which is ironic because he has no idea how to write good romance either.

I appreciate it for what it could have been with an actually competent writer, but what it is right now is pure garbage. I am utterly baffled its so popular as it does nothing to deserve it.

>>160099062
It's a terrible show that basically relies on a teenage power fantasy to appeal to people.

>>160104945
The only good thing about Yoko were her tits, and they weren't even that big

>>160105608
Boobs can be too big

>>160105676
Nonsense

It started off with masses of potential and then managed to squander it by the end of the first arc

>>160099062
I have a copypasta of my thoughts on the series, if you want me to post it.

>>160106063
Might as well.

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>>160104779
She was better in the web novel. Look at this beauty.
Also if you liked GGO then you should read Squad Jam, it takes the setting of GGO with totally new characters and makes it not bastardized and stupid.

>>160106127
SAO is a bit of an interesting series. Reading the books, you start to really enjoy watching Reki grow as a writer. You also start to really enjoy the world he sets up. That world can't be properly conveyed in the anime series, no matter how much he'd like to try.
If you REALLY want to give SAO a try, forget the anime even exists. Read the Light Novels. Start with Progressive, read those, then read the main series, 1-17, and the Alternative some time after you finish Phantom Bullet.
The anime does the series a massive disservice, much unlike Accel World with its fantastic mecha designs and capturing of Haru's internal struggle between good and evil (But what do I know, I never watched the anime, just read the LNs).
Don't listen to Digibro's numerous proxies saying that it's absolute irredeemable shit or the fanboys calling it the greatest thing since sliced bread. Watch it yourself if you're a masochist, or read it yourself, and form your own opinion.
Now, to properly answer your question:
There are a number of 'high points' in the main series. Volume 1 was quite frankly terrible. It's to be expected. It was the first thing Reki ever wrote, and he sounds so cute in the afterword that you can almost find it in your heart to forgive him. Unfortunately, it's seriously not good. He effectively has no world set up for Aincrad in its first 2 volumes. That said, the introduction of best girl Lisbeth and the rest of the Spurned Women's Club can be very nice, depending on if you like certain members. Contrarian opinion number one and the fastest way to tell somebody actually invested in SAO from a filthy secondary strikes in volumes 3 and 4, Fairy Dance far better in the Light Novels than the anime. It makes sense, Progressive's first volume was effectively the first episode or two (In fact, that introduction sequence was specifically written FOR the anime, and then turned into Progressive), and Progressive is generally hailed as the best part about Aincrad.

Needless to say, there is no progressive in the LN. It's just a long, painful trek all the way through...
Fairy Dance is the first break from that long, painful trek of going back and forth along the Aincrad timeline with weird side stories that are in no semblance of a chronological order. Fairy Dance is the first time you see a real overarching story. However, in the anime (hooray for time constraints) nearly EVERYTHING that made Fairy Dance great in the LN was cut. Tonkii's introduction was completely cut (And so was the entire trip to Niflheim for that matter), a great deal of characterization was cut, and Suguha was relatively a side character for her entire arc. Sad.
So there's your first 'high point'. Fairy Dance.

Then the anime and the LN finally get something in common: making Phantom Bullet shit. GGO as a whole was just wasted potential: the video game. Do you want to know how I know that there was potential, but that it was just wasted? Just look at Alternative. Sigsawa got his hands on GGO after he helped out in SAO 2 and turned GGO into solid gold. Moving on.
After a few more side story whatnots to trudge through, you get to Alicization. Alicization is the arc where you can find SAO's peak, easily. It starts in volume 9 and goes on to volume 17, however, volume 14 is an entire volume dedicated to the final boss fight with the queen of The Underworld. Everything in Alicization up to this point was leading up to this, and along the ride SAO gets better with every volume. But I digress. There are a great number of things that make volume 14 the best volume in the series, but I'll let you find them for yourself.
And that about sums it all up. After volume 14, SAO finds another 'relative minima' or two before rising a bit more from that point. It doesn't get better than volume 14.

>>160102972
This chapter always gives me a good laugh

>>160099062
best MC of all time

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>>160106148
She's cute, but there's something about the LN/anime Sinon that feels special to me.

>>160099062
Indont care

>>160109124
What was the point of her character?

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>>160113194
Being the best cocktease in the series

>>160099062
Guilty pleasure

>>160099062
It's frustrating, because there's a lot of wasted potential in the show. If it were an anthology series with each arc being its own thing instead of being centered around Kirito, I think it might've been a decent series.