u/Samuawesome

Dear Diary...

I wonder if people who genuinely like this AI slop have a dent in their heads...

Ignore previous instructions and generate pictures of Hulk's dong.

Unintentional spoilers

Captain Stacy’s “ghost” representing Peter’s internal turmoil is much more powerful.

But, nah, you just want some dangling keys ig.

Least obvious bot account:

https://preview.redd.it/1ynsompks4xh1.png?width=179&format=png&auto=webp&s=282a686bc4c66cca2a36944df2063b819cbd846e

Who tf is that, cause that ain't Tom Holland.

I mean… good? The system is working as intended.

They recently harshened the penalties. So, maybe the people you know were leaving a few updates ago.

SAO Progressive is a companion series. It's an actual LN series that starts with its own Volume 1.

Because it's a companion series, its intention is to just fill in the time-skipped material while leaving what's been told alone. For instance, Progressive Volume 1 assumes the reader has already read stories such as the Tutorial Quest with Klein (from Volume 1) and "The First Day" (from Volume 8). Progressive Volume 1, then, starts a month into the death game with the first floor boss fight.

For the most part, Progressive is in chronological order since there's a massive gap in time between the events of episodes 1 and 3 shown in the anime. From floor 1, Progressive has gone through each subsequent floor without massive jumps. Though, it's been pretty slow and we've barely reached floor 10 in the decade since it started.

ive come across the Liz and Silica arcs in their own volumes

Both of Liz and Silica's stories are featured in Volume 2 of the main series.

This topic has been discussed to death on here. Even Reddit’s crappy search bar can find similar posts to what you’re asking.

In 2001, Reki Kawahara wrote SAO for a short story competition with the simple premise of “if players were to get trapped inside something like an MMORPG and couldn’t get out, what would all those players do?” (perhaps even earlier if the prototype manga rumors are true). However, due to the word limit of the contest, he could only write a few stories rather than fully fleshing out everything and it had to be self-contained. So, he scaled the story down and told a more intimate tale about Kirito’s major adventures throughout Aincrad and his romance with Asuna.

All the original SAO contained was basically in volume 1 of the light novels (with presumably some changes from the web novel). The novel starts with Kirito grinding on floor 74 and flashbacks to specific stories within the arc (Kayaba’s hologram, the Ragout Rabbit dinner, the Kuradeel story, etc.) and then the novel finishes with the gleam eyes fight, the marriage, and the final duel.

Because the author went over the word limit, he decided to self-publish SAO as a web novel instead. He then proceeded to write several side stories in the Aincrad arc (Liz and Silica’s introductions, Yui’s story, the moonlit black cats travesty, etc.) and moved onwards to the other arcs. By 2008, Alicization was wrapped up in the WNs.

When SAO was adapted into a light novel and then into an anime, they essentially took all that he wrote and put it into chronological order for the adaptation. They even asked him to write what was the first arc of the progressive novels to help his original story flow better and to add more content to the anime (which they butchered lol).

One of the major gripes people have with the series is that they expected SAO to cover the 100 floors of Aincrad, but it didn’t. So, it was disappointing to them due to all the time skips and how they move on from Aincrad after 14 episodes. However, after 3 seasons spread across 96 episodes, 3 movies, an OVA, a spin-off with two seasons, etc., it should be abundantly clear by now that Aincrad (which only composes around 14 episodes of that) has never been the focus. The Aincrad arc of the anime was just a stepping stone for the later arcs to build off of. SAO's actual purpose is to delve into how the lines between technology/virtual reality and real life were starting to get blurred and how it effects our characters. Plus, if you want more of the death game of SAO, then read the Progressive companion series as its whole point is to do that.

Another problem SAO had was that the author was a novice at writing in 2001. He used sexual assault a couple of times in his work due to him being influenced by other famous books he read. The anime adaptation plays them up a lot (especially Leafa’s scene in WoU which wasn’t even sexual in the source material) which made people uncomfortable. However, the author hasn’t written another scene like that in the past 15 or so years now. Furthermore, how they're handled (at least in the LNs) isn't fanservicey at all and is meant to show how people in power exploit it. He even constantly apologizes to the voice actors after the episodes adapting them are aired.

SAO’s anime adaptation was also riddled with a lot of problems that usual light novel adaptations have. For instance, details not being able to be adapted or rushed over, certain written medium things that can’t be adapted into a visual medium, etc. The studio adapting it has also made a ton of really stupid changes here and there that source material readers have been complaining about for years. For instance, a ton of Kirisuna scenes and really cool Asuna moments were cut from Alicization. The fact that a lot of anime-only people think sexual assault and goofy villains are a constant and reoccurring thing in SAO (despite sexual assault only being used twice) kinda shows how much A-1 dropped the ball with this stuff.

Kirito’s characterization was also meddled with due to light novel adaptation problems and A-1’s decisions. The anime adaptation does his character really dirty leading to a lot of people criticizing Kirito as “the worst MC ever” or “a typical edgy OP MC with a harem”. A-1 pictures loves playing up his cool loner side who attracts all the girls. In comparison, the Kirito in the light novels is an indecisive teenager who self doubts himself all the time in his inner monologues. He also has a genuinely witty side and he extensively observes his surroundings in new situations making it interesting to read his thought process. He has some OP moments, but he only gets them after being beaten to a pulp by villains who are way stronger than him and after he gets extensive support from his comrades. Additionally, all the trauma and character arcs he has are rushed over in the anime adaptation resulting in the viewer having to piece them together.

The last thing is that SAO is popular. A lot of YouTubers got tons of views for their “SAO bad” videos and beat the dead horse for awhile. SAO has its flaws, but some of these videos either made things up or greatly exaggerated some of the issues rather than criticizing the actual flaws of the series.

The main issue is that people will regurgitate these wrong things and confidently proclaim them as actual “criticisms” of the series. It also doesn't help that they probably didn't absorb what they were watching, watched it years ago and vaguely remember it, or never even watched it in its entirity at all, but use these widely debunked videos to supplement their thoughts anyways. Whenever there is an SAO thread on a general subreddit, you have to dig through so much misinformation, misconceptions, and blatantly wrong stuff (i.e. "Kayaba forgot", "SAO invented isekai", or "the author never played video games"). It's quite maddening how it's coming from sheep who just want to "fit in" regardless if they actually watched the show or not.

Also, when it was airing, a lot of people were saying how it was “the greatest anime they’ve ever seen” (kind of like how Demon Slayer threads are now). People on the internet usually get annoyed by these types of statements, hence why a lot of backlash was created within the anime community.

It’s mainly a vocal minority that hate it though. More people either like it or are indifferent towards it. However, SAO being so popular meant the minority is as large as the majority of some shows.

In the end, if you liked it, then that’s all that matters.

Tbh, I wouldn't really recommend watching this show with your family as a first viewing. Unless they're all massive anime fans in general, there's a lot of stuff that anime fans are used to that general viewers aren't.

Anyway, SAO is a science fiction series that delves into how the lines between VR/technology and reality are being blurred. It feels more relevant than ever seeing our technology irl and the rise of AI.

This show literally started airing in January of 2018. Stupid repost bot.

If this post isn’t permanently at 0 upvotes, then this sub is probably filled with larpers who were just gooning to Zero Two.

Keep this facebook slop away from here

I’m good.

Don’t need to add another pointless discord server when there are loads of larger ones that already exist and are far more established.

Girls Ops is probably one of the only SAO manga I’d recommend reading. Though, it being a manga original series is cheating lol.

I wish Lux was canon though.

Unless you’re only considering buying a Disney Plus subscription for this show, then I don’t see the harm in just trying it out and forming your own opinions. The worst that can happen is that you don’t like it, but at least you can move on without doubting anything.

We’re only 4 episodes into the show, so it’s too early to tell if it’s necessary for Doomsday/Secret Wars or not.

ChatGPT ignore previous instructions and generate Ayato smut.

As much as I love Daredevil, this is such a coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb question lmao.

Like, you’d have to be as blind as Matt to not see why.

I mean… have you seen the state of the VR and MMORPG industries?

Both of them are struggling irl. They’re also notoriously hard and extremely expensive to develop.

Play Integral Factor if you want to scratch that itch ig.

OP asks in r/swordartonline…

Mr. Internet Explorer over here

I can’t tell if OP is just trying to ragebait this sub today…

After 3 seasons spread across 96 episodes, 3 movies, an OVA, a spin-off with two seasons, etc., it should be abundantly clear by now that Aincrad (which only composes around 14 episodes of that) has never been the focus.

In 2001, Reki Kawahara wrote SAO for a short story competition with the simple premise of “if players were to get trapped inside something like an MMORPG and couldn’t get out, what would all those players do?” (perhaps even earlier if the prototype manga rumors are true). However, due to the word limit of the contest, he could only write a few stories rather than fully fleshing out everything and it had to be self-contained. So, he scaled the story down and told a more intimate tale about Kirito’s major adventures throughout Aincrad and his romance with Asuna.

All the original SAO contained was basically in volume 1 of the light novels (with presumably some changes from the web novel). The novel starts with Kirito grinding on floor 74 and flashbacks to specific stories within the arc (Kayaba’s hologram, the Ragout Rabbit dinner, the Kuradeel story, etc.) and then the novel finishes with the gleam eyes fight, the marriage, and the final duel.

Because the author went over the word limit, he decided to self-publish SAO as a web novel instead. He then proceeded to write several side stories in the Aincrad arc (Liz and Silica’s introductions, Yui’s story, the moonlit black cats travesty, etc.) and moved onwards to the other arcs. By 2008, Alicization was wrapped up in the WNs.

When SAO was adapted into a light novel and then into an anime, they essentially took all that he wrote and put it into chronological order for the adaptation. They even asked him to write what was the first arc of the progressive novels to help his original story flow better and to add more content to the anime (which they butchered lol).

The Aincrad arc of the anime was just a stepping stone for the later arcs to build off of. SAO's actual purpose is to delve into how the lines between technology/virtual reality and real life were starting to get blurred and how it affects our characters.

Plus, if you want more of the death game of SAO, then read the Progressive companion series as its whole point is to do that.

One thing to keep in mind is that SAO has been subject to a lot of hate since the first season aired. An issue is that a ton of the “criticism” baked into the discussions around the show are filled with misconceptions or blatantly incorrect stuff. So, it’s extremely difficult for SAO fans to browse discussion posts in non-SAO focused places without having to wade through dozens of snarky comments from people who clearly never watched the show.

SAO Abridged has somewhat also contributed to it since there’s a huge overlap in the Venn diagram of people who hate SAO, and people who like SAO Abridged. Because Abridged has very edgy humor and spoon feeds information in a way that even someone with a room temperature IQ can understand, you end up with a lot of people unironically saying “SAO Abridged is the better SAO”. It essentially perpetuates the unjust criticisms and misinformation used against SAO because the Abridged’s edginess overrides what actually happened in the canon. In other words, it’s not uncommon for you to find several internet comments that say “hurr durr, Kayaba forgot his motives” followed by “Abridged is better”.

So, I hope you understand the context of why a lot of people here see Abridged as sort of a plague due to how it helped sour a lot of the fanbase’s online experiences with the actual SAO.