What's in a Scene? - How SAO Became the Worst Anime Ever 

First episode Kirito: Im weak i need to get stronger Second episode Kirito: "So I did some mining off camera"

"But no, preserving his wife's tamagotchi is a lot more important than that!" That was pure gold right there.

I DONT UNDERSTAND HOW KIRITO WENT FROM “I must train harder to get stronger” TO ONE OF THE MOST FEARED SWORDSMAN IN THE GAME *IN ONE EPISODE*

The moment that broke me was when they skipped half of the tower to the final boss and easily defeated him in the middle of the season. There was no reason why, they just deleted all the tension and worldbuilding up to that point FOR NOTHING.

Kirito: *saves a girl* Every saved girl: Holy shit, I love you.

kirito is like every child's character during a roleplay they want to be overpowered as hell

“Everyone over the age of 12 hates this show”. Actually this was a twilight like thing. Reki kawahara made it for teenage boys with raging hormones to project themselves on this. Edit: I’m not trying to defend this show I hate it

The creators even killed Eugo (a valuable character) just for Kirito to have his sword and do dual-wielding.

"His wife's tamagotchi" I started laughing with that line.

“Why didn’t he globally reactivate the games logout function” this is a very good point

They went wrong precisely at.... Episode 2. Episode 2 shouldn't have been the first boss. We should have seen Kirito doing his solo run, operating on the fringes, but seeing other characters, even whole groups getting wiped out, while Kirito continues on. We should have SEEN Lisabet's party building up, and then seen it get wiped out. Let us see the Moonlit Black Cats as they start, and how they end up meeting Kirito later on, so that we get a better sense of things, and have time to invest before the deaths start happening. Hell, SHOW us Kirito's memories of the Beta Test, maybe he saw a GM use one of the consoles before, and is actually SEARCHING for one of those consoles that he can access, because there might be a window where he could get an item that might get him out, or at least give an edge to someone to end the death game. Giving that extra time, would've also had the effect of slowing Kirito's rise, while we get to see the other characters really get to do some things. So we see Asuna join the Knights of the Blood Oath, and rise in power to where we see her later, we see Laughing Coffin get rolling, we see the rise of Titan's Hand, forces that will come up later in the story. Klein actually gets to do things, as opposed to.... every other scene with Klein in it.

Honestly this video made me appreciate why SAO Abridged made her death a prank gone wrong. Originally I thought it just undermined it, but now I see it was the only way to make her basic immortality and resurrection not seem stupid in contrast to her death scene

The thing I REALLY hated (character wise) about Sao is how Asuna went from a strong, bad-ass chick to a damsel in distress once she started crushing on Kirito. Fcking annoying...

Kirito has a fidget spinner on his costume...

There is actually more wrong with Yui than just that. Yui basically acts as emotional blackmail against Asuna. Asuna is now emotionally tied to Yui as her "Mother" and Kirito was chosen as Yui's "Father". Meaning, If Asuna didn't love Kirito she'd still have to remain with him to play the "Mother" role for Yui. Which allows Kirito to keep his harem. Which, is something a few Harem Anime seem to have done. Introduced a "precious" little girl who sees the Main Character as her 'Father" and ALL the girls in the Harem as her "Mothers". Meaning none of them can leave otherwise it'll break the "precious" little girls heart. Which they can't do. Aside from that would Yui acts as a cheat code for Kirito. Kirito has to start back at level 1? No! Just have Yui restore him (pretty much) back to what was at in the last game. She also is something that no other player CAN have: an AI assistant. Kirito pretty much goes through the game just plain cheating.

SAO was one of my first animes and I loved it at the time. However, the more I watched the more I was like "wtf". I still liked it, cause I thought the premise was cool and was optimistic. Once I got older I was like "yea this show sucked". I wish there would be a remake of this show with a different protagonist, kinda like ggo alternative. I like the story of SAO but I dont like how it was told.

Show is called sword art online. Has an entire arc dedicated to guns

Honestly it should’ve ended after they cleared sao. Considering how it’s called sword art online

In conclusion: watch the abridged series and treat it as canon.

It's amazing how much the abridged series looked at this, basically said "I agree" and instead of getting rid of it, they made it make sense (for the most part). I mean, let's be honest, it still doesn't really explain how Kurt (or actual Kirito for that matter) could save Yui as an in-game item and have it flagged to be "saved to his NervGear" (why is this even a feature unless you want cheating to occur?). But, now knowing that Yui was faking it, it makes sense how he was able to access the data without some or all of it being locked or just plain missing already. It also fixes the whole "only two that love each other" problem, helps them develop their character, and much more.

Kirito's Job Application for protagonist: - Beta Tester - Neet - Sword skills - Rage is my Ultimate - PhD in Computer Science - Btw 14

I think the reason Pre-Teens love this show is because they want to be Krito. Be super OP, get all the girls and such.

“No one important will ever die” *Eugeo dies* “This video didn’t age well”

We know the reason why all the girls fell for him Charisma hat +50

As someone who studied programming in C# CSS and javascript for nearly 10 years, I can confirm what he said in the video, It would be impossible to not only take apart the game's code and stored billions of lines of code in a few seconds, not only that but it would also be impossible to do all that and not cause a single glitch that could potentially break the game killing everyone inside it. Programming is anything but simple.

Kirito: *Breathes* Every girl within a 20 mile radius: *_w e t_*

I like the concept of the GGO. There's a mystery feel to it. And using potassium as a way of murder behind gaming is genius.

Even after 6 years, I still think about this video. Very good.

At least it spawned a great abridged series

Watching someone hate on something is so much frikin fun.

The first 10-15 episodes of this show were amazing. Even though this anime isn’t that good, it’ll always have a special place in my heart cuz it was the first anime I watched. The songs they used in this anime are also amazing

>Person I barely knew for 2 days >50 thousand people Are you sure you want to pick person you barely knew for - Yes.

We know only one thing for sure Everyone hates the elf arc

“I’ll admit it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be” “IT WAS WORSE”

7:06 Watching Asuna nod her head for about 30 seconds

“Preserving his wife’s tamagotchi is much more important than that” had me screaming

“ his wife’s tamagotchi “ LMAO

When I first watched found SAO, I thought it was gonna be 100 episodes for each level lol

I actually stope washing SAO when SHE came to the picture , in some point I felt like I was washing a fanfiction

Yui's transformation into an object as a substitute for death could have been a really good story opportunity. Maybe when it first happens, they're both reassured by this, the story treats it as her being temporarily incapacitated but will be okay in no time, and then when all the action has cooled down they bring her back, and... she's completely broken. Her character model is glitching all over the place, her voice distorts constantly, and her memory and ability to respond to her environment is worse than ChatGPT. Maybe in compressing her, Kirito "corrupted her software" and the thing he did to save her ultimately caused her current state. Kirito and Asuna would both be horrified by this, their relationship would be dramatically changed, and Kirito would be forced to reckon with a personal failure of his. Wracked with guilt, shame and longing for his daughter back, he becomes obsessed with finding a way to fix her, something that drives him into isolation once again, but this time instead of it making him powerful, it's caused and continued by the fact that he's *powerless*. It doesn't exactly mesh well with the core theme of the show and might mess with the tone, but it could easily add some really good drama, it would let other characters step up and fill the team role that Kirito would struggle to fill, and most importantly, make her death and resurrection meaningful and have consequences.

"PRESERVING HIS WIFE'S TAMAGOTCHI" amazing

Cant lie SAO brought me into anime, loved it BUT ONLY the first arc. Man did that show go downhill from there to utter trash. Also Japan gotta chill out with that incest.

Sword art online had so much potential. They could've just show the whole adventure not going like. Episode 1: floor 1. And then we have episode 2: floor 37. They could've have shown all the boss battles and have a good story line. And they ruined it. For me the only good arcs in Sao are only these 2 The aincrad arc and the alicization arc

everytime yui talked throughout the entirety of SOA, i died a little inside.

"All of you are wrong, I'm right." ME ON ALL LEVELS

When I first watched SAO I thought Kiritos name was kitty toe

felt the same about Avdol. When they brought him back i wasnt like YAY hes BACK!! I was like wow that just made death feel really really cheap in this series

Honestly Yui isn't conceptually bad. It'd be interesting to see how someone reacts to knowing that she's the only one who can't die, and how other characters might react to that. Would they become jealous and try to hurt her in other ways? What does her life mean, to herself and others, if it can't be ended? How does she deal with the survivors' guilt that comes with *literally everyone else's death?*

Thank you for reminding me why I liked this show in the first place, and then reminding me why I am never going back.

"How Sword Art Online became the worst anime ever" It was made. There.

so kirito's like a mary sue huh.

Take away the unnecessary sexual parts and it would probably be a lot better

I feel like the biggest problem is that Kirito has NO FLAWS. And that he was just so perfect his own sister fell in love with him? Like seriously Edit: Okay y’all I know they are cousins, I watched the show myself, but my point was, he got his own family members to fall for him which is just no

Now imagine if Kirito had saved a *single* guy, that would’ve made it at least mildly interesting, seeing as every single girl he’s saved has fallen in ‘love’ with him

i always assumed that he doesn't actually know what he's doing and is just aggressively pressing buttons to desperately try and attempt to save her, it lines up with his emotional state (doing something impulsive as a result of a strong emotion)

As someone who has actually watched the entire show plus the movie: I actually liked the show. When I was twelve. I knew nothing about quality and just liked the idea of being literally sucked into a game

For me, the romance ruined this show. They turned badass Asuna into a damsel in distress, and instead of the tension, fear of dying, and battle with monsters, the show goes on a vacation trip. Then once the two love birds are done that shit, they go back and they get out of this world. Asuna is never badass again. SAO 2 had the same problem. They had a really go start, then half way through the spirit dies off after ANOTHER sexual assault scene. This show needs to pick a direction it wants to go.

When did it start sucking? During the first when Klein was all "Want to be bros and go on cool adventures?" and Edgerito was all "Nah I'm going to time skip and one hit everything with a harem of lolis :^)"

If it helps, Kirito’s backstory said that he had previously hacked the national registry to discover he wasn’t Suguha’s brother. And if it makes things worse, I think I remember something along the lines of sao and alo being unhackable due to Cardinal

Wasn't Yui also a therapeutic AI or something? That kind of sounds important, so assuming that her code was tied into the game, and Kirito yeeted her code into an item, how did the game not have some kind of error somewhere? I'm not a programmer or a coder or anything like that, but I'd assume that removing some lines of code from a game could potentially break it in some way.

“Saving his wife’s tamagotchi” bruh I’m weak 😂😂😂

How to make SAO better: Don’t Just watch SAO Abridged

It was the creator’s speech at the end of the first season that absolutely pissed me off. He rambled incoherently about why he killed all these people or at least destroyed their lives, with a sunset in the background while Kirito silently listened without challenging him in any way. It was literally the worst villain speech I’ve ever seen in any fiction, and Kirito’s apparent approval basically make me think he was ok taking away so much from everyone else just so he could have his wish fulfillment fantasy. It was literally the easiest setup for a virtual world bad, real world good message and the writer literally couldn’t even do that.

Kirito is a 19-years old not a child.

Sao would've been better if it didn't focus on Kirito's 9291 girlfriends

what happens if you're in SAO and your internet goes out shouldn't should you be logged out?

I swear to God kirito woke up like he was taking a long ass nap with no sort of ptsd

I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but this was good satire. He talks about the show as if there was an expectation for high stakes and horror elements in it. The truth, of course, is that the only aspect that would implicate that kind of anime is the basic premise. Of course it would fail miserably if you only saw it as trying to be a horror/intense anime like attack on Titan. But everything else about the show clearly presents it as a fun, colorful adventure story that provides a high-stakes motivation to succeed. From the TV rating, to the bright colors, to the (for the most part) generic, not scary looking monsters. At no point was there an expectation that any main character would die outside the episode they are introduced. (Keep in mind, I was in my early twenties when I first saw this, not a kid.)

Would've been better if he had extreme PTSD from the deaths of his friends in the trap

Kirito S1: I'm a f*cking badass loner Kirito in the rest of the season: ASUNA

I pretend sao ended at the hospital scene after Kirito saves Asuna, cause everything afterwards is so ass 😭

I feel like Yui would have been better as a character if she showed up in the beginning. She could have been a source of character development as Kirito and Asuna have to step up tp take care of her, and the audience would have been a lot more attached to her after multiple episodes. Of course that wouldn't have solved the problem as stated in this video, so there's really no point to it.

Kirito: Who are you? Guts: I'm the black swordman done right

"Preserving his wife's Tomagatchi" I FUCKING LOST MY SHIT THERE

Overlord was like "I'm a do this, but self-aware, so I can be a parody and be more interesting."

I was hoping with the programming scene in regards to the series as a whole, Kirito would've looked for the code to initiate a mass player log out instead (which would've existed for when the game was cleared). Maybe because he's on the GM account, Kirito's flagged as admin and not affected, but he's surprised Asuna is still there and gets a messages from her guild members that a bunch of players were logged out, but many still remain (the players kidnapped during the Fairy Dance arc). Unable to access the code anymore to figure out why, Kirito speculates maybe it was a glitch caused by launching the log out before clearing the game but the remaining players continue on and both of them mourn Yui. After clearing the Skull Reaper, Kayaba gives himself away by mentioning some information that'd only be known to the GM (as you'd said: "not perfect explanation, but still a damn sight better than Kayaba-ex machina"). During their conversation after SAO is cleared when Asuna asks how they're still there, Kayaba tells them they should be thanking their daughter and when questioned if Yui's still alive, he gives them her crystal but is unclear whether it's a memento or something more, before disappearing. It'd make a whole lot more sense than Kirito being able to convert an AI into an item, gives a greater sense of ultimate reward in the hero's journey, and a better explanation of how Kayaba is able to appear in Alfheim.

"Preserving his wife's tamagachi is a lot more important than that" I almost spat out my drink

This is the first time I saw this. As a programmer, it hurts watching this scene lmao.

I always did think that the whole honeymoon arc ruined what could have been an ok show, but never understood why. I knew I didnt like Yui but that was because of the role she played in that bit of the show.

It's the middle of the night and I'm re-watching SAO-hate videos, and I just remembered the thing that threw me off about Yui. Asuna and Kirito are roughly 14 years old. They live in the modern-day (if alternative) world. Theoretically, prior to the death game, they were, relatively speaking, normal CHILDREN. The death game might have allowed them to have a maturity beyond their years, but that's in regards to situational awareness, problem-solving, and crisis management. Not in RAISING A FAMILY. Why did they adopt Yui? They themselves are not adults, nor do they have any experience in raising children, as far as we know. And yet, they call Yui their child. Not a little girl that they've taken under their wing, not a little sister that is a sweet cinnamon roll, no, they chose to adopt her as their CHILD. I'm not sure about anyone else, but when I was 14, I was still in the height of my "adults are lame, my parents don't understand me, I'm obviously the coolest thing since sliced bread" period. I was a whiny little brat with a bad temper and propensity for shirking my responsibilities. I certainly never wanted to have MORE responsibilities, I just wanted more privileges without having to do the work. Having a kid? Yeah, that wasn't on my list of things that I thought would bring me a good time. Just, why a daughter? Why? I'm still confused about this, and it's been years since I gave a sh*t about this series. BTW, it's roughly 1AM and I'm probably mildly delirious, so sorry if I rambled too much to make sense.

"But no, preserving his wife's Tamagotchi"...He just called Yui a Tamagotchi...my fucking sides...

“All of them are wrong. All of you are wrong. I’m right. Listen to me.” -The Internet

I thought they would keep the kid and kill off her killable parents so that she's some kind of immortal mc that has to see everyone die since she's the only one that's not human... It's edgy enough for an anime with an mc dressed in black

Kirito is the most generic yet perfect self insert/power fantasy. Plain generic hair. Slim teenager body. Cold personality to outsiders. Overpowered to unexplainable heights, Harem of women with different features for all tastes, Every girl saved falls in love with MC. Placed in a world where survival is key and anyone can die, Edgy all black look, People constantly praise the MC, People Either love the MC or fear him (though only fear him after ridiculously underestimating him and mocking him for revenge fantasy points). Literally the hopes, dreams, and fantasy of every edgy teen/young adult manga reader. Only for 5-10 years later have Koreans completely rip off those said core features of a generic self insert power fantasy in dozens upon dozens of manhuas and light novels.

The title: sword art online Sao director: this is an anime only swords *adds guns*

‘Sword art online is ass’ What a great opening

It was bad: yeah very bad Did i enjoy it : yeah pretty much

Watching this again three years later, there's a whole bunch of bits I can appreciate. The angsty/insane background music while Geoff's grip on sanity gradually becomes unglued is somehow perfect, and I cannot stop laughing. Thinking back, I only watched the first two episodes of SOA. Mostly because I was at Anime North that year and they were played in one of the viewing rooms, and forgot about it afterward. Guess I dodged a bullet.

“If the show was kill happy-“ immediately starts showing AOT😂

The absolute worst thing about the show is the lack of exploration. There's this ginormous world and we don't see any of it. It's even worse in the fairy arch. Kirito chooses the assassin class and starts defying everyone's beliefs about the class when he uses the magic in intuitive ways, but he only does that twice. It should be called "Wasted Potential Online"

Ej i never watched sao but hearing this i never intend on watching it thank you for saving my time

"Asuna and Kirito mourn for little baby Skynet" That made me chuckle.

"why didn't globally activate the log out function!?" I lost it.

What actually happened: Kirito types in those very few seconds: “Turn Yui into rock”

I remember loving the show when I watched the first season, it genuinely had so so much potential, then it just became confusing hentai nonsense. Like I’ve never been more disappointed in a shows outcome. ✌️

I'm glad I can enjoy any anime I want and not be like the majority of this toxic comment section

Yui: So you brought me back? Kirito: Yes. Yui: What did it cost? Kirito: The lives of 6000 people.

At first, I actually kind of liked SAO... but the part where they suddenly got *married* ticked me off. Like...??? What??? Just like that? then *boom* everything went downhill from there.

5-6 years passed and this video is still golden.

9:16 the reason he didn’t re-activate the global logout function was if you remember in the show he was denied admin credentials that’s how he got YUIs heart. If he had attempted to re-activate the logout function the overriding admin or superuser likely would have denied the command