Sword Art Online

[Yukimura]

I'm going to take a page out of Arkangels' book and say 'Shit was bad, son'. I agree with everything Ryll said in his initial post on this episode. The show had already straining my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point for a while and it was mostly gone by the time episode 11 rolled around but this Yui arc dragged it outside and shot it in the head with both barrels for me.

Similar to Ryll, I continue to watch the show despite thinking it is of poor quality because 1) as I am now completely broken of the mindset that this story is 'happening' I can now enjoy the metastory of 'some guy wrote this glorified fanfiction called Sword Art Online and lots of people think its awesome but I disagree'. 2) It's fun to be a part of such a controversial event/discussion and I don't think another dozen 25 min slices of my life are too much to give up to keep being a part of it and 3) the animation and world have enough potential to be interesting that I can let my imagination write a better story in my head while the main characters aren't completely stealing the focus with their Mr. and Mrs. Marty Sue shenanigans.

To offer a new? critique for the SAO defense league, I find that the show continues suffer from the way it tries, but fails, to blend its traditional fantasy elements (the medieval heroic setting) and its sci-fi/tech elements (the 'it's all just a high tech game' setting). They are both executed rather typically but they just aren't meshing properly with one another. For example, why should children in the game be behaving all that differently than the teenagers and adults in the game. They have been there the same 2 years as everyone else and could have learned the game, leveled up, and maybe even fought on the front lines just as well as anyone else, perhaps more as they should have an even easier time adapting to their new reality than older folks with more strong ties to 'reality'. Innocence can be crushed out of kids quite handily under pressure, just ask any former child soldier. But instead we have a scene with a 'nun' caring for an orphanage full of plucky kids with no real power who need the heroes to save them and their orphanage from big brutes who are bullying them. It's a textbook scenario pulled straight out of any fantasy setting but sitting smack dab in the middle of a sci-fi tech setting where it requires significantly more suspension of disbelief, unfortunately no effort was made to smooth over the rough edges of the transition and the whole narrative suffers for it.

To beat the dead horse some more, Accel World handles the fusion of these elements far better, though I am by no means calling it perfect either.

[MasterOfMoogles]

Thousands of people haven't left the starting city. Do you really expect every little kid to be out there risking their lives? Fighting monsters that can kill you is terrifying. And basically if you're not on the front lines clearing the game or supporting people clearing the game with crafting skills or items, you're pretty much risking your life for no reason at all.
People with power picking on those without, that happens all the time. Is it unrealistic that someone feels the need to watch over the children?

The scenario is extremely cliche, but I don't think it is as far-fetched as you're making it out to be.

[Kraco]

Sure it is. These kids went through the same effort as anybody else to get the game and thus one would think they aren't playing an mmorpg for the first time. Playing this game doesn't require the body of an adult or anything of that sort. Just fight and the avatar gets exponentially stronger, accumulating skills one wouldn't dream of in RL. Nothing at all is stopping these kids from advancing. Well, nothing aside from the lousy plot.

[KrayZ33]

are you serious about that?

its like giving a kid a gun and expect them to handle it carefully
in the end they just end up killing themselves.... or others


there are like thousand reasons for them not being at the frontlines... the most obvious ones should be clear for anyone who ever played MMOs before.
they suck, they are annoying, they are greedy, they don't know their place etc. etc.

I'd hate to trust my life on some cheecky child and I'd h8 to have children do the job for me too

[Dark Dragon]

I actually agree with a lot of the criticism given for this story arc. As a whole, i thought volume 2 was pretty terrible and it would've been better if the author left some things ambiguous.

The thing is, whether you like to admit it or not. Kids tends to be better at video games than most adults. Another thing to remember is that most of these kids do not have any guardians at the start of the game. It wouldn't be far-fetch that some of them went out adventuring anyways, despite the risk of death. It also wouldn't be too hard to believe that some if not many would survive since most kids tend to grasp new concept much faster than adults. It's always annoyed me that pretty much every "end game" characters are teenagers to guys in their 20's.

[Kraco]

are you serious about that?

its like giving a kid a gun and expect them to handle it carefully
in the end they just end up killing themselves.... or others


there are like thousand reasons for them not being at the frontlines... the most obvious ones should be clear for anyone who ever played MMOs before.
they suck, they are annoying, they are greedy, they don't know their place etc. etc.

I'd hate to trust my life on some cheecky child and I'd h8 to have children do the job for me too

I think you are missing here something, nah, you are missing here a lot. Nobody forced the kids there and nobody took responsibility for them, nobody looked after them, nobody told them what to do or not. They were there in the first city like everybody else in the beginning. Maybe some had friends also logged in and with whom they had agreed to meet, but that's it. It's of course reasonable that some of them were completely lost and crying when the grim announcement was made and then some nun (who was playing the game for god only knows what reason) gathered them. Then the kids suddenly became NPCs, from the looks of it.

Well, it's entirely reasonable some n00b kids would be like this, but most should be out there gaming, even if not all were on the front lines (there's no single demographic that would). However, some of the kids most certainly would qualify up there, the hard core gamers. Many would be anywhere between the first and the last conquered level, just like all the other players.

[MFauli]

are you serious about that?

its like giving a kid a gun and expect them to handle it carefully

You mean ... like allowing little, clearly underage children to play a full-on the-Matrix-is-real game?!

[KrayZ33]

I don't get what you are trying to say kraco

I say its not to far fatched that some kids don't go hunting and that someone takes care of them
just like MasterOfMoogles said ... and I see no reason why it shouldn't be that way.

its one of the most unimportant points of the anime anyway, why are we even talking about that?
so some kids stay in Town of Beginning because they lost their parents who went hunting and died or something like that, who fucking cares, its plausible and... thats it, done
who knows maybe they weren't even allowed to play the game but bought it because of the hype and now they don't know what to do and shit




@ fauli

wtf?

[Kraco]

I don't get what you are trying to say kraco

What I'm trying to say is that it makes far less difference if you are an adult or a kid in a game. Kids these days learn to game before they learn to calculate. So, if they entered the game willingly, I don't see why they would stick to some orphanage instead of playing. This is nothing but another detail akin to Asuna the Perfect Wife; If there are kids, surely they must be collected and a responsible adult must take care of them full-time so that they can play and run around like children should.

[Ryllharu]

there are like thousand reasons for them not being at the frontlines... the most obvious ones should be clear for anyone who ever played MMOs before.
they suck, they are annoying, they are greedy, they don't know their place etc. etc.

I'd hate to trust my life on some cheecky child and I'd h8 to have children do the job for me too

Are you kidding me?

The breakdown of demographics that are the most skilled at MMOs, in order:
1) Housewives
2) Children
3) No Life Kings
4) The unemployed that are not included in 1 or 3.
5) College students
...
9,999)Everybody else

Housewives have a ton of free time, but are prudent enough to use legitimate tactics and focus on cooperation and organization. They also make the best guild leaders, by far. Children have a ton of free time, and are generally more good natured about playing than No Life Kings, who are usually gankers. The unemployed and college students who are not Housewives and No Life Kings fall somewhere in the middle, and everyone else is average to terrible.

Kirito is a No Life King. Asuna is more or less a Housewife. That's why her strategies are a bit more involved than "Use my Twin Swords to Overwhelm It," since we've actually seen evidence of her planning stuff out.

The children have certainly a fair amount more experience than the average player, mostly because unless they're NEETs (also No Life Kings), they probably play more games than anyone else. They'd also be much happier with cooperating or at least working in groups. They're Japanese children FFS.

They should be utilizing the children, and it is frankly ludicrous that we haven't even seen one on the field. Silica is like one of the youngest active players we have seen, which is unbelievable.

[Yukimura]

I guess the defense league missed the point since they're still suspending disbelief and accepting whatever the author says as well thought out and plausible. I was not arguing that the scenario of kids and nun needing saving couldn't have reasonably come about in universe. What I am saying is that the execution of the "our heroes save some helpless kids and a nun/teacher/older sister from some bullies'' cliche was poor because there wasn't enough effort put into modifying the trope to account for the differences between the setting it's being used in and the setting it's normally used in. It shouldn't have taken more than a handful of lines to create some sort of canonical reason why those kids should need that nun to look after them even given the parameters of the world which should have lowered the relative dependency level of children upon adults significantly. Can players younger than 12 not level up skills for some reason? Why would a 25 year old make a better smith or carpenter or shop owner than a 12 year old in this world...

[MasterOfMoogles]

Maybe they don't want to risk their lives? Kirito estimates that around 2000 of the remaining 6000 players are still in the starting city and don't venture out because they don't want to die.
They still need food, because while it is irrelevant to their bodies' condition, they still have the urge to eat. They also need somewhere to sleep where they won't get murdered. This all costs money, and somebody has to go earn it.
Kids might be great at video games, but I don't think I've seen kids play under threat of death. Realistic looking monsters trying to eat you would only make it more terrifying.

The best way to ensure that you live is to not leave the starting city at all and wait to be rescued, either by people outside the game or those clearing it.

The fact that you guys say your suspension of disbelief is blown away because there are 10 kids who don't want to die and someone willing to look after them just boggles my mind. You don't even need to suspend disbelief to accept this scenario, just common sense.

[Dark Dragon]

Maybe they don't want to risk their lives? Kirito estimates that around 2000 of the remaining 6000 players are still in the starting city and don't venture out because they don't want to die.
They still need food, because while it is irrelevant to their bodies' condition, they still have the urge to eat. They also need somewhere to sleep where they won't get murdered. This all costs money, and somebody has to go earn it.
Kids might be great at video games, but I don't think I've seen kids play under threat of death. Realistic looking monsters trying to eat you would only make it more terrifying.

The best way to ensure that you live is to not leave the starting city at all and wait to be rescued, either by people outside the game or those clearing it.

The fact that you guys say your suspension of disbelief is blown away because there are 10 kids who don't want to die and someone willing to look after them just boggles my mind. You don't even need to suspend disbelief to accept this scenario, just common sense.

I think you're missing the point they're trying to make. The problem isn't whether or not it's believable for kids to not want to die. The problem here is SAO is a video game in which every character is equal.

There's several issues as to why this story arc is just stupid.
1. The author has never introduced any children characters at any point during the story before this.

2. It is expected for everyone to believe that the orphanage is run to help a bunch of kids survive in this world, yet that doesn't make sense in a video game context. The only thing that matter is stats, as Kirito has demonstrated in Silica story arc. The fact that all of the players here are children shouldn't make a difference as to whether they're weak or strong. A bunch of level 1 adults wouldn't be better at fighting a bunch of level 1 kids in a video game. This could've been easily remedied by adding a few meek adults and just say it's a safe place for people who don't want to risk dying.

3. It is again expected for everyone to believe that not one single kid that play SAO is capable of learning the game and getting to the "end game". That is bullshit if you've ever seen any children play video games. My 8 year old cousin beat Megaman 10 in about a week, i'm pretty sure you'll find that many adults would be unable to beat that game even in 10x that amount of time. Another thing is the fighting system in the game uses the system to auto-finish attacks so any advantage that an adult might have over a child is invalid.

4. This is part of 2, but there is a big problem with no actual adults being there. That's like saying she'll only help kids and anyone over a certain age is screwed and should go fend for themselves. With 2000 people living in that city, it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief to think that not a single adult there needs help in some way.

[Y]

The plot is very obviously a bog-standard fantasy quest stapled onto the scenario with no regards for integrating it. Not coincidentally that is also Every Single Plot In The Show.

[MasterOfMoogles]

I think you're missing the point they're trying to make. The problem isn't whether or not it's believable for kids to not want to die. The problem here is SAO is a video game in which every character is equal.

There's several issues as to why this story arc is just stupid.
1. The author has never introduced any children characters at any point during the story before this.

2. It is expected for everyone to believe that the orphanage is run to help a bunch of kids survive in this world, yet that doesn't make sense in a video game context. The only thing that matter is stats, as Kirito has demonstrated in Silica story arc. The fact that all of the players here are children shouldn't make a difference as to whether they're weak or strong. A bunch of level 1 adults wouldn't be better at fighting a bunch of level 1 kids in a video game. This could've been easily remedied by adding a few meek adults and just say it's a safe place for people who don't want to risk dying.

3. It is again expected for everyone to believe that not one single kid that play SAO is capable of learning the game and getting to the "end game". That is bullshit if you've ever seen any children play video games. My 8 year old cousin beat Megaman 10 in about a week, i'm pretty sure you'll find that many adults would be unable to beat that game even in 10x that amount of time. Another thing is the fighting system in the game uses the system to auto-finish attacks so any advantage that an adult might have over a child is invalid.

4. This is part of 2, but there is a big problem with no actual adults being there. That's like saying she'll only help kids and anyone over a certain age is screwed and should go fend for themselves. With 2000 people living in that city, it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief to think that not a single adult there needs help in some way.

I agree that if they had worked in some people of other ages here it would have been more interesting. However, just because they don't have them doesn't somehow make the situation unbelievable. Maybe that person just likes kids and wants to take care of them and it was really awkward for other adults to be there. Does every place where people are living in this city have to have an even distribution of people or it just can't be plausible?

I don't really see what the fact that kids are good at video games has to do with anything. Some are, some aren't. It isn't like we've seen every single person in the game. There might be kids in the high ranking guilds, we've only seen like 10-20 people from any of them anyways. Maybe they all died, though. It is a shame the setting wasn't more thought out and shown like this.

[Dark Dragon]

It goes back to my first point that the author has never bothered to show any kids up until this point. Then you suddenly find out that there are a bunch of kids playing SAO, and they all happens to be helpless. This doesn't make sense when you put it into context of an online MMO.

The author clearly doesn't have a strong understanding of the environment that goes on inside an MMO game. It just feels to me like he somewhat got the concept of how an MMO is, but hasn't spend enough time on one to see what it's really like. This story often times feel like it's written from an outsider perspective of how an MMO is suppose to work.

The main gripe a lot of people in this thread seems to have is that SAO is using a lot of typical fantasy tropes and scenario without regard to the fact that this all takes place inside a video game, not some magical world. This situation could've been handle a lot better, but instead it was a mess and in my opinion probably the worst story arc in SAO.

Another thing is there is just a lot of hostility from some of the anime only viewers toward novel readers, while some of the novel readers are way too defensive about criticism made toward this show. I read and enjoyed most of SAO (exception being volume 2) while being aware of the many flaws that exist in the story. I even went back to read the volumes i like again being aware of a lot of the criticism made in this thread, and that didn't reduce my enjoyment of the novels anymore than the first time. It's possible to like something even if it's not what you consider to be great. It's really unnecessary to defend every aspect of the show. There are obviously elements that is missing from the anime that made it much harder for me to enjoy the show as i did the novels. You guys are giving too many excuses and what-if situation instead of admitting that some of it is just from lazy writing.

[Kraco]

I don't really see what the fact that kids are good at video games has to do with anything. Some are, some aren't. It isn't like we've seen every single person in the game. There might be kids in the high ranking guilds, we've only seen like 10-20 people from any of them anyways. Maybe they all died, though. It is a shame the setting wasn't more thought out and shown like this.

Well, that's exactly the problem. While it's entirely possible that there are hordes of badass kids around and we just haven't seen them, it would be the exact bad writing we are talking about here. The author should have shown them occasionally. If we had seen them, we would have thought nothing of these particular kids. They would have just been the bottom of the barrel who lost their nerve, to put it bluntly. Just like the multitude of older players who even killed themselves because they couldn't take it.

[miyama_ryu]

Its obvious there aren't kids in the front lines because in this game, you DIE when you die. Exposing kids to these situations no matter how good they are is unethical! Can you imagine a guild like the knights of the blood having a 10yr old in their ranks? Ethics aside, it would be super demoralizing seeing a 10yr old die. No respectable guild will take them, and you can't advance much without a guild (have you heard of any solo players apart from Kirito?). But I can imagine a guild like the laughing coffin using them though, as they could make quite excellent assassins.

[MFauli]

@ fauli

wtf?

What is it you don´t understand? A hyper-realistic game like SAO should never be allowed to be played by children. And it wouldn´t, if we ever reached that level of technology irl. Ffs, mere first person shooters are rated 18 just because of the realistic visual depiction of violence. SAO is a full-on simulation. 10-year old kids would have ABSOLUTELY no business playing this "game".

[KrayZ33]

yes of course, thats why cod is played by people who are 18+ exclusively