What is the appeal behind Sword Art Online?

[Don]

If you remotely watch Anime, you should be aware that this series exist. Heck, I barely watch Anime anymore and I have the misfortune of knowing this exists. In case you somehow never seen it, this is something that pretends to be an anime about a MMORPG but is really about the main guy building his harem. Now, I'll say that I don't have anything fundamental against the harem genre. I can understand the super hot girls amazingly lower their standards in this genre so that it looks like an average guy has a chance at getting them so you can live out your fantasies vicariously. But there should be something remotely believeable about why an average joe would be getting all these girls in the first place. Apparently giving girls blue gear in a MMORPG and you'll soon have your personal harem. As far as I know the #1 DOTA, LoL, WoW, SC2, and anything else players put together doesn't have as an easy time as the main character who is described as a generic nerdy guy whose biggest asset in gaming was that he was a beta tester for a MMORPG (like a billion other guys). I know Japan is totally new to this MMORPG thing, but it'd be much harder to find a serious MMORPG player that was NOT a beta tester for a MMORPG than one is. I've also seen enough MMORPG to know that you can't even get ordinary girls for as cheap as the investment needed in terms of MMORPG. At the very least you'll likely have to be a powerful guild leader to have any success at creating any kind of leverage.

Is SAO supposed to be the vindication for the gamers even though anyone who ever played a MMORPG knows you're not getting a cyber for some blue loot? Is it because To Love Ru is considered X-rated and you don't want to look like a pervert even though it is widely known as 'the manga that puts the dojinshi out of business' since it pretty much covers everything dojin would ever do? On top of that, To Love Ru isn't nearly as creepy as SAO. At least, I don't think the main character is trying to have incest going and every girl is 'technically legal' because they're all aliens or something. I did a quick lookup on SAO and it's outright stated that the characters are minors. There isn't even this '1st year in a mythical education institution that is definitely not college but all the characters are totally legal' deal here as would be customary for the usual hentai stuff. If you want just fantasy harem stuff, there are better stuff out there that isn't nearly as questionable. Did the author of SAO just had a rough run in with a female character that rolled need on everything and started mistakenly thinking that this must be all it takes to get favors from the said female (who probably isn't even female)? Yes, I know there are girls who think they should win everything for being girls, but they're definitely not going to feel they owe you any favors for some blue loot.

[Eric]

The first half of the first season I really liked because I felt it was a cool premise and kinda reminded me of The Matrix since people dying held weight, something they never successfully recreated after that arc ended for some reason.

After that the fantasy goes a little bit off the rails, BUT I understand that entire MMO fantasy where you imagine your character is the strongest and the best in the world, so it did amuse me in that regard. As for the harem stuff and fantasy, errrrummm yes, I would also say that's part of the MMO fantasy, be nice to girls, you can get some girl nerd booty. Granted, yes, fantasy, but again, it's a fantasy anime isn't it? lol. "Oh he's so good at this video game and practically a god, I want to have his babies!"

I hated everything after the first half of season 1, all of season 2 was stupid, and the last half of season 2 was pure cancer.

[Shrinweck]

I vaguely remember hearing from a source I trusted that it was the kind of series that opened really well (first three episodes) and then went downhill fast so I've never been tempted to give it a go. Considering the second seasons nearly universal reputation for being garbage, I can't say I've regretted heeding that advice lol

[Don]

I'm not opposed to the fantasy/harem genre, but when people do this stuff on say a fanfic (which is essentially how it started out as) they usually at least imagined themselves as being physically attractive and whatnot. For example you can say Tenchi in Tenchi Muyo seems like a pretty unexciting guy but at least he is a decent gentleman around girls and usually he's the Prince of Jurai and can stop a black hole and I guess if you can stop a black hole you're definitely cool enough to have girls that want your babies. I mean if you take the usual internet arguing like "I think NASA should build a warp drive that I saw on Star Trek", a statement like that still shows a relatively more solid grasp on space travel compared to what the maker of SAO knows about MMORPG. I guess since a lot of people are MMORPG players they want someone to tell them play MMORPG is cool, but this is basically like FF14's developer who didn't know MMORPGs have had the ability to jump since EQ1. And even if people like to live out harem fantasies, there are stuff that I believe are better drawn that aren't nearly as creepy as the premise of SAO. I guess the only difference is that most of that stuff is labeled 18X, but I honestly thought the premise of SAO is far more creepy than the average hentai. They don't even pretend these characters aren't underage!

[Eric]

I vaguely remember hearing from a source I trusted that it was the kind of series that opened really well (first three episodes) and then went downhill fast so I've never been tempted to give it a go. Considering the second seasons nearly universal reputation for being garbage, I can't say I've regretted heeding that advice lol

The first half of the first season is worth watching, you'll know when it ends. It's really good, at that point you can literally stop, just pretend the story ends right there.

I'm not opposed to the fantasy/harem genre, but when people do this stuff on say a fanfic (which is essentially how it started out as) they usually at least imagined themselves as being physically attractive and whatnot. For example you can say Tenchi in Tenchi Muyo seems like a pretty unexciting guy but at least he is a decent gentleman around girls and usually he's the Prince of Jurai and can stop a black hole and I guess if you can stop a black hole you're definitely cool enough to have girls that want your babies. I mean if you take the usual internet arguing like "I think NASA should build a warp drive that I saw on Star Trek", a statement like that still shows a relatively more solid grasp on space travel compared to what the maker of SAO knows about MMORPG. I guess since a lot of people are MMORPG players they want someone to tell them play MMORPG is cool, but this is basically like FF14's developer who didn't know MMORPGs have had the ability to jump since EQ1. And even if people like to live out harem fantasies, there are stuff that I believe are better drawn that aren't nearly as creepy as the premise of SAO. I guess the only difference is that most of that stuff is labeled 18X, but I honestly thought the premise of SAO is far more creepy than the average hentai. They don't even pretend these characters aren't underage!

I blame that on the current Anime market in Japan for the most part. It's been collapsing hard into the Otaku side of things for the past 10 years or so, especially in the creepy age pandering department.

[Don]

Well it's obviously not just a Japanese thing because people in USA watches this stuff too. It almost feels like people don't want to admit they watch hentai so instead you got things that are far creepier than tentacles that's somehow totally okay because it's technically not hentai.