Sword Art Online was a horrible show

I'm really sorry about my opinionated arguments before, that was a simple mistake that I'll try to correct right now. I'm well aware that my "arguments" were just simple claims which seemed opinionated but it was because the circumstances in which I was writing them. Now I'll try to back them up. What I meant by characters being bland and boring, I meant, from a storytelling standpoint, they just weren't good characters. What do we really know about Kirito? I can't really name a character trait to describe him, besides bland. Only thing we know about him that he is pretty determined, is knowledgeable of video games and loves Asuna. What are his weaknesses, fears, actual traits we can't really say. Where was a point in anime where he showed some dominant trait? We can't say that being "normal" gives him any sort of character. People aren't normal, people are interesting, with unique traits, fears and dreams for every of them. Kirito isn't really much of a character than more of a person that does stuff. What are his bad traits? What are his good traits? We can't really say. And that's a big problem when we talk about making characters. Also, character development and being influenced by an other character is not an excuse for making a character bland. A character can change while being deep, well built and interesting. Excuse me, but I watched both No Game No life and Attack On Titan and can say that both of those shows have really good, or at least sufficient pacing. Why? Because the action doesn't skip randomly every two episodes. Sword Art Online has horrible, and I mean horrible pacing. First Kirito fights a boss, then we suddenly see him join a guild when he is far far more powerful. Then suddenly, we see him arguing with Asuna, how did they meet again? We don't really know! Such way of pacing the show is just confusing and not very good. Third, what I meant was, SAO in the first episodes seemed to target something more than simple love/action story. It established an interesting setting with an interesting idea that seemed would eventually grow into something bigger. Then it just completely wasted it, focusing on completely different subject that they at first went out with. SAO drew the viewers in with it's idea and setting, and then just changed the focus all of sudden. Fourth, SAO has a lot of silly moments in it, taking the subject matter at hand you can't avoid it. Taking something that is basically a video game really seriously is hard to pull off. But if in the first season the dialogue has only some silly moments so I let it pass, but the second season... oh boy. With all the tension of death in a video game removed, you can't really treat characters treating a video game so seriously serious. Crying over a player who suffers only death penalty, with no pain (because as we know from the show, the players don't suffer pain in virtual reality MMO ) is really cheesy. Fifth, what I again meant, was that a really bland character, with no interesting traits having a harem comes out as silly and unnecessary to the story itself. The harem stories could just as good not be in here, actually it would be better if instead of showing love-stories with new girls they focused more on the setting, story and used the resources that they used on that, on fixing the pacing. As it is now it serves as a really uninteresting filler. Sixth, as though the experiences they come across are indeed pretty original and interesting, the relation between them just isn't. A romance is based mostly on interesting characters and relations between them. How they come across different troubles, issues and problems that they face together, sharing their experiences, problems, worries and also dreams, having disagreements with each other which come from their differences in character, evolving and changing thanks to their relationship, trying to keep it alive however they can. But if the characters are bland, the whole story just falls through. And while the experiences they come across may be interesting, their relationship most definitely isn't. Seventh, the complete change of tone and setting removed all the tension from the show. We have a wonderful setting, a group of people is trapped in a deadly MMO that kills the people when they die in game. We have far more interesting, and mysterious villain and we suddenly change it all, removing the core idea from the show, making the characters suddenly not need to worry about their lives and the old villain, for a new one who is completely cartoonishly evil . This is a huge awkward tonal shift and from a storytelling standpoint has really no sense. The villain has nothing interesting about him in sense of character. He is just an evil pervert that no viewer can really like, or at least think of him as a cool character. He has completely no good traits and really does completely nothing. There were of course, completely evil characters with no redeemable traits done well, but they had an original idea behind them that made them stand out, their motivations, the way that they done things were interesting. The villain of the second show really isn't like that. Again really sorry for arguments being opinionated but I was just stupid for making arguments very late when I don't think properly. Anyways, high rating of a show doesn't necessarily make it good. Good reviews also don't make a show necessarily good. Let's remember that both the viewers and reviewers are still humans with different opinions who see things differently. And if asked if so many people really can be wrong? Yes they can. Democracy has proved many times that the most, isn't always right. There are many works of fiction that have large numbers of fans and still are bashed by the critics and considered among the worst things that have been ever created (example "Twilight"). Last thing I want to say, just to make it clear, I don't hate SAO and actually enjoyed it a lot, but still consider it a bad show despite of that. Back to you con.