I hated SAO! I mean, I really, really hated it for a simple reason: Kirito. I loved the idea about "you die in the game you die in real life", and actually had an idea for a story based off of it, but that's about it. Kirito is a total Mary Sue. A literal Mary Sue and this utterly ruins everything else about Sword Art Online. All of these female characters have no development whatsoever, appear in one episode, then we don't see them until the final season. I actually liked Asuna, but I feel like once she got into a relationship with Kirito, her character degraded to a damsel in distress in season two.