UlasanAnime.com – While “Sword Art Online” offers an enjoyable viewing experience, many of its aspects don’t particularly resonate with me. I find that a significant portion of what I dislike can be broadly categorized as “too chuunibyou.”
This includes, for instance, the patronizing narrative surrounding Asuna’s stalking in a recent episode. It also extends to Kirito himself, who embodies the chuunibyou archetype. He’s a “beater,” wielding dual swords made of the hardest material, likely the highest-level character, and almost soloing content that others can’t. He can do everything important himself, except for domestic tasks, which seems to exist solely as an excuse to interact with cute girls. Furthermore, the MMORPG’s design is not only outdated but also suffers from glaring issues that verge on anachronism. The list goes on, but the most perplexing is “Why is a solo player participating in an MMORPG?” There’s a term for this, and it’s not ‘Beater’ – it’s ‘Retard.’ Only an idiot would play an MMORPG entirely by themselves. Even bots in these games play with each other! Yes, he does play with others and will eventually interact with more people, but this loner attitude is for losers.
I’m not a heavy MMORPG player these days, though I’ve dedicated years to games like EQ and WoW, along with several others I’ve dabbled in. I enjoy getting engrossed in them. In a peculiar sense, I view the premise of SAO as the ultimate vacation. “Hey boss, some evil cyberterrorist has hijacked my body, so I have to play this game until I beat it or I die. Can I take a sabbatical? Oh, and my health insurance will cover my living expenses, nice.” Do you ever feel that way? My friend, who has already used his PTO days for Pandaria, would probably agree. What’s more, our SAO overlord has enslaved an entire server full of people, ensuring you’ll always have people to do things with, day and night.
I recently read this post, which reminded me of one thing SAO did right that, for example, .Hack//sign did poorly. It’s how the video game interacts with reality in a way that viewers can relate to. Back in the late ’90s, .Hack appealed to those who actually played games like RO Beta or EQ, and the in-game nods were a great way to build that connection between viewer and material. Fast forward to today, I believe that alone is no longer sufficient. SAO does reference game mechanics, but it also adds a whole dimension that, coincidentally, I care little for but elevates the show: a solid standalone narrative. You could treat SAO like a fantasy novel and disregard the fact that they are trapped inside this VR world, living lives as fictional characters in a fantasy story. By omitting (admittedly very potent plot fuel) the real-life aspects, it transforms SAO into an enjoyable story about MMORPGs, presented as narratives akin to an MMORPG. Think of SWTOR without all the traveling.
To that end, I operate under the assumption that a game is only a game when it’s fun to play. When it becomes too personal or too serious, it necessitates a shift in perspective. Fundamentally, this occurs when you try to gather a few friends for a weekend night of dungeon crawling online, or any similar activity. It becomes less personal and more business-like when we’re talking about 25 or 40 people and their collective weekends, or whatever time zone they’re in, in order to avoid standing in the fire and making the lives of the other 39 people miserable. In the cases of FFXI and EQ, this number could be even higher. In other words, MMORPGs are often very serious business, at least up until around 2009.
Perhaps another way to look at it is that an honest examination of MMORPG culture and fandom cannot be encapsulated by a chuunibyou-driven narrative. Consider The Guild, for example; it’s more about normal, everyday lives. It’s not about some incredibly powerful individual who defeats all their foes. They don’t experience significant setbacks. But because we no longer have this everyday life element to contend with, we can enjoy SAO for what it is: simply another hero’s quest, typifying the single-player experience. There’s not much that’s “MMO-y” about SAO besides the fact that other characters can interact with you; once you strip away the gamer-game-character dichotomy, it’s all just a fantasy setting with people in it.
Indeed, you cannot save the world in FFXI all by yourself; that’s reserved for the home console versions of such games. Juggling this dichotomy and undermining the fundamental truth about MMORPG life ultimately makes SAO a sad exercise in excessive chuunibyou-ness. However, it can also be enjoyable as a piece of single-player media that typifies the television-viewing and novel-reading experiences. Personally, this makes SAO a very difficult pill to swallow because I enjoy MMORPGs for largely different reasons. But I am certain there are all sorts of people out there who probably derive that power trip from it.
And I could probably go on to illustrate how pathetic it is when people indulge in power trips within MMORPGs, because all that has transpired is a player showcasing their own pathetic nature for the world to witness. It’s perfectly fine if you want to power trip to your heart’s content in some single-player experience, but, once again, this is precisely why being a Kirito in real life is Retarded. Friends don’t let friends play MMORPGs by themselves.
He isn’t a character I dislike, but Kirito (and to some extent, Asuna) should really take a backseat and enjoy their GLOOP GLOOP moment, away from our view. In the meantime, MORE DEBAN please.
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