Quote Originally Posted by Dark Dragon View Post
But can you honestly tell me that the amount of nitpicking in that thread is normal? Many of the tropes common in other fantasy anime is also presented in SAO. In other anime like Legend of Legendary Heroes, these tropes are merely sweep into the "generic" label and quickly forgot about while the focus of the discussion is on the merits of the anime. However in the SAO thread, everytime one of the trope shows up in an episode it is immediately criticized and the focus then becomes a long on going argument about the merits of Kirito's character.
For a series as dull and uninspired as this has been, it is perfectly normal. Peruse the Sacred Blacksmith thread. It got a beating for its terrible lines of dialogue and asinine statements by the leads (very similar lines to things said in Sword Art), dropped by many forum members, compared as inferior to titty shows, etc.

Darker than Black 2 got ripped apart in that series thread, where I was in the same position you are now, attempting to defend it. Constant nitpicking there. Equally highly anticipated series as Sword Art, if not more so.

It feels a very small number of poster in that thread is still watching the show for the sake of watching. That is how i feel and if you disagree then that's fine too.

To clarify my statement. I knew that SAO was very hype by the readers of the novels before the show came out and it was made out to be like it's going to be some amazing anime. I feel like the harsh criticism the show is receiving is partly due to how hyped the show was before it came out. I myself didn't start reading the novels until after the anime came out.
I will admit I am still watching it to figure out why it is so popular. I'm being patient, but it is wearing very thin. Sword Art has been only barely better than The Sacred Blacksmith as mentioned above, and the uniform insistence that it gets better is the only thing keeping me watching.

However, you neglect to acknowledge in any your post so far that he's a condescending jackass who feels the need to insults almost everyone he's having a discussion with. It's a personal pet peeve of my that makes it impossible for me to have a meaningful discussion with these type of people.
Insults have been thrown by both sides, overt, thinly veiled, or passive-aggressively. I did not feel that merited any discussion.