Gary Stu's New Clothes
So
Sword Art Online II had cliffhanger this week where they tried to put Kirito in peril, since his one-on-one face-off with Death Gun puts up against some impossible odds:
IT'S MADE FROM THE ARMOR OF A
SPACE BATTLESHIP GUYS!
The episode then leaves us with the understanding that Kirito is in deep peril:
You can do it, Kirito-chan!
The real problem is that none of this is actually believable. We remember from the first season that Kirito is just
so awesome that even faced with certain death, he is able to pull a deus ex machina out of his ass and still manage to save the day. Having sat through this twice already, why do we even believe for a second that Death Gun will actually kill Kirito?
On the one hand, you want to have a character arc, because it allows you to show growth in the character and also create dramatic tension. But if it's already established that Kirito is the pinnacle of human evolution, so good at games that he is able to cut bullets out of the air with his light sword, so why would we believe that he is in any real danger?
This is really the problem with these self-insert power fantasy shows, especially if they go back to the well over and over again. We are meant to treat them as if they are real characters who are crafted with the same character arcs that we see in any other story, with ups and downs that make them sympathetic to the audience. The reality is that Kirito is a character without character. He doesn't have a character arc, he just exists to be aggrandized in the context of the plot so that the audience can feel better about themselves. It's why I found this ending particularly insulting, because it is someone trying desperately to convince you that you are watching something that you are not.
[...]
This is what
Sword Art Online might look like if everyone stopped pretending that the show is actually trying to tell a real story and not a vehicle to make the audience feel better about themselves. Of course, I think
Mahouka is equally terrible, but it is at least honest about what it is trying to do: sell merchandise to hapless fans.