Sword Art Online Or, Why I Hate Binge-Watching a Misogynist Anime Targeting Teenagers

Info Dump

Netflix offers quite a few interesting anime series from classics such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Death Note to more recent hits such as Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia. But I am not binge-watching any of them right now. What I am hiccupping binge-watching is Sword Art Online, also known as SAO. The story comes from a series of light novels written by Reki Kawahara. Light novels are shorter than standard novels and are written for young adults (manga and light novels in Japan always have specific target audiences), in a paperback-sized book. They have illustrations too.

Plot-ish

This is for general info dump unless you find it interesting. Let’s move to the plot. Sword Art Online, presented in two series so far on Netflix, deals with the adventures of the Kazuto “Kirito” Kirigaya in different virtual reality MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) that for this reason are known by an even longer acronym: VRMMORPGs. They are mostly fantasy full blown realities where the gamers can live an alternative life. There are professional gamers that make actual money from playing and winning competitions.

All of the series are characterised by the fact that for one reason or another, people dying in the virtual world can die in reality. This is because, of course, death makes everything more exciting, because if we know that it is just a game, dying does not make a difference: like a comic book character we can constantly come back and start over. That would not make an entertaining anime series (for another twist on a similar idea see, always on Netflix, Kakegurui, set in a school in which gambling marks your social status): we care more for our characters when we know they may die on the next page; when the villain has got a sword on your neck and you are disarmed; when the rules of a game trap you in the virtual reality, etc. It is enough to read the numbers on the Wikipedia page to realised how wildly popular the light novels and the anime series are (with various spin-offs and manga).

My Issue

I hate this series because I keep watching even if I hate it. Okay, let’s not exaggerate, all those hours spent meditating and trying to accept a quieten feelings like hate and anger, make “hate” a word too strong for me to accept. Let’s say instead that Sword Art Online, while offering a lot of food for thought regarding virtual reality, is, at the same time, a plain misogynist series where young girls are there mostly to point out at how amazing the male main character is. Furthermore, my dopamine keeps sweating out of me binge-watching a series aimed at young adults and, I promise, I have finished university quite a few years ago. I believe it’s the last point that annoys me the most.

Food for Thought: Hikikomori

Besides half-naked young girls which, to be fair, are less compared to other anime with the same target audience, which will appeal and do appeal to adults older than teenagers, SAO presents situations that offer us reflections over virtual reality. Stories, of course, are always better able in making us think that non-fiction, but sometimes the story is so good that we never stop and think, and this can be an issue with this series. But given my background (which is a secret, a mystery in itself), I am able now and then to swallow back my dopamine and put a muzzle to my addiction.

The show presents different examples of hikikomori, young people in Japan (but we do have examples everywhere in the world), who completely shut themselves from society preferring, for instance, playing games like Sword Art Online. Kazuto Kirigaya, the protagonist of SAO, is introduced, even if not explicitly, as a hikikomori at the beginning of the series even though he develops friendship and a better relationship with his stepsister during the rest of the story. One way of reading the series is, in fact, as the development of the main character from hikikomori to a sociable young man with friends and even a girlfriend.

There is no complete shut-in the in the series, but we do have a girl, Shino Asada, who, as a child, shot by chance a thief during an attempt robbery at a bank, and now is scared of guns or even of a hand pointed at her in the shape of a gun. It goes without saying that she is bullied and has got only one friend that at the end of the story arc is revealed as a pervert hikikomori that wants to take advantage of her until Kazuto saves the day. Under the name Sinon, Shino Asada plays a VRMMORPG called Gun Gale, in which she is a successful sniper, with a name for herself. Shino hopes that becoming the best in Gun Gale will help her overcome her fear of guns. At the end of the arc she does indeed overcome her fear, all thanks good old Kirito.

Good Old Kirito: Ganbare, Kirito-kun

Kirito, especially in Gun Gale, has a feminine appearance. And yet, he is definitely a male in disguise. He can do things no one else can. He can cut bullets with a laser-sword. He finishes all the games. I mean, it’s okay, it’s an anime and it makes us feel good to see a hikikomori to become a hero: from nonentity to hero. We all love these stories. And yet, Kirito’s rise to unwilling stardom comes with the degradation of all the female characters he encounters.

Let’s take as an example his girlfriend Asuna Yuuki. Okay, in effect, she is a bit dumb, considering that she uses her real name in the game, but no one is perfect. Throw the first stone if you disagree. Anyway, I digress (I LOVE digressing). When we meet Asuna she is a strong-willed woman, a second-in-command in a powerful guild, a renowned sword-woman. You know the type: everyone is scared of her and every boy wants to be with her. So what happens to her? She falls in love with Kirito.

Already in the first arc, but especially in the following ones, from heroine Asuna turns into damsel in distress and then into wife-in-the-back-ground, whose main role is to support almighty Kirito: ganbare, Kirito-kun! Ganbare means something like “come on!” and “you can do it”. Because, of course, Asuna cannot do anything anymore without Kirito. This becomes a leitmotif in the series: Kirito meets more-or-less-strong-willed-girl, she falls in love, she becomes the damsel in distress. There are various degrees of flirting, considering the girl has fallen in love, and Kirito does not exactly take advantage of them, but he is supposed to have a girlfriend, doesn’t he. Ganbare, Kirito-kun!

The most offensive becomes his relationship with Sinon: Shino Asada is there to become strong and overcome her fear of guns and her guilt over the man she has filled when she was little more than a child. She is completely annihilated by Kirito’s presence. Is it true, in the end she is the one that hits with a radio the perverted hikikomori, but she is not the main character of her own story any longer. She is the damsel in distress, who gets told she is not a damsel in distress, but that she is strong. Kirito does all the hard work though, all the dangerous work, you stay behind, Sinon, be a good sniper (the sniper in her case becomes a figure playing defence, of attacking from far away [she can shoot someone in the head from 1km away]), and stay behind. Ganbare, Kirito-kun

Why I Really Hate SAO

As I have said, I am not a young adult, I haven’t been for a long time. Yes, anime and manga are for adults, so don’t let me start there. But SAO from a misogynist (I don’t particularly like the use of “feminist” as it has way too many implications nowadays) point of view, is really childish. So why am I so attracted? Watching it makes me guilt, as if I am offending those girls. So why cannot I keep gushing out dopamine and stop binge-watching it?

Well, I used to be a hikikomori. At young Kazuto’s age, closed in my room reading books and comic books I dreamt of a strong-willed pretty young woman screaming ganbare, at me. I have been that young man. It is shameful in a way, and it was partly hormonal, but it comes from being a nonentity recluse in a room. But I didn’t need to become a hero to develop my social skills. In many ways, I am still partially a hikikomori, I’d rather stay at home most of the time than seeing my friends.

I came out of my shell, I changed a bit when I moved to another country. Like Kirito, I had to move to another world, where no one knew my hikikomori self and I could start over. The different language was all the alternative reality I needed. But I learned shame for the misogynist that was in me. I accepted it and learned and I understood that I was shaped and grew up so much thanks to the women in my life, not the other way around. I am surrounded by heroines, not victims, even when life wanted to turn them into damsels in distress. I have changed, or so I thought.

Because binge-watching Sword Art Online makes me fear I am still that same person. But then I look of what I have written in these paragraphs and I understand I am not really that person anymore. I can accept the fact I was Kirito (okay, I have never been a hero, but you know by now what I mean), and that I am not anymore. It’s such a pity, because SAO offers a lot of food for thought, but what it gives with one hand, it takes with the other.

Kirito has a lot to learn yet, but who knows. A spin-off series of Gun Gale, Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online, has a female protagonist. I haven’t watched it yet, but I dare to hope. It’s a pity even the title underlines it’s an “alternative” series, no one is trying to undermine Kirito. But yes, I have hopes, even Kirito one day may grow into an ethical man. I am working on myself every day, because I am not Kirito.