RE: SAO Alternative Episode 1: Decent Military Moe?
The real sticking point for me is LLEN's outfit. Imagine going into World War II D-day wearing a clown costume with bright green trousers. I guess camoflage is for losers.
Anyway, with regards to SAO, I dont really hate the series that much. GGO was probably my least favorite of the seasons though. I did read SAO Alicization like 3 years ago and i really liked it because it brought up interesting questions involving AI, what happens when the AI begins to have aspirations, and does killing AI matter at all? So that's the SAO anime I'm interested in, rather than a fake video game showcase.
I also recently read Reki Kawahara's SAO Aincrad repentance, SAO Progressive. That was the first time anything in SAO has felt like an MMO, as opposed to any random fantasy world. So that's an improvement. But the story really is going at a crawl for some reason.
Considering that I find GGO to be such a poorly designed, dull game, I see no reason to watch this instead of waiting to watch Alicization instead.
Ahh I was aware that Kawahara had re-written some of the earlier novels with the progressive series. I haven't read them myself nor do I know much about them since I don't really read Light Novels. Translations can be difficult to find sometimes and I'm usually not impressed by their quality, but it's nice to hear that he's somewhat improving as a writer. I hope that will reflect on the anime, but I'm not sure if SAO will be able to shake its stigma in the online community at this point. I can totally understand not interested in something like this.
It'll be interesting to see what's in store for Alcinization, so I'm glad to hear the Light Novel had some interesting elements to it. I find SAO interesting for its cultural significance more so than it's value as a series, but it's always nice to hope for the best.