For what reason would you read an anime blog? For the expert opinions and deep analysis, of course.
Let me now impart onto you my profound insight about a very serious matter. Please read this post carefully. My opinions are very important.
THIS IS AN OBJECTIVE RANKING OF THE SAO GIRLS IN ORDER OF THEIR WAIFU APPEAL.
Because I have conveniently forgotten all the girls from the first season of the show, this list is only going to apply to females who have appeared in the second season so far. Whatever.
8) Yui
Yui is a terrible character. She seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of completing Kirito and Asuna’s happily little “family”. Her very existence is stupid and causes diabetes. I do not know what kind of people would want to look up hentai of her, but apparently these people do exist.
Outside of convenient plot moments, Yui is an entirely useless character. She is not cute or moe. Well, maybe occasionally she is funny, but that’s about it.
Overall grade: F
7) Asuna
Asuna is the most boring character in the show. Even Kirito has more personality than her. I don’t hate her, but man I wish she showed some human-like emotion from time to time. Maybe if she stopped thinking about herself in terms of “WHAT WOULD KIRITO-KUN THINK” she might show a glimmer of sentient thought.
The funny thing is that I have heard people describe the relationship between Kirito and Asuna as equal, and that Asuna is a badass herself. Um, really? I think you only ever see her fight like twice in the entire show. And most of the focus is on Kirito and his DUAL BLADES anyway.
Oh, but at least she’s good at cooking! Clearly, the most desirable trait for a woman! She’s good for making sandwiches!
Overall grade: D
6) Lisbeth
Lisbeth is okay I guess. Out of all the HAREM TIME episodes in the first season, hers was probably the best because it had dragon faeces in it. Also, Lisbeth has pink hair and mildly tsundere-ish traits. Good enough for a pass!
Overall grade: C
5) Silica
Oh, Silica. Never change.
Overall grade: C
4) Imouto
Imouto is something of an odd case. In a different show and context, her story would have been compelling, since it’s a fairly empathetic handling of the imouto/loser childhood friend trope. As it was, she was a distraction that only emphasised how trite the plot was.
Yet although I hated what she symbolised, in retrospect, her character arc was still the most interesting part of the ALO arc. So kudos to her for that. Her tears were delicious.
Overall grade: C+
3) The Horny Nurse
I probably shouldn’t have been amused by the above scene as I was, but honestly, anyone who humiliates Kirito gets a thumbs up in my book.
Later on, Horny Nurse comforts Kirito as he cries to her about the PTSD symptoms he suddenly acquired in a vacuum. She was less awesome in that scene.
But hey, competent adults in Sword Art Online! Whould’ve thunk it?
Overall grade: B
2) Sinon
Okay, let’s be real. Sinon is the only Sword Art Online girl who can actually stand for herself. That pretty much makes her Best Girl by default.
I do have some problems with her character, though. Her traumatic backstory is really hamfisted, and the anime in particular has really focused on her ASSets in a way that makes it kind of difficult to take her seriously as a character.
The anime has also really been pushing for the Kirito x Sinon shipping, which strikes me as forced and tacked on. Are people really that bored of watching Kirito and Asuna act sickeningly lovey dovey around each other? …I don’t even need to ask that question, do I.
In any case, what we get with Sinon is a character who desperately wants her own agency, but the plot, the director and Kirito just won’t give her room to breathe. It’s frustrating. I like her, but she could have been more.
Overall grade: B+
1) Kiriko
Kirito is an asshole, but Kiriko is the woman dreams are made of. I was in love with her at first sight, honestly. I fantasise about her all the time. Sometimes, I even contemplate writing lame fanfiction shipping myself with her, where the two of us live happily together in the digital world for ever and ever. Amen.
“But isn’t that a gu-” you say.
No! Stop it! Don’t ruin it for me!
“But Kiriko’s marri-”
SHUT UP WHAT DID I TELL YOU
Overall grade: A++
Other Arbitrary Ratings:
Sachi: C-
Sugou: @#$%
Kuradeel: D-
Klein: A
Guy whom Sinon has friendzoned: D
DESU GUN: B-
If I’ve missed out on anyone important, let me know. And if you disagree with my ratings, your waifu is shit.
Frogkun.com 
No Agil anywhere, OP is a f******.
Am I doing internet commenting right? I think I am :D
Oh shit, I forgot the most important bit!
“First.”
Agil’s rating: B+
I also forgot Kayaba’s rating while I was at it. I give him a B.
Very impressed with your internet commenting skills overall!
Thank you, I train!
Where’s Death NoteExcuse you, Agil’s Wife (not Waifu) is Best Girl.The love for Asuna comes from Aincrad goodwill. She had all of the potential to be Kirito’s equal counterpart, and for me, during those episodes, she was my power fantasy character, not Kirito. Potential can carry a lot of weight for me, as it’s one of the reasons I can like Power Rangers whenever I dip into that fandom, despite their cheesiness.
Plus, from a told-not-shown standpoint, Asuna is even better than Kirito in every way, in Aincrad. She’s the gorram Vice-commander of the strongest combat guild, which meant that either Kayaba found her potential that good that he recruited her personally to help him build the guild from the ground up, or she battled her way through the best of the frontliners to the top. And her backstory is better than Kirito’s! (Apparently, her brother was the one who had bought the helmet and game, and she just logged in on day 1 out of curiosity?) The Aincrad arc would have been 100x more interesting if she had been the narrator character.
And she don’t give a shit about sacrificing NPCs. Stone cold badass.
Of course, as you say, the actual execution of her in the show is much less than how much potential she is on paper. Waifu-Worf Effect on full max to make Kirito look even better.
Yes, her told-not-shown power levels do contribute to why fans can ignore her blandness. As much as Liz has more of a distinct personality, I just don’t care about her as much for not being a badass frontliner. Probably 90% of Asuna fans’ favorite moment in the show is Fishing Art Online.
Oh, and Kirito/Sinon is a shit pairing. Kirito/Sinon/Symbolic Red Balloon OT3 for life.
You know, there’s a lot about SAO that sounds really great on paper. I think for many of the series’ fans, it’s the SAO they’ve created in their heads that is really swell and awesome.
About Asuna, I think it’s her potential that prevents me from hating her as well. I remember having a lot of fun portraying her in my fanfiction. She seems so perfect because she wants to be perfect – that’s how she’s been pressured to act by her parents her entire life. She went into SAO to escape those pressures, but once she stopped being a noob, her natural perfectionism took over once again she ended up becoming the vice-commander. That’s how I read her character.
Actually, a lot of the SAO characters are just a lot more entertaining in fanfic/doujinshi form, which is how fandom usually works.
Also, THE RED BALLOON ISN’T SYMBOLIC: http://perpetualmorning.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/monologue-im-just-a-goddamn-red-balloon/
Yeah, your tweet about how SAO provokes more engagement than Kenji shows that fandom can thrive better on source material that provokes “must fix this” engagement than material that is relatively better execution.
I’LL READ SYMBOLISM INTO SEXY BALLOON-KUN IF I WANNA
Liz is probably my favorite based on the anime so far. :3 Based on the novels, Asuna is still very high for me because she (spoiler) gets increasingly yandere the further we go in the light novel series, although I try to forget about what happened to her in ALO…… q___q
I do agree with Arbitrary_greay above me in that I think a SAO narrated by Asuna would have been an epic story.
We only perceive Sinon to be the “best girl yet” because we get a little bit more time seeing into her thoughts. Monogatari taught me that getting a glimpse into people’s heads can really change your perception of them. I started out hating Hanekawa, Nadeko, Kaiki, and Kanbaru, but my opinions of them did complete 180’s after they took the narrator’s spotlight. I really respect Monogatari for being able to toy with my character affections so easily. ^___^;
Funny you bring up Monogatari, because I actually had a very similar reaction to you. I hated Araragi, so I hated all the girls too because we were seeing them through his point of view. But once you saw things through their perspective, they came across as so much more believable and human.
So yeah, I’d love to see SAO through anyone’s point of view but Kirito’s. He really drags down all the interesting ideas in the setting by being so uninteresting himself. The girls would be tons more interesting if they could just escape from his influence and maybe date other guys. Or maybe that would be too much to ask? ;)
Voting Fantastic Memes for Best Blogger (at least when it comes to waifu appeal rankings).
Why thank you! Only the best taste in waifus on this blog.
I wonder if Sinon’s ass should be considered a separate character in its own right? I’m even not watching the show and I cannot escape her bum. It is so prominent this anime season that I’d believe it is the true main character if SAO. Though come to think of it, this is probably a bum-season overall. I think that might be a first.
Has this really been a bum season? I never noticed. Whose bums are we talking about, besides Sinon of course?
I hope there’ll never be a bum season, tits FTW!
I think it says good things about your character for having not noticed. ^^
Well, anyone watching Dandy would be able to tell you that he believes in the booty. They dedicated a song to it in the musical episode. The screenshots I’ve seen of Rail Wars have had an awful lot of butt focus as well, it’s even cropped up in Aldnoah here and there… MAYBE I’m wrong, this may require me to prepare a thesis of some sort. A powerpoint presentation on why this is a butt season. Oh god.
What I’ve learnt from this post: in order to get a passing grade from Frog-kun, all you need to do is get groped by tentacles.
Personally Asuna is my favorite, particularly after Mother’s Rosario (which will hopefully be adapted once GGO wraps up), but that’s just me.
PS You’re a pretty cool dude.
Yep, I’m looking forward to Mother’s Rosario. I expect the drama to come across as overblown as par the course for SAO, but it’ll be a great step forward for Asuna.
Oh, and thanks. I think you’re a pretty cool dude too.
SO WHERE’S GLEAM EYES.
Gleam Eyes: C+
Has a great body, but the personality just doesn’t do it for me.
BUT DAT ASS.
Am I the only person who wants the second arc to be the Progressive series? A return to Aincrad?
You know, as much as I like Yuuki, her only purpose is to –
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
– make Asuna look better and die. Sleeping Knights have less personality than the Moonlit Black Cats. I don’t even know their names for God’s sake.
Frankly the show would be much better if we can see Asuna’s rise to Vice Commander if she’s SO good Kayaba takes an interest in her. She is a perfectionist, I can see her being a commander I really can. It pisses me the fuck off that in the Aincrad flashback episode in SAO II on the raid on Laughing Coffin, she WASN’T the leader and SHE HAD NO fucking lines.
Make the freaking Progressive series dammit. Focus on Asuna, focus on Heathcliff, focus on the KoB. Had she been written better she would be more best girl than Sinon. And we all know Sinon is bestest girl.
END SPOILERS
Oh btw, do you have a link to that doujin you replied to Alex? Haven’t read that yet.
As much as I would like to see a return to Aincrad, I think the anime is going full steam ahead with the regular series, Perhaps one day Progressive will get its own anime – it does already have a manga adaptation, after all.
As for the doujinshi, here’s the link: http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/sword-art-online-2-banme-demo-3-banme-demo-ii-kara-desu-doujinshi-r13095/
“Klein: A”
Okay, at least we can agree on that.
Lol all that Draggle pun might be getting to you froggy. But god help me, who in the world wants a Yui waifu? She’s cute and all but you just ruined my innocence froggy. What did I just see…
*curls up in a corner and rocks back and forth
I think I lost a life due to laughter damage at the end there. Nice job x)
(SPOILERS)
What about Alice and that other guy who was apparantly equal in strength to kirito, and because of that they had to kill him off in as sad a way as the author could think of in (what i believe to be) an attempt to give kirito some actual character development?
END SPOILERS
Also Yuuki (the one from mother’s rosario). The same as above applies to her. Man, the author really has some problem with people who can come close to Kirito’s blatent overpoweredness in fights.
[…] manages to carry the ecchi scenes by herself. Even though Asuna is a D-grade girl according to my objective ranking of the SAO girls, she does have a pretty good character design. She might not have Sugu’s bust or […]
I’m laughing out loud a lot, reading these SAO reflections (esp the one about how he’s an a$$hole). Your humour timing is really fantastic.
Thanks! Glad you enjoy them
my waifu asuna isn’t shit *cries in weabanese* *continues reading your posts anyway because they’re amusing*
tbh op is a queer and this is terrible
Hahaha, so stupid. Read the light novels. Asuna is really badass, fighting against a lot at the same time, while Sinon lose easily against only one. Volume 17.
we all know the nurse is best gurl