Quote:
Originally Posted by styr
Kirito was a 2nd year middle school student upon entering SAO, I believe. Despite his youthfulness however most characters are clueless about his age: while he looks young, he acts very mature for his age. He doesn't really have the perverted side most of the males in SAO have and his interpersonal skills are "supposedly" extremely poor (his own words), yet he somehow knows how to say the right things at the right time..
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I think Kirito confused a natural tendency to be an introvert with Social Incompetence. Kirito is socially competent, indeed very much so, but he is very socially inexperienced, and a strongly introverted person. That's why he THINKS he has poor interpersonal skills. He is wrong, and in other words, he is an unreliable narrator when it comes to himself.
A close comparison would be Kyon's continuous protestations of his lack of intellect and book dumbness, which his narrative seems to directly contradict.
But Kirtio is an aloof figure. I think it's interesting that SAO takes us into the mind of an aloof, silent but highly intelligent and quite socially competent introvert - very few of it's ilk really seriously explore such a concept. I don't understand why do people castigate him as a generic shounen protagonist, when it's clear that he is far from one - he lacks "idiocy", he lacks "hot-bloodedness", he's not a shining idealist . Anyone who argues that Kirito is one has no case at all in my view- for some reason, I get very, very irritated at people who claim that, often with a minimal amount of substantiation.
Part of the problem with the adaptation is that SAO is very heavily narrative driven. Right now (RNR and Aria/Beater was the worst example), the SAO story-telling when it comes to Kirito is like how Haruhi Suzumiya would be like if you axe out all of Kyon's monologues.
Kirito monologues. Alot. The anime sadly fails to capture that internal thought process of his.