Quote:
Originally Posted by Trajan
However, as a whole the series itself is unabashedly sexist towards its female characters. None of the main girls are the agents of their own happiness. They (Sachi, Liz, Silicia, Asuna, Suguha, even Yui) have all required a man (our hero) to provide them with the happiness that they cannot find in themselves. It's really the old "a woman needs a man in order to be happy" trope. Of course, add to that the usual female-only fan service, and it's easy to see the double standard in the treatment of characters based on their gender. Maybe the later episodes/LNs get away from this, but so far the series has been your standard "haremish" anime, where the female characters are sexualized and the males are not, and the females are largely defined by how they relate to the male protagonist.
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I think, though, at least half of this is just the protagonist orientation, particularly in the opening arc. Let's say you re-told the whole story around a female heroine (whether Asuna, or a female Kirito-replacement). The structure of many of the episodes would still basically be the same: encounter character(s), help solve their problems, deliver the moral of the story, and move on. This is the same sort of episodic format often used in sci-fi TV shows (like Star Trek, for example). In the first arc in particular, we don't really see any of the other characters outside the context of the protagonist. But it's not as if either Liz or Silica just sat there unable to do anything after having met Kirito, or like Suguha wasn't already pursuing her own happiness in ALO before she met Kirito in the game. (And it's not like Sachi meeting Kirito really did her that much good in the end...) But of course, their character is developed in the time spent with the protagonist, because that's the main perspective we're following. All the characters in the first arc exist only as they relate to the protagonist. ALO does open the story up a fair bit more to tell the story from multiple perspectives, so we can see that Asuna isn't just waiting for Kirito, and that Suguha becoming a renegade wasn't just for Kirito's sake and so on. The protagonist is certainly the catalyst, but I don't think they are really dependant on "a man" for their happiness all in all. We in the audience are just dependant on the protagonist to meet the characters so we can learn their stories. (And even so, a female character choosing to depend on a man, and having them depend on her, as Asuna did with Kirito, may be a trope but I don't think it's in and of itself sexist. Otherwise, the only choice the female character is not allowed to make is to choose a male companion!)
And that aside, regarding fanservice, I've read a number of comments from female SAO viewers who find Kirito attractive, among other male characters in the show. So I'm not sure if there's no fanservice there, but I guess I'm not sure I'd know what to look for. If the show added more "obvious" male fanservice (like, I suppose, bishies, various states of undress, homoerotic innuendo, etc.????) would that "balance the scales" in your mind? While it's clear that this is a show written primarily at a male audience, I know a lot female anime fans whose favoured content is this sort of shounen work anyway.
In the end, if this show is "unabashedly sexist" for the reasons you outline, then I think it's a measuring stick that an awful lot (the majority?) of anime (and entertainment of all sorts) fall short of one way or another. That doesn't necessarily mean that people can't dislike it or rally against it, but I'm not sure if I'd use this as the poster child. The thing people seem to be complaining most about is Asuna's "dis-empowerment" caused by her present situation, and if that's not particularly sexist, then I'm not sure there's a stronger argument about the rest, beyond "it could do more to give the other characters more agency" (which I don't disagree with at all, incidentally -- but perhaps that can happen after the crisis is over).
Quote:
Originally Posted by TimeSkip
Even though Asuna now knows the door code, she may not try to escape because she cannot log out anyway. Since she knows kirito is alive, she may want to wait for him until the last minute. If he doesn't come, she will try to escape by herself.
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Yes, the key thing is that she needs a plan beyond just getting out of the door. She either has to wait for him to slip something that can be used as an opportunity (and with the way he loves to run his mouth, that's probably just a matter of time), or she has to wait for someone else to arrive to help her form a plan. As was said, even Kirito just showing up there doesn't change anything on its own, it just allows him to confirm that it's really her and that she's in there. It's just the starting point.