[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Krono

At the start, he ditched Klein, the only friend he had in the game, because he didn't want to take on the responsibility for protecting Klein's friends, and the responsibility for their death if one of them was killed while he was trying to lead them to the next town. He left everyone else in town, the majority of which didn't even know the basics he'd showed Klein, to their own devices out of his desire for maximizing his chances for self preservation.

Eh, wasn't it Klein who refused Kirito's offer and not Kirito who ditched him? Klein refused because he still had friends in the town center. If going by the anime alone, it seems originally Kirito really wanted to take Klein along with him. Though arguably, Klein leaving is probably a even 'good' thing, because Klein could teach his friends what Kirito told him, therefore increasing their chance of survival.

Originally Posted by AzureWrath

Or obviously Kirito just loves his imouto

Well, as long as it's not Yosuga no Sora level of love, I'd say that does not count as his flaw . Like GenjiChan said, it's probably more of a familial love, which is a positive trait.

As for being a chick magnet...has there been any serious drama occurring because of this? I'm guessing not, and it's your typical heroines-battling-for-hero's-attention mishaps

Originally Posted by Clarste

"Too nice" and "too heroic" hardly count as a flaws.

Maybe not, but these are often symptoms for some flaws. That's why I thought perhaps there's some underlying condition or some past to why Kirito behaves the way he is, like how Haruyuki of Accel World becomes very good at gaming as an escape from reality. Though it doesn't seem to be the case as of yet.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Actually a well balanced character would have more important flaws to compensate for his/her strengths. Kirito lacks that sort of depth. He's an entertaining character no doubt, but I don't think he's well balanced. The author could definitely put a little more thought into this IMO.

For the record, I don't think a balanced character is absolutely critical to a good story, nor does I think an unbalanced character absolutely ruins everything. It's mostly the handling and the genre of the story.

I mean, shows like Star Driver is a ridiculous pile of unbalanced characters, but I enjoyed it anyways because it obviously doesn't take itself seriously either.

Spoiler for oot rant:

But, there are cases like that of Kira "Jesus" Yamato. In the first moments, it might be interesting to have our main chara pawns everyone with impunity, but in the case of Gundam SEED it got dragged, and ultimately butchered the rest of the plot (Destiny anyone ).

Destiny originally had the right idea: introducing new characters in-universe to develop the story even further. But somehow Jesu...I mean Kira, being the hax character that he is, took over the plot anyways.

So, if Kirito turns out to be the near-perfect main character with little to no significant flaws (which seems to be the case judging from our fellow users' reply here), it won't necessarily ruin the entire show for me, but it still depends on how the character Kirito is being handled.

I guess I'll just continue to watch the anime for now, and hope that occasional mood bursts swing me to finally read the LN (though honestly if I'm going to read anything, it'll probably be Horizon first. Good thing I can read Japanese! )

EDIT: Somehow I suddenly get the idea that SAO would be an even more interesting story if it has multiple protagonists for the different arcs, maybe making Kirito occasionally appear as the legendary badass that the different protagonists either respect or hate or whatever. Similar to how Mai in Mai Otome was handled. This way, Kirito can stay as The Ace but not so dragged on it became like the case I put in the spoiler. Though, since I don't read the LN, thus I don't know the structure of it, so I don't know if this approach is possible for the author to implement.