User blog comment:Oreo the Cookie/Hate/@comment-35321370-20180514142016

But you've got to admit that SAO is poorly written from start to finish, I enjoyed it and the many spin offs and parodies that came out of it. I.e SAO Abridged (By Something Witty Entertainment) and SAO Progressive (A reboot of the Aincrad arc by Reki Kawahara), both of which are better than the original. I would argue that the two best arcs are Aincrad/Progressive and the upcoming Alicization which are leagues better than the other 5. As for art it suffers from A-1 same face syndrome, which could have been avoided if Abec was working with them and also bad CGI. And I don't know if it's just me but did anyone else wonder where the romance went in season 2? Kirito and Asuna's relationship was best when they complimented each other, like when they were student and mentor or lovers, But all of that is gone in the second season other than a couple of scenes, it felt like Asuna was on the backburner for most of season 2 and unfortunately that will also happen in season 3, it's like Reki doesn't know what to do with Asuna in the main series and puts her in progressive to make up for it.

TLDR: Tell them to go read SAO Progressive (THE LIGHTNOVELS, NOT THE MANGA) and see how it changes their mind.