Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Martin7431 t1_iw2h35r wrote

wait so SAOs peak was bigger than demon slayer??? i find that hard to believe

1

err0rz t1_iw2jhwq wrote

Yes, one of them totally redefined Isekai and the other is a generic shonen.

32

The_dog_says t1_iw2kdin wrote

A very beautifully animated, very very generic shounen.

36

err0rz t1_iw2l848 wrote

Yup agreed. Further to this, there’s 10 years between these peaks, for SaO to be ahead even given the far smaller population and market reach is a testament to how much more popular it is/was in relative terms.

10

livefreeordont t1_iw2rp8n wrote

Non weeb here how did SAO redefine the genre

4

rockingmonkey t1_iw2sow6 wrote

Made the protagonist being a boring overpowered weirdo with no real personality become the standard for trash isekai

28

Samuawesome t1_iw5qsbo wrote

SAO was originally written way back in 2001 for a short story competition. However, because the author went over the word limit, he just decided to publish SAO as a web novel instead. Over the decade after that, the author was just continuing and building off of it. The problem was that the author was self-publishing it, meaning he wasn't really profiting from it.

When it ended up getting published (due to Accel World winning the 2008 short story competition) and got an anime adaptation in 2012, it jumped in popularity and got a ton of money.

SAO didn't really "redefine the isekai genre" or whatever. "Being sent to another world" has been a genre for decades now (i.e. Alice in Wonderland).

What SAO actually did (and why it won the LN of the decade award) was that it encouraged a lot of self-publishing WN authors to shoot their shot. Seeing SAO's author going from someone relatively unknown to becoming the author of an extremely popular franchise gave them hope that they could also achieve such fortune. Additionally, SAO becoming popular encouraged a lot of anime production companies to look more into WNs/new LN series.

It just happened that a lot of these WN authors ended up writing isekai (hence why we have a ton of isekai adaptations every season). Though, a bunch of "non-lazy" isekai and non-isekai WNs have popped up as well.

2

ninjacookies00 t1_iw2lt0e wrote

I have heard people who like anime talking about how good demon slayer is. I couldn't walk the halls of my high school for a solid month without hearing someone who isn't typically into anime talking about SAO. It is very simple and digestible as a first anime. A lot of those reasons are what makes it seem worse if you have a background watching anime or rewatching it.

14

Muffin-Sprinkles t1_iw2op6t wrote

I definitely remember it as an anime people who wouldn't normally watch anime watched it. It was massive for a time.

5

Martin7431 t1_iw353qv wrote

i totally agree about SAO being a phenomenon at the time, but i thought the success of demon slayer was like, unprecedented? isn't it like the highest grossing series relatively? im not a massive fan, but i feel like demon slayer has also attracted a lot of non-anime fans

0

CPUtron t1_iw2ik6e wrote

I'd find the other way around impossible. SAO has been around longer, I think has more episodes and a much larger cultural impact. Not really a fan though...

13

Monkeylordz88 t1_iw2uvu5 wrote

I think it has to do with the fact that the data is from MAL. Demon Slayer is no doubt the most popular show to date, especially in Japan (with the new movie raking in $500M), but this is not reflected in the MAL data. MAL’s users are largely western hardcore anime fans who see Demon Slayer as nothing more than a generic shounen.

4

t0ppings t1_iw35yko wrote

The whole "if you die in the game you die in real life" premise is just enduringly popular. There were other anime similar but the very broad MMO game tropes made it accessible, especially to Western audiences where Demon Slayer is very Japanese. I don't know anyone who likes SAO beyond the first half of the first season but what is remembered is iconic. It's set in the very near future so it's more relatable (you could be Kirito, you will never be Tanjiro) and has always been used as the standard for what VR gaming could be.

2