Sword Art Online: Is Kirito a Good Protagonist?

gamerant.com:

Sword Art Online was not the first Isekai anime, but it was certainly the one that helped forcefully pushed that genre into its current height of popularity. It spawns so many other stories to the point there are new isekai anime every season nowadays.

Sword Art Online itself is still going strong to this day. Three seasons and two movies later, the lone swordsman Kirito still has some stories left to tell. But in such a vast saga with so many iconic characters, is Kirito really the one that deserves to take the role of the main character? Is Kirito even a good protagonist? To answer that question, it's important to talk about the criteria for a good protagonist first. Broadly speaking, there are several aspects that a good protagonist has to have in any given story; motivation, significance, relatability, and development.

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A good protagonist should have deep and important reasons behind their actions and decisions. Obstacles to overcome, goals to achieve, or even people to protect. These are the things that force them to move forward and confront whatever it is that stands in their way.

For Kirito, his biggest motivation was to survive. That is especially true during the Aincrad storyline in the first season. He tried his best to get back to the real world and the failure to do so would cost him his life. Along the journey, he found people that he genuinely cared about and that added another layer to his motivation to beat the game. So when it comes to motivation, Kirito has plenty to go around.

A story can be told through the eyes of every character in any given story. The one thing that makes the main protagonist stand out from the rest is their significance to the story itself. Unlike any