Sword Art Online is a popular anime for many reasons, and infamous for just as many too. A lot of that blame usually goes to its protagonist, Kirito, who anime fans accuse of being too overpowered and impossibly good at everything. While his personality isn't exactly unlikeable, the fact that the plot and characters often bend around him does make these criticisms understandable.
Not helping him, either, is the fact that Kirito has done some pretty weird and iffy stuff over the entire span of the anime series. Whether they be actions or lines of dialogue, it seems like another of Kirito's higher game stats is his cringe factor.
10 PHILOSOPHY OF A VR GAMER
Through the many arcs of Sword Art, Kirito has come to certain conclusions about the barriers between the real world and the virtual one and shares those views pretty often. While there is something to say about how real a game world can become to people, Kirito likes to drill into the point that the experiences in VR can be as real as real-life.
It'd be one thing if he did this once or twice, but Kirito tends to beat this message into the dirt ad nauseam across the course of the anime. After the third or fourth time, it really becomes annoying and pretentious, making Kirito seem more like an obnoxious know-it-all.
9 KIRITO'S HEALING FACTOR
This one's definitely one of the more infamous moments of Kirito being overpowered. Ambushed by Rosalia's guild, Kirito and Silica are surrounded by violent players. Deciding to fight them all by himself, Kirito lets the guild attack him all at once. However, they don't make even a dent in Kirito's HP and, because of his higher level, he could heal faster than they could damage him.
While this is supposed to be a moment to show how badass Kirito can be, don't forget that Sword Art Online was supposed to be an MMO game. Meaning, he was just grinding his level until he became invincible, which isn't nearly as cool as Kirito tries to make it sound.
8 GETTING CLOSER TO ASUNA
Kirito and Asuna's relationship is one of the more popular aspects of the series, but the road getting there had some bumps. While waiting for Asuna to join him on a quest, Asuna springs out from the spawn area of the map and falls right on top of Kirito. Feeling something squishy in his hand, Kirito gets a little too close and personal with Asuna than he should've been at the time.
While this wasn't entirely Kirito's fault, this moment was using an anime cliche that really had no place here. The scene was probably supposed to be funny, but only ended up being forced and cringy.
7 ROLEPLAYING
While the first part of Sword Art had life and death at stake, other arcs of the anime toned the danger down. In Sword Art Online, players who lost all their HP would die both in the game and in the real world, but in others like Alfheim or Gun Gale Online, losing your HP mostly meant waiting to be respawned, like in any video game.
Despite that, Kirito continued to take the non-threatening matters of those games seriously, as if they were as real as his time in SAO. Any time he did this, it made Kirito look like he was a hardcore roleplayer that was way too into it. This was especially eye-rolling when some situations, like the Excalibur arc, are literally just part of the game and the risks are extremely low.
6 KIRITO'S PLAN TO SAVE YUI
Now the introductory episodes of the advanced AI and adopted daughter of Asuna and Kirito, Yui could be a cringe moment unto itself. But in terms of things Kirito himself did during that time, his plan to save Yui isn't just cringy but also calls a lot into question. To save Yui from being deleted by SAO's system, Kirito manages to hack the game and store Yui into an in-game item. Kirito pulls this skill out of nowhere and manages to succeed in only a few seconds.
The implications of this scene are much worse than the anime cares to explain. If Kirito can hack to source code of the game to this degree, why can't he hack it again to help log people out of SAO? There's no answer for that because the only time he displays this skill in the Aincrad Arc is to save an AI he knew for only a couple days that pretended to be his daughter. This single act by Kirito takes a character that was already mostly unstoppable in the game and makes him even more broken by pretty much making him a genius too.
5 HIS RUSHED MARRIAGE WITH ASUNA
While many have had eyes for Kirito across the series, it's clear Kirito only has a thing for Asuna. While their relationship has lasted past their time in Sword Art Online, some aspects of it were called out for being a little rushed. Particularly, their in-game marriage comes to mind since they decide to get digitally hitched after just starting their relationship.
Now there's nothing particularly wrong with this since this wasn't really the two getting married, but what makes it weird is that they treat it like its real. In the movie, they even plan to get married for real despite the fact Kirito hasn't even met Asuna's mother. But what really sends this one into true cringe, is that the anime implies that out of all the players in SAO only Kirito and Asuna's love is considered "true love".
4 THAT TIME HE PRETENDED TO BE A GIRL
In the Phantom Bullet Arc, Kirito enters Gun Gale Online while on the hunt for the murderous player known as Death Gun. For some reason, his avatar in the game ends up being quite feminine this time around, to which he decides to take advantage of. In order to keep a low profile, Kirito actually pretends he is a girl while in GGO. It's as hard to watch as it sounds.
During this time, Kirito manages to charm men with his avatar's appearance and he keeps his act going up until Sinon has her character strip in front of him, which makes this moment especially painful and cringy.
3 "CALL ME A BEATER"
After revealing his status as a beta-tester for SAO to other players, he decides to take all the hate for beta-testers onto himself. Angered, the other players combine the words "cheater" and "beta-tester", to call him a derogatory name called a"Beater".
Now while anyone else could look at that name and see how dumb that sounds, Kirito actually decided to roll with that new title and wear it like a badge of honor. While his intent was well-meaning, hearing Kirito calling himself a Beater doesn't sound cool, it just sounds silly.
2 KIRITO BREAKS THE GAME
One of Kirito's crowing achievements of overpowered-ness came during his final battle with Oberon in Alfhiem Online. Just when it looks like Kirito has no way of beating the Admin privileges Sugou Nobuyuki, Akihiko Kayaba (the mastermind behind the SAO incident) appears from beyond the grave and gives Kirito his Admin privileges. Using them, Kirito utterly breaks the game and decimates Oberon.
This moment serves as yet another example of how invincible Kirito can be, but what makes it worse is that he basically did nothing to earn that second wind. A lot like his hacking abilities and his Gleam Eyes transformation, this ability comes out of nowhere and only accomplishes making Kirito look even more like a Mary Sue.
1 THE HAREM THAT KEEPS ON GROWING
Sword Art Online is not technically part of the "harem genre" of anime, though it would be understandable if someone thought it was. Despite the fact that Kirito is rather committed only to Asuna, there have been many girls throughout the multiple seasons of this anime who all vie for his attention and it just keeps growing.
With every new season, a new girl falls in love with Kirito and joins the ranks of his harem even though he's already in a relationship with someone. It is especially bad since his own sister is among them, which is absolutely icky. The longer this goes on the more painful to watch it becomes as it happens over and over again.