Sword Art Online has come a long way. From its humble origins as a web story written by Reki Kawahara in 2001, Sword Art Online was eventually published by ASCII Media Works as a series of light novels and adapted into an anime that took the world by storm in 2012. While hardly the first isekai or stuck-in-a-video-game story, Sword Art Online would turn out to be a harbinger for both of those genres, leading the way to isekai becoming one of the most pervasive genres in the medium today. Despite its popularity, though, the first few arcs of Sword Art Online feature writing that is more than a little rough, with stories that are more big ideas than realized concepts and characters that prioritize being cool over being emotionally interesting.
Over time, though, Kawahara's writing has matured, with more recent arcs showing a more thoughtful side to his world and - importantly - his characters. Now, with his revisit of the story that started it all getting a movie adaptation with Sword Art Online Progressive, we're seeing the fruits of Kawahara's decades of experience, and nothing exemplifies this better than how different the story's hero Kirito is in Progressive.
In the first arc of the story, "Aincrad," where Kirito and friends are trapped in the titular Sword Art Online game, Kirito is painted in simplistic terms. He's a highly competent gamer, his skills in all things MMOs and RPGs being what literally saves the day every time a problem arises. But that isn't enough to make him cool - he's also athletic, a trait that makes him even stronger in the virtual reality world of Sword Art Online where one's real-life physical prowess can be utilized in-game to enhance your abilities. He's charismatic, making friends at every turn and charming every girl he meets.
An attempt is made to make him feel flawed early on by playing up his tendency to be anti-social - a key factor in the early part of the story, as he finds it hard to play well in groups that would make the game easier - but this, too, is quickly spun into a hidden positive. It manifests as selflessness; beta players of Sword Art Online are initially demonized by other trapped players because they're seen as cheaters who had an unfair advantage of knowledge at the beginning, and Kirito uses his solo style of play to his advantage by distracting all that hate towards himself because he doesn't need allies anyway. It's also just another way his competence is able to be shown off - he rarely, after all, needs support to get by. In early Sword Art Online, Kirito can do no wrong, even when his supposed flaws are on display.
As Sword Art Online goes on, it takes great efforts to make other characters feel more complete and interesting. Asuna, the heroine, goes from being the skilled fencer who still ends up needing her boyfriend's help when things get tough to the hero of her own stories, most notably in the "Mother's Rosario" arc. New characters introduced after "Aincrad" are given more agency from the get-go, like "Phantom Bullet's" Sion, who enters the story with her own full backstory not really connected to Kirito at all. The anime's most recent arc, "Alicization," introduces Eugeo, who is a lot like a more interesting, flawed version of Kirito, and Alice, whose warped sense of justice challenges the very ideas that Kirito's perpetual savior syndrome was only rewarded for up to that point. Kirito himself, though, never really got the chance to become a more nuanced version of himself, an issue that haunts Sword Art Online even as it improves because, most of the time, Kirito is still the main character.
That's where Sword Art Online Progressive flips everything on its head. In Progressive, the "Aincrad" story is retold from the perspective of Asuna, the girl who once constantly needed saving. Here, she is the protagonist and the story is reframed to make her just as key to the success of the heroes as Kirito. And speaking of him, we see Kirito himself from Asuna's perspective for the first time, and through her eyes, we see the Kirito we always should have had - an awkward, fumbling boy who means well and can be pushed towards heroism when shown the right path toward it.
We first see Kirito in Progressive as he saves Asuna from a horde of monsters she is simply unprepared to handle by herself. It is initially played off as a classic hero-Kirito moment, but as soon as the enemy is defeated, we already see a different side of him. His shyness, only given lip service before, is finally on full display, as he can't even look Asuna in the eye, doesn't introduce himself, stumbles over his words, and leaves. It's a strange moment that might even initially come off as out of character for him, but upon reflection is actually the series finally making due on what it has always said but never shown about Kirito. This first impression makes it much more believable later as we see a scene straight from the original show again, where a group of players is planning a raid on the first boss, forming teams, and Kirito can only muster enough courage to ask the girl he already knows to be his partner. Part of that always came from his wariness of being outed as a beta player, but now it is framed as being part of his social awkwardness as well, something that should have always been a key part of his character.
This initial shyness and complete lack of cool factor makes what comes next - Asuna and Kirito bonding over things like the simple joys of good food and, notably, the pains of feeling alone - much more genuine. That, in turn, makes it much more satisfying when Kirito and Asuna team up to take down the aforementioned raid boss - and feel more real when Kirito decides to take the blame for the perceived sins of all the other beta players. In the context of Progressive, these actions aren't those of a selfless hero who doesn't need allies, but of a lonely boy finding a solid excuse to retreat further into his shell while meeting another loner who can see his actions for what they truly are and sympathize with him.
In Progressive, Kirito doesn't "win" Asuna's affection as much as Asuna finds a kindred soul in his kindness and self-inflicted solitude. Kirito becomes a more realized person already, and his relationship with Asuna comes from a place of true connection. It's an impressive improvement from his original portrayal, and in a way a bold move by Reki Kawahara to reassess the hero that made his story a household name, but it pays off in dividends - with these small changes, Kirito is finally likable.
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