>>3506What I meant about SAO and DxD is how unique they were in their genre in terms of ideas.
DxD has held up for at least 12-16 volumes at least, and I still am interested in the rest of it, however the original 'magic' of DxD was how Issei, instead of being a wussy dude who has girls liking him for no reason and getting all ashamed of pervy things, is the opposite. He's an unabashed pervert who powers-up on the idea of groping and sucking tits. He peeps on girls unashamedly and his saving grace is his loyalty to friends and kindness. He's weak as fuck in the beginning, but through sacrifice and training gains power and the girls he was into start taking him seriously instead of a boytoy. Sure, it gets into a shonen power-wank later on, but that's part of the fun, since Issei is a reluctant fighter, who unlike most Shonen protags, doesn't like having strong rivals and a lust for fighting.
With SAO it was a relatively under-rated idea that was wasted quickly. Compare SAO to Log Horizon…. there are no fucking stakes in Log Horizon because death is nonexistent there. in SAO, if you die in the game you die IRL. But SAO wasted this potential instantly, both in the anime and in the LNs. This is why I liked SAO Abridged more. Sachi's death has lasting impact throughout the first season instead of being a forgotten "tragedy". Kirito is not some good person who's also a gamer, he's a broken and slightly sociopathic trauma victim who loves movies and other escapism. Despite his anti-social behaviour, he still is good at heart even if he's cruel in how he goes about it. The S-Class Ragu Rabbit cooked by a maxed out Cooking Skill had a logical result of making any food, real or virtual taste like garbage. There's plenty more, but point is, this is all non-existent in the original. It's so bland that they had to make it up with heart-tugging shit like Mother's Rosario and the brutal-over-reality of Alicization's edgefest.
TL;DR They began to squander their potential as steam and inspiration began to be lost.