Kirigaya "Kirito" Kazuto

Who's this guy? tbh idk
If you know anything about modern anime, you know who this guy is. If you don't, allow me to introduce you to the reason people under the age of 18 aren't allowed to vote.

Kirito is the main character of the series known as Sword Art Online, a series that both popularized and ruined it's own genre. According to My Anime List, it is the third most listed show on the website, right after Death Note and Attack On Titan. The problem is, those shows are worth watching, while this one isn't. It has a rating of 7.6 on MAL, which is probably the equivalent of a 6 on IMDB, because people on MAL reserve ratings less than 5 for only absolute cancer.

Kirito is aged 14-17 throughout the entire series. Keep this in mind, for it shall be brought up often.

Motivation for rating
Many people call the term "Mary Sue" Sexist. The reason for this is that most characters who are called out for being either a Mary Sue or a Garry Stu seem to be women. I would agree. The amount of shitty, overpowered, underdeveloped, near perfect male characters in anime is atrocious. It's a god damned TRAVESTY that these characters don't get the Garry Stu label as often as they should.

In my mind, no characters scream "Garry Stu" louder then this motherfucker. He's the definition of an overpowered wish-fulfillment character without a personality. This is made even worse by his popularity.

When I started writing this about him, I believed that this fucker would surely get a perfect Sweep. However, as it turns out there's exactly one thing that makes him not completely perfect.

Overpowered
Kirito's main ability is to be able to play any virtual reality video-game in such a way so that he's one of the most powerful players in the game. He can do this with disparate games with widely disparate mechanics.

For instance, he managed to unlock the ability to dual-wield swords. He also managed to use this ability with proficiency, even though two-sword styles of combat are virtually nonexistent in real life.

Finally, if there's any doubt he's overpowered, he managed to play Sword Art Online solo for a period of months. Sword art online is an MMO, so it's mechanics should be directly rewarding group players. Logically, this would make solo-play a risky strategy, and one that leads to death more often than not. However, Kirito was apparently competent enough of a fighter at FOURTEEN to not die horribly in combat while he's alone, which is a feat most adults in this show don't manage.

'''Conclusion: If Kirito wasn't overpowered, he'd currently be dead. Full point.'''

Unexplained Power-Level
Some people may argue that Kirito's power level is adequately explained by the the fact that he's done kendo for all his life. That's fucking stupid and here's why.

Kendo is a martial art and sport that uses a two-handed practice sword. While a two-handed sword user is likely going to be more proficient with a one-handed sword then the average person, the level of mastery over one-handed swords that Kirito shows is that unparalleled by most soldiers in ancient times. The two abilities in question that show this are his ability to use two swords at once and the ability to block bullets with his sword reliably. We've already covered the two swords ability, but the blocking bullets is another beast entirely.

Apparently, Kirito can block bullets because of a feature that shows the firing arc of the bullets. He can apparently determine which bullets to block because the firing arc will show up at slightly different times. However, Kirito is shown doing this with approximately 30 arcs in a two second period. You show me a person who can memorize 30 firing arcs, has the reflexes to block them all in perfect order, and has the dexterity to do it one handed, I will show you someone who's NOT A BLOODY TEENAGER.

'''Conclusion: How Kirito routinely manages to master abilities that are incredibly physically difficult is completely unexplained. How he does it at his age is even less so. Full point.'''

No Personality/Perfectly Good
To prove this, I'm going to go through the SAO wikia entry on Kirito to show why even the fans don't think he has a personality.

To start off with, there are many aspects that aren't actually personality traits. Specifically, that he's been known to show different moods (because normal people only have one mood their entire life) and that he's not good with words. The wikia also says that he's simultaneously "calm and collected", but also a "lets his emotions control him", which are direct opposites!

Finally, the rest of the personality section details how he's "Kind, refuses to abandon people in trouble and has an incredibly strong resolve". This is just showing how good of a person he is while not showing how he'd actually react in a given situation. The personality section just highlights how good of a person he is for the majority of it, which is funny considering that this person is a teenager.

Conclusion: Being a good person is not a personality, Full point to both.

Feels Like Wish Fulfillment/Instantly liked
Jesus Christ, where do I even begin? I'm going to skip over the fact that Kirito is practically a god when he plays video-games, because then I'd be repeating myself. Kirito, through his expert video game skills, manages to make virtually every girl he comes across attracted to him almost immediately. Let's go through a few, shall we? Lets keep in mind that Kirito is 14 at the start of SAO, and is about 17 at the end of the series. Virtually every girl in the story wanting to stick their girl-peen in Kirito isn't particularly realistic. However, if you consider it from the perspective of a teenager, you can see why they'd identify with a character who can pick up girls with their amazing video-game skills. Add the fact that half of the girls have some sort of fetish associated with them in one way or another and the conclusion's obvious.
 * 1) Asuna, in SAO, she was the co-leader of one of the most prestigious guilds as well as one of the best players in the game.
 * 2) Lisbeth, who I know absolutely nothing about.
 * 3) Sachi, the dead one.
 * 4) Silica, who is FUCKING 12 at the start of the series, but yet is still a potential romantic interest. The maturity difference between 12 and 14 is immense.
 * 5) Lefa, Kirito's actual, honest to god cousin and adoptive sister.
 * 6) Sinon, the angsty Yoko ripoff/catgirl fan-service they felt forced to add in season 2.

'''Conclusion: Fucking twelvies. Full point to both.'''

If anyone wants to contend the liked instantly point by saying that he's disliked in SAO because he's a beta tester, it doesn't count if the people disliking them are portrayed antagonistically for basically the entire show, and it certainly doesn't count if someone makes themselves more disliked as a plan to make others less disliked.

No significant embarrassments or failures
Now, by process of elimination, this must be where I reveal the one way that Kirito is not a Garry Stu. Does Kirito have significant failures? On the average day, he doesn't. In fact, Kirito never fails in a significant way after the first half of the SAO story-line. He always manages to pull something out of his ass to make sure he wins the day in every story he's in. So how can he possibly have a significant failure?

Pay attention ladies and gentlemen, this is the only way in which a woman is useful in the entirety of SAO.

You know that girl who gets rekt in the third episode of the series? The one who gets killed because Kirito hides is power-level? The one who only exists to die horribly? Boom, his single significant failure. So congratulations Kirito, your dead girlfriend saved you from a perfect sweep. Even I'm confused about how this was managed, and I wrote the damn entry.

Conclusion: Half a point, would be higher if not for dead girlfriend.