They touch on wildly different genres and target a different public IMO.
SAO’s main point is to have people take VR seriously. The author touched on it in his previous series (Accelworld), but it didn’t resonate as much, so he kinda repackaged it to reach the same conclusion after 4+ arcs of novels/ anime.
Log Horizon feels to me less about VR and more like a sheer isekai, not unlike the many “I reincarnated into this dating sim as the villainess” kind of series we are getting in troves now.
For context, the whole anime touches on this part, and how to see the inventor of the machine.
To spoil a bit, it’s a mixed bag and he isn’t the horrible villain you’d expect. Arguably the main characters have a lot of sympathy for what he created and half forgive his atrocities.
To dig a bit more, I think this ambiguity resonated with many people who would give up their current life if they could live a new (hopefully better) one in a different world (they keyword being “isekai”). Most of the isekai genre is super fluffy fantasy, and SAO sits at the border of somewhat plausible if science could advance at a crazy pace.
For many, even living in a world with well defined rules and somewhat of a fair (albeit deadly) meritocracy would be a lot more bearable than their current situation. I don’t expect Palmer to be in that boat, but he also seems to be more on the tech bro side, so who knows ?
You are right to be uncomfortable, I am too, and it’s I think a pretty important aspect of how some people view the world in this day and age.
SAO’s main point is to have people take VR seriously. The author touched on it in his previous series (Accelworld), but it didn’t resonate as much, so he kinda repackaged it to reach the same conclusion after 4+ arcs of novels/ anime.
Log Horizon feels to me less about VR and more like a sheer isekai, not unlike the many “I reincarnated into this dating sim as the villainess” kind of series we are getting in troves now.