LMAO, these takes always fucking cracks me up, of people claiming to have 'read the novels' and then go and say that none of the girls like Kirito and say "it's only an anime thing", especially as someone who actually read the novels XD The girls' feelings for Kirito are ALL Canon, is just that SAO isn't really a harem at all, all the girls accept and support KiriSuna wholeheartedly (Which avoids all the silly harem tropes of the girls fighting over the guy) but that doesn't make their feelings any less real, ESPECIALLY Suguha, I swear is gut-busting to see people saying "she only fell for Kirito and stopped when she realized he was Kazuto" when the ENTIRE fucking arc is based around her feelings for her Onii-chan and how hard she's trying to get over it, which is the only reason she tried to make herself fall for Kirito, and even the narration states blatantly that the only reason she fell attracted to Kirito was because of how similar she felt he was to Kazuto. Especially when she's the ONLY one of the girls who actually CONFESSED to him onscreen. All she did was accept to put his happiness above her own (Which she did twice over in that arc) like a mature person, but she still very much likes him, the novels even make it more blatant because there are several bits of narration and PoVs that the anime completely removes and even whole sidestories that make it especially obvious (One is even fully VOICED as a whole-ass drama CD even XD). Liz and Silica are self-explanatory, those 2 are obvious as fuck even without the sidestories, but they literally SAID IT OUT LOUD again during Alicization's ending. Funnily enough, the only canon girl who hasn't actually shown directly romantic attraction in a blatant way to him was Sinon, and even then hilariously she's the most popular non-Asuna pairing for him amongst the fandom because despite that they somehow have some of the best chemistry when they work together.
Hell, the 'not-harem' is so blatant that the AUTHOR HIMSELF wrote a non-canon Harem Ending to the original Web Novel ages ago, approved by Asuna and everything, hilariously called "There Is But One Ultimate Way", as a pseudo-joke