if i wanted innovative plot, i wouldn't be reading these comics. idk if an op protagonist story can even have good plot. Mookhyang: Dark Lady is the only one that comes to mind that actually has ambition in that direction.

He should behave the same but in the new context he's in. I don't know what you mean by "powered up versions of existing techniques." 99% of the powers and cultivation techniques these guys have exist in manuals, meaning that anyone with access to these things can master that technique. The only exception is Orthodox vs. Unorthodox where pure or demonic energy is a signal of their allegiance and so they have to hide it, but even then, they can learn it, but choose not to because of their context. If anything, the demonic energy or whatever would impact them more than the brain chemistry of their transference. But in this story, he's murim going to demonic, so why would he go from edgy assassin to purehearted shonen? If demonic energy affects personality, he should be even more edgy. He is still in a dangerous situation, but he acts like a heart-of-gold orthodox young master. Look at Path of the Shaman, Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon, Return of the Mount Hua Sect, etc. Path of the Shaman is a good comp because it's an evil dude going into a murim orthodox context. His personality is the same, but his memories of his master autopilot him to treat him well. He is the same with a twist and he changes from who he was organically as the story goes on. The reincarnation only makes sense if they maintain the same personality and goals. Here, MC is totally different, making the reincarnation aspect of this story incoherent. He is not changing organically through his situation and context, but is fundamentally a different character with a reincarnation tacked on for a tropey hook, since all stories seem to need a reincarnation, isekai, etc. start these days. If this story didn't have that, i would have no problems here.

Yeah but we're not talking about cognitive science, we're talking about narrative coherence. A murim story with cultivation and elixirs (reliant upon ancient Chinese medicine principles) isn't operating along a strict cognitive realism. But to consider your line of thinking, people are shaped by their experiences. We're talking pure hypotheticals here, but it follows that a trauma constitutive of someone's identity would persist as a trauma even with different brain chemistry. If these characters maintain their memories, that's a clear indication of some brain correspondence. Why is the memory storage part of the brain something consistent, but their age and brain development has the most weight of anything? These murim stories, I would argue, operate more on a soul-transference logic than a neuroscience one. Hence, coherence between old and new body makes more sense not just narratively, but in terms of the in-universe metaphysics.

Except reasoning and personality would persist. Reincarnator should not be totally illegible as the same person pre and post death. Otherwise, why make it a reincarnation story? The whole premise of this genre is taking the previous personality and using that info/experience to get better faster than that body would be able to otherwise. The problem in this one is that despite his assassin life, he is just some happy-go-lucky pure-hearted shonen hero. It would be impossible to match pre and post death personality in this series if you had to pair random MCs in this genre. They are two totally different characters. Being moody or something because of age is one thing, to be a totally different person is another.

if someone likes murim, this is solid and totally worth their time.

if the critique is just "op mc does op mc things," that critique applies to dozens of manwha people actually think are good. there is humor, solid side characters, and soul arts (your point) that are all unique to this. if there's something unique within the tropes, solid character and art, and humor, i think it's impossible for a manwha to be a 5/10. that's the description of a 7/10. also, you have to approach these things on their own terms. "i don't like an entire genre so something is automatically crap because of tropes" isn't a fair criticism. 90% of manhwa in this genre have the negatives you talk about, while many of them don't have the pro you mention. if you're judging this story against all media, then even a 5/10 is too high, but against similar things in the manwha op reincarnation genre, i don't see how this isn't good (7/10).

I have said "smart and manipulative" basically every time. You decided that only manipulative was the premise, not me. But even if we take "manipulative" as the only thing we're talking about, my last point stands. If you are only manipulating fools but can't manipulate average intelligence people, are you manipulative as a central character trait? If an adult is outsmarting kids, is he smart? If an adult can beat little kids at basketball, is he automatically good at basketball?

Also, let's not get distracted from the real center of this conversation. Is MC in Myst, Mayhem just evilly brutal or is he clever/manipulative? Lloyd was a point of reference for this point. Lloyd tricks idiots. MC in this tricks adults with at least average intelligence. That is undeniably true. If there was a "manipulative" scale from "tricks a blind child out of their candy" (1) to "puppets central plot events through his scheming" (10), Lloyd is a 3/10, while MC in this is a 7/10 at least. Your smokescreen about good/evil whatever and taking the most extreme interpretation of my "cry" quote is a distraction. I was responding to your initial point that this is bad because MC's an evil character who is only brutal and that's it. I gave an exaggerated response because i didn't think we'd be arguing. MC in this is not just brutal, he is clever and manipulative in a way that many characters in this genre aren't, which is enabled by his brutal pragmatism to get stronger and discover power. Unlike Lloyd who is in a comedy series with different objectives (hence the "fooling idiots" nature of his "manipulation" as you'd call it) and who has a cheat system power (and earth knowledge), MC here is outsmarting and tricking greedy adults by understanding the context of his situation while not having lloyd's isekai background.

You are also making bad faith arguments cherrypicking my points and recentering this argument away from the truth of what I'm saying.

smithtable15 "He rarely outsmarts others (and those he does are idiots)."
luvin: "he managed to `enslave` the whole mermaid tribe" - he gives them a service using modern marketing strategy he copied from earth. as i say, he does not learn or do anything he hasn't already seen on earth. they are also arguably idiots.
luvin: "how he made the undead do* labour * because they have infinite stamina?" how is making brainless zombies do something outsmarting anyone? how is seeing an obvious opportunity given his earth background clever?
luvin: "how he made bibeong, an aloof and reluctant legendary creature to be his biggest supporter" - oh you mean the dumb animal whose conversion to his supporter was a total joke based on it falling in love with his gacha animal? his manipulation was for the over-the-top comedy. the mere presence of his worm girl familiar itself was enough for that thing's loyalty.

For every cherrypicked example you use here that apply to "smart and clever" as a technicality, there are at least two counters that support my point: the dragon (idiot), the centaurs (idiots), the orcs (idiots), the neighbor count and his son (idiots), the elves (idiots), the other engineer he praises to build the dragon monument (the guy knows what Lloyd is about), the queen (never manipulated by him). Lloyd is not a clever or manipulative character except when it comes to idiot characters, characters who allow themselves to be "manipulated," etc.

is it clever to outsmart children who don't know how the world works? that's lloyd. i like that comic, i like lloyd, but he is not clever like MC in this and i think it's pretty dense to not see that.

The Beginning After the End is a good example of what I'm criticizing. He reincarnates, finds family, and in his development becomes a total idiot who gets constantly beat up, has no battle experience, and becomes an intention>capability type character. His found-family plot-line is the heart of the story; after he becomes a decent character (with none of his past-life wildness), he becomes a fool whose only weapon is the impotent sword of friendship/family. Not every story has the MC go through this arc, but it's more common than a pure evil MC who does not value relationships except insofar as he can take advantage of them. This story is a breath of fresh air from those kinds of stories, as well as the large number of isekai, system, gate-type stories with neutral good MCs.

MC here is smart and ruthless. He exploits people's emotions to manipulate them to do what he wants. The ruthlessness complements his intelligence. How does MC get followers? Why does he move locations? He figures out the context, politics, and relationships of those around him to make his moves and take advantage of his opponents. He acts decisively after figuring out what his opponents want. He is also a genius prodigy who can learn things quickly. He has fewer instances of asspulled deux ex machinas than most OP protagonists and that's because the story shows him studying the situation. His ruthlessness actually means a wider variety of choices, not fewer; he's not bound by morality. Even MC in Return of the Crazy Demon would not do some of what MC here does. That opens up new directions to the plot because of the type of MC we have here won't even be bound by social rules. Good MC stories are far more predictable because the MCs are.

Next, Lloyd isn't manipulative or smart like this MC; he gets a system with cheat ending spoilers. His skill is being a good engineer, a hard worker, and shameless. He rarely outsmarts others (and those he does are idiots). He never learns anything quickly he was clueless about beforehand. How many times does the Empress see through his motives? Also, Lloyd finds family in Great Estate Developer so your point doesn't even contradict mine like you think it does. Even though GED is funny, Lloyd's actually a neutral good masquerading as a chaotic neutral. In fact, he develops in a pretty typical way for a shonen MC: he transmigrates to another world, starts with nothing, finds family, and becomes a hero (albeit reluctantly). That isn't a good counterexample to what I'm saying. And I haven't read the other two.

i get what you're saying, but MC here is clever. far smarter and more manipulative than most MCs. i care more about that than every story needing to have MC cry about finding a family he never had (which happens all the time in other stories). i guess my expectations for OP MC stories is lower or less specific than yours.

he's a sadist villain antihero. if that's not your thing, fine, but he's definitely more interesting than the typical cheat-ability, system-reliant MC. chaotic evil MCs are pretty rare, especially in comic form. even most "bad guy who reincarnates into orthodox faction" stories have neutral good characters.

you didn't read too closely. what about the mysterious sealed inner door thing MC has? if that's not the indicator that he's not a normal person untrained in martial arts, idk what is. it'd be like watching naruto and thinking it's badly plotted because naruto has fox powers out of nowhere.

The extended universe stuff doesn't matter at all. It's great on its own, as someone who thinks Nano Machine is one of the most overrated manhwas.

The structure of a harem story can't work unless you give a real personality to a large cast of characters. Webtoons, c-novels, manga are never going to have that. The average such story can barely make two good characters, much less the ~5-10 they'd need for "good" harem which to me is about as hypothetical a phrase as "virile Japanese protagonist." Having harem is an indication of a shit story because it's like an open commitment to wasting dozens of panels on bullshit flat character collectibles. in my opinion, every harem panel might as well be blank white. if you have 15 chapters of 100 devoted to harem flat character hangouts, romance, etc. then that's 15% pointless nothingness, in addition to what you said about incompetent writers. harem just sucks and makes every single story that has it worse, unless the story is a historical drama explicitly about harem (and not a hero story where every woman falls for him).

it's good

This is a low-stakes comedy murim where MC uses his modern knowledge about bugs to become part of the Tang poison clan. It is interesting to have a mostly non-combat murim. MC is more about being smart than about being strong, which I think is unique among these types of stories. There are things that are pretty preposterous (like him becoming engaged to the main clan daughter), but it's still an enjoyable read. 7.5-8/10

This is good. Interesting main characters, good plot. 8/10

Pretty bland. Nothing new and the art is pretty unappealing to me.

1. "Regression" indicates a trope and so can't be unique.
2. A lot of tropes signal something being shit, like harem.
3. Average means take a pick of comic at random.
4. It took more time to type your comment than it would have to read mine.

there has never been a female character less for the streets than MC in this