MC is good before and after becoming a girl. It has very little impact on the plot.

Unfortunately, author does too much. The mecha addition is so pointless and lame. I could deal with the politics and military strategy, but that on top of goofy mecha stuff makes like 40% of the chapters tedious.

Also, there are more characters than a russian novel, all of whom have their own extensively developed subplots.

The level of detail in this manhwa is maybe the best in the medium, full stop, but it's maximalistic to the point of being confusing. With the number of characters, political threads, and plotlines, you basically have to binge or you'll forget everything. It's almost to the point where you'd have to take notes to understand what's going on in later chapters because you get extended scenes with people from every country and it becomes unclear if you should be rooting for or against them, and what their relationship is to the MC.

This would be way better if the scope of the story was limited to MC because he is the best part by a mile. One of the most enjoyable OP MCs i've read.

it's funny that you've inherited the benefits of so much science but are insistent on taking a stance that denies it. if God created the world, why are you going to such lengths to deny His potential? why can't His plan be complex? why does science have to be in conflict with theology? it's because of the people you talk to and the lack of critical thinking to challenge things. you think you're at the end of thinking about this topic, but you're actually at the beginning.

if someone "started from nothing and did their own thinking," they could think literally whatever fantasy they want. with that as the baseline, the flying spaghetti monster is literally just as plausible as anything you're saying. it makes knowledge less about trial, error, discovery and any kind of critical investigation or rigorous criteria and more about whatever some religious scammer tells you. you're criticizing the reliance on authority while doing the same thing yourself. why are all of your conspiracy points totally in line with what other people think? if you're starting from nothing, why aren't your conspiracies different from the very mainstream ones? there is internal inconsistency in everything you're talking about, which means it's not just what you're saying, it's how you come about that understanding that's riddled in contradiction.

lastly, you don't even know biblical history. adam and eve's son cain has long been associated with racially othered people, evil, and deviance from God. and again with the internal inconsistency: since cain is adam and eve's son, if cain continues the line, all humans still come from adam and eve. unless you're talking about other humans outside the garden - the subject of all sorts of heretical apocryphal books of the bible - then everyone would be descendant from adam and eve. if we're talking biblical literalism (aka creationism), then God made adam and then eve from his rib. they are the first humans; without the bible saying anything about God doing the same elsewhere, then they are the origin of humanity. that is the foundation of what YOU claim to believe.

you've got to be trolling. proven a hoax? no offense, but you need to pay attention in school and develop your critical thinking skills. there are literally millions of independent factors (i.e. unrelated and thus impossible to manipulate on a wide scale) that prove evolution, from the fossil record to genetic analysis to the factual existence Neanderthal and other near-humans to the ability to selectively breed dogs. housecats have literally evolved exclusively within the span of recorded human history from wildcats of the Fertile Crescent to the domestic shorthairs of 2026 - they've lost many predator traits in favor of human-aligned behaviors.

it's good to have faith in religion but not if it's blinding you to objective reality. God can have created the universe and set in motion the genetic progression to humanity, sure, but there is no evidence for Adam and Eve spontaneously popping into existence and everything in nature supports that this didn't happen. for creationism, you not only have to deny evolution as a concept, but every single scientific innovation based on its theorization that structured our everyday lives. you can't believe in disease because there are strains of that evolve and adapt to humans and DNA. you can't believe in soda because it involves chemistry that developed in tandem with genetic innovation. literally the entire foundation of observable reality has to be continuously and totally lying to every single person on earth constantly for evolution to not be true.

it is undeniable. how do humans exist? did we hatch from an egg brought by the stork? there were no humans then after millions of years, there were. there is no way to go from there being only fish/aquatic life on earth to the present day without evolution.

if you're talking about evolution, it is undeniable that branching mutations led to genetic changes and new species species over millennia. survival of the fittest is also proven if you take "fittest" in a broader sense to mean those successful in achieving food and reproductive aims through certain behaviors, phenotypical markings, etc. evolution is about as airtight and proven a theory as is possible by human beings.

i understand its role in this universe but social darwinism is total bullshit in real life. in this manhwa, social value and use is very tightly defined unlike in real society, especially in the Western world. the idea that "lazy" people should be thrown to the wolves is never functionally about real laziness, it's about using that idea of laziness to refuse to help a strata of society. mexican illegal immigrants have long been stereotyped as lazy not based on any real empirical reality, but so they can be targeted for some ideological agenda. capitalism and communism also have nothing to do with laziness. competition is an economic concept that often relies on unfair skirting of regulation, rewarding unscrupulous, evil behavior, etc., not on industriousness. people living in capitalist vs. communist countries don't have vastly different ideas of hard work or the social need for it. are chinese people lazy? were those in Soviet Russia lazy? i don't think so. you can go into any service, office, or federal buidling in the US and find an astounding level of laziness that has nothing to do with the political system in place.

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).