yo
I thought it was yona because of the assassin motif of noticing their aura...

but also because I thought the red hair was flowers, adn she's a florist, fms

huh

What did he do to delay miss yona????

For some god awful reason this comment is making alotta sense rn

I hit my like limit but just know

she is so cute wtf

uh
is that true

Something like a gary stu, I think, except they're the main character, and that very very very VERY clearly reflects in the story the further down the line you get.

So many interesting ideas that could have been explored, that get reduced to nothingness when THIS is the reason why they're written.

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It's done in a way where they reaaally don't want to explicitly make it clear they're just glorifying mc, btu they're treating everythign as if that's what they're doing. A subtle, not-so-subtle style. It's like if there's an arc or subplot and you think it would be satisfying if they just showed off mc's power here, well, author thinks exactly that too. To the point where subplots are arguably written for that very purpose.
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It's like he willingly forgot about character development and growth (not in the combat sense) and only writes for the main character, and not "for" as in with relevance to him, "for" as in literally appeasing to, or kneeling to him, in such a way where the main character himself hardly experiences any growth. Past a certain point we have seen the exact same guy, and I can't even hope that he will change for the better because why would he? It's not like the author plans to do anything with the side chars.
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Infact, I'm convinced this author has no idea what makes a good character altho that is pretty subjective. Just know if you're looking to explore a main cast, the focus is and has always been mc.
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Dropped: during the "racist" competition arc, which honestly isn't even a main issue, goes to show how much I'm dissapointed. This is abt 130 chapters in so if you wanna read past that go ahead, the beginning is very nice but I'd like to have known the direction the story wanted to take early since I hate unfinished stories, and I can't stomache to finish this. I'm not some review expert tho.

Really and truly man, I even let this simmer so I could binge it...

Pros:

Good power fantasy
MC struggles and fights through problems, his growth is pretty well orchestrated and his prowess in combat is a huge selling point
His journey type of thing to the top, really

Qualms:
Side character writing; nonexistant
They make you think other characters are important in terms of, yknow, their character, but it's become clear to me that everyone is only introduced to make mc look good. It goes past just looking up to him, but rather the point of moral good IS him. And their position in their story is directly proportional to their interactions or importance to him. I honestly feel deceived since the way they were doing world building was so nice and felt like a breath of fresh air, but it doesn't go beyond that.

They'll layer up background occasion after background occasion and you think "oh, they're fleshing out people other than him, showing the events that occur around the game world and giving life to the story" when in reality I'm pretty sure it's only there to make saying "he beat the HELL difficulty ALONE, withOUT the need of all of that very important development in the background, because he's just THAT cool!" and let me tell you it's not even done in a fun way, imo.

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It's not just lightning kid though, his gf is justified in being absolutely impulsive and quick to judge, just because he is his girlfriend. Like he wrote in a subplot in which she's very very clearly drunk on power, but doesn't look like he plans to do anything with it, and just wants to show off mc's ability to judge character in the heat of the moment. Likewise, the only other individual not completely controversial rn are the ones that directly submit to (archer) or associate with (bandana man) mc. Which hurts because the international competition was a very potentially fruitful way to bring in unique faces that could serve as a foil to the mc, a rival to the rebel organisations or allies as a whole, but instead all of them were reduced to meatbags or glorification for mc. I'm not even mad about the korean superiority complex that goes along here, almost every sort of fictional media portraying a representative of their own country is going to be written such that their own country is in a much better light in regards to political confrontation, from western series (dont read comics so think, movies with america's military might) to manga, to manhua and manwha.
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But the idea that good characters both in future and present are willing to be ruined just to save mc's face, even in the fcking hyped up battle they couldn't make mc losing seem normal, it had to be out of the ordinary trickster tactics, author literally COULD NOT swallow his pride and properly say that mc is outclassed in combat here, they didn't show a fight that was fully prepped they showed aone sided beatdown and tried to justify it, even with the tidbit of not using revive at the end. I was aight if it was solely because they wanted to show that mc would do anything it takes but they hardly even made him struggle, the mental voice was great but too much of the fight was just nonsensical.
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Anyways yeah, for my own mental health I need to drop this. Every single scene involving a social group is just dog. I had my qualms form the start and was hopeful that they would be addressed as proper subplots, but seeing as THESE are the kinds of subplots I'm in for moving in the future, it's just...man.
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Absolute waste.

Infact, give me a good reason why mc had to beat him up there? Why not "teach him a lesson", explain the various ways the dungeon can attack someone and how it's not good to be overtly cocky (even if mc is, since in his mind he responds to lightning boy's provocation in the same manner, as if not to say "it's not good to think like that", but "I'm still better than you so you can't say that").

MC could have alluded to the various moments across his hell trip, even ones shared by lightning boy, and showed him how these things are dangerous. How an opponent can close the distance faster than his spell goes off, or if their defences resist the lightning,. or if their reflexes can adjust to predictable pathing, the usage of unique and creative weapons or opposing magic by themselves, there was alot of ways they could have showed mc's skill and even more ways they could have "humbled" (the amount of humbling subplots in this manwha has hurt it greatly) the lightning boy , since his demeanor is perfectly reasonable for someone who's grown to that extent, but instead they did this.

I can't anymore, this writing is shit.
I was watching out because the moral ambiguity of everyone's characters meant there was room for growth and development, but it's becoming more and more clear that author simply doesn't intend to solve any of the sociological or moral conflicts that he's proposed in the story, and it's all to brimg mc to the limelight.

Idk what you call it, when the story bends and warps so obviously to make the main character the saint, the epitome of goodness and all encompassing against everything evil, and that anyone who even slightly opposes him is with major fault, I absolutely abhor that kind of writing.

So far mc has made use of authoritarian leadership styles (not in an elaborated upon way, not without properly addressing the issues despite mentioning them), excessive violence on both allied members and foreign competitors, crude remarks, and has demeaned or alluded to violence per almost every single encounter.

How the hell is what he just did to lightning boy any different from what that australian fella did to the other guy a few chapters ago? It was so bad that he, and anyone who defended him deserved death, right? But when you use excessive violence to beat up by NO EXAGGERATION a kid who is very naturally drunk on power, to the bloody pulp point, somehow it's justified in the sake of reprimand? Everything is justified when it doesn't negatively affect mc, huh?

The idea that criminals are punished by death because there's no means for subjugation in the dungeon was an interesting premise, since it put into question the authority and validity of their reprimand in the public's eye, but author turns blind to that because he's creating this huge inconsistency, that mc can get away with excessive violence simply because the character he's fighting is seen as "bad" at the time, and that is beyond an issue.

The fact that they chose a character, reduced them to a cliche jerk for the moment, and have mc wrangle them just to show mc's power and skill is unacceptable to me, because it means that mc is going to get away with no consequences, and author is more than willing to absolutely ruin his characters and world building just to make mc look good...

The funny part is this wouldn't be hard to play off as normal. Just like how if mc is representing his school in a tourney, or his country in a raid, or his party in a competition, they're always portrayed to be significantly better than the others, with just one or two rivals, they could have done it here

but instead we're going through every possible thing to demean the structures of the japanese and australian servers, alongside the fact that even the characters meant to serve a good light are written to look bad, not to mention setting up gags that hit deeper into the servers' lore than needed narratively, it's just so...very blatant

unfortunately I like power fantasies so it's not like I can just not read it

on another note, is it like this in the novel too?

typeOU has a point tho

OMG FEMBOY SHOTA DRAGON?????????????
I AM BEYOND IN EXASPERATION

truly a peak series, god bless

oh, so someone has to be a saccrificial lamb...
ohhhhhh

No, it isn't an easy tell.

The fact is that there's almost no real transition, partly because this is a manwha, and so you're immersed in the story and before you know it, everything is confusing.

"Mhm Mhm, diety of adventure, yup, wait how did he get onto the 16th floor???? ohhhh"
Either you're too immersed and it becomes confusing, you're not immersed and honestly can't when it's split up like this, or you're broken out of your immersion by some pseudo flashback

at least there should be some symbolism or motif that more directly defines the scene change as a review of the past, something that goes beyond just saying they're on a different floor

Dying in the ultimate bliss to prevent the negatives that come later down in life

it's like how you remember the last thing as representative of the whole

what is rag

ooh rent