The publisher is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a publisher and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: “I’ve been found out.”

Synopsis looked great, but after reading the underwhelming first chapter... Think this is a pass for me, bros.

I read up through Chapter 63, Season 2, and came to the conclusion that this just isn't for me.

I'd been reading a lot of Murim manhwas and was looking for a change of pace, specifically a fantasy isekai. That's how Worthless Regression presents itself at the start. A man is isekai'd into a fantasy world with classes and status windows as a No Class, lives a miserable life, and then regresses back to the start. On paper, that checked every box I was looking for.

Early on, the story establishes that this world pulls people from many different realities, including Murim settings. One of the major early characters is a Heavenly Demon type straight out of a Murim story. At first, that's fine, because the broader setting still feels firmly fantasy: adventurer guilds, ranked parties, magic, trolls, liches, and so on.

Over time, though, it becomes clear that the author isn't interested in telling a fantasy story. The fantasy framing feels more like something their publisher demanded they write and the author couldn't abandon that premise fast enough. Little by little, those fantasy elements are sidelined, until what's left is almost entirely a Murim story. This isn't a slow-burn hybrid or a balanced blend, it's a total genre shift.

For roughly the last forty chapters I read, the protagonist has effectively abandoned the fantasy side of the world. The focus is on cultivation, internal energy, martial hierarchies, and sect politics. He's visiting the Shaolin Temple, training under monks, consuming Qi pills, studying secret manuals, and fighting between Orthodox and Unorthodox factions. At some point it clicked that I wasn't reading a fantasy isekai with Murim elements, I’d been bamboozled into another full Murim manhwa with a coat of fantasy paint.

That said, the quality is undeniably there. The art is strong, the plot is engaging, and the protagonist genuinely struggles, suffers, and grows rather than coasting on regression alone. Nothing about this feels lazy or poorly executed. It just isn't the story I thought I was committing to. If you're not experiencing Murim fatigue, this is a fantastic read and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Every chapter this guy keeps whining about the fortress. Every. One.

It's the worst possible time. You just finished the latest chapter and are now at the longest possible time away from a new one.

A video game developer starting the virus and it apparently being localized in only South Korea is pretty disappointing.

I think I speak for all reasonable people that we'd rather the world end in a manmade apocalypse of refuse-devouring biological weapons than even consider eating a soy burger.

Lloyd is about the same age after the isekai. Protagonist here is like a 60 year old man in a 20 year old body. His libido is shot.

There are no bad chapters to this thing. But there are *best* ones, and those are the loops. Buckle up, friends.

I mean, I was referencing events in the story that happen over a hundred chapters in. I did stick with it. And nothing you mentioned contradicted any of the criticisms I had. Knowing the reason why he's an invincible swordsman and the most overpowered mage alive at the age of three, doesn't change the fact that he still is an overpowered Mary Sue that everyone loves.

Now, if several hundred chapters later he gets injured and suffers some personal tragedy as his very first set back to propel him to even greater heights of invincibility and overpoweredness, that's still immaterial to the point I was making. The core of his character is being a Mary Sue. No one else is reincarnated except for him, and instead of the usual underpowered teenager, he's the near-invincible reincarnated sword emperor of another universe with unparalleled fighting skills he gets access to immediately, just being a swordsman with no engineering background he somehow is able to create complex mechanical machinery that no one in the world (even the most brilliant engineers) can create except for him, and no one else gets magic until they're teenagers except for him who gets it as an infant, and no one else gets more than one or two elements, except for him as the only four-element toddler mage in existence, and dragons are extinct except for his one he just happens to keep as a pet, and Elves hate all humans except for him whom they love and the Elven Princess wants to marry him, and-

Et cetera.

It's good the author eventually gives him some sort of circumstance he doesn't effortlessly win against way off in the future, but the problem isn't just that. It's the basic core of his character and how everyone reacts to him. Characters are introduced to either A) fall in love with him; B) be in awe of him and try to win his favor; C) be cartoonishly evil and challenge him to instantly lose and make him look better.

Now, I'm not saying the art's bad, the worldbuilding is bad, or even the greater plot is bad. And just because the main character is an insufferable Mary Sue that everyone loves doesn't mean that you can't like the comic. As I mentioned, Sword Art Online is popular, Dragonball is popular, Reincarnated as a Slime, Fairy Tale, Seven Deadly Sins, and so on. People like OP Mary Sue protagonists, and that's fine. But let's not pretend that Arthur Leywin isn't right up there with them as one too.

I think a lot of people are developing Mary Sue fatigue, which is why manhwa like Greatest Estate Developer with the hideously ugly Lloyd Frontera is becoming so popular. Or Eternally Regressing Knight with the talentless Encrid overcoming difficulties by losing over and over and over (and over) again. Power fantasies are nice, but only when there's a flaw you need to overcome.

I don't understand why this is so liked. The main character is such a Gary Stu even Kirito would be embarrassed by how OP and beloved he is.

First, he's an invincible swordsman that isekais in and keeps his swordsmanship ability. He instantly defeats seasoned adventurers as a three year old. Seriously. The setting then sets-up that by puberty very rarely some people may manifest one of the four elements of magic. Obviously the MC develops magic as a toddler instead of puberty and he manifests all four. Because why wouldn't he?

So now, you're thinking, he's a three year old that's the greatest swordsman and strongest mage, they have to be done glazing him, right? Wrong. See, despite having no engineering background in his previous life, he immediately knows how to reverse engineer and recreate complicated mechanical systems in this new fantasy world. And just because they couldn't stop there, he instantly bonds with and gains the power of the legendary and supposedly extinct dragons.

And then, just to make sure they drive the point home, every female character falls in love with. All of them. Instantly. If the story is introducing a new female character, rest assured, she exists purely to fall in love with the protagonist.

But that's all forgivable if the setting is interesting and the villains are- NOPE. Nameless bad guys exist to climb out of the woodwork and humble themselves by forcing the MC to handle them. I'd say every other chapter? Maybe every third? You need a bandit or a racist or a slaver or a sadistic teacher who decides to be cartoonishly evil in front of the invincible MC so he can be easily defeated and the reader reminded of how invincible and virtuous the MC is. This is exemplified perfectly by his first day of school when, for seemingly no reason, a random teacher goes insane and tries to murder students in front of him purely so the MC can easily defeat him and somehow, as a day 1 student, become the new teacher himself.

Power fantasies only work when there's some sense of stakes. You always know he's going to win every fight, master every skill, defeat every villain, and charm every girl 100% of the time. And it just gets boring.

The premise here started out really strong. A former child prodigy archer gets into an accident that cripples his hand and forces him into early retirement. He discovers VR gaming where his hand works again and starts livestreaming as a way to get to do archery and make a living. Unbelievably, he does not get isekai'd into the video games.

The story starts strong with him playing a medieval fantasy RPG with a great story and interesting NPCs. He beats the game pretty early into the chapters and switches to a battle royale game where he keeps using a bow. You think "Oh, this is the type of story we're getting. The protag exploring different types of games with a bow. Maybe more RPGs, or a MOBA, or like an Assassin's Creed type game, or-"

But no. It's just battle royale. Ten chapters after he quit the RPG, it's battle royale. Twenty chapters, battle royale. Fifty chapters, battle royale. Up until the time of this review around chapter 100, still battle royale. And after some 80 chapters straight of battle royale, I've lost interest. This should've been titled "The Genius Archer plays PUBG".

I really gave it a try, but it's just not very good.

The story has him in a dungeon that you have to clear solo. That already makes it rough because there's no group to play off of, no other characters, it's just chapter after chapter of him talking to himself. It gets old pretty fast. For the story, he chose Hell difficulty so the levels are very dangerous and the traps do lots of hits and damage... but that means he levels up crazy fast in the first dozen chapters. The usual instantly OP isekai stuff, sigh.

But it's not even entertaining. I got over two dozen chapters in and there hasn't been a single fight yet. It's just him deliberately taking hits from automatic traps over and over to raise his stats and talking to himself. No other players to talk to, no monsters to fight, just one guy walking into arrow traps over and over and talking to himself.

Look, it's not terrible. But like I said, it's just not very good. There are a lot of 9/10 and 10/10 manhwa to read, why settle for a thoroughly average 5/10?