I Was a Sword When I Reincarnated (WN)

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The initial 11 or 12 chapters serve as the foundation, where the sword gradually becomes acquainted with its environment and acquires new skills and power-ups.

**Spoiler:**
Because, as it turns out later, the sword’s attacks aren’t even a match for ordinary steel swords and daggers, so it needs significant development to become effective.

The story really takes off after the sword meets its owner and they travel to a town where the owner plans to become an adventurer. In the town, they explore various aspects of the world, such as the sword's origins, different classifications of swords, and more, while embarking on their adventurous journey. [As of chapter 27]

Despite some characters fitting into cliché roles—like the elf guild master and the dwarf blacksmith—each has a unique personality, ensuring that no character feels superfluous or merely part of the background.

Unlike many others who found the first 11 or 12 chapters repetitive or boring, I actually enjoyed them. This is partly because I love "Game Elements" novels, but also because this is the only novel I've read with a non-living protagonist. It was fascinating to see how the sword managed to accomplish tasks and develop over time without becoming monotonous or uninteresting.

Somehow, this novel seems aimless. Perhaps "plotless" is a more accurate description? Things occur, but even after reading through several chapters, I can’t discern any overarching purpose to the events.

This is a very fun and enjoyable story that I read, and I highly recommend it. The tale is filled with adventure as our main character, The Sword (Teacher/Master), travels to many places with his companion, Fran the Nekomimi girl. Together, they embark on a journey to discover many new things. However, some translators don’t clearly indicate who is speaking during dialogues. Despite this, the story is excellent, and I really enjoy it. So, 5 stars!

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As much as I would like to dive deeper, I just can't grasp the plot or visualize the narrative. Here’s what I’ve gathered: The main character (MC) is a sword that can move, fly, and see its own stats. The MC can also see itself [how exactly?], use magic [which is somewhat tolerable], and steal skills from others. It feels like a chaotic mix of unexplained mechanics, with a lot of familiar cheats that seem lifted from other novels. One thing is clear, though: the "childish protagonist" tag fits perfectly.

The first 12 chapters are readable, but they feel quite cliché. It’s a standard overpowered (OP) protagonist story set in a JRPG-style world, with the twist that the OP protagonist is a sword. However, the novelty of the sword aspect fades quickly, and the overwhelming number of skills to keep track of, even early on, doesn’t help.

Once the sword meets its sword master, the story’s quality improves significantly. It becomes a slice-of-life adventure tale, but the dynamic between the main protagonist and the deuteragonist, a loli catgirl swordswoman named Fran, is exceptionally engaging. Their relationship evolves into a sweet father-daughter bond, and the initially generic personality of the sword gradually becomes more paternal. Fran, in contrast, is a stoic and formidable warrior. The dialogue between the main characters remains consistently entertaining, even as the novel builds its world. While the main characters don’t develop rapidly, they both undergo a slow, gradual growth throughout the story.

The flaws of the typical OP protagonist narrative are mitigated by Fran’s vulnerability without the sword and the story’s focus on making her stronger rather than just amplifying the sword’s power. Fran has a clear motivation to become stronger—to fulfill her parents’ wish for a successful evolution—and the sword is convinced to help her achieve this goal. Although the plot is not overly complex, it is sufficient to hold the story together. The world-building is also intriguing, offering fresh takes on typical JRPG clichés like dungeons.

Initially, the various adventures seem disconnected, but as the story progresses, old side characters reappear and story arcs begin to reference past events. While the narrative remains largely episodic, a more evident overarching plot emerges by the time the tournament arc in Ulmutt rolls around. Side characters, who may seem flat upon their first appearance, gain more depth when Shisho and Fran encounter them again and discover new facets of their personalities.

, "Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita" starts off slowly but improves as it progresses. Five stars might be a bit generous, but I can’t help but enjoy the story immensely at its current stage.

A nice, fun, and somewhat enjoyable adventure story that I can’t really fault or commend too much. The events are well-planned and executed, but they ultimately feel a bit pointless and uninteresting. The main characters seem to be in the right place at the right time, solving problems almost by chance. Their personal goals are whimsical and unimportant, often overshadowed by random encounters and endless side plots. Additionally, the extended cooking competition subplot added to this and made me rather bored.

In other words, a well-written story that struggled to hold my interest.

I was reading the Seven Seas translation, which doesn't break the story into the original chapters but instead consolidates them into one large chapter. So I'm not sure exactly which chapter I was on when I stopped, but it was right after the protagonist returned to civilization with Fran.

While the "I'm a sword" gimmick is somewhat intriguing, the way it's handled feels like it's not fully exploring its potential. The protagonist can kill things just fine on his own, and the only reason Fran wields the sword seems to be because he was bored or something. Everything is treated in a way that feels generic.

Moreover, these generic elements are executed in a very dull manner. The prose reads like someone recounting their grinding sessions in a video game you're not interested in. Even after Fran is introduced, the plot rushes through non-combat scenes so quickly that there's no chance to develop any real connection to her character beyond her role as Party Member 2.

Additionally, after the protagonist returns to civilization, there's a conversation where a merchant tells him that "goblins are always chaotic evil," and the protagonist starts to wonder if that's really true... after he has spent the last hundred pages and several weeks (at least, by my estimation) slaughtering them simply because he was annoyed by how they look and act.

It would be one thing if the protagonist and the story just assumed that standard JRPG world tropes apply and that humanoid monsters are just monsters. That might be a bit of a stretch, but I can accept genre conventions. However, it's another matter entirely for the protagonist to only start questioning whether "goblins aren't always chaotic evil" after a hundred pages of slaughtering them for such a sociopathic reason. This makes the protagonist extremely unlikable in a way that I seriously doubt the author intended.

This plot is so poorly thought out that it makes me wonder if the author is incompetent.

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Yeah, no... Not enough patience for a novel like this. I’m fine with weak protagonists that make sense. I’m fine with stupid protagonists that make sense. What I’m not fine with are protagonists that are supposed to be smart or have the potential to be strong, but just aren’t because the author went too far with the abilities and now tries as hard as he can to slow down the pacing.

In the beginning, it wasn’t that apparent because the growth felt pretty consistent with the abilities the main character (MC) had. The issues started when the author realized that he’s 50 chapters in and the MC is in the top 10% when it comes to power. At this rate, it’d take at most another 100 chapters before he becomes some sort of peerless overgod. Now, there are other novels with pacing like this, but they usually solve it by adding more powerful enemies above the "peak" that the reader didn’t know about in the beginning. The way it’s solved in this novel is the author creating situations that force the MC into leveling situational auxiliary abilities instead of combat-oriented ones.

Essentially, the MC gets around 60 skill points each level-up. Those 60 skill points are enough to level one school of magic or swordsmanship, or even defense so high that there would be almost no one in the world stronger than him in that one area. Why doesn’t he do that? Well, just before he levels up, every time there just happens to be a situation that convinces him that he needs detection skills that do almost nothing, or psychic defense skills that are useful against exactly two people out of the entire story so far. He confidently spends 40 points on extremely situational skills but refuses to spend 10 to max his swordsmanship.

And that’s not all. The worst part is that the skills he gets look very impressive for exactly one chapter, and then they just don’t exist. Whether it’s his divine eyes that were stolen from the gods and allowed him to see through smoke one time, then never did anything useful again, his "Unsealable" skill that makes him very much sealable, just with a different ability, or his newest ability that protects him against psychological influence, unless it just doesn’t when it’s not convenient. The abilities don’t work, he doesn’t use them, or there’s some meh explanation about why he can’t use them.

TLDR: The villains have plot armor, the MC has plot holes. It’s like the slime/spider reincarnation if 100 chapters in, the author decided not to have an OP protagonist and tried to explain why they’re actually not that strong after all.

This is just a partial judgment from me, Ensig, who has just finished translating Chapter 13 and is sleep-deprived at 3:30 AM.

All reviews posted on this novel prior to April 22, 2016, other than Raphael’s (which makes a fair point), are complete nonsense. Yes, nonsense. These three reviews judge the novel based on the first 10 chapters (or less), even though the real action starts to kick in around Chapters 11 and 12.

Not giving the novel more breathing room than 10 chapters, considering its length, would be the same as denying 80% of novels the time to become "good." Things need to be explained, and foundations need to be laid—and that takes time. Hence, the reason I called their reviews nonsense.

Regarding my thoughts on the story: 4/5. It’s definitely not excellent, but it’s not "meh" either. It’s just "good." It’s definitely not on par with *Overlord*, and it doesn’t quite match the excitement of *Goblin Kingdom* or *Re:Monster*, or any other item/monster reincarnation stories. It fits right in the middle. It won’t be a story that will make you jump up and down in excitement whenever a chapter releases (at least not so far), but to me, it’s like finding a cookie sitting out on the table; it’s a pleasure to find, but it’s not like it’d kill you if you didn’t find it.

As Raphael pointed out, reincarnation into a monster or item is becoming increasingly common, but I just like the idea of the main character being a sword that can move itself around. It’s unique. Will it always be unique? Probably not. But for now, it is.

I recommend giving this a read, not because I painstakingly translated it (I’m doing that for my own entertainment to curb off boredom), but because I think at the stage it’s currently at (Chapter 13), the story is just getting warmed up. And I can’t wait to see where the author will take it from here.

This is one of the few novels on this website that completed its main story while I was reading. For an adventure novel, it delivers exactly what you expect from the tags. It manages to create a protagonist with a not entirely overpowered ability-stealing skill, and the character dynamics are spot-on.

You come here for an adventure, and with its ending, it satisfies that craving without feeling like an endless journey, which is a common issue with many novels. It still offers plenty of great content throughout.

I like this web novel, despite its simplicity, but the King of Cooking arc is terrible. It feels like uninteresting filler. , the character development is weak, and it bothers me how the author doesn't address how strange it is for a sword to have a human doppelgänger, or at least show Fran's reaction to it; unless it was so underdeveloped that I missed it. The first mention of Shishou using the sword is done off-screen, seemingly more as a surprise for Fran than something he wanted to keep hidden.

The heavy focus on cooking and Fran's appetite was a significant misstep for the story. I'm only continuing to read in the hope that it improves. The machine-translated chapters from 67 to 72 by Comet Translation were so poorly done that they almost made me quit the series. Good luck.

This story is the epitome of cliché. First of all, I am reading at chapters 500+ and I regret every minute I spent on this, hoping it would get better. Since chapter 200, the sword only evolves 3 ranks, and it’s clear the author realized how poor the progression was and decided to nerf the sword. Second, Fran is incredibly gullible, and while I understand she's only 12, why doesn't Master ever educate her? The number of chapters spent on her being a letter delivery service is frustrating, and she never says no to anything. Instead of hiding her powers and job, she announces it to the whole kingdom. Instead of hunting and getting stronger, 70% of the chapters are filled with meaningless political stuff. I don’t understand the need for all these useless arcs and dozens of side characters that bring absolutely nothing to the story. I would have been happy with a slower-paced novel and Fran at least reaching the age of 16 with some real character development, rather than cramming 550 chapters into less than 8 months of storyline. Another issue is that Master never takes the opportunity to sort out his skills, evolve, and set them properly. A lot of skills are removed later on, but why hasn’t there been a strategic few chapters on properly using their powers? All in all, this is absolute garbage and not even worth your time, as there’s no character development. The same 7 out of 300 skills are used in every fight, making them uninteresting for those who enjoy violent fights. Fran constantly puts herself in avoidable bad situations, but she just decides not to because she seems to have zero intelligence.