I Know Everything Chapter 275 Discussion

One of the many spiritual successors to "I Really Am A Superstar", with less overbearing nationalism and face-smacking, but also less comedy though.

Didn't it expect to get picked up after my request on NUF, so my review is gonna be biased.

4 out of 5 stars, objectively speaking it's probably 3 stars at best. Unfortunately it devolves into cringeworthy harem shounen after Chapter 200, MC becomes pointlessly OP and it's just scene after scene of him showing off 1 skill he gained. Filler creeps up in the form of lengthy paragraphs of boring sales and marketing metrics, which nobody cares about.

Translation isn't all that great (I've read partway through the raws), MC is somewhat boring and has very odd character flaws. But it's an ok read for those who like the genre of MC regurgitating famous works in a different multiverse.

SUMMARY

Average MC (30 yrs old) gets transmigrated into an alternate version of Earth which has mildly different scientific and cultural development. Armed with a snarky System, he decides to use his newfound talents to rise to the top.

COMMENTS

(1) Plagiarism

The plagiarized works fit pretty well, no excessive dumping of every literary work like IRAS. You can tell the author is a passionate audiophile / cinephile. He references very specific works and spends a lot of time/chapters going over it's history to acknowledge the original authors/casts/singers while expounding the development process.

And let's be honest, it's always nice to see awesome works of art -- whether it's movies, stories, songs, poems -- that you've seen in your childhood being venerated. A nice touch of nostalgia. The difference this time is that the chinese author acknowledges/plagiarizes universally great literary works from Japan and Korea too, not random manga like IRAS (which was honestly weird cultural misappropriation).

Since it's plagiarism, the only way to really appreciate it is to view the source material. I'll see if I can post links in the comments section on the translator's site so readers can reference.

(2) Odd MC

The main gripe I have is why MC had to be a 16 year old boy. The age gap is just plain weird. He could be 18+ (like most other time travel CN novels). But no, he has to be 16 for no reason. Just so his one of potential love interests starts out at 14??! Or an odd attempt to appeal to middle school student readers, even though most of them will have NO CLUE about the plagiarized works which are classics from the 80s-90s??

Even though there there's no inappropriate loli / pe*ophilic descriptions or behavior (so far), it does make you a little uncomfortable.

MC's character flaws start showing up past c100 or so, when the System awkwardly forces the MC to do acts of kindness.

Spoiler

MC helps a down-and-out grandpa mainly to get into the good graces of a female celebrity and to accomplish mission objectives. From the way these events are written, MC does not initially feel any obligation to help. The System just hastily assigns him missions whenever MC meets someone unfortunate.

So it's not apparent to readers that MC does anything from the goodness of his own heart, which is problematic.

Compare that to "I Really Am A Superstar", where the MC Zhang Ye at least has his own sense of righteousness (whether it's misguided or not) and is capable of making his own decisions about who to help with his powers.

Although the MC Shen Huan eventually isn't stingy about his help and does a lot for the grandpa, it's mainly due to continued incentives from the System. MC starts jokingly referring to himself as an emperor (internalizing) and keeps it that way. Which is no longer funny and shows that he's quite a pretentious p*ick.

This behavior shows up in a few odd ways.

MC believes in his own pseudo-image of an aloof genius (he initially created that image way because he didn't want to be pestered too much by being famous). He doesn't easily accept requests even from his allies/friends, just to preserve that s*upid image (after his talents were already exposed).

By c214, he even states that "if someone doesn't brings you benefits, there's no point to maintaining a relationship over time. EVEN IF THOSE PEOPLE ARE YOUR PARENTS", which is pretty f*cked up especially considering the Confucian values of Chinese culture. Maybe the author was being an utter dumbass in wording, but that's literally how he wrote it.

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(3) Harem

Early warning for the harem tag as noted by @KIWI. The transmigrated version of Earth apparently makes it OK for polygamy for some reason. The joke is that MC is an attractive baby-faced youth so he's constantly attracting female attention (similar to "Great Doctor Ling Ran"). I can still accept the harem since MC wasn't particularly attached to anyone in the past, so I guess when in Rome....

But unfortunately the harem development doesn't seem well planned either...

Spoiler

For a transmigrator from Earth, you'd expect that the MC Shen Huan at the very least pretends to hold on to some previous cultural values and not be so immediately accepting of polygamy. This is a pretty common format in most modern-day, non-apocalyptic transmigration novels.

It's even stated that polygamy isn't common in the new world.

MC was just a normal 30-yr old office worker that transmigrated. He wasn't a cold-blooded killer. Wasn't an ex-soldier. Wasn't a cunning businessman. Wasn't a poor struggling civilian. None of the usual novel tropes. Just regular Joe.

And yet, the MC just agrees with the situation and immediately sets his mind on collecting potential wives since it's legal....

Author even mentions some of his potential parent-in-laws are monogamous due to love for each other! Which just highlights even more that the MC is a hypocritical p*ick. Ugh.

In other novels when an MC gets transmigrated to a world with s*aves, at least they usually make some effort to NOT participate in s*avery. Here we have the total opposite.

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(4) Side Characters

It's disappointing compared to IRAS. The side characters are interesting, but mainly just damsels-in-distress, and MC comes along with his talents and just bowls them over.

Compare that to IRAS which had strong, independent, humorous side characters with their own unique personalities that were successful on their own terms (their relationship with MC was always give-and-take).