Teisou Gyakuten Sekai no Doutei Henkyou Ryoushu Kishi Chapter 12 Discussion

First, fair warning, I came from the manga which as I write this has 3.1 chapters. I skimmed mostly to where the manga currently left off.

So, I try not to do this too often, but I'm mostly reviewing this in response to the two negative reviews. Mostly because, as a man, I suspect one of the reviewers might be female based on the statement about erections and a man lacking control over them. It's an odd statement to make as a negative blow against a story with a title that obviously tells you it's going to be about s*xual innuendo. I mean the title has virg*n KNIGHT in it.

It also strikes me as a statement that clearly ignored the reason the MC is constantly aroused. In this world, because women are in charge, the author chose to have the women often wear scantily clad clothing. (Not sure why because in the so-called patriarchy of the real world, men don't even walk around with scantily clad clothing on.) Also, factor in that MC is again, a virg*n. Also factor in that unlike other isekais and so-called gender-role-reversal stories, MC is not a weak, feminine male written like a female other than when the author arbitrarily wants to write the MC as having male qualities. No, MC is written as pretty masculine or according to current year trends with a whole lot of "toxic masculinity." Also, factor in finally, that the women are purposefully and also, sometimes at the same time, unknowingly seducing MC. Especially one that tends to sexually harass MC. Touching, feeling, etc. Which leads me to the belief that the person I'm talking about who made the statement about controlling erections don't know that men's bodies react based on physical contact until we mentally try to do something about it. I don't want to deviate too far into real world issues, but it's one of the reasons a lot of people wrongfully think that when a man gets r*ped by a woman that if he had an erection he must've wanted it. No, our bodies can respond to physical stimulation even if we're unconscious. Get it? It's odd as I said before, because to some degree, this is the same for women as well.

In any case, back to he title. Again this has virg*n KNIGHT in it. That should tell you something. The entire story's gimmick is going to be around MC's interaction with women he won't take seriously for whatever reason or another. So, it's obviously going to be about MC's repressed s*xual needs. Full stop.

This also has harem in the tag. So, if you're not into women chasing after one man in a story. Look away. If you're not into a lot of the tropes that come with harems such as a dense MC for whatever reason, etc. Look away.

With that said, everything in the story is set up as a way to justify the author's use of the gimmick. Which is, MC is a unique male in a land where all of the men are the equivalent of bishounen men, which the women of the land prefer. "Toxic masculine" type males with big muscles, who can hold their own in a fight, are tall in stature, those types of guys aren't well liked. So, most of the story to include political intrigue, etc. Revolves around MC dodging advances of higher level female nobility because he doesn't want to lose control over his land and MC and the youngest princess trying to keep him in her employ.

In other words, as I implied above, the author appears to be deconstructing the usual gender-role-reversal stories where the male MC is often written as weak willed with feminine traits. In this story, the author seems to be invoking the idea that females are inherently attracted to masculine traits despite what society may guiding them to be attracted to. Whenever the female POVs are portrayed, they discuss this contradiction between their attraction of MC, for whatever reason, and the fact their society overwhelmingly find feminine men more attractive. So, there's a little bit of the author playing around with the gender-role-reversal dynamic and culture with those POVs. These are often done in flash backs and some of them introduce interesting things that could be explored about the world's culture, however, these intriguing moments are overshadowed by the author returning to the gimmicky story telling.

There are, of course, the usual Japanese Harem MC traits such as "OMG, he's the most super kind man I've ever seen, etc." So, you can't get away from that. You're on Novel Updates, a LN and WN site, so you shouldn't be surprised.

As far as writing style goes. Yes, this has multiple POV switches as I and others have said. Many of them chapter long POVs that are not the MC. Most of the first few chapters are setup, exposition, and explaining the world through flashbacks and character interactions. Often times, a lot of information is repeated because it's an event in the past recalled by a different character. Instead of the author summarizing it and moving on to a different point in these POVs, the author double's down, often to re-enforce MC's past achievements and the fact it has astonished the women around him. If not that, it serves to re-enforce already known character relationships such as the distance and rivalry between the first and second princesses. Due to this, it causes the plot to crawl along at a slow pace.

The repetition is something I've found to be common with a lot of LNs. In this one, as with others, the repetition can and does happen in the same chapter. A character will repeat the same thing in two paragraphs for some odd reason.

Unfortunately, while the author doesn't write the male MC isekai'd into a gender-role-reversal society as suddenly just a female with man parts, the author does tend to write some of the female characters like males or I should say how males are often perceived by entertainment. Especially young males. While the one person complained the MC couldn't control his erection, they didn't complain that many of the female characters when in their POV are obsessed with s*x. Especially the second princess' night commander.

So, while I praised the author for not writing a feminine-male hybrid MC and writing a masculine MC in this type of situation versus other lazy authors, this author took the lazy route writing the female characters. They're all fine with sexually harassing the MC. Replace them with males who are fine with sexually harassing females trope. Two female characters even talk about about grapeing the MC, etc. As I said, writing some of the females how entertainment tends to portray men in current year, as sex-starved-beasts-who-can't-control-themselves.

Either way, I gave it 3.5 for writing the MC as a not a man-woman hybrid. As I write this, it's only at chapter 12 on the translation site. As I said, a very slow crawl because by then the story just got to the second princess' first combat campaign, or at least the beginning, which will have a lasting impact on the rest of the story.