- #1
For all the negative things I'm about to write, I want to preface this with the fact that I actually (for reasons I'm not quite sure myself) enjoyed reading this and will most likely keep reading it.This webnovel takes you to a world similar to our own, but at the same time frighteningly different. It's a world were humans have lost the ability to restrain themselves, fall prone to fits of incredible rage at the slightest provocation and are almost entirely driven by greed. The concept of money has become fluid and hard to grasp, with families getting by on less than 500$ per month on one side, and, on the other side, people willing to Spoiler
pay 10'000$ for (virtual) starter equipment you'd replace after a few days
[collapse].On a more serious note, this story is a mix of the "Utterly unbalanced VRMMO that allows the MC to become insanely OP" (e.g. "Bofuri" and "Free Life Fantasy Online") and the "Game world is actually a real otherworld" genres, with the added twist that there's a future interaction between the real- and game-world. I honestly like this idea and think it has tremendous potential, if done right.To compare Yeager, the protagonist of this novel, with the other examples listed above; While Maple from Bofuri might be chaotic-neutral and Anastacia from Free Life Fantasy Online neutral-good, Yaeger is chaotic-evil, which brings us to, in my opinion, the biggest issue: The protagonist is a giant, narcissist a**hole! It would be one thing if he was at least entertaining, witty, or snarky, but he never is.The big cast of antagonists could give the protagonist ample opportunity to endear himself to the audience, sadly he never does. He's just as petty, greedy and short tempered as they are and will gleefully scam anyone he can, unless they are part of the small circle of people he considers friends/useful. Other people either swear undying hatred or adore him, there seems to be no in-between.Apart from issues with the main character, the author seems to have a very... creative imagination of the world outside China. There's also the occasional racism/xenophobia to break immersion, but ironically this can be entertaining, simply because of how absurd it often is.