- #1
I started reading a couple months ago, but stopped because I was a little put off by the MC. He was frustratingly contradicting -- clearly loves and wants to help his brother but his inner thoughts seemed pretty self-centered. I picked it up again about a week ago and now I'm obsessed. I won't say much about the plot since it's well summarized by other reviewers, but I will say it's a little messy. However it eventually finds a nice balance between action/adventure and slice of life with many emotional moments that genuinely moved me. I do want to cover/vent about a couple things (slight spoilers below).About the MC:I see some reviewers saying the MC annoyed them, which I totally get. Like I said, my first impression was that he was a pretty selfish guy who decides to turn a new leaf and be a caring older brother -- but continues thinking in a mostly self-interested way. However, over the course of the story I noticed a dissonance between how he thinks about himself and what he actually does. For example, he decides he wants to become a trainer of monsters so he can beat dungeons, get high-class items, and live comfortably. However, he spends most of the time trying to ensure a better future for those around him despite being a F-class surrounded by high-class hunters. He also tries to prevent many deaths that happened pre-regression (even though they had nothing to do with him) by either endangering himself or putting himself in a position that he has to do more work. Outwardly he seems like a manipulator who uses others to get what he wants (and he views himself this way often) but he expresses feeling guilty that he can't take care of everything on his own and says he wants to avoid depending on others as much as possible.I could go on and on, but I believe the main arc of the MC (and kinda the story as a whole) is his struggle with guilt about being "selfish" when the reality is he's too selfless -- to the point he doesn't value himself highly enough. His guilt and self image seem to stem from his trauma of getting pushed away by his brother and being alone for 5 years. This extremely dark part of his life gets brushed off pretty quickly after his regression, but when it comes up throughout the story there are glimpses of how badly those years affected the MC's perception of himself. He starts the story with an inferiority complex that affects most of of his interactions, but over time he starts to realize others value him as a person on not just because of his skills. It's heartbreaking but also makes the moments he allows himself to feel happy post-regression even sweeter.About the BL elements:I see so many reviewers and comments either being annoyed that the story feels like a BL harem or others confused why the author hasn't labelled it as BL. I have to admit there are MANY scenes that feel straight out of a BL, specifically between Yoojin and Hyunjae. They're pretty tame but so frequent that it feels like a stretch to say they were written purely for comedy -- and I hope they weren't because that would be too queerbaity. HOWEVER, I personally like that there isn't any BL labelling. This isn't a romance, that's not the point of the story, but that doesn't mean there can't be feelings or chemistry between the characters. There are countless stories where the MC is heavily implied to have a romantic connection with another character, but it's pushed to the background. I think we're so used to seeing this happen between characters of different genders that when it's implied between same-s*x characters we reactively think it should be a major part of the story and labelled that way. Personally, I'm fine with it and hope we see more great stories like this in the future. Leave the blatant romantic stuff to the fanfic writers (I will gladly read those too ^^).So yeah, sorry to ramble. These are just things I might have liked to know going into the story. I highly recommend for anyone who likes stories about found family, learning to be happy after trauma, and fun fight scenes mixed with cute, fluffy moments.
