- #1
Bland, mediocre wish-fulfillment with OP MC who is an "all-rounder" who is good at everything, therefore bad at nothing with no discernible personality despite supposedly having the drive to become the best at something in his past life. Side characters are harem candidates that fall into his party with essentially no effort. Of course, being Japanese, no matter how beautiful and willing, MC's s*xual desires are never realized or voiced beyond PG-13.
Even though he has transmigrated into the world through unknown means, it is 100% a game world. Things have stats, and hp, and everybody in the world is aware of them. Dungeons magically regenerate as soon as you exit them.
MC is particularly s*upid, in that he never tests anything in advance, just assuming everything will work exactly as it did in the game he played, despite it being obvious that having been upgraded into a living world that he inhabits, he can easily be surprised at the differences between a game and a game world, such as blacking out when hit in the head by a club. Of course, the novel never punishes him for it, and he just merrily keeps on doing it. He never stops to ponder why the very strange world is the way it is, or how he got there, and really, it's hard to fathom how he could have actually reached #1 in the "real world"
Fortunately for him, he starts with every advantage under the sun; just for starter's he's apparently the most beautiful man in the world because he's a cash shop character. Then he has his encyclopedic knowledge of the world while the game denizens are degraded to lacking basic knowledge or the intelligence to seek it. He has a cheat where he learns things instantly when denizens of the game world do not. And he starts off a billionaire, because he's an alt.
Let's be frank, if this was a game, he'd be a cash-shop smurf using cheats who plays straight from walkthroughs. Worse, it becomes quickly apparent that the only reason he has transmigrated is to make it easy for him, because actual other Players would represent competition which would require the MC to display some sort of talent that makes him beyond a self-insert blob.
All of this might be forgiveable if the writing was good, but this is what you're faced with reading this mess.
"For the first 2-3 laps, we proceeded in a relaxed manner while prioritizing the acquisition of Eko's 【Shieldmanship】 skills.
From 【Shieldmanship】 I only want her to learn 6 skills. In addition to the basics 《Soldier Shieldmanship》 and 《Lance Shieldmanship》, there is 《Knight Shieldmanship》, 《Gold Shieldmanship》, 《Bishop Shieldmanship》and 《Dragon Horse Shieldmanship》.
The other ones are attacking skills with shields, so these six skills are enough for defense.
Eko easily acquired everything except the 《Bishop Shieldmanship》 and 《Dragon Horse Shieldmanship》. Each of their effects are: 《Soldier Shieldmanship》 normal defense, 《Lance Shieldmanship》 piercing deflection, 《Knight Shieldmanship》 defense + knockback, and 《Gold Shieldmanship》 range guided defense + knockback."
Don't forget the epic description of fights:
"Listen Eko. Activate your skills to match my voice as you defend. It should take roughly 15 minutes without breaks. But if you make a mistake, it's starting from the beginning again. Can you do it? "
I give her some instructions before confronting the Rock Turtle.
"..... Yep. I can."
Eko nodded with an unusually serious expression and then closed her mouth.
"Let's go."
With my voice as the trigger, she rushed in front of the Rock Turtle.
So far, we've defeated the Rock Turtle around ten times. Up until now, Silvia and I have been attacking it with 【Archery】 from the back while Eko defends at the front, but this time is different."
That's right, there was no description of the fight itself, unless you count "rushed in front" as a battle description.
You might think that skillful character personalization is something that can redeem it, but...
"Eko looked happy, as if she was having fun every day. She often asked "What will we do today?" or "What will we do tomorrow?" and when I answered with something she'd go "Kyaaa!" and cheerfully jump around. She's supposed to be a cat demihuman, but from the way she acts she seems more like a dog."
This could easily be a parody where nobody has a name. MC could be called "Generic Harem Protagonist Cheat", first girl could be "Female Knight", second girl could be "Catgirl", and so on and so forth. People's personalities are defined by NPC tropes.
You've read this before, and it's particularly sparsely written this time around.
But honestly, this was my tipping point where I stopped:
"This is my wrath. A warning not to look down on PvP games. If you don't wear down your nerves and put your life on the line, there's no way to be the top in PvP. If you're not that serious, it just looks like you're trolling. And even if the surroundings allow it, I will not."
The author is an idiot. He has his MC, a gamer, telling people in the game world that they're not taking a fight seriously because they're not putting their lives on the line in a magic school tourney and that's the reason they won't win and all they're doing is playing "a s*upid game". I don't think it's possible to be more hypocritical than this. I get that he *thinks* he was putting his life on the line in his past life, but obviously he wasn't. That was just self-delusion, and there's no sign the author gets it.
At it's very best, it's passable at what it does. But considering the genre as a whole, it does not do a single thing well enough to be noteworthy, and the only thing that keeps it from being total tr*sh is that it can't be taken seriously at any point.
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