An Old Man from the Countryside Becomes a Swords Saint: I Was Just a Rural Sword Teacher, But My Successful Students Won’t Leave Me Alone! Chapter 83 Discussion

The good parts of this novel are as follows: the translator does a great job translating the story into English, it is easy to read, and few to no errors are left when the chapters are posted. The story arcs are relatively short, and in the 83 chapters I've read, we've gone through 5 or 6 arcs, and had a bunch of past students and new characters introduced. The story is a slow-life/forced to be heroic following the MC, which makes for a light and easy to digest read.

The neutral parts of this novel are as follows: currently, it is a harem story in the sense that there are a bunch of women surrounding the MC, but he doesn't see them as potential lovers, but as his past students or potential trouble. The female characters in this story seem to have a thing for the MC, and are willing to disrupt the MC's daily life for their own purposes. Due to the completely average assumption of the MC, it is relatively easy to place yourself in the MC position when reading - but then you might get frustrated with the lack of personality of the MC.

This is where the bad parts of the story lie in my opinion. The story is about a 45-year old man who cosplays as a doormat in a fantasy world. He thinks he has average talent in swordsmanship, average strength, average looks, average capabilities, and above average talent in teaching. He has no real personality except for thinking he's an old man who should be left alone. A quick spoiler:

Spoiler

The story starts with the MC living at his family sword dojo, where his father is wondering when the MC will get a wife and give him grandkids. Then he gets forced to come to the capitol by one of his past students, a beautiful woman, 15-20 years younger than him, to be a special instructor of the knights. He accepts because the king appointed him to the position that his student decided he needed. He only has to go a few times a month, so no big deal, except his dad suddenly decides to kick him out, take back the dojo that was already left in his management, and appoint a different past student as head of the dojo in the MC's place. The MC, like all doormats, takes this crap with a smile and just moves to the capitol, with no words of complaint spilled.

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The MC is caught up in a bunch of different situations, all brought about by his past students, and even says he always has a hard time declining anything. This would be totally okay if we were talking about a young man, or a child, or anyone with limited life experience that is used to being under the control of other people. But the MC is both an established adult, someone who has taught swordsmanship for over 20 years, ran the dojo solo for an undisclosed amount of time, used his swordsmanship skills to kill monsters and wild beasts that threaten his home village, and his dojo was so successful that people from all over came to be taught by the MC and he even reformed delinquent or problem kids. This absolutely feels like the author just slapped a background together to justify the "old-man" trope, while intentionally writing him like a teen who has been ab*sed by his surroundings into being a compliant little robot who can't even voice his complaints.

The female characters are both bland and manipulative, even going as far as using their connections with people in a higher political position to 'force' the MC to do things he otherwise would not do. On the rare occasion that the MC attempts to decline in any way, generally before he actually says something, someone says 'the guildmaster' or 'the king' or 'we vouched for you' and the MC just decides it can't be helped and does whatever is asked of him, despite saying to himself how little he wants to do those things. Likely, if someone were to say, 'my mother's brother's wife's cousin's nephew's friend said you should do it' the MC would agree to do the task.

Spoiler

There was one point where the MC attempted to deny doing something. He asked if other people who be capable of capturing a bishop of a church that was doing illegal s*ave trading. The MC was convinced to do it by a priest of the same church who wanted the bishop's position, and the leader of the magic department for the country to MC lives in. He was convinced by them saying it might cause a diplomatic issue if the knights go, or if the magicians go, but the MC spontaneously forgot about the adventurer's guild, and the black plate ranked (the highest rank in the adventurer's guild) disciple of the MC who already owes the MC a favor.

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This story gets 1 star due to the translator's capabilities, and 1 star because the story is easy to digest. Looking at it as fairly as I can, the story feels like it would be something that is read because nothing else was available. If the MC didn't frustrate me so much, I would likely only feel apathy for the story.