- #1
Reading ahead via MTL, but stopping at chapter 70 to leave a review for anyone deciding whether or not to start reading this.The summary here is pretty good. The meat of the story is the mecha battles, though there is plenty of story happening in-between battles as well. MC is a brilliant strategist, was a mecha pilot and is now a mechanic, and is used to individual battles as opposed to team battles - this means that his tactics catch opponents off-guard. He fuels the chaotic tendencies that his teammates already had, enabling them and making everyone else very confused and upset (especially their manager).The ML is also a solo-fighter but most of his experience comes from wandering around in dangerous areas and fighting the more-powerful-than-normal wildlife. His signature move is to snipe hard-to-hit opponents by aiming at his own teammates - even camouflaged opponents have to approach or line up to attack at some point, and his own teammates are easier to lock onto, obvs. If they get hit it's their fault for not dodging.Teammates don't question MC's tactics and revel in their opponents' confusion, and always channel the emotion "Let's f*cking goooo!". Even the more serious members don't even hesitate. Everyone on the team makes collecting materials to build mecha parts their top priority over fighting opponents during a tournament or fleeing when their lives are in danger. They WILL charge into danger just for the chance to collect rare materials to make mecha parts and then offer it all up to our MC like a child handing their parent some weeds they picked up (Hey! Look what we got!! Didn't we do good :D). There's usually one "kinda dumb but is comedic relief" character in stories like these, but their team has 2 of them and they feed off each other. And they're competent! Ji Qinfeng and Lin Yao carry this story on their backs, the 5/5 is because I love them.Secondary characters are all interesting, and even if they don't have a lot of time to become "developed" they are all memorable in their own ways. I like that the MC doesn't recover or become magically "cured" right away, and that his goal isn't to become as strong as he used to be but to develop a workaround so that he can pilot his old mecha despite his physical limitations. Really comes into its own during the Tianyu arc, where MC first gets to shine as strategist, mecha pilot, and mechanic and the chaos is released onto unsuspecting bystanders - if you've read less than 20 chapters and think its boring, give it until chapter 25 or so before you decide to drop.Has a lot of action and good pacing. It is taking a very long time for any romance to happen though. ML has already shown some interest in MC, but you might be disappointed if you're only here for the romance. Has mecha and psychic/mental ability stuff, but is not sentinel/guide or abo or zerg or any of the stuff associated with interstellar. It's not focused on people going to school or military training, or about interplanetary politics either. I don't even know if this is in the interstellar sub-genre or not. The team battle aspect makes this story have more of the same feel as e-sports novels compared to other Chinese mecha or sci-fi webnovels, so if you like sports or e-sports series or like sci-fi/mecha/interstellar but want something different, or if you like Gundam G Fighters I recommend this.
