- #1
This is basically the story of a genius-level autistic savant man.In his first run through on life, he wanted affection but never seemed able to crack the code on how to get it. People are inscrutable riddles to him. So he copied his younger brother. His golden younger brother is adored and doted upon, with many admirers and friends, the favorite of their parents. Surely copying every single thing his little brother does, but doing it "better", with higher efficiency and greater achievement output, would result in getting friends and love at last?But it doesn't work that way with humans.Instead, everyone thought he was a competitive a**hole, who was always trying to undermine his little brother's work and steal his brother's achievements. His 'robotic' pragmatism and efficiency, and inability to read or understand others, were a terrible fit for the touchy-feely career of medicine, and his highly emotive coworkers saw him as a cold and monstrous alien they didn't want to understand or accept. All while using him for his laboratory skills, and resenting that they needed to.He died never having his worth acknowledged, viewed as a spiteful villain.His second go round is a work of self discovery and acceptance.He decides he's done copying his brother. He will work on his true passions: Mecha robotics and mathematics.He writes off his parents as people he will never be able to gain love from, freeing himself from the burden of being a s*ave to their expectations.Making his own way, suited just to himself, he begins to thrive in the ways he always dreamed about during his first try at life. He finds like-minded people who appreciate and admire his skills. He makes friends who like him for him and slowly begins to understand how to be a friend back. He makes achievements without the shadow of his brother marring the face of them. He has so much more energy to devote to things which make him happy, now that he's stopped wasting it on frustrating things and people which make him sad and mad.It's on the fluffy slice of life side, and his progress is steadily meteoric. He does come across as painfully sweet and naive at times, especially since he has completely different priorities than a neurotypical person when it comes to things like money and success, and can't read the emotional interest of others. He is Mary Stu overpowered in terms of professional and technical skills. He easily blows every work problem out of the water. Even as a student, he is able to achieve in a few days what it takes professional, corporate, research teams years to develop. But this is (somewhat) balanced and tempered by his fumbling blindness of personal relations and emotions, so he is not an annoying god-mode character.Overall, it is a feel good story as he smoothly climbs his way up the achievement ladder on his own terms.Read when you want a low conflict and tad cliche story that doesn't demand a whole lot from you, but remains fairly engaging. Ideal for those who like a naive, innocent, cinnamon roll of a love interest being doted upon by a sincere, protective, (non-yandere!) romantic lead, who is proud of and supports their partner's achievements.