The World of Otome Games is Tough For Mobs Chapter v62 Discussion

Just caught up with the novel and I gotta say this story is pretty good overall.

The premise is pretty basic: Spoiler

guy dies and gets isekai-ed into a weird adventure/otome game where men are society's lowest step, being practically work s*aves for rich women; he naturally is reborn into a mob with no other future than to become the manservant of some random old woman, so to avoid that fate he decides to become an adventurer by getting the most powerful cheat item in-game and gain enough fame to become independient of his family and live his life idly, but his plan backfires and gathers the attention of the kingdom who enlist him in the royal academy where the otome's main story will happen.

[collapse]

At first sight, this novel is another of many other 'MC reborns in another world and everything goes his way thanks to [X] OP power' but the more you read it the more you realize that's not the case. Firstly, Leon (MC) is far from your average protagonist: he's neither a beta pushover who just happens to be a good person, nor your goody-two-shoes who wants to save others just because yes. He's a super sardonical, selfish, witty half-as*hole who, while has a good moral compass and has no desire for conflict, will definitely pick a fight on anyone who pisses him off. The OP power he gets early on, Luxion, Spoiler

a psychopathic AI-controlled battleship with enough firepower to send the entire world to hell,

[collapse] is constantly there to remind him of how OP is he, but ultimately not using his full capacities due to personal preferences.

But what is the strongest point of the story, in my personal opinion, is Leon pseudo-antagonist, Marie Spoiler

another reincarnated person who, unlike Leon, decided to live lavishly in the Otome game by stealing ALL the love targets from the otome protagonist and making her own reverse harem, without knowing how important it was for the love interest to fall in love with the protagonist storywise, and who also happens to be deeply related to Leon in his previous life.

[collapse] She's without a doubt the most interesting character of the novel, because her entire personality is flawled and rotten to the core, having practically zero redeeming qualities but at the same time her flaws and selfish actions have direct consecuences in Leon, the main story settings and especially in herself, making her a somewhat pitiful character who is the worst victim of her own doings and, at some point you kind of wish she could take the MC role from Leon because she's honestly a nasty but hilarious woman!

The issue for what I don't rate the story with five stars is because while it's an interesting story, it does have some terrible flaws in its structure. First and what I see as the biggest problem, is that Leon's romantic interest are too two-dimensional. Probably this was made intentionally, but during the first two volumes Olivia and Ange are practically booktext definition of 'beta love interests', practically they have nothing interesting to aport to the story other than the damisels in disgrace Leon has to save. This is later fixed at the end of V2 and all V3 but their existence still hold so few weight storywise that they could be easily replaced by other girls and you wouldn't notice the change.

Secondly, is the obliviousness of Leon. Here is where Leon's strongest point as MC becomes his greatest weakness, he's very straightforward and decisive when it comes to get an objective done in the most efficient way, but if he doesn't have a goal in specific to pursue, he suddenly becomes a lazy dunce who can't figure left from right and is simply swept along with the story. He's terribly paranoic and blind to others' feelings and most of the time, he'll just assume others want him to do him wrong even when they're doing him a favour, Spoiler

and in V3, when his love interests showed genuine feelings for him, his natural course of action was to run away because he didn't know what to make of it and only got together with them because his entire family, both romantic interests, his friends and even the royal family set him up and cornered him in a way that he had absolutely choice but face their feelings head on

[collapse].

And thirdly but not less important... the chapters are too short! Not all the time, but in several occasions, details of the story are left to interpretation for the reader or relegated as side info in the background when it could become active part of the plot.Spoiler

An example would be the explanation of the old humanity and new humanity. So far we've given few glimpses and small details of that part of the story, but given that that's an important part in the background of Luxion and Creare, another AI that appears later in the story, you would expect it were more relevant in the plot, but no... unless the author is saving it for later volumes, that's it.

[collapse]

Well, overall it's a good novel worth reading if you have some time to spare. I can't see it becoming an iconic story over the years nor it will gather a huge fanbase, but it's definitely a must-read if you like this kind of stories.