I'm rating this at 3 stars because character design and other elements really let me down. [Character Design: 2/5] Like most isekai, the main protagonists easily becomes blood thirsty and commit completely out of character behaviors which the author thinks is cool and people want but ultimately diminishes the previously established foundation. The protagonist is unrealistic to relate to and creates the story into a power fantasy for young men and **** boys, the world simoly bends into his favor out of the luck he seems to alway's have, erasing any *******, suspension of disbelief or intrigue. I don't want to know about the protagonist simply because I know he won't face any significant, critical failure, he thus becomes boring. One element of isekai protagonists I truly despise is their arrogance of assumed greater intelligence over other characters simply because they came from a "modern society"' such as "you didn't know about this model of economics, such igorance" "your standards of living is low, so dumb" "how dare you be morally grey in your morality! You should feed and save everyone at your expense". It's not only annoying but diminishes the establishment of the sething especially when the protagonist then proceeds to force evolve society into the exact same society the ended up killing the protagonist, how dull. He simply pushes the opinion that his culture and society is simply superior and everything else is barbarism. The supporting characters namely the witches at first showed variety of distinct personalities and traits but have been greatly diminished in relation to the protagonist, instead they become single minded ideologues who goes along with anything the protagonists recommends and are rendered as living tools to propagate the protagonist's society. The romance subplot is a tragedy. There's a particular witch that main protagonist's falls heads over heels for that is almost if not completely absent from the story most times and too perfect resulting in no conflict or *******. If anthing based on the fact the authors wife intervened in this process really crippled this process in that it made a secondary love interest into a pitiful existence. I'm no fan of polygamous harems due to many authors lazy approach to it and I despise cheating characters though that's just my personal opinion, to completely cripple a cast of characters to the point where they are devoid of personal self interests and refuse to expand their realm of interaction is nothing short of unfortunate. It's waterboarding the reader to read POV after POV of how everyone has almost the same perspective on the protagonist with them just content in this limbo. I'm not sure if the protagonist sister's homosexual relationship is meant to add diversity but it's has done well in its execution and actually hints at a possible in universe intolerance towards homosexual pairings considering they're hiding their affection even from their closests peers. [Story Development 2/5] The reason for this rating is related to the immense luck and coincidences that the protagonist experience, it's almost like he's not allowed to suffer a single setback. Any minor inconvenience and any type of accidents that do occur happen off screen and mentioned off handedly to the reader as a footnote. While some have praise his GOOGLE tier memorization of apparently every major elective in college, the unreality of unskilled workers using technical equipment and being proficient in this process within a month never mind the grossly underestimation of the education system where the author believes you can learn 10 years worth of knowledge in 3 months starts to become really glaring about how much he has deviated from the main substance of the story. To begin with let's clarify what the story setting and major plot lines are: Initially Liberation of witches from persecution Ascendancy towards the throne Latter Unification of humans Defeat the monsters / demons Now the secondary subplots are: Kingdom building Exploration Unification of 3rd party entities Romantic interest Possibly communication with rival parties/truce Political Intrigue What the audience is bombarded with is nonstop kingdom building that tramples upon the other plot lines, some times even threaten the existence of a plot line exising because of the choices the protagonist takes. The liberation of witches? Completely forgotton because the protagonist doesn't care about anything outside of his immediate environment and has an authoritarian, communist approach to solving issues. Too many times I'm really disturbed by how the protagonist justifies the slaughter of nobility as if their humanity is surrendered the moment they own any sort of power and land. He views the centralizing of executive powers as the sole solution and incorrectly attributes it to a real world Constitutional Republic like America's amendments/constitution which tells me the author has no idea about politics outside of a superficial understanding. If anything this is the most opinionated aspect of the story where the author intervenes his own political opinions that somehow results in more people dying simply to make it work. I have no idea what the protagonist has against privatization and smaller economic powers outside of himself but he truly hates it and attempts to seize all of it at any opportunity. If anything it feels more like North Korea minus the hereditary acquisition of power considering he doesn't have a heir and the entire process will collapse should the protagonist be removed. It seems to be a trait of Asia born authors to use "real politicking" as the solution and misattributing it to a democracy, there is not a single aspect of a constitutional republic nor democracy in this story and any example tell author points to is false. With the justification of his "modern sensibility" he erases any semblance of a budding culture or uniqueness of setting to create a sterlized, generic urban society that is focus on adulation towards the protagonist and naton state. This can be seen by his anti theist approach to ideologically reprogram his subjects which he eagerly and openly states is necessary and refusal of worship centers, even alluding to dark consideration that he would prefer to murder these religious entities and their followrs solely to acquire power. He projects his opinions based on his previous world religions observation onto this new setting which conveniently sets this world's major religious entity as "evil" as well as their innocent followers for simply wanting a better life and opportunities. Did I menton this world religious power operates nothing like the institution of a church did during feudalism, good or bad? It's a caricature at best. Don't even get me started on unificaturn process, it's handled so poorly I feel like I'm reading narcissist understanding to group cooperation where he surrenders no power to share and would rather murder/blackmail/harass everyone to achieve his goal. It doesn't help that his opponents are mind numbingly incompetent only when facing him yet shine great when facing other entities in the story. Exploration has been stated as an important subplot yet here I am 900+ chapters into the story and I'm still not even close to understanding anything of the other human societies or outside of the human sphere (demon/monsters). It's like they are mostly forgotten until the protagonist needs to progress the story. I'm sorry but do other countries even have a will of their own or are they waiting to be knocked down by the protagonist? Who knows. This is MAJOR SPOILER so you are warned. Within the dream world I was absolutely aggravated by the protagonist's approach to this world that despite several other people have pointed out isn't his own personal memory or imagination but a representation of another world simplified for his understanding. He simply blew off meeting with the seniors of the group of people who were fighting the same monster's he against only to latter in some chapters complain about his lack of intrigue to understanding of the situation. It annoyed me completely because it tells me the arrogance of the protagonist who stopped being humbled and became a stubborn, arrogant, asshole who assumes he knew everything and requires no assistance or investigation since he views others inferior to him. Are you trying to tell me investigating with a witch to eat KFC was of greater importance than stopping annihilation of reality and existence? Don't even try to rationalize this behavior it was completely stupid and short sighted even more so when he keeps treating dream Garcia as an annoyance when she has done nothing but assisted him in understanding the situation. The author simply forgot the type of character he created or perhaps he intentionally is showing the effects of a power hungry "modern man" interacting with others but I doubt it's the latter. This story at best is okayish but it is no where the best.
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Bro thats kinda work for Social Science Journal, and not a review u feel me ;) But yeah I am glad there are some sane people here, it is 3/5 maximum, nothing really special, it was good at the beginning, but later it gets boring. It is the same for me with Library of Heavens Path.
I remember thinking that this is the most communist book I’ve ever read. It starts off subtle and then just go straight north korean. Secret police, people informing on their neighbours murdering anyone who provides any opistion even if they could easily be inprisoned or even negotiated with. Propaganda and a massive and invasive scale. all food must be sold and resold to/by the government. The prices of prducts were controlled by the government.
I find your analysis of the story very intriguing, as it really resonated with me when thinking about it twice. This book actually is and remains one of my favorites in the kingdom-building category, as it hits all the notes I personally like in respect to said kingdom-building. However, I never really cared for any of the other aspects of the story until recently. Your assessment is one I find very informative, and as I am trying to write a novel in kind of the same fashion, (Guy gets transported to another world and builds his own kingdom while bringing about a proto-industrial revolution) I want to ask of you how exactly you would change some plot points or characters. For example, let's take Roland's character. You summed him up pretty well in my opinion, but, just as a little experiment, we would make Roland self-conscious of his actions. A slow descent from an ordinary engineer to a ruthless hypocritical dictator with obscured moral compass, all throughout his descent you would notice him cracking, maybe sleepless nights as he had the countless nobles he coldly ordered the execution off talk to him and scream at him in agony. Or he notices how cold he has become, just being able to command an entire army throughout a tiresome, bloody, and horrifying war he himself provoked. Of course, for that to work, he would have to have an actual character at the beginning of the story or rather a personality, which frankly, he does not. For me, he always seemed flat, like some kind of self-insert who relied on modern knowledge to propel himself forward. Or as you also said, making the supporting cast question his regime. Maybe one of the witches notices that besides freeing them, the ruling structure of their new kingdom hasn't actually changed much. How about multiple witches noticing this, but some willfully ignoring it as they were safe? Or some of them slowly getting sick of being used as nothing but tools by Roland? This could add another layer of depth to a small portion of them, at least in my opinion. You have many other good points in your reviews, such as there being no obvious hindrance to Roland and the leading cast, and that any obstacle they encounter bends to their will, when, for example, timothy completely destroyed Garcia and smartly outplayed the first prince (Can't remember his name right now but I think his name was Gerald?) as he secured the throne. But suddenly, as he challenged the Western Region, his IQ seemingly dropped by one hundred points. What if the assault on the Royal capital that Roland ordered failed with massive casualties? Or how about someone actually betraying Roland, leading to Timothy actually arming his own forces with flintlocks and artillery. If explored more, I think kingdom building and especially stuff like rapid technological progression could lead to some extremely cool and tense moments. Just think about a prolonged war between Timothy and Roland, with the former having a larger army with flintlocks and the advantage of controlling most resources, but having an unstable territory and a poorly trained army. I am not sure if you can see this comment, as it is already 2 years old, but if you read this, I hope you can reply :D
