I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game
I dunno if it's the translation, the writer or both, but this story has problems. The art is pretty good, and lends itself well to the action, but my goodness it get frustrating to read this. There's some mistakes in the translation which are really goddamn obvious from the context of the rest of the dialogue and art alone. And the setting is really badly explained. I appreciate trying to keep the exposition dumps to a minimum, but the solution shouldn't be omitting the information entirely. So the story is, dude plays and streams a retro game that no-one has apparently been able to beat in 10 years. He manages to beat it and is subsequently kidnapped into the game world to once again clear it, but better. SO, our MC has played the shit out of this game and knows a lot about it. And yet sometimes it feels like he knows too much because the story doesn't bother to establish that he's a huge fucking nerd for this game and has extensively and exhaustively researched every aspect and thing, enough to know even the most obscure and weird little design and lore details. Because this isn't properly established or shown, it looks like he's pulling strategies and knowledge about characters and equipment straight out of his ass. Also, despite it being one of the first things I'd go over my mind, he doesn't go over how he beat the tutorial or the stages after that, but seems to approach it all like it's his first time, despite knowing basically everything about all the characters and weapons. It's weird and constantly takes you out of the story 'cause you're confused and wondering what the fuck is going on. There's even confusion as to whether the world MC is in is actually game-like or not. Because no-one else has stat windows or things, except MC, and look, it's just weird on confusing and to me at least feels like the author hasn't decided on which it is and is attempting to write it as both until they've decided. Also I was under the impression that the game had a plot, so there was a story the MC was following, but I guess not? Cause the original plot isn't really referenced at all except for the ending we got to see when MC beat the game before. Like MC hates the tutorial stage cause it's hard as balls, but to the point where you get the feeling it was either a "meant to lose" scenario or he just... somehow never beat it? Cause he never thinks back to how he did it, just thinks about how all the characters he talks to died in his original run and how the tutorial is impossible to beat. But then if he never got passed the tutorial how'd he beat the game???? What?? Was it one of those opt out tutorials you didn't need to complete to start the game? What? I mean I guess he was more desperate cause he wanted to survive, but still. It's weird and confusing and I'm not here for it.
God Of Blackfield
An amazing mercenary is betrayed and killed during a mission. He reincarnates as a high school kid who'd attempted suicide and finds himself with a loving family and new ordinary life in south korea. He wants revenge and goes about trying to figure out how to make that happen. This was interesting and fun at first, but unfortunately there's one thing that's a pretty big part of the story that I can't stand. It's harem-ish for one thing, and I hate that, but more than that, is the one love interest that's a high school girl that he doesn't immediately and outright reject. He strings her along, even though he clearly thinks to himself that he's 29 and implies the girl is way too young for him. Secondly there's a french 26 year old woman that kind of gets obsessed with him and her response to him proclaiming he's in high school is "well I'm french." Bitch what? How dare! Don't like this author's idea that all french women are pedophiles, or that the protag is stringing along a high school girl he's at least 10 years older. The rest of the premise was really interesting, but can't stand to idiotic romance in this. Just no.
Doctor’s Rebirth
A young Korean man who's dedicated his whole life to his job as a doctor goes to a war torn country as part of a doctors-without-boarders program. The war gets to their ramshackle clinic, and our MC gets gunned down. He wakes up in the body of a young child in um... murim Korea times. He's among a bunch of dead and injured people, and goes right back to doctoring despite being in the body of a small child. From there he meets people, figures out he's in the novel he was reading, meets a medicine master and learns the ways of this strange world he's now in. Really liked the beginning where martial arts magic was partially explained with modern medicine. Was really interesting and I liked that aspect a lot. As MC learns more martial arts however, that aspect kind of stops, as martial arts magic starts to take over and is no longer viewed through the lens of someone steeped in modern era science. There's occasional bits, but it's rare. It's a bit sad. Also, the passage of time is at first is kept track of very well, but in the later chapters I completely lost track of how old MC's body is now supposed to be and how long it's been since he reincarnated. I thought it had only been 2 years but at some point there was dialogue talking about him learning martial arts for "several years". This seems to happen a lot in this kind of webtoon, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. It always breaks immersion for me when they do that. =/ Translation ranges from Asura-scans, which is mostly good, to something that continually confuses pronouns for characters previously established to have other pronouns. Also bad grammar, but mostly understandable, so it doesn't ruin the reading experience. I really like MC, he's shown to more clearly struggle with learning and getting stronger, especially when he fights foes. Dude is always panting lol. There is some potential with side characters that feels mostly wasted as they aren't used. Like why didn't Mr. Archer who swore loyalty to MC go travel with him as a body guard? Dude is super strong and then the medicine master wouldn't have to worry as much? But no, friend can't go with him, but the fucking dog (that doesn't belong to him, why is he with MC still??) and the birds are fine. <_<;; I thought they were gonna do something with archer dude, so it's a shame the author wasted him like that. We don't even see him much anymore, what was the point of keeping him in the story? And that's kind of the problem, MC has his quests and goals, which were compelling enough to keep me engaged, but after thinking about it, MC is the only character I care about. Everyone else is kind of one note and just there (except for the master and possibly the fox guy). No-one else has any character, and you don't really end up caring about any of them because you don't get to know anyone. MC has people he cares about and who care about him but it all feels very superficial somehow. Anyway I do recommend giving this a read and seeing what you think for yourself, it's good fun if nothing else! =)
Black Haze
This is the story of some kid with a mysterious past and a secret identity. He's an over powered mage and does missions for an organization he's part of, and our story starts with him doing really mundane small missions because his master is trying to hide him from... some people. Said master conspires to send this overly talented and fully fledged mage to magic school without MC's consent on the pretext of "make friends with this bullied kid" mission. I get that I'm not supposed to think about it, but I'm betting our MC would actually be bored to tears in class and be hated by most of the professors. However this is one of those stories that's set in a school, but we never see any actual lessons happen. Unless it's gone wrong and an action scene is to take place. I've read quite a few chapters and have absolutely no earthly idea as to what the various "professors" we've been introduced to teach, or how they teach. Also one (1) faculty member is slightly concerned for bullied kid, but they barely do anything except talk to the kid, and the other teachers are shown to give less than two shits despite being aware of the bullying. Idiotic. The kid's from a ducal family, but no, the professors are pretty useless, gotta send some other kid undercover to solve this shit. The story is pretty compelling (somehow), but the art is... well it gets marginally better, but not the way people in other comments are going on about it. The plot and characterizations also reek of "baby writer's first story". Especially the characterization. The way we're introduced to characters by the trope's the confirm to. The start didn't leave a particular good impression as it was using these tropes without knowing why or how to use them. There's the cool woman who's expressionless and for some reason a teacher at the school, but who's got absolutely no business being around kids. She's supposed to be a little like early Kakashi from naruto, or Aizawa of MHA, someone who's too cool to care, but actually does, and at the end of the day, does a really good job caring for the kids. She's got the too cool to care bit down, but seems to care nothing for anyone else except the princess character. There's the beautiful cool smart girl, her distinction is that she doesn't wear glasses despite being the smart girl character. That's the standard of characterization and while I do otherwise like the story, these aspects detract from my enjoyment somewhat. Especially at the beginning. I'm going to drop this as I've come to my limit I guess, but judging by how highly rated this is, there's quite a few people who do like it. Thus, I'd recommend giving this story a try and seeing how you feel about it for yourself. It's trope-y as fuck, but it can also be fun and heartfelt. The comedy's mostly a miss for me, but it might not be so for you. The art... well it may be the actual deal breaker for most people. ^^;; Also this apparently got dropped by the author and I can see why, so this doesn't have an ending.
Worn and Torn Newbie
Eh... I've tried to get into this one a couple times, and I just can't for some reason. I can't even quantify what that reason is exactly, but I just want to click away and stop reading every time I start reading. Not for me, I guess. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Duke Pendragon
Ugh, I've checked out a few of this author's other works and none of them so far have been for me. I like the art and the premise of most of this author's stories, but the execution always feels off for me. Here we have an overpowered dude who reincarnates, with girls instantly salivating over him and it feels mediocre rather than the "epicly cool" it's obviously aiming for. Well, it feels too try hard for me anyway. All the women do seem to be useless for anything other then admiring and fawning over protag-man. I don't necessarily want some strong warrior woman up in her, just... I dunno, for all the women not to immediately fall in love after MC treats them contemptuously. Also for them not to be incredibly annoying baggage too. That would be nice. The women characters could be nice baggage instead.
Standard of Reincarnation
A one armed swordsman from the branch of an important family struggles with the main family's successor until he is eventually locked up in prison and dies. He reincarnates in the body of a young boy 500 years in the future. At first it's ok, but later some revelations happen than had me rolling my eyes, especially in regards to the "arch demon" and all the weird politics. The politics while apparently somehow important are nebulous and poorly established. Rather than making me want to find out more, it made me drop this. Also MC was almost 30 when he died, but he reacts and loses his cool like a child a lot in this story, which bother's me cause he was an extremely experienced swordsman before he died. As is usual in these stories everyone's got beef with MC because they think him weak, but it's very annoying that they continue to do so when he's done the work to get to the stages he needs to. To get into the weird school thing he had to beat a demon, and yet the school's dean acts like he's not done the work and is weak and worthless. As if the head of the family would allow him to enroll at school without having proven himself. In fact, the story made it seem that MC could try killing the demon at any time and as a result of that he'd be then sent to school. So I dunno how it was supposed to make sense for the dean to be so prejudiced. It makes him look like an idiot who can't reason simple things out on his own. The art is alright, relies a lot on light show stuff, but ok. Now the translation is weird at times. You can make sense of most sentences easily but the names of things can be quite stupid. Like the heavenly exoskeleton. Does the translator not know humans don't have those? Did they think MC is a beetle? Or a lobster? If this heavenly body shit is about storing mana in your bones then it's just heavenly skeleton, 'cause you know, MC and all the humans in the story have their bones inside, and not outside like most insects do. >_> Just cause you think it sounds cool doesn't mean it's right. And this is either the fault of a translator or the author. My money's on the translator not knowing the difference between bugs and people.
Sword Fanatic Wanders Through The Night
This is the story of a boy who was kidnapped from a sword dancing troupe to become the disciple of some powerful old dudes. Soon after, the boy's original home the dance troupe is destroyed by one of the local bad sect. Boy becomes a man and super strong, comes back, and decides he's gonna find the fuckers who hurt his family and kill them. He proceeds to do so. This starts off pretty good, but later the translation jumps between bad to alright. Every other chapter is asura scans who are not great but fine, and then flame scans who are pretty bad. Names change between these two scanlation teams. The story also gradually stops being any fun, because character development stops and later on I was having a very hard time giving two shits about the stuff happening in the story. MC manages to save some people, and one sticks around for.... reasons best known to the author, but not the audience. The other two of that group just disappear and are not heard from anymore. I mean i suppose they could resurface, but honestly they seem to have no plot relevance despite one of them being connected with MC's past. As a result the story becomes boring. And meanders with no clear goal anymore, because it's certainly no longer about Mc's revenge or anything. MC's actions don't come off as a result of his personality, but because the author says so. He's just boring and bland, and as a result I am no longer invested or interested in seeing where his story goes. The action hasn't stopped, but the fights are no longer interesting. It's a shame, but no more. The art is alright, but not particularly good. The chin's are weird as well as their side profiles too.
Academy Genius Swordmaster
MC is a strong swordsman who's pretty much the last warrior standing in the face of an apocalypse brought on by angel like beings. He's heavily wounded and finds his commanding officer, a woman who turns out to have known the about the apocalypse and tried to stopped it three times, dying propped against a rock. The commander failed to stop the apocalypse 3 times and feels MC might do better, so she gives him the ability to restart his life from a young age and try to prevent the apocalypse in her stead. He does so and after reincarnating back to his youth, goes to attend a prestigious academy to gather and train strong allies to join his cause. The beginning had me, but it then lost me a bit when MC is revealed to be even more special than he initially was. It didn't completely lose me mind, but just a bit. I find this story not to be bad or terrible, but it is a little forgettable? I feel it's too mean to put it like that, but at the same time, that's how I feel. I do encourage giving this a read, because it's not bad, and the characters are compelling, even if the plot occasionally is not. The art is pretty good, and the translation is legible. Meaning that so far, no chapters translated by people who don't actually know any english have been uploaded to ruin readership.
Villain initialization