Zihvuda's manga / #Surpernatural(23)

This was interesting. A great warrior rises through the ranks of the military in a time of instability and war and then gets betrayed and eventually killed. He finds himself back in time when he was younger and a lesser military leader, he decides to do better this time by making some use of knowledge he has of the future and filling out his own weaknesses by gathering useful people he didn't know he'd need the first time around. The art is interesting, has personality and stands out. I'm not entirely sure I like it, but it definitely works for the story. MC is extremely strong, but still died because of other people being more clever and I like that he's trying to not only learn, but also has people around to help. The translation is unfortunately just this side of understandable, but likely missing a lot of the nuance because it's not good. It's a shame because the story and characters seem interesting. I would recommend the story, but I dunno if I'd really recommend this translation of it. The translation isn't total word salad, but it's pretty bad all the same.

Honestly with a couple more drafts this story could have been really good. It's got everything on the surface level, but it's not got as much depth as I'd like. There's a bunch of things that could use more fleshing out. Like MC's friends, their personalities, watching MC properly deal or rather re-experience his losses one by one, rather then having most of them happen off panel. Having the love interest being all about control and then suddenly realize he's in love when he's been acting all psycho feels like a cop out and fake rather than a dark character actually legitimately falling in love. The plan and ambition was all there, but the execution could have used another couple drafts. I really like what this story could have been, how character driven it was. It's all rather a shame. This seems to be marked as yaoi, but it isn't. There's no smut, and the art is alright for action, but the kisses all felt pretty awkward. Especially when they were supposed to be passionate. The atmosphere was good in some of the more sexy scenes though. Also the way MC suddenly decides he wants to live after all also needed some work. Liked most of the characters, the villains were mostly one dimensional, but they didn't need to be complex when there was plenty of complexity from MC and ML. Would have been nice to know why MC was scouted. I don't find the story managed to adequately establish why or how MC was so indespensible that Mr. psycho had to have him on the team and went so far to recruit him. I also didn't end up understanding the big deal with MC getting recruited. Seemed like a really good deal for MC, so I really don't get why he was so hesitant. Like I can puzzle it out by making assumptions on my own, but it would have been fine to really show us that in story. Also I don't understand why ML was so flirty right from the get go. He's the type to do everything for a specific reason so I initially thought he was actively trying to seduce MC, but I don't think that was it. He didn't seem flirty with anyone else so ??? But yeah, wish is it was better. It's not, but I hope we get more stories like this but better. Either by the same writer improving their craft or by someone else.

A supernaturally high powered individual part of a global law enforcement organization watches his friend and colleague be killed. He also then finds himself being betrayed, killed and framed by said organization. He comes back to life thanks to a mysterious entity that had previously been with his dead colleague. Mc now wants revenge for his friend, and for himself, and agrees to work with the entity in order to eventually achieve his revenge. MC wakes up in the body of a young high school boy, with new powers to master and grow. The art isn't anything super detailed or amazing or stylized, but serves it's purpose well if a little blandly. The translation is pretty good, but there are stray chapters by another scanlation group which isn't as good, fortunately all chapters translated by asura scans are also uploaded so it's simple to skip over the badly translated ones, if a little annoying. Also Asura scans does have their occasional hiccups, one being a character who's pronouns are always he/him proudly announces they are a business woman, and then continues to be referred to by he/him pronouns. I suppose they could be genderfluid or non-binary, but it's not touched upon and it's really difficult to figure out if this is a character thing or a mistranslation thing. More than likely it's the latter. The story itself is interesting, compelling and addictive, though MC is OP and barely struggles ever with anything. Other characters are also interesting, and that's what keeps things compelling as they actually have their own motivations and character. They aren't utilized very much which is a shame, and honestly MC loses a lot of his personality after he reincarnates. He goes from a hot tempered idiot with a good heart to a cool and collected bruiser. I guess death mellowed him out quite a bit. The story isn't bad, but I sometimes find myself wondering if I actually like it or not. As I said, MC is compelling only because of his revenge and who he was previously, but currently he's pretty bland. There's plenty of girls that seem to have crushes on MC, he so far hasn't acknowledged any of them, which hopefully means this isn't a harem. One of them is however an underaged girl to mc who was in his mid to late 20s at the very least (i think), which just... author why? It's literally your decision? She didn't need to be a highschooler. =_= So far it's just a unrequited crush so it's fine and it's not focused on much. Also refreshingly MC doesn't act like he's never interacted with a woman in his life, so that's nice. I don't entirely get the power scaling of the characters, it sometimes feels meaningless. Also another thing that feels pretty meaningless now, villains are always villains because of their implacable urges. They can't help, but to be evil! Except they totally can and do repress these desires with patches and what not on a regular basis. After the first couple chapters, every villain you meet is in full control and not a slave to these urges, making them just people with powers. It kind of wrecks the whole need for there to be villain zones or for them to be outcasts to society in general. Like with this patch technology why isn't the government implementing these patches to decrease crime and integrate these people into normal society? It's very weird and it's not brought up again in any way that matters after that. Another weird thing, is at the beginning MC gets someone to surrender to him in a fights, except the other party is revealed to be extremely powerful and looking back had no reason to just surrender to MC much less come out to fight him personally. It's glossed over pretty quick, but if I think about it, it starts to bother me. Despite all that I haven't been inclined to drop the story and have enjoyed reading it. Some reveals I saw coming a mile away though I'm uncertain if it's because it's such a trope or something in the art tipped me off or both. Over all, I think the story is fine, with decent action and character work. A lot of people have fabulous eyeshadow, and I'm here for it. Give it a go and see what you think!