This starts off as a generic harem isekai in a brutal unfair world, and it takes about 10-15 chapters to get good. You're probably going to roll your eyes at the MC complaining nonstop at the beginning. It takes awhile for the character development to start.

This manga is like the counterpart to "Arifureta". While life is rosy for the powerful, privileged heroes, it really sucks for everyone else. This time, we follow MC as one of the non-privileged. In some ways, it's similar to "Hai to Gensou no Grimgar" in that the world is brutal for its inhabitants

I'm curious how well the world building develops, especially after chapter 15.

... Last updated on January 29th, 2021, 3:16pm

When I read Master of Monster, the protagonist reminds me of Shinji Ikari. Not the new, revamped versions of the character but the whiny pathetic wimp of the original series. I honestly didn't hate him and felt he worked as a good foil to the more confident but blustering Asuka or the much more passive Rei. Its his character interaction and not his personality that made him interesting. Master of Monster fails to understand this completely.

Master of Monster is about an entire school that gets transported to another world and the roughly 1000 students that have to survive its harsh and dangerous environment. Among these students are humans that have developed special powers upon entering the new world. Accounting for roughly a third of the student body, these Cheat Users must balance power with the normal students as they seek for civilization or a way home. That's what the story would be about if that was what it focuses on. Instead, it opts to have any form of society or civil understanding almost immediately collapse as the main character vaguely narrates how everyone turns on each other and rape and murder is brutally. There is no gradual descent, no specific events that cause the sudden rioting, just everyone suddenly hates each other, and violence destroys any semblance of humanity

The main protagonist, Majima immediately throws himself into this misanthropic mindset of judgmental scorn toward other people, angry that society could collapse like this. It's impossible to become sympathetic to his situation as the audience knows nothing of what caused this collapse in the first place. Judging by how little he was involved in the situation, the narrative makes it sound like he didn't do much work with the group in the first place and is just getting angry because events are now affecting him specifically. While the story would be darkly amusing to read if it focused on whether he would either first starve to death or go mad from his twisted ideologies, the author gives him a third option when he is able to befriend a slime, suddenly realizing that his power is to befriend monsters.

Truly, this is the worst power the author could give the main character. It allows him to continue to whine, bitch, and moan about how humans are trash while letting his monsters servants do all the dirty work for him. Its not as if the monsters disobey or challenge him. They obey him without question and are blindly loyal to everything he does. As if to try and up the squick factor the two monsters he initially befriends Lilly (a slime) and Rose (a magical doll, think living mannequin) try to feminize themselves.



What really gets me is how Majima keeps saying "This is the real world" as if to deconstruct "trapped in another world" genre. Yet the story tightly grasps the worst cliches of the genre.

"This is the real world" Yet you have a unique extremely rare power
"This is the real world" Yet you have a harem that is devoted to you.
"This is the real world" Yet your viewpoint is the only one that matters.

This really shows that if a deconstruction doesn't understand the flaws of its material can be worse than the flaws its trying to point out.

Still there is a fascination by how bad this story can get. Maybe Majima finds a way to turn the token human girl into a cat girl which somehow recovers her virtue so he can take it himself. Maybe the Agricultural club of the school turns into a cult that worships a cow trophy they won in a previous competition. Maybe the entire male student body are serial rapists and Majima's destiny is to repopulate this world with the female student body creating a master race of whiny, self-indulgent, hypocrites, The possibilities are endless!

... Last updated on January 25th, 2015, 3:46am

so, this kinda feels like the other "protagonist is a student transported to other world and is suddenly op hero", but at the same time, this protagonist is only strong through his companions, which is admittedly similar to Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (Novel); however, unlike that protagonist, this one doesn't even have the means to defend for himself. This protagonist also seems unique in that he is a victim to other humans, basically goes into self-exile due to this, and seems to be going to sustain that, rather than eventually overcoming his trauma (somewhat) like the hero in Tate...

Overall I'd say it's an interesting read, if you're feeling tired of these kinds of stories you might wanna shelf it for later, and it's a little more harem-y than I'd like personally, but a good read nonetheless.

... Last updated on January 8th, 2015, 9:58pm