(Manga Ch. 91)
Different from the WN (more on that after the main Manga review). Art is great, story is coherent, plot doesn't suck, and characters are decent.
Foreshadowing is used mostly effectively, and emphasis on the futuristic technology is believable and imaginative.
The gender bend is not used as an excuse to have a GL plot so far, and that's a plus in my book. There's no romance in that regard, and I'm cool if it continues to not have romance. However, the WN seems to be heading that direction from where I'm at there, and I don't think the manga will be so different that it doesn't loosely follow suit. I have more to say below in the WN section on this.
The settings are beautiful, with many large set pieces, and the adventuring spirit is strong as a result of that. There are times I think the manga handles things better... and then times I think it handles things worse. I'd prefer it if the manga more strictly followed the WN, and found a way to incorporate the things it invented into that story.
(Web Novel Ch. 106)
Hoh! Where do I even start? I guess I'll say that both the manga and the WN are worth reading based on what they do get right, and are different enough it warrants reading both to get the most out of the story. They are, effectively, two different stories that start out at the same point (sans super spoiler-y first chapter that kills the tension in the WN) and share a lot of the characters. And both have their flaws, too.
I can see why the manga is different. The manga story suits the graphic novel medium better, and the WN suits the novel medium better. Not by much, but enough to say I don't dislike the manga for being as different from the WN as it is. And I'm a huge fan of some of the things the manga invented to fill in the world.
But, the manga's biggest flaw is that it leans too hard into the tropes (dumbs the characters down a tiny bit to fit more generic behavior/role), and as a result, characterization of important characters suffers or ends up changed before being brought back to what they're supposed to be. It gives us awesome mini-adventures that fill out the world building, adds and focuses on more side characters, and adds other positive things to the story... but does so at the cost of eliminating some of the moments in the WN that were just written better.
For example, one of the characters, Lycoris, is given a personality flaw that contradicts the WN until a (really cool) event (that wasn't in the WN) fixes it. I wish the manga did a better job incorporating the awesome event it invented with what the WN did with her.
In the WN, Lycoris is a shy elementary school girl, who's a crack shot in the VR FPS games she's played. What's more, she's the person who comes in clutch when it matters the most. She joins Crim's guild, Lua Chia (moon something), because her father was asked to join, and he said he would on the condition they let his daughter join.
In the manga, Crim meets Lycoris randomly by chance in an awesome sci-fi/horror dungeon exploration as part of a PUG (pick up group/random matchmaking). Earlier, a member of a PK guild (player killer) falsely accused Crim of being a PKer, and Lycoris reads an in-game newspaper by a journalist who didn't check those sources and made Crim sound like a horrible person.
So Lycoris ends up partied with who she thinks is a PKer, convinced she's the next victim for a long time. And during this time, Lycoris is constantly berating herself for never succeeding when things get dire. Crim helps her get over this, Lycoris then realizes Crim is a decent person, and finally accepts the invite to her guild "Apocalypse Abyss, (nice to meet you)" or something like that. Shortly after, the guild name being bad is brought up and it's changed to Lua Chia. And she's eventually shocked her dad is already a member.
You know what would have been better?
Lycoris joins because her dad gets her in, but she does some exploring on her own and gets handed the newspaper and then sees how awful Crim is supposed to be. Not sure what's the truth, and worried her dad might be being coerced into working with Crim, she finds the person who wrote the article and that journalist proposes a plan (because the journalist was in the manga in this event) to prove it.
Thus, without assassinating Lycoris' character, we could hit the main dungeon story beats and have the cool adventure that gives us new characters and game lore. But that's not what happened.
Hinagiku wasn't as bad—she only pretended to be incompetent—but her reason for hating PKers is different between this manga and the WN... and I don't know which one is better. Technically, the manga's is more emotional, but it also makes less sense to me.
If an elementary school kid has friends who stop playing immersive VR video games because of virtual bullying by PKers, wouldn't that mean she finds other things to do that do include those friends?
The WN reason is she has a slightly possibly crazy mother who teachers her martial arts (swordsmanship) IRL, as well as some some adult topics that a kid her age shouldn't know, who instilled in her a deep-seeded hatred of PKers.
The WN's reason is less likely and less compelling, but at the same time, considering Hinagiku's age, I'd have to say it makes more sense.
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