You look at the premise, it spells a fun series about action and some comedic shenanigans.
The protagonist is a chill, straight to honest good guy. Then you'd expect the author to pits him into cool situations like usual reincarnated characters chilling out with their pre-existing knowledge. Yes, the author implemented that, however, he also did something atypical of the action series---which is to interweave it with psychological elements---however he did not do it the most seamless way---hence making the series becoming heavy to read (in a not so fun way that betrays expectations).
The first third of the story was alright. I would give it a 7/10 in terms of enjoyment. Then it became a 5/10 at the middle half. Then at the end a 3/10. (But I gave it a 4 overall due to some other things it did well; but the end holds a strong bitter feeling)
The problem obviously does not lie in the premise. But the fact that the story starts to go all over the place the further we are removed from the "school" and goes into some weird "office politics" tangents.
You'd be like, oh, it's the usual got GB then who becomes kakkoii or some crap, where the action/comedy is the highlight.
But no, this series tries to do more by incorporating inner turmoil, which adds a layer of tragedy/angst element to the character.
Other criticisms
- Serie could have been a technical series about practical hand-to-hand MMA fights but devolves into fucking cultivation mysticism crap with "Chi/Ki/Qi/Mana".
- Apart from the beginning, the further we go on, the further the antagonists became more over the top, rude, and annoying. But because the MC is a good guy, he's not the type to retaliate because of his tenets (WHAT MAKES A MAN A MAN). It can make the series very frustrating to read at times.
- At the end, it feels like that the whole series was an excuse for an "essay" of some sorts on a heavy topic
female body sucking overall; what is manliness
. And if this is the hill that the author wanted to die on, it would have been better directed as a short, 1-2 volumes series instead of dragging the series through 80-something chapters. Because generally for angsty stories, the impact becomes more powerful the shorter the series is. But for "action series", integrating angsty moments can take out of the flow.
- Hence due to the point above, I feel like I've been taken away from my suspension of belief due to the janky narrative direction shift, which has not been done smoothly enough.
- Unresolved plot points at the end which become frustrating
what becomes of the protagonist's mom? and many characters not "letting go" and find inner peace with the current state of affair -> just plain frustrating to swallow. At the end I became more discouraged and angrily; and would rather have the author just retool and split the series into 2 different stories---one for the action, the other one for the angsty drama
- I really had to push myself to read the last 10 chapters of this series because it was just more suffering instead of fun. It felt more miserable than reading Boy's Abyss/Oyasumi Punpun/A Trail of Blood because at least with these series, I've set my expectations straight and there's some weird sense of morbid curiosity. For this series it just felt like it's accumulating more and more repressed anger.
Feels like overall, author has lost direction and is just starting to put whatever crap they think is "realistic" and "probably" over whatever can make a story "fun". However, they even violated this rule by the unrealistic power scaling earlier.
We start with a "frail body girl", who slightly trains, then suddenly is able to handle pro MMAs adults, then for some godamn reason (the Mary arc) is having a hard time against mob. The inconsistency in handling the power scaling becomes grating.
Also, the motivations and the developments of the side character above "Mary" is not organic. We start with a bully character, then suddenly she becomes a brattish simp (but is done in a mean way). The author leaves plenty of hanging threads like this that seemed to indicate a future development for that but ended up nowhere. Feels like the author is throwing ideas/directions but does not know which direction to commit.
In the end, the author decided to go with a "romance"(😕) with the
eldest brother
and created a weird "love triangle" (even though it's not; it has that angsty vibe) with the
! female lead's brother
.
It is understandable that under realistic circumstances, the female body's brother ends up feeling extremely stressed. But at the same time, it is developed through a melodramatic lens, and ended up feeling contrived and frustrating. I think that most of us signed up for a non-heavy chill story, but it ended up being something psychologically heavy like Ore ga Watashi ni Naru made. The whiplash is damning
I should have given the ending a 3/10 due to how much I hated it. However, I do applaud the author trying something a bit more "novel" than the usual guy becoming a girl in a fighting junkie series, where he manages to add up some handicaps/knowledges about the female body (NOT DONE IN AN INNUENDO/SEXUAL WAY). However, that becomes overshadowed with the flaws I mentioned earlier.
The classmates/Sunny gang were pretty funny, a shame to see the author deciding to steer off that and deciding to go with the weird Unites States tangent (this is the arc where the melodrama vibes start to ring and where the power scaling starts to become VERY UNREALISTIC).
The MC is a cool guy though, but as with other Chinese GB manga I've noticed like The Blood Princess and the Knight, the author really wants to make the MC suffer/goes through some intense mind fucking tribulations (ok maybe not as bad as the physical tortures of the likes as in Tokyo Ghoul but sometimes the mental scape starts to veer into that direction. It's like they can't stop themselves from making a series not bathed in tragedy vibes, like no, angst is everywhere even in "comedy".
(-30)
