Re-Monster (Re: Power Fantasy. Re: Gary Stu gets sexslaves

The introduction was absolutely terrible. It felt like all the information in that prologue was both unnecessary and unjustified. The stalker who mysteriously murders the main character might have an obscure justification that will be revealed in twenty volumes, but for now, it's just beyond reasonable. If the author was going to handle it that way, it would have been better to skip it altogether. There's a lot of unnecessary information, and the information that is, in fact, necessary is sometimes omitted, as it is in several instances of difficult battles that are skipped and then told in retrospect, like the Red Bear one and the Old Generation Goblins raid.

About that last one... There were twenty-six armored and armed guys; you people outnumbered and outgunned the enemy, and yet, with a super basic and defective ambush during broad daylight, you not only lost but failed so miserably at your task of guarding the carriage that the goblins had enough time to kill all the men and capture all the women practically unharmed. Not a single one escaped. I get it that you're "fledgling adventurers" "the sword of the weak" (because they're weak themselves), and all that, but you lack the most elementary planning! Where were the scouts? Where was the coach, ready to flee at the first sign of danger? The crossbow man at the top of the carriage? The mounted units, anything at all? The goblins' BS ambush was so primitive that I'm having trouble thinking of what animal could be so stupid as to not notice a dozen guys poorly hidden in the bushes. They didn't place any traps; there were no blazing fires nor falling trees, no chains or tripping wires, not to mention that the best-equipped goblin had a rusty sword and a broken breastplate, while the rest had clubs. I don't care if there were Hobgoblins! You people struggled to fight a normal goblin that's the size of an infant. An infant wielding a heavy stick managed to almost disarm your most skilled "warrior". You people disgust me; you should feel shame, and eternal shame. Nothing but shame!

But even if that wasn't a problem, if we justify it by saying "hey, it's written like a diary," we still have to deal with the problem of the main character... I have never seen someone so hypocritical, so scumbag, as the protagonist. I get that your reign is based on terror, but six hours of public torture and execution for attempted rape? That's just over the top. Isn't it enough punishment to kill them? Or just impale them, half an hour, and the same result, but no. He kept all the citizens of his small tyrannical reign awake the whole night watching him torture and kill his political adversaries, the real reason for such brutality. He tortures, brutalizes his subjects, kidnaps people, robs and pillages everything he comes across with, hunts down people and eats them, cannibalizes his own kind, commits genocide, unlawful withholding of war prisoners, and God knows how many war crimes... but sexual assault disgusts him. Sure, he locks them up in a cage and drugs them until they agree to have sex with him, but that's not rape; that's not abusem, your honor. That's perfectly consensual sex. Apparently, he plans to do this on a large scale too. Male and female sex slaves, open to the market. Horrible! As the protagonist keeps committing these crimes against life, me, as a reader, felt like an accomplice, which wasn't nice. The worst part of it all is that the guy doesn't even seem to notice, unlike other villainous characters like FFF-class trashero, the guy from Arifureta, or even Momonga from Overlord. Their anti-hero character was a fundamental part of the story, but in this case, it feels more like reading Pogo's sexual/power fantasy. Each time something goes right for the MC, it feels wrong; he's getting away with all his terrible acts!

Other minor issues I had were the following:

Terrible names for everything. All the initial characters had names starting with "Gobu"-something or "Hobu"-something, and since there were like twenty characters like that, it turns into a confusing mess. All locations lack names. Several relevant characters lack names as well and are referred to with a short description.

Way too many skills. I lost count, but by the end of the volume, the MC had at least seventy skills, out of which a lot (not obvious) lack description or is told a lot after being acquired, which leads to confusion and removes the usual satisfaction of victory.

Confusing leveling system. Since there's experience, but it's not measured progressively, it's hard to tell when or even how closely the character is to leveling up or how much experience they get from defeating foes, which takes away the meaning of using EXP instead of other systems.

Preoccupying chapters that hint that this might be another of those "it was all evil God's plan" stories.

The plus sides would be... Hmm.

Promising paragraphs that hint that there will likely be epic battles with gods.

Possible large-scale, full-on war. That's difficult to write.

Many characters increase their strength, and not just the MC.

Varied action scenes. While there aren't many, they do seem... well, not "unique" but something on those lines.

Even still, the book is so terribly written that the most optimistic couldn't salvage a single part that's either original or remotely interesting. 1/10.



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