Summary: MC (28yo Korean dude) is reincarnated into a pretty infamous extra in one of his favorite RPGs, Evan, a character which the dev team had as some sort of a joke and had him die in hundreds of different ways no matter which path the protagonist took. As MC got kinda obsessed with finding a path to make him live until the end of the game (to no avail), when he found himself reincarnated into him (11 years prior to the events of the game, as a 9yo), he panics and vows to work hard and become as strong as he possibly can before any of his multiple death flags come to get him.

As tense as that sounds, if you allow me to dive in a little bit into... more>> spoiler territory,

Spoiler

he gets OP pretty quick and finds OP companions to protect him so there's barely any tension at all

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So basically, don't go into this expecting some action-adventure novel with rom-com elements, because the action is pretty lackluster and for a story revoving around a Dungeon city, the Dungeon parts are pretty damn boring all in all. Instead, if you enjoy it as a Slice of Life comfy isekai with some action elements and a nice and interesting cast of (OP) characters and lore, you'll be having quite a good time as Toika has definitely improved his character interaction skills from his previous works.

I like that the MC is actually smart and super paranoid about anything that could be a danger to him, and that actually makes for some really funny moments, but the joke is getting a bit stale after a while, ngl.

Talking about the romance department, at least he's not dense, but

Spoiler

pretends to be because of his fear of dying by getting himself involved with women, something that happened a lot in the game it seems. Plus he's pretty busy working out and learning every skill he can get his hands on in order to not die, lol

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It certainly is a bit of a fresh take, but giving that it's a Toika story we can all expect this ending with an harem (something I'm perfectly fine with as the romantic interests are all pretty nice although I wished they were a bit better written).

If I had to summarize its strengths, the cast of characters and their interactions make up for 90% of what makes this novel decent (so far), as well as the bits where he manages and improves the territory he lives in (Brotherhood Corp. OP). The worldbuilding is also pretty neat (even if we haven''t seen much of the world so far) and it leaves countless possibilities for the future arcs could entail.
On the other hand, its weaknesses I'd say are the action parts, tha lack of tension and the pacing.

Spoiler

Even if you wanted to argue that it is a slice of life novel, battles take a significant portion of the story and they're just not that good, I'm 150 chapters in and he's still like 7 years away from the start of the actual story, with no real enemy who would be his match

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If the plot actually picks up in the future and he finally leaves the nest, my score could go up to a 4, as this story has great potential, it seems to be getting there pretty slowly so far... <<less

Writing this review at the end of the 'main quest', there is still 100 chapters of another story. This is also still a Toika novel so let's skip talking about that.

I wonder what the 'appropriate' genre would be for a story like this. Picnic adventure? Adventure SoL? Comedy harem? In a style similar to 'Lazy Dungeon Master' there are conflicts and battles but the stakes are always low. It's fun and light hearted with alright comedy (I personally don't get much out of female character: flirts, male character: O-O). Characters... more>> are basically templates with some like Teresa, I mean Serana seemingly copy/pasted into the story. I can't remember a single villain but did really enjoy a lot of the side-characters. Powers are interesting and the soft magic system is competent.

Now you could say this wasn't a favourable summary but the enjoyment of this novel lies in it's well executed generic plot. It seemed like the author was having fun writing it, the characters seem like they're having fun, I'm now reading it so I'm having fun. It's a great introduction to novels while still being attractive to long time readers. <<less

It was 4.5/5 for the most part up until the sudden timeskip which threw me off the immersion and made me lose a bit of interest in the series.

All in all, it’s still a Toika novel so it’s still better than most of what’s out there.

Such a good novel, very Toika humor and the usual elements. Somewhat different plot-wise compared to his other works as this is based on the then popular "awakening game memories as a living character -genre" instead of his usual troupe of "imminent disaster on earth".

Personally I love these types of novels, they're never ultra stressful as the main character is always incredibly strong at the start/knows how to abuse the system to get ahead, so they make for excellent casual light reading- a splendid time spent that I will never... more>> regret.

If there had to be something negative said for me it would be the relationships in the novel. For some reason, in this particular novel Toika decides to pair off basically everyone. Almost every character is paired with an 'appropriate' mate. Whether that would be a dwarf who marries a local blacksmith or priest who ends up together with a paladin- almost everyone just somehow gets somebody. It does get slightly weird when the story starts expanding on those tens- if not hundreds relationships and that is used to hinder the progress of the plot. This is naturally even more amplified with our MC who has several, rather hard-to-keep-up-with relationships, some of which seem awfully negative to me. Still, I acknowledge that this just a matter of an opinion rather than any possible reviewable quality.

Unfortunately, another negative thing, is that the novel also suffers slightly from the translation. In general the translation is very good, not excellent, but very much adequate. There are some (5+ so far, enough for me to write about them!) instances where the translator slightly drops the ball and things get really messy and hard to understand. I also believe some of the jokes and interaction have been lost in the process. That said I don't want to discourage the current translators in any way, in fact I am immensely thankful toward them for their hard work. I just hope that some day they could work backwards slightly.

When it comes to this book I don't think any rating I would give it would be fair, I truly do value this authors works as more than just your average webnovels and I acknowledge that this english 'fan-translated' (granted it might be more of a job to the translators nowdays) version I am reading really does not cut it when it comes to representing the actual book so any true rating would probably have to be higher. That's why I'm giving it 5 stars instead of the 4 that I feel this translation deserves.

I guess if I had to give an ultimatum overview (or rather TL;DR) I would say that this novel is slightly immature to your usual Toika novels but the style is very much there and its enjoyable.

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e- Might be slight misunderstanding here, reading it on the current translators original site seems fine? Style is slightly different but I can't see any grammatical errors or gravely mistranslated stuff? No clue whether my 'trusty pirate site' ripped unedited versions or tried to translate themselves, in any case it s**ked there.

e2- No, its just that there were several different reworked and revised versions going on. If the novel looks bad somewhere my suggestion is change the site it might get better.

e3- As of this edit (9/21) the novel seems just fine. Only very few minor name/pronoun errors remain. <<less

Never Die Extra is a fun read, action sequences are engaging and compelling, and the characters show decent depth and progression (well somewhat, the main character feels like he regresses at some points but generally the years move and the characters mindsets show progressive maturity also). The same character keeps some of the same quirks as when they were younger but we also see a different side to them as they age (case in point the best friend of the main character throughout the years stopped being so... more>> much as a butler but a friend and can freely joke with his master/friend). The story has nice (could be a bit better) pacing including age progression speed, good foreshadowing, and is an relaxing and enjoyable read.

The release speed is nice also with decent translation quality. The translating team and all members of the staff doing Never Die Extra clearly care about giving a excellent reading experience with numerous releases every 2 to 4 days. Personally I would prefer something like 1-2 chapters every day, instead of 4-5 chapters every 2-4 days but nonetheless there are multiple releases a week and they are up to par in quality.

This deserves 5 stars so far both story wise and translation wise, and the way the characters aging progression is going plus foreshadowing it seems this story has a longer of a time-frame to go. I am grateful for this fun series for a few more years. Thank you to the translation team from Active Translation. <<less

Gotta say that I love this novel. There just so many creative ideas and despite the MC being OP the author was able to make it engaging. I must say it's Toika's specialty of making OP character entertaining. It also have different vibes compared to his other novels.

Fun read, MC lack of confidence in his strength is both annoying and funny but at least he's starting to see the light.

In my opinion, this is more of a slice of life novel than anything. It's centered around training, recruiting people, and developing the city. The most fun parts about it though are the rare instances where the main character's party shows their might. The small interactions and dialogue are also what makes this novel fun. If you want an action novel, you probably shouldn't read this.

The most boring parts are actually when they go into the dungeon.

I don't about other readers but I really enjoy this novel. Even though the theme is the same like other novel like transported to other world, game or novel. The story is something quite wholesome to me. So I don't know why the novel did not get notice by other people. The translator and website is quite good for me. No spoiler though. Maybe its quite slow at first (to me) but its getting better at the later chapter. Hope u enjoy it as much as I do too. Best... more>> regard to author, translators, editors and others who involved. <<less

I was always quite a fan of Toika, the first novels I read from him were the EEIR and the ICDS. When I started reading this novel its just felt quite different from the other ones, and not only because the MC name isnt God.

Still the same grinding king MC as ever, somehow its must be his Korean origin what makes him think repetitive actions makes someone OP. But what can we see, its working out. And even thought the MC sure have his own misunderstandings, at least less the... more>> things work out later. Cannot call it a world classic literature, but I think its fun and worth to read. As long you like the genre, because if you don't, then it wouldn't matter for you anyway, just leave it alone. <<less

what can I say... its a modafoka toika novel so of course we have the harem (best one yet?!), the comedy, and the overpowered protagonist... but if I was you and dont know Toika yet, please for the love of god read this thing, and if you already know toika or read some of his other works (RFN, SFF, EVR,) and still did not read this, you have someting with your brain.

but now lets talk about this novel, so we got harem, and we will get a true harem... more>> ending (this is toika way), the action scenes are good, but could be better, this novel is more a slice of life/ adventure than action, the caracters are likeble and funny, and this novel does not have that much of game stuff, more like a normal fantasy.

again, please for the love of god read this stuff and suport those guys doing the translations. <<less

This novel is catered to a specific group of readers. The novel emphasizes character development of supporting characters. The characters develop emotions, relationships, and goals. It is the very side character stories that drives this novel forward and keeps it interesting.

Those that dropped this novel is mainly for the simplistic writing, mediocre plot, and typical development of transmigration novels. The writing is simplistic as some other 1 star raters noted, but this novel is meant for children and young people to read. If you wanted complex skillfully written novels, you... more>> shouldn’t have picked translated novels in the first place and this is the wrong genre for you anyway. Mediocre plots is a given. Did you not see who wrote this novel? But the reason why this mediocre story becomes good is how the author weaves the characters and side stories into it. As for the typical development, there is only so many ways to write this type of story. Really... there are hundreds of isekai, transmigrations, reincarnation novels out there. Everyone of them is bland if you read them all, but I read this novel because it’s laid back, good feeling, and occasionally funny moments.

Overall, this novel is great for passing time and to relax your moods before bedtime. There is none of the angst, idiotic, racist chauvinistic, phalus driven mess you see in the CN novels nor the serious tear jerking stories of other Korean novels. This is just a laid back, slice of life story that weaves in a transmigration plot with some occasional One Punch man moments. <<less

It's a standard Korean novel about a person reincarnating into a very handsome person.

Evan, the MC, is reincarnates as a character in the game that is forced to die by the end of the game no matter what. He mainly works to prevent this to the point of obsession which causes him to hypnotize himself after so many years of training and his own paranoia.

Overall, it's interesting. Not for everyone, especially those who dislike handsome male leads, OP protagonists who think they're weak, and protagonists that actively avoid relationships (despite being surrounded by females).

This romance irritated me from beginning to end until the moment... the MC just doesn't accept that he is OP... man the guy has an inferiority complex that not even the other characters can handle him... imagine us reading...

this novel is good, the problem is about the power level of the MC is OP all the time and he has no rivals to fight at full power, but the story is great, for me this novel is interesting to read in free time and it is more about the daily life of the MC than a shonnen novel, the fitghs are not bad but in general the plot is very slow, and the trauma of the protagonist for being an extra is very unpleasant, however I would recommend... more>> reading it, it is very pleasant the posed world and everything that happens around the MC <<less

Something I noticed when trying to reread NDE to complete is was how boring it was. Not in the endless descriptions, not in the KN style of unrealistic exaggeration of some game world being amazing, or even the MC being 30 steps ahead of everyone.

It just gets so boring. While a lot of CN/KN fall into the cycle of rinse and repeat the same setup until the end, this series tries really hard to throw a dozen other factors to try and make it seem like it isn't a guy... more>> just spamming cheat codes to win a pre-established game. The MC's misadventures or the characters aren't really even a pull, as they just end up either being constantly compared to their original versions or solidify themselves as the supporting cast of a B list isekai story.

Maybe I would not be as jaded if I completed this series back when I first picked it up, but after comparing it to its peers, the story becomes shoddy and lackluster. <<less

Story's alright. Harem novel with dungeon diving, guild building. MC reincarnates as villain, becomes hero with OP game knowledge. Said game is one of those vague mishmash of every single genre type games in WNs that don't/can't exist.

Poor translations really kill enjoyment of this novel. There's a stretch of chapters that are literally unintelligible, in addition to the stretches that are just frustrating to read.

Story's pretty repetitive. MC keeps referring to his game knowledge for far more than is believable. IIRC there's a point where he recalls the economic activity... more>> stats of an entire city for a specific time period to help in one of his hustles, which was pretty memorable for being so over-the-top s*upid. <<less

This novel is pretty much in the same style of any other Toika novel where the MC will gradually become OP and gain a harem with all the attractive female leads. This is quite standard for his work and it seems a lot of the negative reviews seem to expecting something different from it. Short version is if you like Toika's other novels then you'll also like this one and if you dislike his other works then you'll also dislike this one.

This one starts with the MC reincarnating into a... more>> character that dies in every single route so in trying to avoid that fate becomes a bit paranoid/cautious. He then takes measures to avoid every single death and becomes more and more unkillable. As he gets stronger plotline starts to deviate and end has a nice twist. <<less

I've made it to 120 so far and the story is a good fun read, but the MC doesn't change up to this point. He plays a game religiously and is reincarnated into one of the characters who dies in many different ways. However the MC is smart and s*upid, because he can kill a raid boss and still keeps the perception that he is a weak character. No matter how many facts are in front of him he still treats this world as a game with the notion that... more>> he is a weak extra. He won't think any further then the fact that it was the enemy was weak rather then taking a second to understand himself because he has to be weak in his mind. The MC also won't get close to any woman because he thinks he will die to them, even though if you ignore woman you might end up with the same fate.

The author keeps these misunderstandings for far too long and it makes it's honestly annoying. You can't have a smart character whose so meticulous have so many misunderstandings for so long. It just gets old and ruins the novel in my opinion, but the translation is great and the writing is good, but the fact the author won't change up the character up to this point is disappointing. 3.5/5 <<less