i have a confession to make... more>>

i may or may not actually like isekai

send help

SSS+ <<less

"The two of us…let’s kill each other, as true lovers, shall weeeeeeeeeeee?!"

while the movie has stunning visuals, the narrative form communicates the character's internal thoughts and feelings in far greater depth.... more>>

considering that the story is all about an emotional experience, it's worth reading the novel even if you've seen the movie.

it does a better job at maximizing emotional damage. <<less

male mc rips apart his teacher's body, extracts her soul, infuses it with his 'white thick viscous fluids', and ultimately degrades her into his 'slime' pet...... more>>

he's a good person btw... <<less

silly story that basically has no ecch, but still skirts along the edge of the r18 abyss. a lot of amusing misunderstandings that sound really... more>> questionable without context.  <<less

well within the darkest depths of the r18 abyss.... more>>

the first h-scene is easily the most vivid i've read. nothing else even comes close. 

when describing a night battle, most authors will at most use 300 words. as for this guy, he consistently slams out 5000 word essays.

the sheer detail coupled with the author being insanely good at using the first person perspective to directly implant a series of truly immoral and reprehensible thoughts into the reader's mind, leads to such depth in his scenes. 

this novel has convinced me that the narrative form has some of the highest potential as an h-medium. image and video are primarily visual whereas writing can delve into all of the 5 senses while further adding on internal thought/feeling/commentary. these extra details really do make things so much more vivid. <<less

i read up to chapter 1 and couldn't bring myself to read further. ... more>>

not because the quality is bad, but instead because the narration is simply too vivid...

the original author kind of scares me. i'm starting to question whether they're are actually a girl and like this irl.  <<less

man gets locked in alcatraz with a dog, a crossdresser, and the corpse of a little girl.... more>>

probably my favorite novel. while it does have the advantage of being in recent memory, amongst what i've read, this is probably the most unique one.

for all of the novels with the "comedy" tag, this is one of the few that's actually funny. mc is witty/shameless and is such a character. he puts on airs and is constantly initiating amusing scenarios. coupling his personality with all of the oddballs in his group, relationships/dynamics end up being the highlight of the story. when there are battles, the mc fights in a pretty gimicky way that requires a lot of preparation and planning. no battle is easily won, and the solutions he comes up with are all interesting. 

at the beginning of chapters, the author will often make a philosophical observation about the world that then ties into the current story state. the way he conveys these ideas is rather poetic and i really like it.  <<less

chill novel.... more>>

a lot less interesting compared to other things on this list, but i liked it. low energy consumption novel.  <<less

author needs jesus... more>>

dragon car ftw <<less

The dynamics b/w the MC & his forcibly adopted dragon-dependents are memorable, hilarious, and well thought-out. ... more>>

I can't think of much negative to say. Easily one of the most enjoyable novels I've read.  <<less

The MC has overpowered abilities that should make encounters stale and boring. However, the way he attempts perfect clears by finding ridiculous ways to abuse the world's systems keeps the story fresh. Additionally, he eventually gains something precious that he can actually lose. This serves to introduce stakes into the story and force the MC to fundamentally change the way he approaches problems. ... more>>

Due to the premises, the world's settings and mechanics can change whenever the author deems it necessary. Referentially, the story is always kept fresh. <<less

cockroach mc. part where he eventually makes up w. his family was very well written.

A happy-go-lucky school romance novel where everyone gets PTSD. ... more>>

Through the power of cross-dressing, all challenges can be overcome.

mc ends up w. 6 wives. including but not limited to: his childhood bully, his friend's mom, and his dad. 

The novel is easily at an S+ when it doesn't take itself too seriously. The author has one twisted mind & is great at setting up questionably entertaining situations. Epilogue was a sweet cherry on top. 

Some of the repetitive romantic drama got annoying. First and second halves of the novel had very different feelings. Second half was a lot worse than the first. I also got bored during the 70-90% portion of the story. I liked the ending though. 

Thoughts (w. spoilers):

MC wrote a shitty novel with plotholes all over the place. Some mysterious entity fills in the incongruencies and shoves him into that world. Interesting compared to other author-goes-into-their-novel stories since the MC works with imperfect information. I love how the MC just constantly shits on himself for writing such a god-awful story.

Would've been interesting if said mysterious entity got revealed to some extent. 

- Moments of Cognitive Dissonance: (more spoilers)

1) MC beating up Heinrich @ beginning. 

2) Word magic is basically a justification for deus ex machina's. 

3) Way MC gets exposed as the demon king is stretchy. That one holy paladin really f*cked the MC over. 

4) How much the MC relies on auxiliary system functions to get things done in the beginning & how little he does in the end. A lot of later problems could've been resolved so much sooner if he used it. 

5) How difficult rel. w. Ellen becomes later on. Reasons why they can't be together seem lame. 

6) Black order concluding demon king must die. (?)

(provided reasons for 5 & 6 didn't make sense)

7) Why was Christina so set on killing MC? <<less

Story lulls @ points & I did not think I'd finish this one.... more>>

The characters are capable and cunning with complex motivations and desires. The powers they wield progressively get crazier as time goes on and are only balanced by equally potent powers. Dumping them into an extremely dangerous and bizarre world ends up leading to a whole slew of interesting interactions. 

I'm really impressed with the author's ability to be able to come up with and integrate so many imaginative ideas without making things overly ridiculous. In a lot of other novels involving the clash of broken abilities, cohesion is often lost and things just become a colossal clusterf*ck after a certain point. Something else that I'm impressed about: Romance is a key way to keep readers engaged, and the fact that the author completely forgoes this aspect is a testament to how good the core story is.

The presentation of the overarching mysteries is top-notch and the twists and turns that lead to the corresponding answers consistently gave me goosebumps and "holy sh*t" moments. There are often subtle details that seem unrelated to the progression of the main story, but lo and behold 700 chapters down the line you realize that was a massive hint to things going on behind the scenes. 

Pacing is kept by the MC always being on a fuse. Some of the most powerful existences basically spend the entire story piecing together clues to track down and relentlessly hunt him. This forces him to constantly be on the move and take massive risks. 

The ending is satisfying to some extent, but I would've liked to see more get resolved. Guess I got to wait for the second book.  <<less

Somehow manages to romanticize academia...... more>>

thoughts w. spoilers:

-MC starts off in a really shitty situation. Everyone hates him and he's pathetic. 

-Scales up by abusing newfound broken abilities and starts slapping people around. He does it with style, which makes it entertaining. 

-Basically carrot & sticks everyone, gradually mending relationships and getting all the heroines to fall for him. 

-He's forced to act like a stoic as*hole but is secretly a caring person within. This leads to a lot of amusing circumstances. 

-I liked the pacing. The story alternates between different types of content (teaching, research, combat, training, and relationship-building) while finding ways to inter-mix them. 

-Interesting implementation of regression. Sophien enables a lot of interesting scenarios. The timeline getting completely f*cked and the subsequent process to un-f*ck it was by far the most memorable moment for me.

-Weird ending.   <<less

Instead of plot armor, MC has plot chains that bind and trip him up. To compensate, Alpha carries his ass so hard. This goes on for the first 100 chaps or so.... more>>

Initially, I thought the novel was meh. However, after getting to chapter 296 (hiatus atm), I really like it. It takes a while, but after Akira pops off and starts to explore the more dangerous parts of the world, things get crazy. 

Pacing kinda sucks @ the 30-60% mark.  <<less

short and sweet. lot of amusing/cute lines. however, i do think it's overrated. ... more>>

considering the genre & seeing the rating/reviews, i went into this expecting something on par with pancreas. i wanted to end up crying and enter an existential depression. while it certainly wasn't bad, pancreas is still a far better crafted emotional experience. perhaps that was too high of a bar and this was a bad expectation to have. 

there was a lot of abrupt time skip throughout the story, which kind of made the pacing weird. it would've been nice if there were some in-betweens of just wholesome slice of life interactions. instead the story just immediately jumped to setting up the next bit of action. 

i found the conflict in the story to be kind of silly. the tragedy in the first two incarnations could've been easily avoided if they actually communicated. in the third incarnation, i found the decision to move to the city to be incongruent with the protagonist's motivations. all she wanted to do was just chill and grow old together with her lover... but when provided with that exact opportunity, she doesn't take it. 

for context, she doesn't really care about any other human and every time when she's gotten involved with society, she gets labeled as a demon and they try to kill her. despite knowing this, it being her final incarnation, and her being able to literally choose anywhere she wants to live, she decides to take a huge unnecessary risk by going to the city with the emperor+imperial sh*ts that have killed her in the past. her lover has no memories and is currently in the third incarnation as a baby. she could've just raised him in the countryside like in the first iteration and things would've been fine. 

a lot of the decision making felt like a convenient plot device for forced tragedy. i was left in a lot of moments thinking "what? huh...", so the tragedy that was there didn't really hit hard for me. i also don't know exactly how to describe it, but even without the incongruity, i still don't think it would've hit for me. i think this has to do with the fact that the characters themselves are fairly detached from the world. the way the protagonist just kills herself in the first iteration almost gives off the vibe as if she treats the mortal realm as a simulation for her & her lover. as in she's detached and only cares about how he perceives it.  

i'm realizing that 95% of what i've said is negative, but i do genuinely like this novel. i guess that this is mainly me trying to figure out how to describe why i think pancreas is better. go read pancreas.  <<less

One of the few web novels I've read where there's a clear underlying message being pushed. The author does a great job of leading you to his conclusion through the characters and their respective interactions.  ... more>>

One small thing I didn't like: The message is clear by the end, and the last part of the after-story did not have to restate it so explicitly. <<less

Everybody is f*cked up. Especially the heroines. They are all irreparably damaged, but that's part of their charm. With this in mind, a majority of my enjoyment was derived from how ruthless & refreshingly brutal the characters are. Other moments that I enjoyed a lot were when the MC went about finding clever ways to convince/coax capable individuals into joining his cause. ... more>>

This is a story heavily focused on scheming, so it's no surprise that it's dialogue-heavy. However, the author sometimes elaborates too much or becomes needlessly wordy about mundane thoughts & details. This bogs down the pacing & makes reading through some sections a complete slog. This was especially the case throughout books 4 & 5 where I just started skimming through paragraphs in order to get to the juicy bits. 

For a story focused on a genius MC finding clever ways to resolve difficult problems, I found a lot of the solutions kinda lame. The first scenario where the protagonist gets cornered was engaging & creative, but past that, reasonings were stretched thin. Many victories, while technically a result of prediction, felt forced into fruition by the author. 

Despite my qualms, this is an entertaining story that I like a lot. A shame it got canceled. <<less