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Best Web Novels of all time
Best Web Novels of all time
A recommendation for the best web novels that I have the pleasure to read and love. Be it, Koreans, Japaneses or Chineses. In Order of impact, note attributing and story woven. Mild Spoilers!
Multiple POVMale ProtagonistFantasy WorldReincarnationSecond ChanceTransported to Another WorldTransmigration
11 Followers
Created: Feb 25th, 2023, Updated: Feb 25th, 2023
Created Feb 25th, 2023
Updated Feb 25th, 2023
KR (4.5)
55 Chapters Every 178.7 Day(s) 23809 Readers 316 Reviews 11-26-2017
18/20. ... more>>
The third novel read that introduced me to koreans novels in general. Before reading this masterpiece, I didn't know how badly I thirsted after a morally corrupt, insane and unapologetic evil main character. One who's pretty active, plans and scheme around events, go out of his way to arm himself in term of power, weatlth or relashionship. Great cast of characters all in all. I took 2 points, one for the introduction of a system that wasn't really needed or become irrelevant later on, and another one for not having completed this story. Read on summer, 2017. Shortly after high school.
Edit : After having see furtherdown EER on my list, I remember that EER was the first korean novel that I really read, the novel being the third that I started.
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KR (4.6)
193 Chapters Every 121.9 Day(s) 7839 Readers 104 Reviews 08-25-2019
19/20. ... more>>
Oh boyyyy, This should been a perfect score or at least a 4.7-8. I remember it was a solid 4.7 for a long time. One point reduction for not having completed this masterpiece. All in all, it's second but overall, the storyline, the characters, interactions, challenges, everything in this novel is perfectly executed. And the icing on the cake, we have a likable, well adjusted main character! An extreme rarity in novel! They're a ton of review that go in deep detail why this story is a must read. I admit, I didn't have an interest or even passion for the korean movie, kpop scene industry in general. But oh boy, did this novel lit a thrill for it. A must read for beginner who wish to start reading web novel! Started on fall of 2018. Shortly after starting college.
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KR (4.7)
104 Chapters Every 87.3 Day(s) 4155 Readers 46 Reviews 12-30-2020
17/20. ... more>>
Honestly, I wouldn't have read this novel if not for his praise, high reviews, and the fact that it share some similarities with Top Management. I started it on 2021, at the time, I haven't seriously read a single novel since SCOG. at least, here on NU. After a while, the subpar writting/translation, lack of characters deph, same plots, same clichés, it was tiring and I just switched to reading on RR, Fiction.net, SB,SV,QQ and even starting reading fanfics. Genius of Performing Arts High? This breach of fresh air in a long while that I needed. An informative, entertaining and overall pleasant read. If you told 17 years old me that I would read stories, moreover about a dude and his passion for Opera singing? And loving it? Ahahahah, I would have laughed at your face. It's a solid story, with good pacing, a cast of endearing characters, challenging contests for the main characters and his journey for success, well written and translating for a Web serial novel. Started it somewhen in the year of 2021.
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KR (4.4)
105 Chapters Every 120.1 Day(s) 23482 Readers 464 Reviews 07-13-2019
13/20. ... more>>
Ahhhhh Ro Yu-jin, you... so much potential for greatness... A great disappointment. Where to start with SCOG? I will try to make it short.
The year? 2019, somewhen after having started reading TNE and being well in it while simultaneously having noticed signs of incoming story death. Ardent and somewhat experienced novel reader, SCOG was a breath of fresh air in this sea of continuous custom of Korean fantasy novels. A portal appears on Earth/Dungeons appears; Multiple Koreans have been dimensionally kidnapped, or our MC is a regressor having finished the game and being on New Game + edition. Same themes, same executions, same clichés, sometimes same powers too (shadowy summons, necromancy, system reading abilities skills, etc...), and you guessed it! The same downfalls too. For the long-time readers, you see what I mean, basically fast food.
Well... SCOG while being somewhat cliché, is novel in its execution, with at the start a little twist; its writing, storytelling style, fighting scenes, and power system/theme is, compared to the average Web novel, top-notch.
SCOG is probably the Web novel with the most spectacular system in terms of skills. I still go back to Seol Jihu's wiki page and just read his skills, realm, etc... and just remember his training and the adversities he had to face to attain this level. And sigh off in disappointment at all the incongruities present in the novel. It was little things at the start (like how Seol, a grown-ass man acted like 13 y boy sometimes) that spiraled into the cluster f*ck that was the battle of Tigol Fortress... The brain-dead fart of the parasite queen who was about to win this sh*t while knowing that the only way for humanity to have a chance was resurrecting the world tree. Instead of doing the logical thing that even a 7-year-old kid would have pointed out to her, for the sake of plot advancement, she launched a final assault at the Tigol Fortress without first making damn sure to torch the only hope for humanity ... There were little inconsistencies beforehand, but that plot hole bugged me a lot.
At this point, I was already too much invested (financially too) to just get out of this ship, I have to finish this at least. It's so high on my list because of nostalgia and at the time of its release, it was the best of its genre in NU. Still a huge disappointment. For every potential reader, just skip the side stories, it will just lower your opinion of this novel and author.
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KR (4.2)
21 Chapters Every 144 Day(s) 20940 Readers 395 Reviews 06-26-2018
11/20. ... more>>
The biggest f*cking disappointment of 2019 in term of novel at least for me... f*ck! A stellar start. 19/20 for the start, but... oh boy did this novel chocked, hard! Starting since the middle of the story (late stage-end of the arc Tower of Wish) to its end.
Amidst a sea of junk Koreans/Japanese isekais or transmigrated into games world/stories novels, TNE was the father of the genre transmigrated author into a story I think? At least translated. The academy arc and introduction to the story were brilliantly done. The highest point of this story was at the very beginning. At least I wasn't financially invested in this one. Small consolation.
The downfall of this one? Hmmm, a lot of things actually, all of that have been pointed in reviews that address this story's shortcomings, but for me it was probably the forced drama, martyr complex of the author/main character, and the plot advancement which was random. Random in the sense that it was convenient for the author to always start an arc by making his main character think along the line of ''For this arc, X will happen, I will need Y person for me to resolve that, and Z object thanks to C, and they will be the presence of D villain or organization''. The general lack of direction and planning of the author was the major factor of this story downfall. It was this formula, rinse and repeat. Or from time to time with the intervention of the co-author to add some spice and the vague feeling that our Main Character wasn't all-knowing. Fat load of sh*t that it did.
This is the consequence of writing a part of the story by the fly of your pant. Down the road, it generates some major plot holes. Characters became brain-dead for the sake of advancing the story, and forced drama was being shoved in our throats. I skipped a great part of this story, straight to the end. Such a huge disappointment! Still, this story at the start and towards the middle was the best I ever read after quite a long time. I was always on the edge of my seat for my daily dose of chapters. The hype was real. Huge impact at the time, but ultimately bad towards the end.
Started it right toward the end of 2018, on December 28~31.
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JP (4.8)
43 Chapters Every 8.7 Day(s) 9204 Readers 129 Reviews 04-25-2024
20/20. ... more>>
Wholesome, sweet, and short. My cold and always h**ny heart at the time was going waku waku at the time for this story. Pure diabetes-inducing, somewhat bittersweet toward the middle but the end ^^... It was worth it. The struggle of an average person being given a second chance at life... I could empathize with the main character, feel his distress, shame and I want to say acceptance of this simple fact that no amount of a head start will make up for natural talent and brilliance.
This story perfectly encapsulates what would happen if an average person is given a second chance at life and decide to pursue a somewhat academic career. It was heartbreaking to watch him struggle to at least present a last challenge for his childhood friend. But this tale has a happy ending! Really like what he becomes at the end. A father, Teacher, and Lover. And I love to think that the years of competition with his childhood friend's later wife help shape the person that she becomes later.
Take my perfect score. Started it somewhen in 2019 I think? or 2018 maybe.
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KR (4.3)
0 Chapters Every 2579 Day(s) 29930 Readers 379 Reviews 04-16-2017
12/20. ... more>>
Well let's kick it, shall we?
The year? Summer of 2017, one month or so after high school graduation. A good friend of mine, we were both into mangas/animes and we were both kind of tired of shonen and its clichés. I don't remember how did it go. But while discussing the latest chapter or more like making fun of the latest shonen and isekais, my friend introduced me to this novel. Saying that it was the greatest thing that he ever read (that and Reincarnator, he still swears to this to this day). I laugh at his face good naturally of course. I couldn't see myself reading a book. The transition from manga/manhwa to written stories was, at the time, in my mind, unbelievable.
Still, He kept encouraging me for a long time. I must have been bored the day I started to read my first webnovel. Oh well, here we are. EER wasn't the first novel I read truthfully. No, the price goes to Oukoku e Tsuzuku Michi. What did that say of me? Ahahaha. Well, it's still the first Korean novel that I read and third novel that I started. Never finished though (kind of). But I will go back to that.
The premise? Our MC Yu Il-Han finds himself abandoned on Earth. Alone. Left behind. How? Why? Ohhh boyyy, the chills. Everyone on Earth is a Returnee. It's all in the title. In preparation for the apocalypse (or great cataclysm as it was called in the story?), the emergence of dungeons and monsters, the entire population of the earth was transported to other worlds in order to gain experience fighting, training and thriving in the new order to come. To this day, I never saw a story (translated) that introduced this premise. Maybe there is now and I'm just out of the loop. But for the time it was a breach of fresh air and novel.
After having been feed junk food (isekais mangas/shonens with no sense) for a long time, EER was the messiah that kick started my addiction to webnovel and dungeons type novels stories taking place in modern day. This story raised a high bar for the expectations of korean novel in gen and Dungeon Defense just renforced it. I can spend hours just talking about the premise and novelty of it (for me) at the time with my friend.
It was a masterpiece.
Honestly, the translation, writting, pace, and ohhh boyyy... the fights scenes were just... muahhhh. A masterpiece, the usage of the system was good, the MC was Overpowered and I loved it. Ultimately, what pushed me to give up on this story were the long filler chapterS of Yu Il-Han crafting and the severe lack of character interactions. It was too much for me. Things on Earth weren't touched enough for me, too much crafting, battling, farming and grinding. At one point it was just tiring. I took a break and never came back to it.
This novel could have been rated higher at least for a note if it kept me hooked to see it till the end. Still, I can't deny the impact that it have on me. It's why it's on the list even if I didn't read more than 200 chapters. Nonetheless, a great introduction to the genre and a must if you want to start your journey.
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JP (4.4)
184 Chapters Every 117.1 Day(s) 22950 Readers 209 Reviews 11-28-2022
15/20. ... more>>
The year? Somewhen in September-October 2019, at the start of my second year of college. What to say about this novel? Well to start, at this point in time, I already have an aversion for Japaneses (isekais)/Chineses (cultivations ) novels. Well, another Isekai, but this one is a satyr of the genre... somewhat... not exactly but oh well. This was an entertaining read for me, 2 days of late-night reading and laughs. I don't have a lot of things to say about this.
This was really enjoyable. Sometimes, it's good to read a story that doesn't take itself seriously. And at its core, this novel gives you that. Great read, still has its weakness but seeing that it's not a story about saving the world from a demon king/alien/devil race, it's alright. If I'm motivated, it will not be bad to watch the anime too.
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CN (4.4)
#9Zhui Xu
29 Chapters Every 123.6 Day(s) 1691 Readers 11 Reviews 12-15-2021
16/20. Ahhhh Angry Banana... you beautiful bastard. I f*cking love this author work. ... more>>
Where to start? The year? 2022.
But well before even starting to read this novel, I must say Zhui Xu is a novel that I have been eyeing since 2017~2018. It was after having finished reading a whole 70+ chapters of Hidden Assassin. This author first? work. Hidden Assassin is one of the really, really good reincarnation stories where our main character has a second chance at life since childhood. There are not a lot of novels on this platform that have this kind of premise where you follow along the development of our MC through life from childhood to adulthood and still feel oddly satisfying.
Hidden Assassin was this kind of work. And from the little that I read of Zhui Xu (though the MC's second chance doesn't start in his childhood but well into adulthood and already engaged), it even has a better start than Hidden Assassin. The writing, translation (and I must EMPHASIZE on that), pace, and characterization are really good. Every side characters feels like breathing, thinking people. But unfortunately, translating this story poses a major challenge for translators. The author's use of traditional poems and style of writing is really challenging to properly convey in another language. I've been eyeing this work for 5~ years or so because of the lack of translating chapters before just giving up and diving head first. To this day, I'm still waiting for this story and hidden assassin to be picked up so that I may restart reading his works.
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JP (4.8)
0 Chapters Every 2000 Day(s) 5970 Readers 54 Reviews N/A
18/20. ... more>>
I don't remember much of the story. I still know that it's on my list and I read it pretty much right after finishing #6. But I remember at least this much, an arranged marriage, a sick wife? An open ending? Bittersweet for me in its conclusion, but poignant story with two great protagonists, and an excellent pacing in terms of romance. I don't regret reading it one bit and may go back to reread it and also the alternate story which happen from the point of view of the female lead. A must if you have a slow and lazy afternoon on a weekend of a sunny day.
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CN (4)
341 Chapters Every 155.3 Day(s) 11789 Readers 156 Reviews 12-31-2017
12/20. ... more>>
Ahhhh. The nostalgia devil is strong in this one... Where to start?
I had to take a good 2-minute break to reminisce about this story and organize my thought while writing this. Well, I guess we can start with a trip to memory line.
The year? Summer 2017.
But before starting to talk about this novel, I had to mention that the second novel I ever read was its cousin. Or if we can call it that. Like the 'Every masterpiece has a cheap copy' meme, My Wife is a Beautiful CEO has his pale imitation.
My cold and Elegant CEO wife.
Granted, MWBC isn't a masterpiece... but you know what I mean. God of Music (Yes, I read it and yes it's for me a cheap copy even if chronologically it's debatable) for Top Management, The Editor is the novel's extra for TNE, etc...
But at least, years later I can say I'm ashamed of my adolescent-ass reading more than 400 chapters of My Cold and Elegant CEO Wife and loving the absolute sh*t of it! God, it was that cringe and bad. God, I was that cringe and bad for laughing at the MC face-slapping-sperm joke. In my defense, it was novel and I never heard that joke before. It was a good one tho.
But I thank MYCEC for at least introducing me to MWBC. It was a solid 4.4 six~seven years ago. And for good reasons too. Damn, I used to swear by this novel, declaring it one the best ones I had ever read to my friend, urging him to read it too. Decrying that by comparison, MYCEC was tr*sh. A mere imitation daring to emulate what made MWBC work. And contrary to MYCEC, MWBC did have a plot. An intrigue centered around the MC, Yang Chen, and his past, skills, motivations, actions, etc... It was the same for his wife and some other females lead.
The hype and adulations were real for My Wife is a Beautiful CEO. I had to stress, now it doesn't make sense for the hype that this novel had, for a long time, been the subject of. Now, the novel rating perfectly reflects the quality of this work, in my opinion.
However, when there was less than 300 hundred chapters translated and with the platform being already at the time saturated with this genre, MWBC managed to stand out from the rest. The pace, intrigue, drama, and interpersonal relationships between the cast was really good. It was a mile better than any other novels in the same genre, with the same premise.
Unfortunately, the novel took a dive in later chapters. Granted again, it wasn't perfect. But for this kind of story, it was excellent at was it did. The MC, who was described as street smart, cautious, and I guess somewhat genre savvy in a show-do-n't-tell kind of manner throughout the story (Which is another +), began to make dumb and dumber decisions which came to bite him in the ass along with everyone he cares for. Sometimes, or more like most of the time later on in the novel, he was the instigator either by him being led by his d*ck or by his inaction.
The constant drama surrounding the Female lead Ruoxi? didn't help ever. Be it with her family-author-fuel-rape/kidnapping-fetish or with Yang Chen's tendency to add multiple people to his relationship. The last one is head-scratching, like I can see where the girl is coming from but at the same time... wasn't she more or less ok at the beginning(?). Can't remember too well, but it was damn annoying. If the author thought that it was realistic for a wife to be against that (it is but then again any respecting woman irl would have divorced his ass a long time ago lmao) and we would praise him for shoving us the nth Yang Chen/Ruoxi dispute down our throat... it has another thing coming.
Ultimately, while I fell out of love with this novel, hard, I still had fond memories of it. It was a good wish-fulfillment Urban Fantasy novel and did manage to entertain me for quite some time. I even did read the MTL. Happy to see that it's completed and Kudos to Veratales translator(s) who work on this for such a long time.
P.S: I manage to remember that the novel even has fanfics of it on Webnovel. Yang Chen has been basically replaced by Naruto in the one I stumbled upon. Which just says how much the novel was/is popular. Along with Release that Witch.
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KR (4.1)
25 Chapters Every 276.3 Day(s) 10054 Readers 214 Reviews 09-07-2020
11/20. ... more>>
2022. The year I started reading this story.
Oh boy, was this story glorious. At least the first 200 chapters. Easly 16~17/20. After a whole f*cking lot of time without my fixes of a decent/good self-serving, smarmy, conniving and unrepentant son of a bit*h of a main character, I was like a drug addict craving for his fix. RIM? It was the fix that I didn't know that I was still craving. And like a person stranded in a desert without water, I Injected this sh*t directly in my veins!
This novel for a time managed to scratch this particular itch that I have. Unfortunately, this novel quickly, but steadily took a dive in the stakes presented. Every problem that the MC and his teammates encountered along the line was easily resolved without tension. Without even taking into account the number of crazy but fiercely loyal and overpowered in status, strength, or talents female members/allies (later haremettes) that keep falling on the MC's lap. This. This manages to kill any stakes in terms of conflict resolution in the story and later on smothered any kind of interest that I have left. This an excellent example of a novel with a somewhat cliché premise that started good and promising, suffering for a subpar/terrible execution.
There are a ton of those on this platform, and unfortunately, RIM doesn't stand out from others.
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JP (4.3)
CN (3.6)
39 Chapters Every 354.5 Day(s) 6200 Readers 99 Reviews 06-02-2017
10/20. ... more>>
Well, contrary to the note attributed, I did enjoy reading this novel. It has its faults and shortcomings, of course. But it's on my list for a reason. I think a lot of veteran novel readers are going to disagree with me on that one just by taking a look at the title of this list of recommendations.
And I'm of the same opinion. It's certainly not worthy of even being in the top 100 of best Chinese web novels. Yet this novel left a good impact on me and my experience.
Let's start it, shall we? I think that after a certain milestone, we're sometimes well past the point of caring too much about the kind of material that we spend our time reading, even knowing that the novel is probably tr*sh or painfully average, we still keep reading it. Why? Because it's sometimes good to just shut your brain and read a novel. You can still be engrossed by it despite its numerous faults.
This is my case with I Have a Mansion in the Post-apocalyptic World.
The premise of the novel, again at the time for me, was novel. For really long-time dwellers of this site, I am sure there weren't a lot of novels translated with this premise. It was written in 2014? I started reading this somewhere in 2018 after I think Top Management. A quick re-read for a refresh and it's even worse than I remember. Logic wise. There is not really a concrete worldbuilding, and the storytelling is all over the place. And yet...
Yet, I still reminisce fondly while thinking of this novel. Again that's why it's on this list. It's a wish fulfillment. It started with our MC Yang/Jiang Chen(?) obtaining a device that allowed him to be transported to an alternate future in which a nuclear war had happened. With hindsight, if the displacement was permanent, the story would have been even more interesting I think in terms of challenges and stakes presented, but harder for the author to write. He already did a bad job with the post-apocalyptics logic side of the fic, and to be honest, it's also the case for the present/modern day side of the fic. However, it was this side that I loved.
Again, I didn't take this novel seriously and decided to read it as novels in general with this kind of premise were intended to be read for... wish fulfillment. I love the escalation of wealth and prestige that the MC achieved throughout the story. I love the business building and management side of the novel. I had a lot of fun reading through an arc in the post-apocalyptic future where he vanquished some great adversary, grew his fame, his army, and his standing, to later on use his assets to further develop his company in the present. Now that I'm saying this. It was pretty much this formula, rinse and repeat.
Of course, there was a lot of annoying and dreadful to-read arcs which I skipped. Most were from the post-apocalyptic side, and the one coming to my mind, even several years later, was the one about some kind of simulation(?) À la Sword Art On line Alicerization or something, but it's definitely was centered around one of the female leads and I think later hamerette.
Anyways, it has its shortcomings but I was still from time to time, reading this novel till around the time COVID-19 started to be a thing. I roughly read 600~ chapters of this. In terms of chapters read, it's probably in the top 3 of novels I read the most. And If I still can remember the name of the main character (kind of), after all these years, then in my book, it did leave a great impact.
I used to say back then that the story was carried by the MC, and for a wish fulfillment fic? It's kind of a good achievement.
P.S: My friend also has this tr*sh/bellow average lengthy novel that he stuck through the year and kept reading until a certain time. It has like more than 7000 chapters and it was call something like, To be a farmer in another world? or Bringing farming method into another world? Something like that, it's Chinese and every time we talk novel, we always go back to our respective péché mignon.
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