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This is... a difficult story to rate.

If you love stories, if you are a reader, I am sure the narrative themes will resonate with you. It is after all, a story about stories, reading, writing, creating, and how they all come together in one big circle. But that doesn't mean it is objectively well-written as a story itself.

Story setting and themes: 9/10
I will be honest that before starting ORV, I thought I would be reading another one of those KR-isekai S*lo L*veling-esque stories, but no, it was far more ambitious than I thought it would be. The story and setting started in a subway carriage ... of 20? 30ish people, expanded to Seoul as a stage, then moving on to other planets, other dimensions, and the universe. I never once thought that the writers failed to rein in the vastness of the stage they set up the story in. There was a good control on the scale of things - of course some details or characters would be sacrificed in view of the larger scale but that was inevitable.
and the epilogue chapters brought it to a full close, which I very much appreciated.

Story pacing and writing: 6/10
So yes, when ORV gets good, it gets REALLY good. However, 550+ chapters is also pretty long. A quick search tells me that the English-translated version of ORV is around 1.3 million words - to put that into perspective, all seven books of Harry Potter is around 1.1 million words. Whew.

And that brings me to the argument that the pacing and writing in ORV is... not great. Yes there are some really good parts (can't get over the epilogues) but there are also a lot of unnecessary descriptions and side plots that the word count is simply wasted on. I don't need to read a paragraph on how the same kids ride on the same creature and how the same JK commands the same army in every single fight they engage in. I don't need to read about how someone brandishes a sword and another takes a stance and so on and how the gang all line up together in every single damn fight. Those just end up making reading a chore and a lot of things between the 73rd Demon King selection arc until the you-know-who kidnap arc are a blur to me because I just couldn't be bothered with some of the details. And not to mention the amount of mini-arcs and fights that happened in between that really kind of just muddled the real focus and climaxes. Even though they are less-important arcs in view of the whole story, the writers expanded on all the details and fights using similar descriptions, making it feel repetitive at times. Which is a huge shame, because, as I said, when it gets going, it GETS GOING. In my opinion some of these can and should get cut out to emphasize the real climaxes. I could be feeling this way partly because I binge read it in Korean and was eager to reach the Epilogue. Since it's not my first language, I read slower, but I do honestly think the pacing can be better.

Character: 8/10
The difficulty in dealing with ORV's cast is that, not only do the human characters vary widely in age, nationality, ethnicity, personality, and skills, the cast also includes other worldly beings, mythical creatures, inanimate objects, among others. In the grand scale of things, I thought that ORV had a pretty good hold on its large cast. But I wanted to highlight the three main pillars of ORV, and three of the most well-written in it.

A reader, a protagonist, and a writer. Three beings that need to gather in one place to make a story. Undoubtedly they dominated the screen time, and rightly so, and were the most interesting among the bunch. The writing and characterization were consistent, and subtle enough that it allows some room for interpretation. I shouldn't be putting the names to each role since that'll be major spoilers, but I also appreciated the care that was put into building the relationship and history between them, and that really tied in well with the theme and ending parts of the story.

Enjoyment: 7.5/10
A bit conflicted on this. I genuinely loved the themes and story setting. The characters were also very endearing. But this simply dragged out for too long, and that really affected my reading enjoyment. But overall, I really loved the premise, and I would love to find the time to reread this again.

This story isn't just a story, it's an experience. It messed with my head in the best way possible, blurring the lines between reality and fiction, making me question everything I thought I knew about stories and their power. Kim Dokja? What a legend.
His journey had me on the edge of my seat, laughing, crying, and everything in between. And the way it ended... I'm still reeling from it. The world-building, the character development, the intricate plot twists... it all came together so beautifully.
I can't recommend this enough. If you haven't read ORV yet, what are you waiting for? It's a wild ride ... you won't regret.

Throughout all the other 10/10 reviews on this site, it appears that I’ll be the first to provide actual criticism for this story.

This review will have 2 parts: the first section will focus on the positives of the novel, while the second will be used to explain the negatives. I’ll try to maintain the foundational logic of my critiques to be as objective as possible.

POSITIVES————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

1. Overall plot writing:

- For the most part, ORV retains a healthy consistent pacing throughout itself; it rarely feels dragged out, nor does it ever feel rushed.

- The novel’s story-telling makes great use of many narrative plot techniques, such as ... Chekov’s Guns, callbacks, framing devices, time paradoxes, foreshadowing, twists, etc. This creates a strong and immersive experience, and it makes the reading much more memorable.

- To me, the strongest aspect in this field would be its overall plot setup/development: never in the story does the plot feel lackluster or redundant. The writers know how to introduce novel twists and developments to keep the plot constantly feeling fresh and intriguing. ORV impressively ends VERY strongly using this aspect to its fullest.

- There are still some weaknesses in the plot that I’ll cover later on, but overall, I would say that it maintains integrity. Just from its uses of narrative applications, one can tell that the authors are very talented and experienced in writing.

2. Narrative themes

- ORV hinges a lot on its metafictional themes and executes them brilliantly (for the most part). This is especially beautiful with how themes are linked to and supports the character writings of the main cast.

- The story themes also feel very unique and original with how it ties in escapism with the philosophy of the reader, writer, and character. All of this is to say that it makes the novel much more memorable and influential.

3. The worldbuilding:

- For me, this story’s worldbuilding is probably the strongest aspect of the story. The way it weaves together many different tales and epics throughout history and integrates them throughout the story is nothing short of impressive. I especially love how it references and pays homage to Lovecraftian Mythos.

- I would say that the novel does use a pretty basic power system, being the typical gamer level-up system, but it still integrates decently throughout the story. Overall, its worldbuilding aspect is what I am the most impressed with within this novel.

NEGATIVES———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

1. Other areas of plot writing:

- HOOK: The story starts off with a pretty weak hook. This is mainly because the main character, KDJ, acts as Gary Stu in the beginning who’s almost always in control of the situation. The beginning of this story can’t help but feel like an intellectual power fantasy self-insert, which kills the reader’s investment into the main character, and this also kills the tension. Past the Beast King arc, this Gary Stuism does stop, but its issues with tension still persist.

- TENSION: To me, the biggest narrative issue with this story is the lack of tension. The Gary Stuism of the beginning creates the start of the tension deficit issues, but this issue never gets resolved because there’s always a persistent feeling that nothing permanent will ever go wrong with the main cast. The story does try to build tension by adding stakes and putting characters in precarious positions/situations, but doing so only creates temporary tension. The lack of actual payoff for permanent consequences always nerfs the *overall* tension, which also kills the reading investment into this story. And even when there is an actual consequence, it would be towards a character that has little relevance in the story or has lost their relevance in the current story. While the plot itself may be interesting, the overall reading experience becomes much more dull as a result. However, the ending/epilogue of the story does a decent job of restoring the lost tension to an extent.

- PLOT WEAKNESSES: While there aren’t many plot weaknesses or plot holes in the story, and most of them are minor, there is one significant one that has strongly and negatively altered my entire perception of this story. For the sake of spoilers, I won't go into the specific details of the plot, but there is one incident that does need to be addressed. I am talking about an event that occurs after a certain battle in a certain arc.
— The event was essentially a poorly-written revelation incident that occurred after the most *peak* battle in the novel, where, for the first time, the tensions and stakes felt real. That shit was perfect, until the revelation happened, and then all my faith about the story tensions completely tanked. It was so disappointing that I pretty much had to force myself to finish the novel after this.
— Furthermore, the execution of this revelation was terrible. There was absolutely no buildup or foreshadowing in this reveal; the revelation was made out of the blue in such a trivial manner. That was a textbook example of deus ex machina (which is ironic because ORV criticized this plot device a few times). As a reader, I feel tricked into even caring about that battle in the first place.

2. Character writing: Let me first preface this by saying that I am a seinen reader, so my standards for character writing are pretty high, which may come off as overly strict in this regard (EDIT: What I mean is, I emphasize character writing a LOT more than the average person, and given that ORV is a plot-driven story rather than a character-driven story, it's possible that many readers won't care as much for this section as I do.) I still believe that ORV’s character writing is better than your average story, but it’s far from peak or perfect.

- SIDE CHARACTERS: Firstly, the side characters are pretty shallow and two-dimensional. Their personalities and actions are very predictable for the most part (in the sense that they follow the standard fictional character tropes, and they don't really change/devlopment beyond one moment in the entire story), and half of them just insufferably glaze the hell out of KDJ. Like, there are literally three characters whose entire *surface* personality is just about competing who can glaze KDJ more. However, most of this *is* personal bias, and I don't really have a BIG issue with not all side characters being super developed, but there is one actual and objective issue I have with the side characters.

- Oftentimes, ORV tries to add what I call “fake character development/depth” to these side characters. One example is a character who supposedly develops by overcoming their “fear of facing the outside world”. Now this “fear” is reflective of their surface personality trait, but it is not at all reflexive of any of their significant actions. Like, despite their “fears”, this character has always been “facing the outside world” head-on throughout all the significant plot. Hell, even in their character introduction, they voluntarily tried to take control of a massive panic situation. Additionally, none of their actions at all had a noticeable change from before and after this development. This “fake character development/depth” is pretty much applicable to the rest of the side cast to varying degrees of application, and even some to KDJ himself to an extent. However, he does have some redeemable character writing to where I can overlook those aspects.

- OTHERS: There are about three characters in ORV that are relatively well-written, which are the protagonist (KDJ), the deuteragonist, and the tritagonist. They all have something about them that makes them memorable, and they all have character flaws that they overcome — at least in a way that I can consider “actual” character development because it reflects their choices and actions where it’s significant to the plot. However, the character writing itself is still flawed: only two of these characters have actual depth (KDJ and deuteragonist), and only another two have actual uniqueness (deuteragonist and tritagonist).

- KDJ does have depth as a character, but the dude’s personality is just boring. And it’s not an “interesting” bland like Saitama from OPM is, where the blandness is much more nuanced within the context of his personality; no, he’s just not an interesting MC. This is even canon to the story because it quite literally states in his backstory that he's an uninteresting person. You could describe him as being witty or clever in certain situations, but such traits aren’t even expressed in a unique or interesting way like Joseph Joestar, for example. This makes the process of investing into his character a lot more difficult.
— Furthermore, the execution of KDJ’s character is flawed. During the beginning of the novel when he was a Gary Stu, his backstory just felt hamfisted. When his backstory suddenly popped up, it was hard to understand the relevance of it towards the current plot beyond "oh, he just LOVES stories", which isn't sufficient to create depth. Therefore, it was hard to even care about it. The significance was revealed much much later in the story, but I have to disagree with this being an effective method in conveying KDJ’s character. This is because had I known about the significance earlier, I would have been more invested in KDJ early on and thus would’ve enjoyed the story more. It just feels like a waste that this was only revealed much later on.

- Next, is the deuteragonist. To me, he’s the most well-written of the bunch overall, but there is one nitpick I have on him. The novel just falls flat in expressing his emotions, specifically his anger. He just gets violent whenever he’s angry, but beyond that, he just usually expresses it by glaring at what he’s angry about or just saying the flattest “I’ll kill you.” Now this is fine during low-stakes moments or when it’s just banter, but during super emotional or supposedly tense moments of the story, his expression of anger just feels dull and unrelatable. This is also applicable to KDJ, though to a lesser extent. It’s possible this could be an error in translation, but it’s an issue regardless.

- Last, the tritagonist, who has an aspect of uniqueness to their character, but they really have no depth. Depth is defined as the complex internal logic of a character that can be attributed to their actions and thoughts. The protagonist’s internal logic would be how he loves a story, and the deuteragonist's depth would be his unyielding resolve and his tragic fate. The tritagonist, however, just doesn’t have any of that. Many questions relating to “why” they commit a certain action just can’t be explained in the same level of depth as the other two characters. Nevertheless, they are still a rather interesting character that has other redeemable aspects.

- I’ll also add that SP is also a pretty well-written character on their tier as well, but they don’t have the same level of impact as the other three.

- VILLAINS: The villains for the most part are pretty dogshit and uninteresting. There are about 2 exceptions; One's a spoiler and the other's in the Dark Castle Arc (although this one's a bit mid in comparison, but they're better than the other villains in the novel), and that’s about it. Plus, one of them are overarching villains. However, I suppose the story is more orientated on the man vs nature/fate conflict (the nature/fate being the star stream itself) than man vs man. But it’s still a weakness that could’ve been improved regardless, because it's not as if improving villain writing would've impacted any other part of the story's integrity.

3. Fights: Now this is more of a nitpicky section, but it’s worth mentioning. Oftentimes during the fights in ORV, the positions of the characters aren’t described well, especially when there’s complex terrain/geography of the fight scene setting. This could also be a translational error, but it really makes the high-stakes moments of the story a lot more confusing to read. Half of the time, I don’t know where the hell a character is at in a given moment, so I make an assumption and keep reading until I see an event that contradicts the character’s position, and then reread the section. This just makes the overall reading experience a lot more shaky and annoying.

FINAL STATEMENTS——————————————————————————————————————————————————————

ORV has some tough moments here and there for me, but there are some truly special moments that can make up for it somewhat. Overall, the novel is a pretty enjoyable read, but I don’t see myself ever rereading this novel ever again. Based on my review, I’ll give the story an overall rating of 6.5/10, rounding up a 7, which I feel is a generous score. Personally, I can’t find myself recommending this story, but it can still be worth checking out for some.