The World After the Fall

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Being a huge fan of the author's previous work, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, I instantly jumped to read this series and have been following its chapters as they are released. I have not read the light novel, so this review will be based on the manhwa only.

Think of the tower from SAO, but there's multiple of them and they appear in major cities all around the world, along with giant monsters that wreak havoc on humanity. Select people from each country, known as Tower Walkers, are summoned to complete all 100 floors of the tower in order to save humanity from the monsters.

Then things start to ... get interesting. The story quickly introduces an item called a "Stone of Regression'' that can be found in the tower. These stones allow the user to regress in time and restart from the beginning of the appearance of the towers so that one can fix their past mistakes. The protagonist, Jaehwan, loses comrades either by death or regression, but still chooses to continue his climb, vowing to protect the present timeline no matter what.

I'm having a fun time reading this series so far. The art is jaw droppingly gorgeous and the story is pretty captivating as well. The big twist that is introduced in chapter 5 is pretty unique and makes me excited for the future of the series. So far, the characters haven't had much character development, but they are still enjoyable. If you're looking for a good power fantasy with some interesting plot elements, I would recommend trying at least the first 5 chapters of this series to see if it's something you might enjoy. It isn't on the same level as something like Omniscient Reader, but it is quite a fun read. I'm interested to see how this story develops!

Read about 20 chapters in which is close to the amount released at the time of writing, Has interesting ideas that pulled me in initially, but began to really drag on after the first couple of chapters. I can't bring myself to care about the characters, as we're only introduced to the MC at the end of his (initial) journey. They frequently flashback to characters from the MC's past, who we don't know at all and as far as I can tell have no plans to be properly introduced, so there's no emotional impact to any of these scenes. All new characters introduced are so ... far below the MC's power level that none of them seem like they'll be relevant for more than a dozen chapters or so, as the MC seems to get exponentially more powerful every scene he's a part of, while the side characters seem to not have any kind of progression so far. This leaves me hesitant to form any emotional connections with these characters.

The story itself seems to be setting up for quite a long haul, as the world explained throughout the earlier chapters seems to be extremely expansive, and to be honest, I don't even know what the main plot is right now beyond "MC is doing things for the sake of doing things because he doesn't want to regress and so I guess he'll just keep killing stuff." He has no clear goal. Just win, I guess.

It's not bad per say, It's just not particularly good either. Definitely has potential to go into good places, it's just not there yet. Right now it's just perfectly generic in every way.

I will keep it short because I can't be bothered with writing a long review.

The MC was interesting in the start (early 20 chapters) as he had emotions and internal monologues. The world-building was also interesting as the concept of the tower was unique too. But later it just turned into every average regression manhwa although this manhwa is supposed not to use regression troupe which was a unique point early but is now ignored trivia. Our MC lost any kind of emotions that he might have had in the start and just turned into a generic emotionless exaggeratedly powerful guy. Oh, they also tried ... to introduce a red-haired main heroine which appeared for some chapters and then disappeared without any trace, not even a single mention of her.

So just read it if you have so much free time but don't expect anything.

6.9/10


Every manwha can be good in the moment, but it’s trivial in the manwha’s longevity and reader engagement if the manwha doesn’t add anything new or engaging to the usual formula or plotline; as for this, it was somewhat promising in the initial to mid chapters of the story by introducing relatively unique concepts and ideas, but as the chapters progressed, its true colors of a power creep were revealed.

Power creeps are not inherently bad to any story’s existence, however, they usually do not leave a positive influence to the story’s entirety due to the rinse-and-repeat nature or the same old plot events and ... conflict, leading to a rather boring read. As you can probably tell, this manwha doesn’t do much of anything different from the usual power creep, as the only promising chapters were the introduction and “foundation.”

Characters from a power creep story can vary, however, they all fall under one term: disposable. Whether it be side characters or villains, each one of them are disposable according to the author’s whims, and this is no different. Throughout the course of this manwha, numerous of “essential” characters were introduced, but they were ultimately put to the side and forgotten once their small impact onto the story was done and dealt. Each character are heliocentric around the main character, and there’s not much of potential for them to be separate entities from the mc, as they serve one purpose until the mc intervenes, saving the day.

Though the plot follows the same formula of “bearing bad guys until more badder guys show up,” there have been some rather interesting events and turns the manwha takes to explore some conflicts and events. However, these same turns aren’t substantial to the story’s entirety, as they are incorporated awkwardly and seem like filler until the plot truly progresses.

Due to the stunning and mesmerizing battle scenes and art, a manwha can easily attract the commons’ attention, however, if the story is nothing but the same old concept in each chapter, then it can easily lose the interest of readers — this is that manwha. There are instances where I have picked this manwha up again to waste some time, since the art is stunning, and the story is relatively simple, so even if you vaguely remembered the chain of events, it’s still enjoyable, however, it is nothing more than a beautiful time waster, since the storytelling is lackluster.


Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired + A Huang-Teizan Original)
10 - God’s penmanship
9 - Must-read. Drop everything else.
8 - Instant bookmark
7 - Entertaining
6 - Good to pass time
5 - Why are you reading this?
4 - Bad.
3 - Typical garbage.
2 - My head hurts.
1 - Retirement is a thought.
0 - “Did they even give you a story?!”

Basically, this story revolves around the mc, Unfortunately, this story is not like other stories where the mc embarks on adventures with his friends or team members, gathers an elite party, or does other popular stuff (It's not like that mc don't have friends but not like other stories.) But the most distinguished point is that MC doesn't buy the temptation of time reversal/reincarnation/returner stuff. The world where he comes from the Earth has fallen after that he is on a journey long and hard on his way he's trying to save different worlds (saving people precious to him) at the same time nurturing his ... own unique one. Obviously, he made new friends and enemies but even after being alone many times at the end of his adventures, he doesn't fall into despair. It is a story that tells you to take a lesson from your past and move forward with a positive mindset, this is a story with various types of worlds/beings/concepts/dilemmas. I'm only reading Manhwa 90s (chapters till now). It tells even the so-called end of the story is not the true end of a story, it keeps going on and on (continued lol xD
That's why it doesn't seem like something that everyone wants to spend time at but it's not bad either depends on person to person but I'd like to recommend it to those who like Omniscient Reader (you will be able to read about Kim Dokja and other stuff like star stream events in the chapters after 90s) or at least wanna try something new xD
I just gave some hints it doesn't count in spoilers, right ??? 🤣🤣

To start off, the first 50 chapters for me were a solid 8. The start was quite something giving you a ton of information with very interesting world building, it is a bit much but really fine and from there on out it looks really promising

Chapter 50~100 aprox is the real first arc, for me it is 9.5/10, absolute astonishing fights, very interesting power system, really good side characters and really superb villains. From here on out the story starts getting intense and serious, reading that arc made me fall in love with the manhwa, as it looks to close on some questions contiuning the ... story

But the newest arc chapter 100~(at this point in time)145, absolute horrible shitshow, completely 360 the series, all the seriousness is gone, all characters previously build up get thrown away almost, new characters get introduced that completely destroy the instensity and make it feel like a comedy goofy manhwa, it is super weird to read, im really close to dropping it. I just hate everything about it, even though there a few reedming moments, I'd rate this arc a 2/10, absolutely abymsall, diabocial, not utilizing a single character build up in the previous 100 chapters, just feels like an entirely new story, that is just disgustingly weird

Overall 6/10

Okay, the TLDR is do not read this Manhwa if you value your time. It is quite literally, all over the place in terms of story and plot. I was recommended this after reading a different Manhwa called Omniscient Readers Viewpoint claiming that both stories took place in the same world. Clarification, 55 chapters in and they are NOT. That doesn’t ruin the score I just figured people should know. But let’s get into a breakdown to better clarify my thoughts. Spoilers ahead!

Story 1/10
You’re going to hear me say this a lot, but the premise of this whole manhwa starts out pretty interesting. The ... idea of towers sprouting up around the world that need to be beaten RPG style was a cool premise that had a lot of potential. If the entire story took place inside the tower and explored the worldbuilding, consequences, and characters inside I think the score would be a lot higher. Instead, we get a brief introduction to our characters “trauma” which lasts maybe 1 chapter and then he breaks “out” of the tower into basically a fantasy world. And since he technically cleared the tower and faced an unbeatable foe, he is just super OP. This takes place like 5 chapters in or so, and after that the story just focuses on this new world and is a mid-tier world building that gets retconned every 10 chapters or so.

Characters 3/10
What can I say, 1-dimensional and bloated cast. It’s a real shame, again I feel like if they just spent even a fraction of a second exploring the main characters literally MILLIONS of years of trauma in the tower it would be more interesting. And we kind of get a glimpse of that when he faces the 99th floor boss and even less of a taste when he interacts with the female heroine, after realizing she too is human. HOWEVER, THEY LITERALLY JUST WRITE HER OUT OF THE STORY. The best character and arguably the perfect foil to our MC’s stoic, broody nature, and she just POOF, disappears after she is cured of ghoulism. She is instead replaced with an old man who kind of serves as comic relief. Then they start adding other characters who I can literally only describe by their powers. Fire-Guy, water-guy, smart-guy, lighting-guy, ect. And out of ALL these characters lighting-guy is like the only one to have a “backstory” if you can even call it that.

Worldbuilding 4/10
I’m going to skip the parts I touched on in the Story section about the tower and just focus on the world of “Chaos”. This Iseki land is, at first, meant to be the afterlife. Souls come here to live for eternity. They set a bunch of rules in place about how higher beings can’t interact with Chaos, but they retcon this pretty quickly. They also add a place called the “abyss” which holds some life fruit that can return someone to life and that is the ONLY goal of our MC for no reason. The sort of personal reality of “ascenders” or whatever the MC and old man are, is kind of interesting. Seeing the world through your own eyes but it only serves to make our MC look more badass.

Art 8/10
Good art, good on some scenes, wasted on others. In the typical Manhwa art style so nothing to write home about.

Power System 4/10
The power system starts off as an RPG style, video game thing. Characters get XP from killing tower monsters and level up skills and all that. It’s not really explained in depth and is instead exchanged for “Adapters” and “Ascenders” which are basically people who exceed the limits of the RPG leveling system supposedly. However, after clearing the tower you never see this system again and all power relies on basically “magic” or practicing 1 thing for like a million years. Lazy and forgettable.

Alright rant session over if you read this far thanks and good luck. Just don’t want to see anyone waste their time. I mean it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever read so if you have time to waste give it a shot otherwise go read literally anything else!

Doesn't deserve a proper review tbh. This is your average power fantasy centered on an OP MC who keeps getting stronger and stronger.

There are two things that make this manga eventually become lifeless:

1. Plot:
The plot starts simple with a survival tower game and such. It takes a while to setup MC. But once you finish the tower arc, it sets up a whole different dimension where MC is transported to. The world just keeps on expanding. There are also a ton of characters introduced and i can hardly understand the motivations of all these different sides. The plot moves at such a rapid pace, ... that it feels like you are fast forwarding it. Finally, all these lead to a completely convoluted mess and you are just reading the manga hoping that you will eventually understand it smh.

2. MC
This MC starts weak, but he keeps getting stronger. The problem is the absolutely ridiculous rate at which he grows. Technically, the MC is supposed to be practicing for hundreds of years, but it will just be a few panels for us, and suddenly he is 10 times stronger. AND YET, even after 68 chapters of continuous growth, there are still a lot of enemies up the hierarchy. All this power scaling kinda makes you numb after a while. You more or less know that MC will have a sudden realization, and smh modify his attacks to become stronger than 10 times. I am not even hyped anymore when i see stronger attacks, it just feels normal.

There are also issues like a nonsensical magic/power system and i am like almost sure that the author is just making this shit up as he goes.

With that said, atleast the characters are fun. The old man you meet in the another dimension is hilarious and becomes your first fighting partner. and the blue greatsword guy is a hard worker and i can't help but root for him. Basically, anyone partnered with MC during a fight is a decent character, most of the other characters are just noise who exist to be shocked by MC or praise MC etc..

I will recommend read skimming this instead of spending too much time. But if your time is valuable, skip this and you won't miss anything great.