The Greatest Estate Developer

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[More info about my review style can be found on my profile]

▶Summary and recommendation: -----------------------------------------------------------------
[The Greatest Estate Developer] is a comedic power fantasy with a nasty piece of shit for its protagonist.

Like the title somewhat implies, it is an isekai with the premise of a civil engineer trying to develop his estate, but it all takes a backseat to the comedy.

The comedy alone carried this manhwa for me, but it might not for you. While there is an overarching plot with stakes and some tension, it is not a very original isekai story and if you don't like the humour, I don't think the rest ... of the manhwa can save it for you.

It takes a while for the humour to get going. and a good 20 chapters or so before the faces this manhwa is known for start appearing, so while I want to say "give this manhwa 10 chapters to see if it is for you", you might have to do a bit more than that to see if it is really for you.

It is however very consistent with its humour and you will know if you like it very quickly once you do reach the funny parts. I recommend it, but you have to make sure it is your kind of humour.

I would also warn any readers who do not like his personality and find it off putting, that it is not going to get any better any time soon.

▶Story: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The protagonist Suho kim, a construction worker from South Korea passes away and wakes up in the body of Lloyd Frontera, the son of a noble and a character from a novel he has read.

Lloyd is neither liked nor destined for greatness, disliked by his family, and hated by his subjects, but with knowledge of the future and skills from the real world, he sets out to change all this.

If you are tired of overpowered protagonists going on adventures and hoped the title and premise of this manhwa might mean he won't do that, you will be disappointed. While he continues to be a civil engineer, it does not stop him from leaving his estate behind to go on adventures.

It is a power fantasy of a different variety, where the protagonist uses his deep knowledge of civil engineering to solve problems and gain allies in the fantasy world. As a power fantasy he rarely faces any challenges he can not overcome through various forms of plot armour and convenient luck. It is not a very deep story, and while there is an overarching plot, and some satisfying moments (It is always nice seeing a jerk punch an even bigger jerk) the story is not where the author put all the focus of this manhwa.
That would be the humour.

Humour is extremely subjective, even more than other aspects of a review, so it is hard for me to know if it will be enjoyable to other people. I personally kept laughing consistently throughout the 176 chapters that I read and I felt like the manhwa did an excellent job at staying funny throughout the entire manhwa.

Lastly I would praise the pacing. It never felt slow to me, and there were always new elements introduced to keep the story (and more importantly; the humour) fresh.

▶Setting: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The protagonist is transported into a novel set in a Medieval low fantasy inspired setting. It is a fleshed out setting, with various countries, species, and culures, but there is not much originality

Suho Kim is greeted with videogame like text on a pop up screen when he possesses the body of Lloyd, so there is some sort of god like being gameifying the world for the protagonist, and this plays a central part in the overarching plot of the manhwa.

The author did (as far as I can tell) a lot of research for this manhwa. The protagonist shows knowledge of engineering and engineering history, and uses his knowledge well to solve various problems that might plague a medieval setting. The artist explains in a Q&A that he was instructed by the author to read several books on engineering to be able to portray the protagonist's engineering feats accurately, and as far as I can tell, they did well.

▶Characters: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The protagonist is a nasty piece of work. The original Lloyd is not a good person, but Suho Kim is no better. He is cocky and greedy to a fault, but unlike the original Lloyd he is also crafty, quick thinking and has the skills to put his nefarious plans into fruition. He is very unlikeable, and any character development that might happen, occurs so late in the story it is not worth mentioning in a review.

But he is funny.
He might be nasty, but to me that just made it so much more satisfying to see him be the butt of every joke, and misfortune.

Javier is Lloyd's sidekick and the two make up the comedic duo that the manhwa is centred around. He is the serious one of the two but rarely the butt of the jokes. He has a fairly well developed personality and backstory and his kindheartedness makes the protagonist look even worse.

The cast is surprisingly full of characters with (a tiny bit) more depth than I expected out of a comedy manhwa. I was surprised to see characters I did not expect to see again return much later, once more taking a prominent role in the story.

Lastly the protagonist (or perhaps the author through the protagonist) has some very strong opinions on South Korean politics and society, and the author does not shy away from announcing those opinions.

▶Romance: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Romance? When the entire premise is built on the protagonist being ugly enough to make his own mother cry? It is not a romance manhwa, but perhaps there will be a happy ending for our anti-hero.

▶Artwork: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The art is a really mixed bag, where the character art goes between decent to amazing, while the background art is a consistent bad throughout the entire 176 chapters I read.

Much of the humour of the manhwa is centred on the disgusting face of the protagonist and the extreme detail of his face does a good job at portraying this

Sadly the background art comes up more than just a bit short. There is an extreme use of 3D assets, that mesh horribly with the rest of the scene, even when the majority of the scene is 3D assets. With the premise of the manhwa being architecture and large scale engineering projects and constructions, it is unfortunate that all the buildings and landscapes look so half-arsed.

In addition to this, the action scenes involving Javier can be really hard to track, as there is a lot of just swinging of swords and energy beams with very little direction.

▶In conclusion: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is rare for a comedy manhwa to stay consistently funny for this long, and I am surprised and impressed by it still being funny after over 170 chapters.

But if you are expecting a well written story and hoping the flawed characters will go through any satisfying character development, you will be left wanting.

I really enjoyed this manhwa and I would really recommend it, but I have for the third and final time stress that if the comedy is not for you, then you will not find much to like. Without it; it is just a very standard fantasy adventure isekai but with a very unlikeable protagonist.

I've read a lot of isekai, so when I tried this one - I dropped it in about 15 chapters deep due to it's excessive goofiness. There was nothing of value I could find here.

Then year later I gave it another try and actually enjoyed that a lot. I embraced the goofiness and started to treat it like a comedy and it worked. Quite rarely manga can make me even chuckle, but this one was on par with Grand Blue after first 15 chapters.
Pair it with amazing MCs duo and nice-to-see redemption story and you have a very nice read.

But then something went wrong. You ... see, all the manhwas have "seasons", when after certain chapter something changes (even if author is the same). And by my experience, it's is ALWAYS change to the worst.
"Greatest Estate Developer" suffered from that too. After ~100 chapters, 2nd season started and it immediatelly went downhill:
- characters' relationships came to standstill
- story about "redemption" suddenly stopped
- overall story became grandious to no end where even for the comedy I can't enjoy it anymore
- "funny moments" that made me straight up laugh before became a norm so I can't even chuckle at it anymore (people like ice-creams because they eat it occasionally. But when it is the only food you have for a weeks - you will come to dislike it)
- title became a lie - no more "estate evelopment", it's just a power-manga now

Before season 2 I could easily give it 9/10 - it was extremly enjoyable.
Now I'm feeling like I can drop it at any moment. Yesterday I literally fell asleep while reading last chapter. It's just.. I'm sad

This is a very amateurly written manhwa, the worldbuilding is very uninspired, the background characters are as bland as can be, and the humor just does not land.

I'm not sure how this rated as highly as other works such as "The Horizon." Isekai is a concept that has been done many times, and this does nothing to break the mold. The main character is extremely self-insert, and has absurd amounts of plot armor. He just happens to get the exact gacha roll from the system whenever he needs it. It's possible that these flaws could improve later on in the story but very unlikely.

If ... you are looking for a turn-your-brain off light read without expecting much you may enjoy this, but for anything else I'd recommend other titles.