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Jan 19, 2025
A double life is too easy - how about your triple or quadruple life?
The ( somewhat) nameless protagonist of ‘The Academy's Undercover Professor’ must have thought something like that. We don't learn much about him, only that he influenced the world under a few different names. Be it as the ace of an army, a feared master thief or an incredible monster hunter. However, this life now seems to catch up with him when his disguise is destroyed and he has to spontaneously assume the identity of an acquaintance who died in the same attack that destroyed his disguise. To avoid being discovered, he has
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to take on a job as a professor at the best academy in the country and soon realises that both the school and the professor he is now impersonating have some secrets.
Even though it's just one of many names, the protagonist is usually called Professor Lupen, so that's what I'm going to call him here.
To be honest, I don't know if I even need to do that, because I don't have much to write on the topic. The manhwa works for me because the professor, for all his idiosyncrasies, does have a heart for his students and research and so is often caught in a dilemma between his secret goal and his passion for the job. I particularly liked his passion, which often made him appear fatherly and thus won him many friends.
Unfortunately, I have to criticise the 1917191 double lifes that Lupen has here. Everything feels a bit flimsy because there are so many secrets and ambiguities that you're always unsure whether you're understanding everything correctly. So it never feels completely satisfying when one of the 8905449 questions is answered and it's hard to get into the story, precisely because there are so many uncertainties and it's unsure which direction the characters and story are going in.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasise that this feels like Swiss cheese. It's quite tasty, but if you have one too many bites, you'll come across holes that just pile up with the bites. 7 out of 10 potato points.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 16, 2025
If there's one thing I'm familiar with as a German, it's 2 front wars... but even I pale at the ‘only front war’ from ‘The Executed Sage Who Was Reincarnated As A Lich And Started An All-Out War’!
‘DO YOU WANT TOTAL WAR?’, the author of this manga must have thought, and so here we have a demon king who goes to total war. At least he pretends to.
After defeating the previous demon king, the sage Dwight and his lover and heroine are executed. Out of love for the heroine, Dwight does not fight back, because she cannot harm the people she saved. So after
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their bodies are thrown into a ravine, Dwight realises that he is kind of REALLY angry and so he binds his soul to his skeleton. 10 years later, he climbs the ravine and declares war on the (human) world!
That's how I would summarise the purely good aspects of the manga. However, the new demon king Dwight has a secret: in reality, he is only inciting the human nations to stop fighting each other and unite against a great enemy - him. In this way, he is trying to carry out the will of his deceased lover, who wanted to lead the world into an era of peace.
A lot actually happens on this ‘character level’ and I would like to emphasise a lot of it positively. Dwight's character in particular is quite fascinating - he is split between his desire for revenge, his doubts as a former sage and hero and his feelings towards his lover. This doubt plays an important part in the story, as his new friends always have his back. For example, one of them manages to make the undead taste again, which makes him incredibly happy.
While such moments are absolutely positive, Dwight's character is also the manga's biggest weakness. The constant doubting, especially the self-pity that often accompanies the doubts, is a constant thorn in the side, which occurs again and again during the blatant ‘HAHAHAH I'M AGAINST THE WORLD COME HERE YOU LITTLE MISCREATIONS! scenes. It mostly seems out of place, unfounded and as I said, it's just annoying. Especially because many of his enemies are just human scum - for example, here we have a priestess who actively turns the desperate population of a town into red and pink fireworks and takes perverse pleasure in doing so... Dwight NATURALLY falls into his doubts, even though he actually wanted to get such people out of the way in order to achieve his peace.
To summarise, I can say that ‘The Executed Sage Who Was Reincarnated As A Lich And Started An All-Out War’ delivers an interesting story that really has its moments. The characters, especially the protagonist Dwight, are a double-edged sword that provide both welcome variety and annoying distraction. The manga is also quite short with around 50 chapters and it feels like it takes ages to get new chapters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 6, 2025
OH MY GOD HE HATES ME MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI....
if you keep up the “MIMIMI” for at least 45 chapters, you'll have a near perfect impression of “Everything Was A Mistake”.
If you read a lot of manga/manhwa/manhua... or watch a lot of anime, you already know the premise here: girl has read a book and is reborn as the antagonist who dies. A simple concept, but it can work well.
In “Everything was a mistake”, our protagonist Roa Valrose, who is reborn as the antagonist of a book, makes a mistake, as the name suggests, and thus inadvertently befriends the purely evil Nocton Edgar. He even kills Valrose -
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at least in the book she once read. Now she's trying to distance herself from him, but something seems odd...
It's pretty obvious, so I'll say it here: the aforementioned true evil Edgar has of course developed differently than in the book because of their relationship and even loves the protagonist, but stupidly he never dared to approach Valrose because of a really horrible past - torture by his mother among other things. Now it's too late, because with her memories intact, she refuses to listen to her childhood friend.
Now a seemingly tragic romance develops in which Edgar tries to somehow get closer to Valrose. But no matter what he does, she no longer trusts him.
And that is EXTREMELY annoying. Especially because he admits his mistakes and starts doing things that she would have accepted as an excuse just a moment before. He poisons himself, risks being burned as a witch or finally calls her by her first name - a chapter earlier Valrose had mentioned this as a condition for forgiving him, but quite coincidentally she has now received more information, misinterpreted it and so this is no longer enough for her.
Perhaps one could still find a certain charm in this tragic story if it didn't seem so stupid that the protagonist always just happens to decide shortly beforehand that she no longer accepts certain actions as an excuse. It feels a bit like the two of them are running in a hamster wheel while the real culprits poison their food and they blame each other because they are too focused on their shitty hamster wheel and don't really speak out or try to run anywhere other than the hamster wheel.
However, that wasn't the only reason why I abandoned the manhwa. Unfortunately, I only had a really catastrophic version with poor quality available, which consisted of nothing but pixel mush and incorrect translations from Chapter 30 onwards. That quickly robbed me of the last of my patience with the manhwa.
Bottom line: If you're the type of person who truly enjoys love stories and can overlook all the stupid coincidences and missed decisions, if you can look at the tragic love story in Romeo and Juliet and somehow ignore the stupid, inane actions of all the characters, then you might enjoy this. I, however, think Romeo, Juliet and 90% of the other characters are dumber than monkeys, so reading this was a mistake... you get it? It was all a mistake... i am so funny.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 27, 2024
YOU STUPID BASTARDS WHY ARE THE LITTLE PISSANTS STILL ALIVE RAAAAAAR!!!!!!
That's how the protagonist of 'Damn Reincarnation' reacted when he found out that his old comrades didn't keep their promise to really put EVERY demon king under the ground. Once part of the hero squad, he saved his best friend's life by throwing himself in front of him and perished himself. His last words were a promise between him and his comrades that they would definitely remove the last two demon kings from the face of the earth!
Unexpectedly, the protagonist now wakes up 300 years later as the distant heir of his former friend and
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hero. Now known as 'Eugene', he not only retained his knowledge and extremely stoic character, but also inherited the powerful genes of his friend and hero. Nevertheless, it makes him EXTREMELY angry to learn that his comrades did not keep their promise. So he sets himself the goal of finding out what the heck happened that they not only didn't keep their promise, but also simply disappeared about 200 years ago.
After this somewhat lengthy description, I'd like to take the wind out of your sails right away: The mahwa is pretty darn good, but it hasn't gotten any updates since December last year, and there hasn't been any news on what's going on since then. Obviously, I can't recommend a story like this and obviously this also lowers my rating extremely.
That's why I want to keep my praise short, because otherwise this will end in whining about why such an interesting project was (apparently) abandoned. Since I'm extremely interested in history I found it extremely fascinating that the protagonist does a bit of archaeology. Don't get me wrong, he's not digging up old ruins, but he's looking for clues about the past and following the path of his old comrades. In doing so, he rediscovers old graves or secrets, for example.
At the same time, we have a rather classic 'OP protagonist comes out of nowhere and convinces everyone of himself' story here, which becomes funny mainly due to the rather rough, stoic and honest character of the protagonist.
Conclusion: This could easily have gotten 8 out of 10 points, but I'm reducing it to 4 out of 10 due to the extremely long break without any news. My only reason for this is really the break, which probably shows how unfortunate I actually find the whole thing.
Small note: There seems to be a 'light novel' (aka a book with pictures every 50 pages) which is completed. So if you're interested in reading this, maybe you can give it a chance if it's available somewhere - I'll think about it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 27, 2024
OH MY GOD, THIS IS SO HOMO EROTIC ... or something.
That's exactly what I thought when I read the title of “The Villainess, Cecilia Silvie, Doesn't Want To Die, So She Decided To Cross-Dress!”. Obviously, I was expecting some boys to be into the other boy, who is actually a girl - but thankfully that doesn't happen.
I can tell you that because unfortunately I had about 8 hours of 'free time' and couldn't do anything else in that time except look at my cell phone. So I read this out of utter boredom, even if it's about kissing men, I could just stop again!
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Instead, this is the story of a rather clumsy young woman who is destined to die. She's revived as the antagonist of an otome game (i.e. one of those 'innocent protagonist arrives at school and is romanced by all the men if she makes the right choices' games), who dies in litrally every route (depending on which boy the protagonist goes for, we're talking different 'routes') - so she decides to avoid all the trouble by disguising herself as a boy, as this way she can avoid becoming the target of her various potential killers in the first place. However, as the viewer, but not Cecilia, the protagonist of the story, soon realizes, the plan backfires on all levels.
Unfortunately, you have to admit that this type of story is no longer rare, I've only reviewed one here. And to be honest, that's also the biggest criticism of the manga. The setting seems extremely generic at first - apart from my fear that it would develop into KISSING MEN. Unfortunately, it also starts out rather generic.
But soon a story develops that seems more like a parody of the various genres that play into it. Instead of a calculating, all-knowing and planning protagonist, Cecilia is scatterbrained and accidentally lets everything get out of hand, underlining this with wonderfully exaggerated facial expressions that always make you smile. Instead of the 'prince charming' that all the women fall in love with, we get a woman in disguise playing her 'prince charming', which makes all the women fall in love with her, while some guys keep telling her that she's just acting weird - the irony behind it was kind of delicious. It goes on and on and the story keeps the reader on their toes with (for the genre) unexpectedplot twists, which I don't really want to spoil here.
Finally, I would like to praise how long the chapters are. Despite a meagre 24 chapters, I sat with it for about 3 hours, which is a lot for a manga/manhwa/manhua.
Summary: If you're not averse to such stories, I can recommend “The Villainess, Cecilia Silvie, Doesn't Want To Die, So She Decided To Cross-Dress!” as an unusual adaptation of the idea of 'reincarnated as an antagonist in an otome game', but this is by no means a manga I would recommend outside of that description. Accordingly, I give it an average of 6 out of 10 points, even though I can't really criticize much, my praise is also rather meager.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 24, 2024
LET US BE DRAGONS AND SUBJUGATE THE WORLD - or something like that.
Fatally ill, the protagonist only finds joy in an amateur manga, but as it happens in manhwa, he is of course revived in this one! The problem: He may be the son of one of the most powerful dragons of all time, but his death is the spark that makes the barrel explode and thus the start of the 'real' story!
Normally, the manga would now be about Louis - the protagonist as a dragon - becoming stronger and then overcoming his death. I say normally because the author probably found that too generic
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and instead sets up a plot where fate (it's never said what exactly it is, but it seems like 'fate') tries to kill him! Imagine the most improbable event - lightning strikes three times in the same place, the ceiling collapses, the alarm system malfunctions - it all happens and Louis has to fight his way through somehow.
At least that's what the first section is about, later on this fades a little into the background. Instead, the young dragon is soon forced to undertake a long journey. And he may be young, but he's still a dragon. So when a young kid suddenly manipulates a gang of thieves to form a cult to protect the tree he's particularly fond of, it's funny as hell to watch, but should probably be expected.
Louis and honestly all the other characters, which I won't spoil here, are at least amusing, often even hilarious. Some parts lack a bit of depth for me, especially for the protagonist and his companions, but not every manga has to have extremely fleshed out, tragic characters (or something), sometimes ones that just work well and are deep enough to not seem like a piece of cardboard will do. Also, the protagonist (and most of his troupe) is practically still a child, even though he's been alive for 250 years, having much backstory would probably be rather difficult.
Overall, my only real criticism is that the hostility with 'destiny' is becoming more and more faded. The journey is fascinating and offers a lot of potential for future storylines, such as Louis going to collect his tree when he grows up again and as I said, the characters themselves are all at least ok, but most times really well written and funny.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 13, 2024
Let's be honest and just between us MEN - hasn't everyone wished for a group of pretty girls who are head over heels in love with you and read your every wish from your lips? But what if the genie wasn't so nice after all and the wish was twisted?
Then you could end up in Crow's situation. A rather mediocre adventurer who became the leader of the most powerful guild because he reached out to people who were down and out and trained them to become the strongest people.
But precisely because they were once in such desperate situations and because Crow dragged them out of
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the deepest muck, risking or even sacrificing body, soul and dignity, they all became very attached - too attached, you could say. In Japanese / Asian media, there is the character type 'Yandere', which is basically a person (usually female) who is absolutely madly in love with someone and would go over dead bodies for this love - even their own. Crow now has exactly 9 of these characters on his back, while he himself feels out of place because these 9 people are also extremely strong. But when a good friend answers to the question “What are you going to do when I'm no longer your guild master?” with “jump into a chainsaw”, then you can't leave with a clear conscience.
Now some people who are not so familiar with manga, anime and the like may be convinced by this idea alone and read into it, but those who are a bit more familiar with the stuff will know that the idea is not that unusual.
What makes this admittedly very short manga stand out is probably its 'honesty'. At least that's how I would describe it. Usually such stories are lying, promising a weak protagonist and brutal lovers (etc.) but delivering nothing of the sort. But that's not the case here. “Another World's Highest Guild Leader” pulls it off and delivers a weak protagonist and far too strong, brutal lovers and generally very borderline NSFW imagery.
Apart from that, a very interesting dynamic develops that doesn't make everything seem black and white. The protagonist seems to have a tendency to victimize himself, maybe even be depressed, and the Yanderes behave in such extreme ways partly because they want to prevent the protagonist from jumping into the chainsaw himself.
Apart from the fact that this story is very short with 9 chapters, so I want to be a bit careful with my rating and that the full name (“Another World's Highest Guild Leader ~I'm The Weakest In The Guild, But I Can't Quit The Guild Because Of The Heavy Love Of All The Guild Members~”) is once again WAY too long, I have nothing to complain about here. 8 out of 10 potato points!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 12, 2024
I'm ill at the moment and therefore unable to write down my thoughts properly - so I'll keep it short.
"My Second Life Is A Healing Life?" is about a child who has been badly mistreated and has had all the bad luck in the world. He even gets a deadly disease and dies alone on the cold floor. But in the afterlife, the protagonist meets the divine magician of creation, who welcomes him warmly and promises him a new life, surrounded by his beloved family and happiness.
If you've read this far, you can expect exceptionally pretty drawings - of which the manhwa offers a number
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- as well as an extremely good version of the rather classic ''my last life was shit, but my next one will be REALLY good'' theme. The first chapters are really convincing because they are brutal, because they make the child suffer extremely. You feel sorry for the protagonist, your heart aches...
...but unfortunately this does not end after the introduction. Instead, the torment continues, because even if his new life is better, it is by no means good. For example, he loses someone important to him in the first 20 chapters. And that just hurts (me) incredibly.
I can't stand to see a child suffer at all and so I stopped the manga after chapter 20. Maybe you could argue that the manhwa (korean manga) wants to remain “realistic”, but I'm not interested in realism when I read a story like this. A painful and frustrated 3 out of 10 stars, precisely because the first chapters were still really convincing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Nov 4, 2024
231 chapters is quite a chunk, although I read quite quickly, I spent several days reading this and my opinion changed constantly as I read. Because: this is not really a straightforward story, there are twists and turns, ups and downs. While I will try to avoid spoilers, I have to warn you that I would like to talk about things in Chapter 100.
“MookHyang: Dark Lady “ is about Dark. The only person who achieved legendary power and was considered virtually invincible. What do his enemies do? Send him to another dimension!
Here he wakes up and doesn't know where to go. First he finds out
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that it is a different world and soon he has to somehow familiarize himself with the customs, the monsters and even the language. After he feels halfway ready, he sets off on an adventure to find a way back home.
Since the manga is so long and it has two big breaks where it seemed like a new story was being told each time, I want to warn that the description only counts for about the first 30 chapters. In retrospect, they seem like a VERY long introduction, but I really enjoyed them.
I would even say that the introduction is by far the most fun part. First, I was impressed by the unusual, watercolor art style, which provided some unobtrusive but extremely pretty backgrounds and scenes. Dark's adventure feels like exactly that, mainly because he is very curious about the world's abilities and the reader learns more and more about them too.
However, there is a break here that will really drag the next 10-20 chapters into the dirt. There are many reasons for this and I think with 231 chapters I can talk about chapter 30!
Dark is defeated by an unknown force and loses his powers. After a brief continuation of his adventure, in which he searches for a way to get his powers back, he ends up as a count in the kingdom that cursed him and he knows it. So why is he suddenly working with them? The manhwa never really provides an explanation and the switch from light-hearted adventure living to intrigue and war between kingdoms only succeeds after a tremendous amount of time. If I hadn't been so convinced by the 30 chapters, I would have stopped here.
From here on we get to know some really likeable characters and to my surprise the manhwa also manages to mention a very large part of its cast time and time again. It was nice to see familiar faces again and again, even if more could have been done with the characters.
So once the transformation from adventuring life to soldier in search of his powers - or soon to be extremely powerful soldier - is complete, the manhwa drew me into its spell once again. Many of the quality issues - e.g. a near-disastrous translation, strange timeskips (which felt like some chapters had been forgotten) or missing explanations - gradually disappear. The biggest and most exciting part of the story is definitely the fight to somehow defeat Dark. After he made some enemies as a soldier - which was also very entertaining - they try to take him out somehow in increasingly creative ways. However, Dark has learned from his mistakes and is now wary of the forces of the new world, which do indeed threaten him time and again.
With a huge timeskip of 6 years, which made me extremely angry, we come to the last part. It was so terrible that I abandoned it. Since these are fairly new chapters, I don't want to say too much, but my biggest problem is probably that the cautious battlemaster with brains named Dark turns into a rash, arrogant man-child who pulls off actions I couldn't stand.
In general, the Manwa always has problems explaining things. Some of it might be because this is a sequel to another manhwa and simply requires prior knowledge, but there are some situations that can't be excused. For example, why Dark is now working with the kingdom that cursed him or why it went on such an extreme confrontational course in the first place.
Conclusion: "MookHyang: Dark Lady" is a fantastic work that drew me into its spell for well over 150 chapters despite all the quality issues. It looks unusual and creates a genre combo (isekai + murim + op protagonist + intrigue) that I've never seen before and it works fantastically. Mainly because of Dark himself, I could forgive many of the 'flaws' of the manhwa, but when this really good character disappears in the final arc, a 9 out of 10 story turns into a real pain in the ass within a few chapters, and I don't want to give these a single point. Can't recommend a story where I despised the last available chapters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 28, 2024
I think I can keep this one short.
"The Legendary Assassin Reincarnated As The Beloved Youngest Daughter Of A Royal Family" is about exactly what the title says. Other than that, all you need to know is that the protagonist is supposed to protect her new family because they're too sweet to see an assassin when he's standing in front of them.
The idea is generally quite cool. A baby with ninja assassin tricks adds up to a lot, plus there's the big question of who is behind the never-ending assassination attempts. An exciting intrigue plot could be spun out of this - but it isn't. Nothing
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is done with the characters either.
Instead, we get a manga that feels like an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation - or like a chocolate with 99% cocoa - and with so much cocoa, it just doesn't taste good. There's NOTHING here except the concept, which soon becomes just 'young girl defeats assassin'. After 18 chapters it's already pretty boring - I give it 4 out of 10 stars because there MIGHT be something more to come and the concept is really good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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