This was written in 2017 and apparently South Korea and Japan had issues with a comfort women agreement they had made in 2015. The author seems to incorporate sentiments into their work, so you can see Korean nationalism at work here. This isn't particularly uncommon in the grand scheme of things. I've read a lot of Korean actor webnovels where the MC stars in some scenario that involves depictions of ab*se committed by the Japanese during their colonialism or war history (interestingly some novels even have MC play a Japanese soldier). This novel seems to have the author share their thoughts through the MC's on the issue, but it seems very clearly anti-Japanese on the issues presented. The MC makes commentary on how they feel Japan has a victim complex because of WW2, and ignores their own historical issues. That's a pretty heavy topic and it is only mentioned like once and the characters call the Japanese tr*sh after watching Grave of the Fireflies. It felt a bit aggressive, but I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the subject myself to criticize the author for their opinions on the issue. Anyway, as far as for readers, it requires some background knowledge of the agreement to know what's going on. I had to look it up, but also maybe I don't watch the news enough lol.

The author also uses references to real life people. This is nice when the MC is experiencing their lives. I learned the names of some people that I looked later because I'm uncultured. Although, specifically, the author inserts Tarantino, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Will Smith into the novel and I don't get why they didn't just make up people. I don't know if they used other real names. It feels a bit awkward for me with the use of real people. Especially because Tarantino is depicted as very eccentric. Randomly flashing to real people breaks reading flow a bit because of surprise. The author alters them to highlight MC. I think it would have been better to just not use real people or at least do a play on the names.

The story gets very soap opera later. MC's wife is actually the daughter of a rich man and was kidnapped as a child. No real purpose for this except that now MC's father-in-law can introduce him to Hollywood. So instead of getting into Hollywood because of his performance at international film festival, it was personal connection. Anyway, there's other soap opera like moments to me and they work out to the convenience of the MC all the same.

MC also has meaningless "rivalry" with a Chinese/Japanese American actor. Yeah, if that sounds odd it is. The person is mixed with Chinese and Japanese parents, but only lived in and knows America. Described as without attachments to his cultural roots, but apparently still looks down on MC because Korea used to be a part of China and was colonized by Japan. The rivalry comes to nothing except it shows the MC triumphing over a character that could metaphorically represent 3 countries. Again, the author seems very nationalistic.

The last thing I will note is that in response to being called some racist names, he calls the white people "cracker" and that is certainly a choice. Controversy over the word aside, it was out of line with the MC's kind depiction of being kind throughout the story. Idk why the author would have him say that. The MC seems to be concerned with political and social issues to an extent and it shows through the roles he chooses. So it seems very odd that he'd choose to respond in such a way to some racist remarks. Also, as he uses it, it is basically the author giving their approval of the use of the word to degrade white people. This is a complicated topic, deserves more than a rant on a review of a webnovels, but I wanted to mention it because the author brings up such topics as race and political issues themselves.

Example one, MC has a rival. Ethnically Japanese, Chinese born and raised in America. America is essentially his home but for some reason HE LOOKS DOWN ON MC CUZ BOTH COUNTRIES COLONIZED KOREA?!?!?! LIKE HUH?!? It makes zero sense, hes basically American and probably more white washed than me. You couldve made them hate eachother cuz theyre always competing for roles as two asians, to me that was just unnesesary.

It also feels super out of character for MC. Hes kind, empathetic, elegant, a good husband and a decent person overall. That is until he speaks of his views on fellow east asian countries, then hes a whole new man with strong and controversial political views. Its a pretty obvious self insert, I dont really care about a strangers political views especially considering im not east asian, but its probably a good idea to leave them out of your light novel. Maybe thats just me tho.

It was immersion breaking, my friend who was reading along called it borderline zenophobic. I mtled this and idk exactly what was said but racist things were said by MC to white people too (In self defense but it was out of character and unnecessary). I make racist jokes to my friends all the time, they do the same to me. Ive been to international school my whole life up until uni, due to that I have a pretty multi racial friend group. We constantly say out of pocket stuff, but its to eachother and only if we know the other is okay with it. Infact the friend mentioned earlier is from said friend group, they ended up dropping the novel cuz they found it uncomfy and weird.

to me it was just too much nationalism, maybe im just saying this cuz im not very nationalist.