MC is a lot more unhinged than the cover would suggest lol.

He starts out seeming like a typical but lazily-written regression protag. Suddenly finding himself nearly a decade in the past without any issues, brushing off how he could have regressed in the first place, and making min-maxing in a virtual reality MMORPG his sole priority seems to be an excuse to get the plot rolling. But as the story goes on, his inner narration starts dropping hints before finally jumping off the deep end and showing just how in-character... more>> this is.

MC cares about exactly two things: making his "art" and trolling people. You see that two-sentence synopsis? That's his entire motivation. As of chapter 24, neither the writing nor the general plot are anything special, and the MC being OP and way too knowledgeable about the game prevents there from being any tension. But the MC is an entertaining character and his antics are funny. It's a case of the story being all about the protagonist and his characterization, and if you find yourself entertained you'll like it.

.... But also the MMORPG setting is actually pretty interesting too?? The are monsters with atypical attributes and environments that you wouldn't see in a fantasy game in real life (explosion/flammable related, because that's what our MC is focused on). In what other MMO novel will you see the location of a dungeon literally be inside the rotting corpse of a whale (gross! but unique!). Along with reading about what funny shenanigans the MC gets up to next, I'm actually looking forward to seeing where he goes and the monsters he sees next.

There are some aspects of the game that probably wouldn't be possible/you wouldn't want to implement irl that can break immersion. Like when the game previews a future boss monster, they can't or won't set it to be invincible or set it to be unable to kill players, despite not wanting it to be killable and not wanting players to die accidentally while they show it off. Instead, the mods have game accounts that are basically normal accounts and have to restrain the monster and defend themselves and the audience using in-game magic for some reason??? But if you remind yourself that this is a futuristic virtual reality game and the technology could be really advanced or something, and/or standards and expectations for games could be different you can brush it off.

A 5/5 because it's good at what it does and I'm enjoying myself. We'll see how the writing holds up after another 50~100 chapters, but these first couple of arcs, at least, deserve this rating. <<less