Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2018
- Messages
- 4,806
Agree with every bit.In my opinion there's nothing bad about having an OP MC, but for a story with OP main character to work the author themselves must give more thought about how they will lay out the story, otherwise it will come of as just your typical power fantasy with nothing going for it as time goes.
The best examples I can bring out to compare are Solo Leveling vs Latna Saga, while both of them are manhwa and not manga (it's technically a "manga" but from KR) it's the two that pop out of my head first when I saw this topic being brought up, both of them have their own OP protagonist but the difference between them is night and day the deeper you dive into their story.
I'll try my best to avoid spoiler but here's basically how it feel like to me reading both of them, while Solo Leveling has good concept going for it back at its time, you slowly notice that the environment and characters around the MC are getting more and more obsolete the more you read into it, and at some point it's mostly just him aura farming in my eyes, the author basically shot themselves on the foot when they made Jinwoo pretty much immortal about half way in the story thanks to how his power works along with the unlimited amount of money that he can use to buy mana potion, worse off no one but him can "level up" because of the world setting they did at the start of the story, so it ended up with his opponent will keep getting stronger to catch up with him and maybe give him a bit of a challenge while pretty much every single character will just stand there and watch him duke it out and glaze him to no end.
In Latna Saga, the MC earned that power, he didn't just work hard to get his insane strength at the start, he literally become insane and unhinged to get that strength, heck he even made his own cope mechanism just to be able to wield them, and it doesn't show at the start, but you get more hints about it as you keep reading and at some point you realize that his power isn't even exactly a good thing, he still has rooms to grow, his friends and enemies too, the world building is established solidly, the villains sometimes are one or two steps ahead of the main casts, they have their own development, back story and goals to focus on, it's not just about the MC.
I think the best way to sum it up would be that there's a vast difference between a story that have the world moves around the protagonist VS a story that have the protagonist adapting to the world they're in. It sounds so obvious yet a lot of manga that get published all have the world trying to adapt to the MC, and the one that are written otherwise usually get put back on the shelf, either because it's mainly to promote their novel, or they get axed for some reasons.
I fell off SL exactly because of that, but I will admit, I had held up for quite some time before that... I think I stopped reading after he beat the crap of that american hunter, the strongest one, but I was already pretty tired of the loop that series has.
Personally.... I think SL only became so popular because of the art, but just like SAO, it has ingrained itself into the cultural zeitgeist, fortunately though... differently from SAO's time, people are a little wiser to that sinkhole.
I haven't read Latna Saga, I think I have seen it here and there, but admittedly again... thought it would be just more of the same, I will give it a try.
Oh, let me give a recommendation too... i found a few days ago a manhwa too, called (yes, it is a stupid name XD) The Regressed Mercenary has a Plan, believe it or not... it is AWESOME.
I would say it has the same level of fight choreography as Katainaka, and the story and characters are very good, I wholeheartedly recommend it.
And another too... The Greatest State Developer, this one... you will be short of breath from how funny it is.
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