Meccha Shoukan Sareta Ken - Vol. 4 Ch. 14.2

[MangaDex]

 

[nyaasar]

That was disgusting strategy, but it works ... I guess.

 

[nonexistent696969]

damn... maybe this strategy is for aliyah broken spirit. inori just too ruthless, but i like that

 

[electro_neanderthal]

MC is a heartless PoS, choosing intentionally to make things hard when they don't need to be for someone who's having the worst day of almost anyone's life, and then basically discarding her worth as a person because she's at her wit's end.

So much for any hope this could have been a good story.

 

[Pallington]

MC is a heartless PoS, choosing intentionally to make things hard when they don't need to be for someone who's having the worst day of almost anyone's life, and then basically discarding her worth as a person because she's at her wit's end.

So much for any hope this could have been a good story.

the 'goodness' of a story is dependant on the MC not being an asshole? what? this has been more or less screamed at you for the past 10 chapters, whaaaa?

 

[electro_neanderthal]

the 'goodness' of a story is dependant on the MC not being an asshole? what? this has been more or less screamed at you for the past 10 chapters, whaaaa?

If that's what you think my comment was based on, I'll just say you're looking at things superficially.

We have the MC and the princess, and the story is making it so that the princess has to become more like the MC in order to succeed and even be worth saving.

The story is praising the MC's selfishness by comparing it to a more innocent point of view and saying she's only worth saving if she's going to become just as bad as the MC.

Congrats, you have an evil protagonist whose moral views are not only explored, but also explained and shown as the only views worth having.

The MC is choosing to make her life even more miserable and complicate things when he doesn't have to, he just wants to.

The story is presenting breaking the princess down and making her like the MC as a positive thing.

 

[Pallington]

If that's what you think my comment was based on, I'll just say you're looking at things superficially.

We have the MC and the princess, and the story is making it so that the princess has to become more like the MC in order to succeed and even be worth saving.

The story is praising the MC's selfishness by comparing it to a more innocent point of view and saying she's only worth saving if she's going to become just as bad as the MC.

Congrats, you have an evil protagonist whose moral views are not only explored, but also explained and shown as the only views worth having.

The MC is choosing to make her life even more miserable and complicate things when he doesn't have to, he just wants to.

The story is presenting breaking the princess down and making her like the MC as a positive thing.

the story

it's literally all from the pov of the MC, wut
like, the evaluations are the MC's, have you never heard of an unreliable narrator?
and you say I'm looking at things superficially?

shown as the only views worth having

again, it's all told from the perspective of an MC who's the definition of self-interest, so why the fuck are you acting like it's prescriptive???

like, by no means is it a serious critique, but everyone, including the MC, accept that by any normal social non-sociopathic human's standards, MC is bricked in the head in a big way, and that his decisions and evals are only ever 'good' by lucky circumstance

hell if the pov was third person limited and still said such things I might even agree with you partially, but the fucking narration is all, all first person. Literally all first person. Literally roleplaying chuuni mcedgelord sociopath. By all means "the story" is hannibal lecter giving a long-winded lecture, and you're expecting him not to give justification???

anyways, a competent analysis is basically, the story (so far) implies "only evil mfers have the ability to enforce their goals" (not really because it was more luck than anything) and beyond that "simple ideals shatter in the face of overwhelming power" which is just true, but also much harder to apply irl than one might think.

 

[electro_neanderthal]

it's literally all from the pov of the MC, wut
like, the evaluations are the MC's, have you never heard of an unreliable narrator?
and you say I'm looking at things superficially?


again, it's all told from the perspective of an MC who's the definition of self-interest, so why the fuck are you acting like it's prescriptive???

like, by no means is it a serious critique, but everyone, including the MC, accept that by any normal social non-sociopathic human's standards, MC is bricked in the head in a big way, and that his decisions and evals are only ever 'good' by lucky circumstance

hell if the pov was third person limited and still said such things I might even agree with you partially, but the fucking narration is all, all first person. Literally all first person. Literally roleplaying chuuni mcedgelord sociopath. By all means "the story" is hannibal lecter giving a long-winded lecture, and you're expecting him not to give justification???

anyways, a competent analysis is basically, the story (so far) implies "only evil mfers have the ability to enforce their goals" (not really because it was more luck than anything) and beyond that "simple ideals shatter in the face of overwhelming power" which is just true, but also much harder to apply irl than one might think.

And what about what the MC is doing to the princess? Just because it's from the MC's POV, doesn't mean it's not the story saying something.

It's a deconstruction of iseaki, and the message of this deconstruction is that kindness is useless. Even the other heroes were useless.

Then again, I'm probably thinking too much into this. Most isekai are written poorly or add one bad aspect and I don't know why on Earth I expected more balance from this one.

Yeah, the MC is insufferable, he is doing evil things to the princess' psyche, and only the MC is strong enough despite 4 other heroes being around.

Please excuse me if I find his motivations skewed, a bit nonsensical, and twisted. His involvement with the princess feels forced by the author's hand, not by the MC's own desires.

Not to mention, the portrayal of the kindly but ignoant royal family. Did no one ever tell them they're bleeding their people dry? They seemed like the kind of people that would actually do something to help the people if they were aware.

And then they all get slaughtered. It very much seems like kindness was added to the royal family at the last moment (because before then they didn't seem that way, and right at the last moment the story has to tell us they're kind instead of show that beforehand) just to further emphasize the point that kindness is useless.

Then again, I'm probably putting more thought into this than the author did.

 

[Pallington]

And what about what the MC is doing to the princess? Just because it's from the MC's POV, doesn't mean it's not the story saying something.

It's a deconstruction of iseaki, and the message of this deconstruction is that kindness is useless. Even the other heroes were useless.

Then again, I'm probably thinking too much into this. Most isekai are written poorly or add one bad aspect and I don't know why on Earth I expected more balance from this one.

Yeah, the MC is insufferable, he is doing evil things to the princess' psyche, and only the MC is strong enough despite 4 other heroes being around.

Please excuse me if I find his motivations skewed, a bit nonsensical, and twisted. His involvement with the princess feels forced by the author's hand, not by the MC's own desires.

Not to mention, the portrayal of the kindly but ignoant royal family. Did no one ever tell them they're bleeding their people dry? They seemed like the kind of people that would actually do something to help the people if they were aware.

And then they all get slaughtered. It very much seems like kindness was added to the royal family at the last moment (because before then they didn't seem that way, and right at the last moment the story has to tell us they're kind instead of show that beforehand) just to further emphasize the point that kindness is useless.

Then again, I'm probably putting more thought into this than the author did.

MC pov, but story still saying something!

Story says, and get this, giving op power to sociopath is pretty fucking bad. Considering how many isekai protags have gone and murdered groups of 'bandits' at a time, honestly, this MC's at least upfront about being an asshole. Beyond that, it hasn't said anything, considering it hasn't developed any of the main characters to completion (MC, aliyah, the heroes).

kindness is useless

???
?????
why are you taking a sociopath's fucking advice? WHY? WHY ARE YOU TAKING HIS REASONING AT FACE VALUE?
This is the issue, why do you think "well the narrator must be saying the thing the author thinks!!1!!!" when AGAIN, we've gone through ONE FUCKING ARC?
like, to me it screams "giving out cheats is some real russian roulette" or "cheats can make the classic hero journey go sideways so fast," not "kindness is useless," again, unreliable narrator, stop listening to the self-admitted sociopath for your life advice and interpretation please

more balance

balance? from a manga with OP in the english name? idk, maybe you should read the entire title at least once next time?

skewed, nonsensical, twisted

he's a sociopath. he's literally bricked in the brain. he admits to not having empathy, and literally has to emulate emotion. he's entirely driven by impulse ("as my curiosity demands"), he has absolutely 0 remorse ("feeling nausea should be normal after killing a person..."), and you're sitting here wondering why he doesn't act normally. Gee I wonder why.

princess

the author set that up over several chapters, i don't know where your exact issue is. I mean, puppet princess that he initially dismisses pulls a fast one on him, and he thinks "wow I didn't expect that! how interesting!" and because he's a sociopath he now regards her as his favorite toy. More or less.

kindly but ignorant

wrong, an easy alternative explanation is that they are classist as fuck, and if you've never heard of NIMBYs or Nietzsche or even Churchill's views on Jews, read up.

beforehand

beforehand they didn't do that much of anything besides... moneygrub? And their exact relation to their children hadn't been clarified. Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what that beat was for either, but it's not incredibly out of place, as it makes the coup jump out.

putting more thought

...believe what you will, i guess.

 

[electro_neanderthal]

Story says, and get this, giving op power to sociopath is pretty fucking bad. Considering how many isekai protags have gone and murdered groups of 'bandits' at a time, honestly, this MC's at least upfront about being an asshole. Beyond that, it hasn't said anything, considering it hasn't developed any of the main characters to completion (MC, aliyah, the heroes).


???
?????
why are you taking a sociopath's fucking advice? WHY? WHY ARE YOU TAKING HIS REASONING AT FACE VALUE?
This is the issue, why do you think "well the narrator must be saying the thing the author thinks!!1!!!" when AGAIN, we've gone through ONE FUCKING ARC?
like, to me it screams "giving out cheats is some real russian roulette" or "cheats can make the classic hero journey go sideways so fast," not "kindness is useless," again, unreliable narrator, stop listening to the self-admitted sociopath for your life advice and interpretation please

balance? from a manga with OP in the english name? idk, maybe you should read the entire title at least once next time?

he's a sociopath. he's literally bricked in the brain. he admits to not having empathy, and literally has to emulate emotion. he's entirely driven by impulse ("as my curiosity demands"), he has absolutely 0 remorse ("feeling nausea should be normal after killing a person..."), and you're sitting here wondering why he doesn't act normally. Gee I wonder why.

the author set that up over several chapters, i don't know where your exact issue is. I mean, puppet princess that he initially dismisses pulls a fast one on him, and he thinks "wow I didn't expect that! how interesting!" and because he's a sociopath he now regards her as his favorite toy. More or less.

wrong, an easy alternative explanation is that they are classist as fuck, and if you've never heard of NIMBYs or Nietzsche or even Churchill's views on Jews, read up.

beforehand they didn't do that much of anything besides... moneygrub? And their exact relation to their children hadn't been clarified. Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what that beat was for either, but it's not incredibly out of place, as it makes the coup jump out.

...believe what you will, i guess.

I'm not taking a sociopath's advice, and I'm not saying the story is meant to give advice. But that doesn't mean the story isn't portrayed so cynically as to be unbelievable. It's a depressing read, as the plot and MC are both attacking kindness, and there's a lot of focus on breaking the princess' psyche.

My reference to balance is in regards to how cynical the story is. I wasn't expecting the story to keep leaning so hard into a sociopathic character, or rather, I wasn't expecting the MC to be this cruel.

And maybe you're right, maybe the intention is to show how bad it is to give power to a sociopath, as it does show how awful the MC is. It doesn't feel like that was the intention to me, but maybe it was.

Joker, the movie, was brilliant and showed a character that wasn't likeable, but it also wasn't trying to make me root for the MC. This manga has an unlikable character, but for some reason I feel like the manga is trying to get me to root for him instead of just showing the journey... maybe that's a fault of how prevalent the tropes are throughout isekai, and simply using them causes me to mentally include feelings and expectations of protagonists that are more likeable?

You make a good point about the royal family possibly being classist. Not that I think most manga authors think that far through in world building, but it's possible.

 

[Pallington]

I'm not taking a sociopath's advice, and I'm not saying the story is meant to give advice. But that doesn't mean the story isn't portrayed so cynically as to be unbelievable. It's a depressing read, as the plot and MC are both attacking kindness, and there's a lot of focus on breaking the princess' psyche.

My reference to balance is in regards to how cynical the story is. I wasn't expecting the story to keep leaning so hard into a sociopathic character, or rather, I wasn't expecting the MC to be this cruel.

And maybe you're right, maybe the intention is to show how bad it is to give power to a sociopath, as it does show how awful the MC is. It doesn't feel like that was the intention to me, but maybe it was.

Joker, the movie, was brilliant and showed a character that wasn't likeable, but it also wasn't trying to make me root for the MC. This manga has an unlikable character, but for some reason I feel like the manga is trying to get me to root for him instead of just showing the journey... maybe that's a fault of how prevalent the tropes are throughout isekai, and simply using them causes me to mentally include feelings and expectations of protagonists that are more likeable?

You make a good point about the royal family possibly being classist. Not that I think most manga authors think that far through in world building, but it's possible.

cynically as to be unbelievable

honestly I feel like FFF trashhero is worse in terms of cynicism (maybe, i don't remember that clearly but I remember everyone being irritating), but hell there's no shortage of revenge plots that feel super cynical, because yeah the MC here is a horrid piece of shit and we're still not done with the russian roulette but in the grand scheme of things he's also done very little. Again, the story hasn't gone far enough for us to judge further, several minor confrontations and one medium-sized, the big questions only just got setup (MC's background, MC and aliyah's minefield of a relationship, MC figuring out what he wants to do regarding the heroes, etc). Looking at the untl'd chapters (well, tl'd into french), characters are going to figure out how to handle MC, and he's gonna get embroiled into more shit as a result of his self-centered laziness

As for cruelty, if we reflect carefully, the situation is pretty shit. 36 child soldiers recruited forcibly and suddenly to fight a war they had absolutely no hand or foot in, gambling on enough of the 36 to more or less have OK character as well as the capability to win the war (this isn't the only series that has said 'what if they lost that bet' but it among the farthest, 'what if that bet went really sideways?'). The MC's background is yet unexplained, besides being a sociopath from a young age (so a psychopath under the pseudo-pop culture definition?). A coup that says it wants a new system but from appearances hasn't laid the ideological foundations or the material foundations to firmly implement one (or else they wouldn't first go with a monarchy and then try to transition, nor would they use the old justification). Who knows how fucked the common person is, we don't.

MC is cruel even then, but I can't honestly say I didn't expect that. I mean, the first red flag is murking fenrir, who he more or less understands is there on a job. blinding fenrir you can say is self defense, coming back and murdering him, you can see signs the MC really does not give a shit about 'long term effects' if he thinks he can get away with it.

It spends a chapter (two?) on breaking the princess' psyche, yeah, it doesn't gloss over it. To me that's just characterization; is it brutal? yes. Have people done much worse? also yes. There are some really fucked up war crimes out there. Sliding scale of psychopathy, author wants to make sure we know he's not low on that scale, and he doesn't want to be vague about it. Poor taste? probably. Not depressing to me tho, more a statement of fact from afar.

attack kindness

only insofar as that kindness isn't backed up by power. Well, the knight captain's 'kindness' goes kinda sideways (this is an involved discussion so i won't go further here), but really, you could easily claim that they sat on their hands wrt an unknown explosive for way too long just as easily as you can blame their 'kindness.' Never asking him what he wants to do long-term, not checking to make sure he's not noodling around, I can only say it's negligent handling.
Regardless, the final nail in the coffin was that they decided to stick to their guns, not once considering negotiation. Maybe they really felt they didn't have the leeway, maybe they felt they had to take the gamble. Welp, they took the gamble without info and lost for their trouble, know yourself but not your enemy, lose half and win half.

joker

I never got around to seeing that movie, woops. Tho honestly just from his background I have a hard time calling him 'unlikeable,' sure in the end he chooses to do some fucked up shit but his circumstances were never good, and those circumstances certainly aren't his fault. He's a shitty character in a shitty situation who gives up on normal behavior because he literally cannot sustain normal behavior anymore, which honestly is less severe than MC here.

As for the book making you like the MC, i mean, MC's unlikeable but that doesn't mean his individual actions are all horrible, the problem is it's way too much of a crapshoot. I don't know what you're feeling, when he's being nice i think "so you do know what you're talking about" and when he's being a dipshit i feel "wow, you bastard, also, this does check out," so I can't really help you.

Like, I don't know if you've heard of the saying, the difference between a normal person and a criminal is merely a single thought, MC's sociopathy makes him that but cranked up to 11, so I'm really not surprised. Any evaluation of him needs to be long term, because his variance is that much higher than normal.

classism? does the author think that far

it's not impossible. Death Flags, if you know that one, is really heavy handed in outright telling you (on top of showing you) that harold's parents are classist as fuck, and at the time I felt it was a bit redundant, but now I wonder if that was necessary because most readers are unwilling to give that much benefit of the doubt?

 

[Pallington]

I'm not taking a sociopath's advice, and I'm not saying the story is meant to give advice. But that doesn't mean the story isn't portrayed so cynically as to be unbelievable. It's a depressing read, as the plot and MC are both attacking kindness, and there's a lot of focus on breaking the princess' psyche.

My reference to balance is in regards to how cynical the story is. I wasn't expecting the story to keep leaning so hard into a sociopathic character, or rather, I wasn't expecting the MC to be this cruel.

And maybe you're right, maybe the intention is to show how bad it is to give power to a sociopath, as it does show how awful the MC is. It doesn't feel like that was the intention to me, but maybe it was.

Joker, the movie, was brilliant and showed a character that wasn't likeable, but it also wasn't trying to make me root for the MC. This manga has an unlikable character, but for some reason I feel like the manga is trying to get me to root for him instead of just showing the journey... maybe that's a fault of how prevalent the tropes are throughout isekai, and simply using them causes me to mentally include feelings and expectations of protagonists that are more likeable?

You make a good point about the royal family possibly being classist. Not that I think most manga authors think that far through in world building, but it's possible.

as for the message, right, I slapped shit together cuz it was an easy basic interpretation.

The author's intent is pretty obvious in question form, "what happens when a sociopath gets thrown into isekai+cheats? what happens when these edgelords aren't just edgy tsunderes or 'tragic antiheros out for revenge' but actual unjustified sociopaths?" and the currently revealed answer is... "a mine gets stepped on and everything goes sideways, that's what happens. Logic gets bricked, shit gets very messy, and nobody gets away clean."
Heroes? tried to avenge a pretty shitty regime against a marginally better coup, now the 'only survivors' and more or less forced to lie and live with the trauma. Coup? fucked with international plans cuz their fucking 'tradition' couldn't bend a few inches, and didn't have any material solutions or fucks to give, now dead. Who knows, some of them might even be demon lord's 5th columnists. old royalty/nobility? dead dead, lmao. MC? finding all sorts of ways to get people off his back, and he succeeded!... for now. Hopefully for him that hatchet stays buried, but if anyone recognizes aliyah properly he's in hot water again.
Really though, what I want to see is how the author takes stock of the aftereffects in the future. We kinda have to wait until then tho.

Well, how does this deconstruct the isekai genre? it's a bit of a stretch as of now, but at the very least it's already mocking the stories that kinda hand shit out to their MC, saying "you sure you wanna hand shit out so casually? you really sure that's a good idea?" MC's certainly laughing at your conception of morality, as in the grand scheme of things he's had neither a 'particularly good' nor 'particularly evil' effect, and yet he squeezed out space to be an absolute asshole (war criminal tier) in between. If we had to put a judgement, all we can really say is "sideways. super fucking sideways, with a dipshit in the middle." and that tracks with the question-answer above. "Handing out cheats willy nilly is a lot less clean than most isekais would have you believe, so please do it with caution" and that's all it really can say with one arc of info.

anyways, you see how the MC is manipulative as fuck, and you're listening to the MC, and you're not actively on guard against manipulation, I don't know what else I can say. MC's waging psychological warfare on the readers and a whole host of them got scammed/psi panicked.

 

[Rafalga]

If there is anything more shit then a boring story, it is seeing said boring story through an eye of a sociopath. There is a reason sociopaths as a protaganist doesn't really work in fiction. They are fucking boring. Remove them from the story and absolutely nothing changes unless they are the antogonist. And even then , they make the worst kind of antagonists. A boring one.

 

[Theconnoisseur]

Loving the story so far, especially part of the story development. Honestly I didn't really care much about the main character's level grinding. I love how they developed the grateful princess, the queen, and the king before killing them off, it really showed that they weren't as two dimensional as we've seen before the party. This part of the story really shows us the character and personality of the 2nd princess.

What I love about this scene is the amount of tension that it creates, the world that the 2nd princess has lived up until now is falling apart and we're watching how she adapts and overcome the obstacle that is to survive and escape the castle. Not only that we get to witness her combat abilities, even though they were mentioned before, as she finds her way out and coordinate a with main character when planning out attacks.

And we also have the main character deciding whether or not he should abandon the princess or join the other side. I'm predicting that he is going to stay on princess's side and help her escape.

This has marvelous tension and has believeable stakes involved.

It deserves its 8 star rating for now. I hope it doesn't head towards the stereotypical route because this is some good shit so far

 

[TheProtectorOfPureHeartedGirls]

Wow, this MC is a villain even at the end. How could he leave Princess Aliyah all by herself...

Well, since he deemed her "not a person" anymore... I dunno what to expect anymore.

 

[CheerTheDead]

I got no clue what this entire comment section is about. Feel like I was reading a different manga than everyone.

MC's attitudes since the beginning had been because he found the princess interesting due to her strong will. When the princess lost her will, he too lost any interest in her. He did not do anything to make thing more difficult for her. He simply stated the facts while keeping her alive as long as possible. Her dwindling will was what made him less likely to act out for her and let her handle things herself for the purpose of testing her resolve.

I have the feeling people read this on surface level and deducted things the way they wanted to understand rather than understanding the characters and their motivation.

 

[Coldlight]

He's clearly a villain protagonist at this point in time. I already knew he wasn't a kind guy from the start and about as far from Lawful Good one could be without becoming Chaotic Evil, but even I'm surprised at just how much of a scoundrel he can be.

I admit enjoying his misanthropic antics before, but this cruel betrayal is just hard to swallow and actually painful to see. Especially because Aliyah was the one really carrying my enjoyment of this story. Feels bad, man.

 

[Hovand]

"Let me farm for 15 minutes, i will carry u later"
- MC, i guess

 

[NIBBAHOTBUNS]

Lol now I know why the ln and wn are cancelled cuz this shit is trash lmao. maybe the author of this is acoustic and restarted hays. this shit lot of potential but getting wasted by the author

 

[DogeRangler]

lol, I hate this MC, ahaha. Who writes a story like this? Author must be a depressed douche edgelord himself or he wouldn't write this garbage. Also really hate the random "he's ganked in the daytime" BS. Why am I still reading this? Who knows? Boredom I guess, but god, this is some masochistic reading.