Yajin Tensei: Karate Survivor in Another World

[Pokari]

Great thing about this comic: the world is insanely hard on MC and makes him struggle hard for even bits and scraps.
Horible thing about this comic: the world is insanely hard on MC and makes him struggle hard for even bits and scraps.
It has this refresing realism and feels like Joker's wet dream in which everyone is a psychopath ready to use the MC for their own interest and treat him like an utter garbage.
But over time, the toxicity adds up and becomes tiring.
The MC has only a few bright points in his life and you start to feel his story as a miserable struggle in an endless sea of quicksand...
MC never establishes any real connection to any other characters except his pet, as he is constantly forced to escape the ever growing despair that awaits him at literally every step.
My honest opinion is that this comic needs a bit more ballance between the hope and despair.
The villains need more slightly more fleshing out as they just feel as holow entities of evil that only serve purpose of making everyone around them to suffer.
The side characters need a bit more wholesomeness to make him feel sad for them and even miss interacting with them in a benevolent way.
And most importantly, MC needs to catch a break 🤣
It is getting too sad to watch him struggle and constantly have pretty much nothing except keeping his head on his shoulders.

I'm somewhat in agreement, and the thing that annoys me most about it is the author has proven they can write compelling downtime arcs and benign characters, slowly build relationships, even while maintaining a sense of tension. All the right stuff is here! It's just it's tilted too hard towards him immediately having trouble in every town and being forced to move on.

It could really have done with us dwelling on just one or two cities he visits where he moves on for, y'know, some reason other than his life being in immediate mortal peril. Or a plot device explaining why he's so damned cursed, or even him just going "WTF" a bit more about how unrealistically shitty his luck is. As it is, it's the one thing stretching suspension of disbelief in an otherwise refreshingly down-to-earth series.

I don't really think the villains are that bad, though. Or rather, I felt like the series compellingly argues that this is a cycle of suffering; that MC is frequently acting on the verge of being evil, because that's how the (effectively mercenary) vocation he's chosen pushes people in this world.

 

[nzrock]

Still wish someone can redo the early chapters...or at least re-machine translate it, cause it's rough to read still :/

 

[Isobe-jan]

I'm patiently waiting for you Yajin... mud-covered and all.

Monthly mangas make me suffer

 

[Rathlos]

OOOO SHIII- HE KILLED A HEALER

 

[JoeyB0ii]

this community now has an actual fandom
https://www.reddit.com/r/YajinTensei/?screen_view_count=32

 

[Solipsist]

Finally finished reading this thing...
First of all, don't bother with the early chapters here. Pure 100% garbage. Start from chap 10 here, maybe. It gets significantly better TL wise afterwards.

Dumping my thoughts on this thing:
This has the makings of a great story, a gritty, realistic POV about a foreigner in a feudalistic world, where without any backings, even having a lot of power just means you're making bigger splashes for others to notice you, and take you out. That shit is interesting, and overall well thought of.

HOWEVER.....There's a lot I can complain here, but I'll just say:

TLDR: This is a-la Chinese Wuxia, only written by a Japanese person. The MC will face constant conflict and hardships, even when it makes no sense how much enmity he gains, and how little friendships he's able to make.
There are RPG elements, but the author HATES it so much, that it barely even appears in-story, and outright ignores it when it makes sense to use it, and exploits it when they need a get-out-of-jail card for their MC. The RPG elements are not interesting, and are outright detracting from the story's value -- not because it's "RPG elements, ew" -- but because the author introduces a critical concept in the story (to advance further in life, you need to go beyond level 15, 20,..., there's the "detect/hide presence" skill that's almost never fucking used...), but both never develops it, and just ignores it. It's infuriating to read, because this is genuinely a good story for its grit, martial-arts narrative, the realism of it all, the MC constantly having to make real, interesting choices...

But it's mired by Chinese-esque writing (too much hostility, TOO MUCH), and ignoring their own world-building (imagine if in One Piece, they'd stop looking for the One Piece, and nobody would even address why. It's insane.)
I have a severe love-hate relationship with this title. I'll just stop here.

P.S: Know what, there is one thing I want to add, since others said similar things, regarding how this story has the MC run away under constant harassment in loop, for way too long:
In the latest arc of the story (circa 60~70), the MC is in a new city, and proves he is a valuable adventurer by passing an extremely difficult test. Such a difficult test, that other factions are trying to coax him to join them.
And what does the adventurers' guild does about this? About other factions making use of their own personal? About threatening their assets, making light of adventurers, especially obviously high-value high-level ones?
Nothing.
Fucking nothing.
So the MC can only suffer the attention of nobles and crooks, but never gain the spotlight for his deeds under the guild he's already a part of, in a city that's relatively safe and civilized. It's EXTREMELY Chinese in how bullshit that is.

 

[Solipsist]

I'm somewhat in agreement, and the thing that annoys me most about it is the author has proven they can write compelling downtime arcs and benign characters, slowly build relationships, even while maintaining a sense of tension. All the right stuff is here! It's just it's tilted too hard towards him immediately having trouble in every town and being forced to move on.

It could really have done with us dwelling on just one or two cities he visits where he moves on for, y'know, some reason other than his life being in immediate mortal peril. Or a plot device explaining why he's so damned cursed, or even him just going "WTF" a bit more about how unrealistically shitty his luck is. As it is, it's the one thing stretching suspension of disbelief in an otherwise refreshingly down-to-earth series.

I don't really think the villains are that bad, though. Or rather, I felt like the series compellingly argues that this is a cycle of suffering; that MC is frequently acting on the verge of being evil, because that's how the (effectively mercenary) vocation he's chosen pushes people in this world.

Ya'll wrote some good shit, and I already wrote my info dump, I'll just add a bit to it myself:
The early arcs where he escapes like 3-4 towns in a row, are definitely not good writing. There is indeed a hard limit as to how many times that shit can repeat itself, and in the current arc, it became clear that the author realized this, and made Yajin start stand his ground.
And we do know why the MC is treated relatively so poorly: he's not just some vagabond, he's a "foreigner". Nobody wants to take a foreigner's side automatically, and by the time he gets people to know him, the author decides it's time for him to run away again.

To make a long story short, overall, I think this story is immensely frustrating in how it is obviously competently written and paced, but has these "small" holes that are glaringly obvious, and painful to keep seeing.
It's painful to see this realistic depiction of a harsh, feudal reality, but to also only experience one-sided hostility, with very little to no benefit to float up the MC's way. He can save 100 babies for 6 months in 1 place, and nobody will give a shit. It's just too cynical, too often, and it's exhausting how Chinese it is in that manner.

(And personally, I absolutely hate how the RPG-elements play such a small role in this, to the point I don't understand why the author even bothered to have them, if he hates them so much? This is such a strange fucking story.)

 

[DexFran]

One of the best isekai ever.
Personally, i fucking hate the rpg bullshit in fantasy, im not asian and im not a mmo player so everytime i read an isekai with the same lame jrpg setting, i hate that thing automatically.
This manga have some of this, but its not the important.
Its about the hard life of a person in a medieval world, dog eat dog.