Path of the Shaman
An extremely strong martial arts master is on his death bed and is about to pass on, when a subordinate manages arrives to feed him something that's supposed to save him. Despite this, the subordinate is apparently too late, and the master dies. He however awakens in the body of an apprentice from some other sect that uses a different cultivation method. It's once again, an adult in some teens body who trains to get stronger and regain his position at the top of the martial arts world. An evil man forced to live in the body of a disciple of a good sect. As he trains and fights and makes enemies and gets allies, mysteries crop up one after another on his road to achieve his goals. I like the story so far, it's got no superfluous romance, although I did get weird BL vibes from the character designs of one or two of the senior disciples which was funny. No actual BL though, and not really any het love either. Though waaay later in the story some girls do take an interest in MC. The art is good and the plot is pretty interesting. Our main character can be a little annoying at times, but it's mostly fun watching him go about living his new life. The cast of characters is growing a little more numerous as the story progresses, but thankfully the rest of the cast isn't being dragged along, which doesn't overwhelm the reader with trying to remember who everyone is. The characters are fleshed out enough to be distinct and memorable. The translation... Well the english isn't unreadable, but names and terminology change a lot between scanlators and it gets confusing trying to identify what sect, merchant, person they are talking about. Some left terms like "sasuk" with no explanation what that was, as well as some other terms and names that changed over some chapters as well. Calling merchants "tops" was... very weird, and also mc being called "master uncle" by his two students is extremely distracting with how unnatural and weird it sounds. Should have just left the original korean term or whatever, cause it just doesn't work in english. Even though it's Asura scans there's a lot of weird grammar, like unnecessary "of"s, "the"s and "a"s in sentences. Think I saw someone in the comments say it wasn't actually asura scans but some other translation group taking their credits page and pretending? I don't know if it's true, but it would make sense for the state of the english grammar. Perhaps? Weird af though, and utterly pointless if true. I think the mystery is engaging, and the story fun to follow along. Perhaps the other characters roll with mc's antics a little too easily, but I can't bring myself to mind as they are all slowly (and I do mean slowly!) but surely corrupting our evil MC's heart with decency. lol
The Great Mage Returns After 4000 Years
Some powerful mage from the past gets into a fight with a "demigod" and gets sealed away for 4000 years. For reason's as yet unknown he is released upon the suicide of a young bullied mage attending an academy. He reincarna- erm... transmigrates(?) as the child who just committed suicide and decides to continue attending the academy to learn about this new modern world as well as get stronger than he was 4000 years ago to get a rematch with the demigod who sealed him. Not for me. A lot of these stories are male power fantasies and while I usually like them, this is too much for me. <_<;; I'm sure that isn't the case for other people, so I suggest making up your own mind.
Standard of Reincarnation
A one armed swordsman from the branch of an important family struggles with the main family's successor until he is eventually locked up in prison and dies. He reincarnates in the body of a young boy 500 years in the future. At first it's ok, but later some revelations happen than had me rolling my eyes, especially in regards to the "arch demon" and all the weird politics. The politics while apparently somehow important are nebulous and poorly established. Rather than making me want to find out more, it made me drop this. Also MC was almost 30 when he died, but he reacts and loses his cool like a child a lot in this story, which bother's me cause he was an extremely experienced swordsman before he died. As is usual in these stories everyone's got beef with MC because they think him weak, but it's very annoying that they continue to do so when he's done the work to get to the stages he needs to. To get into the weird school thing he had to beat a demon, and yet the school's dean acts like he's not done the work and is weak and worthless. As if the head of the family would allow him to enroll at school without having proven himself. In fact, the story made it seem that MC could try killing the demon at any time and as a result of that he'd be then sent to school. So I dunno how it was supposed to make sense for the dean to be so prejudiced. It makes him look like an idiot who can't reason simple things out on his own. The art is alright, relies a lot on light show stuff, but ok. Now the translation is weird at times. You can make sense of most sentences easily but the names of things can be quite stupid. Like the heavenly exoskeleton. Does the translator not know humans don't have those? Did they think MC is a beetle? Or a lobster? If this heavenly body shit is about storing mana in your bones then it's just heavenly skeleton, 'cause you know, MC and all the humans in the story have their bones inside, and not outside like most insects do. >_> Just cause you think it sounds cool doesn't mean it's right. And this is either the fault of a translator or the author. My money's on the translator not knowing the difference between bugs and people.
Chronicles Of The Martial God
The strongest martial artist in the world, gets sealed away by some immortals for... reasons. I think he may have done a bad? It's very vaguely explained. The guy stays sealed for 1000 years and then our story actually starts when he's already out and comes across a little girl about to starve to death. He eventually decides to raise her as his own and goes about trying to build a life where that is possible. It starts pretty good and interesting. You don't really know where it's all going but the dynamic with the daughter is cute. However it's a bit odd. Supporting characters get introduced, but they aren't really properly fleshed out and some (like the poor magistrate) kind of get shunted right out of the plot, despite still kind of being there. It's really odd. It also feels like the story is fighting against it's own set up? Like the kid starts school, someone raises concerns about schools having bullies or whatever, and then it's just promptly abandoned. We also have the "training subordinates to get stronger" and that too is abruptly abandoned. At one point I seriously thought I missed a chapter or some pages were missing. I went to other sites to check. The plot segues from what I thought was going to be character development for a member of the supporting cast to something connected to MC's past and it gives you whiplash. There are attempts at world building, but why would I want to know that at the expense of getting character development?? A shadowy organization is introduced later on in the story. They are vaguely threatening, but not really because they aren't a threat to MC, merely to people he knows but aren't under his protection. Because of this it's hard to get invested or care about what is clearly meant to be looming threat. I can see what the author's trying to do with the found family and not losing sight of what you already have themes, but it's not executed all that well. The people that end up joining MC's family are interesting when first introduced and you wonder what will happen next and are excited for how they'll grow, and then they're just there. Stagnant with no development in their relationships to one another. Everyone immediately loves the daughter, this is fine for the most part but she gets no chance to be an actual person. She's a therapy dog at best. There's been opportunities to do something with her, like that thing about making friends at school. Unfortunately it was just skipped over, even though there was set up! The classroom was depicted as kind of cold, and not wanting to accept her. Presumably the author didn't want to focus on that, but then, why bother with the set up? Why bother sending the kid to school? What's the motivation here? Was it there just to be a PSA on how education is important? It has no affect on the plot or on the little girl herself. She seems happy to go and excitedly tells MC about the stuff she learned on her first day, but it's never brought up again. And then later on we see she has friends. Apparently it was all fine despite the difficulties it was implied the girl would have to overcome. ?????? Thanks for not having any stupid one note bullies??? I guess??? Another character catches MC's eye as he sees himself in this other person. He sees a deep hatred in this other person's eyes, so he tells him to get rid of that hatred as it'll fuck with his growth as a martial artist of something, and the other character just goes "ok". What is this hatred? What's it directed at? How does it relate to his drive to become the best? I don't know. It's not brought up again. He presumably stops hating I guess, because he's honestly just a mellow dude who doesn't talk much. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ The story and characterization isn't executed that well, so I ended up dropping the story.
Battle Through The Heavens
Couldn't really get into it. Didn't really like the art.
Heavenly Grand Archive’s Young Master
Warning: story contains suicide, murder and occasional mild body horror. This is the story of the strongest known man and head of a martial arts union of different organizations. MC mysteriously finds himself to have suddenly swapped bodies with some kid from a scholarly sect. It quickly becomes apparent that this kid had been suicidal for a long time and thus been kept under strict watch. MC is confused and attempting to figure out how to proceed to find out who did this to him and how he can get back to his own body. Alas his body shortly dies because the scholar kid noticed he was no longer being guarded and ends his life in the body of this old man. It's rather tragic if you think about it, but it's rather quickly implied and then moved on from. MC's grief when he receives the news of his own supposed suicide it pretty much just played for comedy, the story refusing to really go into how truly tragic this all is. MC moves on after some tears to train and convince the rest of his family that he's not suicidal anymore. It's compelling and I found addicting, for once MC acts like the old man he is, although he is a pretty open minded old man, but yeah. There's the usual beating of people that aren't MC's enemy, but for some reason it's fine and garners him no hard feelings. It really bothers me that it just normalizes such violence. Especially against his new younger brothers, like wtf, they weren't even abusive to MC, they were just exhausted and hurt and depressed. <_<;;; A lot of the comedy in this is kind of a miss for me, tends to be a bit too obnoxious, but that's definitely more a matter of taste. It's not more excessive than anything you'd find in say Inu-yasha, I just couldn't seem to laugh at it the same. I do like it enough to continue with the plot though. As of ch 69 there's still no progress on who and how MC ended up in his new body. Also he's confided in no-one despite running into quite a few acquaintances so far. I don't require my MC's to be morally good, but somehow on occasion I do find myself pulled out the story and not liking MC's choice to kill someone. Like he's presented as righteous and shit, yet... I dunno in recent chapters it felt like he killed someone a little too lightly? Like it made me go: wait what? He actually killed him? Why?? What made him deserve that? Usually in these stories the author make sure to bring the audience on board with the MC's actions, mostly by keeping him consistent with the character presented, and yet here it felt weirdly out of place. Like why??? Anyway, I'm hoping i was just missing something and later new chapters will put me at ease again, cause otherwise it's been pretty ok. Actually now that I think about it even in the beginning MC's retaliations on occasion have been... um... extreme in a way? Like he didn't seem the type but he still does what he does. I dunno, it's weird. The art is good, the translation is understandable and also avoided a lot of inconsistency by being pretty much all by one scanlation group. Which is nice. I like the way the action is depicted through Mc's perspective in a way that we see what he sees, like for examples, which attacks are illusions and faints and which are real. Also so far there hasn't been any love interests. MC doesn't even entertain the idea and unlike in other stories where an adult finds himself in the body of a teenager, MC doesn't blush and is otherwise unaffected by children making moony eyes at him. It's so tragically refreshing considering the amount of these types of stories where the older MC just sort of... reacts to children like they are viable love interests despite acknowledging their previous age, which they clearly identify with more. 9_9 Like this is how you handle romance in this kind of story. If you're having your middle aged or whatever grown ass adult somehow end up in the body of a teenager, interacting with other kids, the way to have romance is to not have romance.
Chronicles of the Demon Faction
The best assassin is killed trying to cut ties with his organization and leave for a peaceful life. It's an epic fight but he dies and then reincarnates into the body of a diciple of the demonic cult. I dunno. I got to chapter 9 and decided this isn't for me. Our MC is easily flustered, everything shows on his face and he talks to himself out loud so that anyone vaguely within earshot can hear him being confused by his surroundings as well as insulting the demon lord. Truly he is the best assassin in the world! A guy who doesn't know how to shut the fuck up, control his expressions or body language and rather than blending in is a master of being extremely awkward and decidedly standing out. I don't know why this is so highly rated when the story managed to destroy all of MCs credibility not only as an extremely experienced assassin, but also literally the best assassin. MC seems to be at least in his 30s and yet upon reincarnation he acts like he's 18. The first few chapter give the impression of story packed with martial arts action, tragedy and a quest for freedom. Then suddenly it changes into a comedy manga with a protagonist who comes off more as a naive high schooler than a seasoned assassin. Thanks I hate it, and have tonal whiplash.
Youngest Son of the NamGung Clan
Guy who has no talent tries his best, but is eventually irreparably damaged and then kicked out of his clan. Heartbroken, the man drinks the last of his money away and while aimlessly wondering, drunk, alone and homeless he's accosted and killed by some bandit. MC them travels back in time and starts his life again, vowing to not even try this time, and do his bets to escape his terrible family. I was really rooting for MC to succeed in escaping his clan, but it seems the story is another one of those where MC stays in the abusive environment that absolutely traumatized him before and still earn the acceptance of the very people he was trying to escape. I don't understand why it's so hard for him to just leave, but it's annoying and in the end I dropped this, cause fuck it. He's also another weird MC who just talks to himself in public and somehow no-one pays attention to his ramblings. Honestly if he truly wanted to be left alone and be trash, all he'd have to do is fake being insane or something. I usually like these kinds of stories, but the important factor is that MC is always on board, but here he isn't, and it feels extremely icky that he has to stay with his abusers despite clearly wanting to get the fuck away and not wanting to be involved. For crying out loud, he literally says hiss real family are the maids and nanny's that raised him. Author also does nothing with that, none of the maids have any sort of character and barely get screen time. MC doesn't confide in them, nor does he have any emotional scenes with them. I didn't get far, but the art seemed fine and so did the translation.
Sword Fanatic Wanders Through The Night
This is the story of a boy who was kidnapped from a sword dancing troupe to become the disciple of some powerful old dudes. Soon after, the boy's original home the dance troupe is destroyed by one of the local bad sect. Boy becomes a man and super strong, comes back, and decides he's gonna find the fuckers who hurt his family and kill them. He proceeds to do so. This starts off pretty good, but later the translation jumps between bad to alright. Every other chapter is asura scans who are not great but fine, and then flame scans who are pretty bad. Names change between these two scanlation teams. The story also gradually stops being any fun, because character development stops and later on I was having a very hard time giving two shits about the stuff happening in the story. MC manages to save some people, and one sticks around for.... reasons best known to the author, but not the audience. The other two of that group just disappear and are not heard from anymore. I mean i suppose they could resurface, but honestly they seem to have no plot relevance despite one of them being connected with MC's past. As a result the story becomes boring. And meanders with no clear goal anymore, because it's certainly no longer about Mc's revenge or anything. MC's actions don't come off as a result of his personality, but because the author says so. He's just boring and bland, and as a result I am no longer invested or interested in seeing where his story goes. The action hasn't stopped, but the fights are no longer interesting. It's a shame, but no more. The art is alright, but not particularly good. The chin's are weird as well as their side profiles too.
Yeon Lok Heun