I don't understand why people hype RI so much. The way I see it RI is a somewhat readable trash and that's about it. It has nothing great or particularly praiseworthy, it's not even original. Why do people praise it to high heavens and recommend it everywhere? I've stopped reading it some time ago at 1350 chapters when I've binged it and caught up with translator, and I haven't touched it ever since. My original motivation was to check what's so good about it, and as I wasn't impressed in any way, so I don't see any reason to touch it again. Here are some of my thoughts about it: Spoiler: 1. Author/World-building/Recommendations 1. Author/World-building/Recommendations Although I said that I wasn't impressed and there is nothing praiseworthy about it, RI is a wonderful specimen worth paying some attention to. Though for absolutely different reason. I'm actually quite surprised that this topic was almost never mentioned, but RI is a novel written by a mentally unstable dude. Where else will you find a novel written by a genuine nutcase? Just the fact that RI's author is mentally unstable will explain a lot of things, such as particularly dark world, unfriendly/psychotic side characters, lack of any warmth in this world, how kind people only treated as a source of exploitation and unconditionally called idiots/pushovers. At other times they will be portrayed simply as complete hypocrites etc. While reading RI you can observe the world through author's eyes and it's interesting in its own way. That's also the main thing that kept me reading. If you think that I'm making things up you can look for author's notes at the and of some chapters, especially one at the end of 2nd huge betrayal arc. Author will explain how he is in depression, that he experienced something similar to protagonist in real life etc. I didn't pay author's notes a lot of attention and simply skipped them without even properly reading them, but I still managed to capture crucial details. At best he is suffering from some strong depression and at worst... well, who knows? Everything is possible. The way I see it, author was mainly writing RI for the sake of venting, to focus on something else and maybe even in hopes that his condition will improve because of it. Spoiler: 2. Alignment. Evil MC? RI is a #1 novel recommendation for 'Evil Protagonist' tag requests, which I consider as an absolute bullshit and biggest joke on NUF. Although protagonist of RI is definitely not a good guy, there's nothing special in his behavior either. He's basically at a level of any random arrogant protagonist of cultivation novel. Some of them are even more ruthless than MC here. There are many reasons for this statement: 1. MC wasn't favored by his own clan and was basically a bullied outcast. So even if he kills them all, it will be just another edgelord's revenge. (This is the first arc of RI) 2. As I've said above, this world doesn't have any good or even remotely likeable side characters. Everyone is a bitch. You don't like them, you don't sympathize with them, you don't care about them one bit. Even if it's not a heinous villain, it's a disgusting hypocrite. They get what they deserve. It's basically another classical situation of MC killing some random evil dudes. They die in batches in every non-japanese novel everyday. 3. Protagonist's non-existent personality. He is apathetic and pragmatic. I will talk about it in details a bit later. 4. His wish to be low-key. Being low-key means to not create unnecessary mess and commotion, so any practical big plans with quick success are a no-go. Evidence that can't be hidden after committing evil deeds is an inevitable pain in the ass in this world, so it's more practical to avoid it too. I can even go so far as to say that in the first 300 hundred chapters of RI there was only 1 evil and abnormally disgusting moment - when he and his new side kick were eating raw monkey brains while said monkeys were alive. In all honesty this scene left me baffled. It was suddenly introduced by author without any build-up or even need for it. That was a true evil scene, but just as this episode appeared suddenly and out-of-nowhere, it disappeared just as quickly. Such scenes weren't seen ever again. Looking for logic here is pointless, author is being called a psycho by me not without reason. Spoiler: 3. Protagonist's Personality. The thing I liked the least in RI was MC's personality, or the lack of it to be exact. He has no wishes or desires except for his pursuit of immortality. A robotic pragmatic zealot with no bottom line or any proper ambitions. How bad the situation is? Well, if he gets an offer to sell his asshole for a chance to become a little bit stronger he will agree in a heartbeat and drop his pants on the spot without a second thought. Yes, he has no pride, self esteem or anything similar. Everything goes if it can help him become stronger. You will think that such disposition perfectly suits villain but it's not. As I've said above this world is completely twisted, so all you can get is an edgelord who is ready to grovel at everyone's feet. To add to this mess of character author gave his protagonist a world-class acting skills. In any situation MC is acting. In one arc he can act as an actual edgy schoolboy, the next moment he will become a beggar desperately begging for something, after this he will transform into a famous warlord etc. And no one will be able to notice anything off, including thousand years old antics with lots of experience or even readers. Why even readers you ask? Because author don't show MC's deep thoughts, he also don't tell about MC's aim. So simply accepting this is the only thing you can do. There was one arc when MC was under subconscious influence of someone else for 100 chapters but it was almost impossible to properly notice it. When I was reading it I felt that something is a bit off logically but that's it. I couldn't find any proof. The first problem is that MC doesn't have a fixed MO, the second is that this actor's main aim was unknown. I mean who knows if he simply needed to act a bit more retarded here? The third problem is that author was still praising MC's low intelligence and described his current schemes as grand and successful. You can say that RI's protagonist is more like a victim of schizophrenia, just that his switches in personality are described as genius level acting skills by author. Spoiler: 4. Planet-size plot holes. If you think while you read you will be able to notice lots of problems right from the start. I will only list the most obvious things that I still remember. 1. His main mysterious gu. It's simply strange that some small evil warlord was able to secure a gu so strong and wasn't robbed by any actual powerhouse in the process. And the more you read, the better your understanding of how precious this gu is will become. This shit made no sense for thousand chapters, only at c950 author will make a super obvious 'big reveal' which sounded more like an immature attempt to cover a ton of plot holes. 2. It's actually a big surprise how this twisted world can have any proper organizations when everyone is eager to backstab others for profits, including their colleagues and family. This world should have self-destructed long ago. 3. The cost of creating/upgrading gu is very high, while success rate is very low. There shouldn't be enough resources in this world to support anything. Resources are finite and every failure means completely throwing them away. It's especially so for high end ones. It's not like this world full of assholes was concerned about nature preservation. 4. This world has actual powers like prediction, deduction, luck, heaven's will etc. Their existence created a lot of illogical problems and plot holes. 5. MC's top immortal travel gu. This thing was extremely useful and could allow MC to do a lot of things, unfortunately he is a retard who wasted its potential. When he had it he used it to travel while carrying lvl7 gu with him, when he lost it, author immediately told everyone that this gu is useless, and you can't take anything of higher level with you. Yes, everyone knows about this gu, knows how to create it, but nobody wants it cause it's useless. Just like that. Ability to travel everywhere around the world in an instant is completely unneeded, I understand. Deep logik. Spoiler: 5. A myth about how unsuccessful and intelligent protagonist is. For some reason people praise RI as a novel where protagonist doesn't get what he deserves. But that's not true, MC here is simply a brainless retard who doesn't know how to properly managed and use his resources. That's all. He is more successful than anyone else in this world. While lots of people can't get a single lvl6 gu, and that includes him himself in his previous life, he easily got 10+ of them in his current life. Even before that he was covered in all sorts of treasures, the problem is that he never used them. He didn't trade. He didn't properly use his immortal travel gu to generate profits.(there were some attempts, but he quickly forgot about them). He didn't use online platform. He didn't use his future knowledge. He didn't even try to focus on a single particular gu combination, he simply collected all of them without proper planning like a retard. Author used all kinds of ridiculous excuses to make it a bit more logical and believable, but it wasn't really convincing. Mc could travel all around the world, use different identity, sell them from other closed worlds, find someone more trustworthy to exchange resources for him etc. A 'big reveal' at c950 will give readers an excuse for this, as if it's not MC who is a retarded, but it's a proper plot progression! Oh yeah? 950 chapters of this bullshit and you want to justify yourself like this, author? Well, as expected from psycho. Maybe only fans of overgeared will applaud you here. After all they still believe that after 1000 chapters subhuman MC will grow in some way. In all honesty I haven't seen any grand planning from MC in this novel. More often than not he is simply going with the flow in certain direction and that's it. Than he will rely on luck, coincidences and what author gives him for free to progress. Spoiler: 6. Lore There was this ridiculous childish lore that described the creation of this world and it was painful to read this load crap. in a nutshell it was nothing but a low level foreshadowing, so you couldn't even skip it. It was like 'here is the first bonobo. I'm lonely bonobo thought. Then bonobo took his own left egg and created his first son. I'm no longer lonely! Happily exclaimed bonobo.' Or 'One day bonobo was looking at the sky and thinking about something. Do you want to fly like birds? nearby stone asked him. Of course! Shouted bonobo. Then give me your remaining egg and I will give you wings said the stone. Bonobo agreed. Since this day bonobo could fly!' Mmmm so deep! Just wow! I can't believe there were even some particularly desperate elite-wannabes who especially praised this bullshit in their comments/reviews. Like 'Look! Look' RI isn't a simple story! It even has a proper lore and creation myth! What a deep level of writing! I'm so touched! True masterpiece! True literature!' Yeah, wow. After all you need to read for 950 chapters for this drivel to contain at least a bit of logic. Of course it's 'not simple' lol. The only one novel that can compete with RI on NUF is probably 'Lord of the Mysteries'. But while I don't agree that LoTM is a heavenly masterpiece, it wasn't bad. Taking into account that it's written in different style if compared to usual web novels it can somewhat explain its popularity. But what's the deal with RI?
So, to summarise, you are not into that genre, you should've dropped it the moment you didn't like it XD
Not really. I have nothing against cultivation novels and I like villainous protagonists so I can say that I've expected quite a lot from RI.
Why did you expect alot? even cultivation genre is divided into subgenres or subtypes if you want, you just picked the wrong novel, I think you were just over-hyped from all the comments XD
Because of evil protagonist. I don't care what subtype of cultivation it is. They are all the same at core. In RI people are simply cultivating different pokemons to gain strength. Nothing disappointing here. But it's really a biggest shame of NUF how it's hyped as a #1 novel with evil protagonist. I mean he has no desires at all, might as well be a monk. He don't rob/rape/kill for enjoyment, he don't torture his enemies, he isn't doing something particularly evil like refining other cultivation to increase strength. He isn't devouring anyone. In short it's just that - typical edgelord who is ready to sell his own asshole to gain a bit of strength. No more no less. With all the recommendations on NU, you will think that protagonist will be an evil incarnate who is nonstop plotting to fuck over others and gain advantages through all kinds of unspeakable means by using genius plots. Even if you don't expect a lot from all this hype, you will still think of at least something interesting. But in end? Well, pragmatic robot is all it has to offer. I bet I can easily find more than 100 threads with RI as a recommendation for evil MC. It's honestly hard not to be disappointed
Sure, killing/rape/rob/etc... those are all criminal and evil acts, RI simply doesn't match the stereotype of evil that you are used to, that is why I said you picked the wrong novel, but for others with a different definition of evil and edgelord, Fang Yuan is evil and RI is a great work to them XD
It's hard to tell something like overall #1 even subjectively, you can't really compare some genres, your reading order influences you a lot and while some novels are great at particular aspect, they can be absolute trash concerning anything else. SSS-class suicide hunter will be a good example. Author has great skill in describing emotions so comedy, drama, tragedy in it are pretty awesome, but its worldbuilding seriously suck. I'll check my list and name some titles that left me with good impression: Parody: Everyone Else is a Returnee Psychological/Character Development: The Tutorial is Too Hard, Kidnapped Dragons, Pure Love ✕ Insult Complex. Slice-of-Life: A Demon Lord’s Tale: Dungeons, Monster Girls, and Heartwarming Bliss Horror: My House of Horrors Xianxia: I Shall Seal the Heavens Comedy: Cultivation Chat Group Dramatic: SSS-Class Suicide Hunter Etc etc. It's not like there are no other good novels of these types, just that these ones left the strongest impression on me and suit my tastes the most.
All the problems you had with it are endemic to the genre. It just suffers from being overhyped. Also, it does sound like the main character is properly evil. It just sounds like the author's trying to make the point that good people don't prosper, which makes it less of an "evil protagonist" novel and more of an "evil world" novel. It sounds to me like you really want an evil main character with a proper 'foil' (a hero as a nemesis, at least occasionally) in a world that doesn't applaud evil deeds. You won't find that in the xianxia/xuanhuan genre. In response to your question in the first spoiler: Many, many authors are nutcases. Some of the best authors write their novels while deeply affected by mental illness. In fact, Stephen King even wrote a short story representing his own drug-addiction-fueled writing.
No I don't need any foil for villainous MC. I simply want him to be evil because he likes it and it's fun. 90% web novels look for different types of justification, excuses or use other low level villains as target to somehow save protagonist's image. (killing killers is ok, robbing only corrupred people, humilating young masters) I liked how Meng Hao from ISSH enjoyed robbing people, in Trafford's trading club MC is messing with people etc. But such novels are very rare. Excuses and hypocrisy like these are ok for protagonists with neutral alignment, but what's the point when MC is obviously evil? Can't he just go and find trouble with good people?
Here comes the time old argument of is fang yuan evil or not I think he is Chaotic neutral, does things for his own benefit. And if benefits aren’t involved he isn’t, I don’t see how he even aligns in the evil faction Reverend insanity is a master piece of our time the best we will get out of this genre. Tf do you think is a master piece lol Parody: Everyone Else is a Returnee lol this is complete garbage I don’t even wanna hear about how it was a parody Psychological/Character Development: The Tutorial is Too Hard, Kidnapped Dragons, Pure Love ✕ Insult Complex. the three mentioned above have galaxy sized plot holes if RI has planet sized plot holes Slice-of-Life: A Demon Lord’s Tale: Dungeons, Monster Girls, and Heartwarming Bliss Slice of life in general is filled with cliches, unoriginality and in general less interesting than watching an old man with Parkinson’s play sudoku Horror: My House of Horrors This one can compete with lord of the mysteries. But to compare it to reverend insanity which belongs to a complete different genre is folly. Xianxia: I Shall Seal the Heavens. this was really good but there were “planet sized plot holes” in this story as well. Unnecessary cock bait romance that even a middle schooler could write better. But the humor was unparalleled Comedy: Cultivation Chat Group - no opinion, haven’t read it. Dramatic: SSS-Class Suicide Hunter Hahahah don’t make me laugh. You consider this good?? Lol
I've read most of these novels and I still find RI league above to these. HOH and ISSTH are the only ones who came close
There's a JP novel that might suit you, then. https://www.novelupdates.com/series/god-bought-my-bad-character-and-gave-me-a-blessing/ That's pretty much the entire plot of this novel. I especially like how natural the author makes it look. It's JP so it probably won't reach thousands of chapters. On the original website the first two novels following this, uh, "protagonist" are completed with a third one being serialized as of the last I checked, so it's longer than it looks at first glance.
Reverend insanity isn't mainly praised for Fang Yuan's character, but the grandeous of the plot and the characters' depth as it has amazing plot twists, which always breaks expectations up to a higher level. Without it, if you put Fang yuan on a beach where he plays volleyball, like a slice of life genre novel, much less people will read it. On the other hand, what you're looking for is "I want a mc that does evil stuff like rape and kill because he likes it and it's fun." This idea could be fun if you can make such a character with grandeous plot and character depth. However, this mindset is considered shallow philosophically in real life... Socrates, Platon, Abrahamic religions... Only shallow authors would write a main character like that. And those shallow authors can't write a grandeous plot that accommodates the character. In other words, you can't expect shallow authors to write a good plot. So what have you learned? 1) RI is mainly praised for it's grandeous plot, depth and twists. Fy's character is also very important, but it's secondary. 2) Only a shallow author writes an evil mc for the sake of its evil. 3) A shallow author can't come up with a good plot, let alone grandeous. I hope this contributes to help towards your confusion.
Grand plot and character depths sounds too forced of a reason to me. As I've written in my post while MC has no personality at all, other characters are simple villains. Nothing deep here. As for grand plot it's even more of a joke. You can call it grand when it was either mysterious, very thought-out, or unpredictable. RI's plot didn't have any of it. The origins of MC's time-reversal ability were questionable from the start (his lvl was simply too low to obtain it). His inability to achieve something useful or even to build a proper fully compatible gu team looked strange and made me doubt MC's intelligence level more than once. He didn't even try to use his main specialisation (blood). Although author used a ton of excuses, even going as far as saying that his memories were tampered, it sounded like poor excuse to cover numerous plot holes. That's why straightforward novels like ISSTH are ranked much higher IMO. RI was trying to act mysterious for the sake of it and failed miserably. If you can't write such complex thing properly why force it?
ISST is trash. It can be condensed 1/3 of it chapter size without losing any major plot point since it's full of wordiness. Also, it's very generic. It doesn't matter how popular it is since there are numerous popular trash cultivation novels out there, translated thousands of chapters into english like Almight sword god, mga, dragon-marked... As for RI, there's no mystery in it. But it's very well thought-out and extremely unpredictable. Given the world setting and rules, it's only natural that he couldn't gather gu teams fast. He can't take out a gu out of his ass inside the Gu yue village. He can't even wander in the vicinity of the village without danger since it requires to be rank3 to freely roam around. The mc thought out everything and did his best with the given circumstances. I'm sure, you can't come up with a better solution. You only bicker without any logic backing it up. As expected from someone who likes a evil mc who thinks raping and killing is fun. Also, The other characters aren't simple villains. They are all humans. Unlike thrash comedy cultivation novels like issth.
Your sense of villain is probably an actual edgelord who proclaims himself as an evil psychopath but has innumerable sets of harem and a glowing bottom line higher than most people. When confronted with someone who is neutral evil and doesn't really care about beauties and moralities you will start screaming profanities and calling it trash.
To understand reverend insanity you need to be mature first of all. It is good book, Its not book about morality, Its about your passion and finding out what drives you. Some are driven by power some are driven by responsibility, Some are driven by immortality and some are driven by love.. It does not show any of its side characters as idiots. Infact i feel like Reverend insanity is the only novel i have seen that has 200 IQ characters in literal sense. Given the context and ingenious solutions they come up with is fascinating in the least. The books world is alive world full of hope, aspiration, Dreams and all the negative things that comes with it. When people praise it i thought it was another edgy novel with some shit cunt that thinks he is a cut above the rest but no what i found out was a living and breathing world with amazing plot twists and brilliant characters.