so i was thinking of reading the novel but before that i decided to read the comments to see how it was... the rating was pretty good so i thought, lets do this! until I saw a comment on the nationalism of mc in the novel...one f#cking thing i cant deal with is the damn nationalism on novels, so before i waste i time, can someone who has read the novel tell me about it? Is it too extreme or at least slightly acceptable for me not to feel disgusted?
Nothing so nationalistic , bearable , it's more so for setting up in game antagonists from what I remember
The MC is about as nationalistic as you are. There is a nationalist side character, but his nationalism is portrayed as comedy. As far as the author goes, and general story tones.. well, no, not at all. The side characters are diverse, coming from a variety of races and nationalities, and none of them are better or worse for their origins. There is an international tournament that comes up every so often, but the author doesn't put down the other countries and praise Korea in every other sentence like you might see in some other novels. The MC in particular couldn't care less if Korea wins or not, and only competes for material rewards in the game. The MC's companions even represent other countries, ffs. Overgeared has plenty of flaws, but rampant nationalism is not one of them.
There is about the same amount of nationalism as many chinese MMO novels have. One of the major plot items is a global tournament and there is a lot of Korea #1 and so forth. They also talk down and denigrate the Chinese and Japanese teams with stereotypes and other mildly racist things.
Frankly in WN, even in western works, nationalism and racism exist, lol bonus points when they are set in otherworlds.
well ig i should expect that but is it too extreme? or is more of mild rant like "fuck japan...and china and the novels resumes"? bad example to use me as example since i don't have a clear nationality thus i don't really give a flying fck about any nation in particular...but what i cared about is whether the author praised korea or whatever nation every 5 sentences like other novels since is really annoying so thanks for the concise answer! f#ck yes, +10 BONUS POINTS if the setting is in otherworlds!
Then you're a perfect example, because while the MC has a clear nationality, he doesn't particularly give a flying fuck about it. Praise Korea? Pfft. He's more likely to praise the business that sponsor'd him.
Nah not on the extreme end, and it is often the side characters that do the BS Korea is Great, America Land of Free and Viva China shit. Heck, Grid even said thaf he is patriotic but not mindlessly so.
There's no real nationalism. He likes Korean food and he lives in Korea so he plays for Korea but that's about it. I think the nationalism at play is that the Chinese are stereotyped as nationalist and there are certain Korean characters who are super pro-Korea for comedy. In the end, it's mostly for comedy. Also it's a great novel but it's super long so things drag out for ages.
A (could have been) great novel if it wasn't dragged out for so long. I swore it could have ended like 300 chapters ago.
Most of the people talking about nationalism in Overgeared are whining. Korean fans and citizens support Korea. Japanese citizens complain at the Japanese side character because he's a hardcore follower of the Korean MC. The Chinese players are worried that the Chinese people will flame them to death if they step out of line. The overly patriotic people in the story are parodies. The worse of it is probably the Russian stuff where one of the Russian team's guys is racist against the half russian/half korean rival of the MC. And all of this is still only present during the small portion of the story that deals with the Olympic type competition.
Overall slightly acceptable (it should mostly be removed but it's not super annoying) with a few exceptions. Other than the national competition arcs, it can be found scarcely. Among the Chinese, Hao is reasonable but he also bowed down and surrendered to Grid. He got endless shit from the Chinese for this. When Grid captures a certain npc (who has the authority to coerce his, incidentally mostly chinese, subordinates) around chapter 1100 China sends a jet through Korea but this is related to the novel's depiction of the communist party than the chinese. Also this is the most extreme example and thing like this happened twice or thrice but it is very nationalistic. I.e. " It was a warning for the people of a small country to stop pretending to be bigger.". There are some racist right wing japanese people and racist young master chinese but even when combined they don't take more than 10 chapters. Occasionally the tournaments get the mild nationalism which includes a few players saying "how can someone from a small country like Korea do x?". These scenes are more about portraying the protagonist and Korea as the underdogs rather than portraying other countries as racists so they don't bother that much. A character called Peak Sword manages the patriotic association of Korea but his nationalistic statements are intended as a joke as they usually include grid fanboying instead of make Korea great again kind of slogans. The underdog portrayal and peak sword's comments constitute about 95% of the nationalism in the novel. Though there are occasionally statements regarding how Korea was number 1 when e-sports first came out but gradually declined. These statements occasionally include phrases like Korean Dna so yuck. Finally, 4 of the top players are either Korean or Korean emigrants in other countries. Kraugel is supposed to be the ultimate genius and he happens to be Korean because reasons... Similarly, Faker's control (a catch all term for counterattacking, evasion etc.) level is second only to Kraugel and he is a Korean in Canada. I really can't think of a reason to make these two Koreans other than the fact that Overgeared is written by a Korean author for a Korean audience. Other great Korean rankers include Yura, Coke, Jokbal and Resh; all of whom have superb talent. That said the nationalistic moments are not that common. The main guild is multinational. Jishuka is from Brazil, Lauel is from US, Regas is from UK and Chris is from Canada. Side characters that receive attention are also from other countries. Agnus is from Austria, Damian is from Japan and Zibal is from US. Grid's nationalism is about eating Korean food and getting angry if someone blatantly insults Korea like burning its flag. Than again, Grid got angry for someone who insulted Bubat (a Turkish player and former minor enemy of Grid), so it is in his character to get angry when people are being jerks. All in all, the novel is about Grid, the in game universe and the npcs. So there really isn't that much focus on nationality or nationalism in general.
I don't think I have ever read a novel that mentioned another Asian country outside the author's country positively. At best, it will be fairly neutral. Overgeared is bearable when it comes to stroking off South Korea (at least until where I have read, Chapter 450~ish). It is a decent enough read for the most part until it falls into the same pitfalls as a lot of other similarly theme Korean VR Game based novels. It is still has some pretty good jokes, so I might pick it up again after a while. I would recommend it for the early chapters.