He Who Fights With Monsters

He who fights with monsters is a story that I'd recommend to try and read, but would at the same time understand if you dropped it after a few hundred chapters. It is plagued both by meandering storylines and filler chapters as it is carried by witty dialogue, banter, pre-2000's references that I'm too young to understand. It is set in an interesting high-fantasy world with an in-depth LitRPG system mixing elements from traditional western RPGs and cultivation stories.

The story is carried primarily by its characters. Jason as the main protagonist is the perfect mix of whimsical troll and politically inclined thinker. His rants about politics, philosophy and morals can get tedious and are frequent, but he mostly shines with an unusual sense of humor, stirring up chaos and pushing people's buttons while still staying humble enough to engage with them on a person-to-person basis. The supporting cast is there and neatly rounds out our protagonist, making this the overall highest scoring category.

The story is a classical Isekai story: Person dies, transported into another world, magic is real, time to do stuff. And thereafter lies the greatest pet pieve people have with it and which I share. The story has quite a bit of filler and when you're stuck in a stretch of time after a big arc or something, like the story is now, it feels like it's stretched out to fill those 5 chapters a week. Besides that, commonly cited annoyances are Jason's frequent rants and too blatantly bad bad guys and I agree with these sentiments to some extent. I would be inclined to agree, which is why I scored this category at 3/5.

The style of writing is whimsical at times and can get quite funny and chaotic while also finding itself able to shift to a more serious tone just as easily. While this allows both tones to be present throughout the story, it's true strength shows itself when it leans into the comedy aspect rather than the grim. The fights are given good enough descriptions that I could follow along, albeit people who don't like long blue text-boxes interspersing the action will probably not find a favorite here.

The story has decent enough grammar that no difficulties arise when trying to understand what's going on. The occasional error can be found in every chapter but besides that, the level of grammar is nothing special, albeit I've seen far, far worse.

Overall, I give it a 3/5. It can be great at times, and a slog to read at others and whether you'll be bothered by that or not remains to be seen. There is better, there is worse, but for a webnovel with 5 chapter updates a week, it's good.

If I had to compare this to a food, i'd call it a burger from that new indie restaurant. Hip, good for some fun, cool with people who haven't tried it before but the food takes ages to arrive and they only have different variants of this one weird in-house special.

Edit: I haven't had the time to update this review so it is still as of Ch. 222. Editing as I forgot to give spoiler warnings and spoiled other RR stories. My bad.

For Shirtaloon, this story started incredibly and has managed to garner and maintain a lot of attention becuase it can be so incredible at times. I write this both as a review, and because it's difficult to step back and look at your own work objectively so I'd like to point out some easy areas to improve.  

OVERALL

Overall this is a very fun story. It has been on the front page of Popular This Week for months now for good reason. That said, there are a few things keeping it from being a great story or, at times, good. Those things are, in order: the lack of character development, the lack of a believable villain/ plot, and the static nature of the main character. Many reviews get caught up in the minutia of these failings and fail to reinforce the fact that this story is still worth a read especially if the author shores them up. 

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

The MC's character development will be covered last. Here, I want to focus on the side characters. In few words, the side characters are not developed.

The beating heart of every story is its characters. Gintama is a comedy with the barest hint of a plot for hundreds of chapters and it's listed as the greatest comedic manga because its characters are full of such life, depth, and diversity. The first Pirates of the Carribean was such a hit not because of its rather cliche love story, but because Jack Sparrow was such a compelling supporting character. Also note later installments in that series were worse because Jack became the main character and the driving force of the series was lost.

Readers invest themselves into the lives of the supporting cast in order to be dragged along with the author's script. The emotional investment in stories - on Royal Road especially - come from our investment in characters that are actually at risk. The MC in most stories is protected by plot armor so it's the plights of the side characters that tend to draw us in.

Lack of a Villain/ Plot

If main and side characters are the heart of a story, the villain is the lungs. The villain is the one who breathes life into the little interactions between characters and creates the urgency that drives a story forward. It can't be something as intangible as monsters or the big evil cult because those aren't problems that can be directly addressed by the MC. 

Immediate - The villain creates urgency by doing something that needs to be addressed NOW. The cult is going to the end the world, but it's a big world and we have time for a few rooftop barbies before then.

Close to Home - If a villain isn't somewhere that the MC can challenge directly, then he's the villain of someone else's story. The big bad is, suffice to say, difficult to reach.

Just as good as the MC - This is the kicker. The villain needs to win. If the villain never wins there's no sense of risk, of danger. Even if it's something small, a villain has to prove themselves by triumphing over the MC in some way. Cyclostomata and Chad never do.

A good example is the Joker from the Dark Knight Rises. He is immediate: from placing timed bombs next to loved ones or running to ferrys filled with explosives at each other, he isn't a problem that can be solved later without massive consequences. He is close to home: Batman can reach him with his two orphan fists. He is better than the Batman: Batman loses to him. When the Joker creates Two-Face Batman loses to the Joker so completely that he needed to do something completely outside of the Joker's expectations to win. He had to sacrifice his own image of a hero to be a hero.

THAT is a villain. A character that can challenge and inspire the MC. Every hero needs his demon lord.

Luckily, adding one also fixes the other half of this issue, plot. What are the MC's goals right now? Get stronger? Who is he trying to beat? Oh he's trying to protect? Do some pushups every morning. No I want to know what he's working towards. I see a lot of rising action but not even the foggy outline of a climax. What will be the apex of this story arc? He gets so strong he can endure the monster flood? Why should we care? The plot so far hasn't been imporant because the MC has been in the 'adjusting to a new reality' phase. But he's almost bronze rank, it's time for Thanos to come knocking at the door.

How to fix?

Make a villain. I wish I could offer more actionable advice, but the flavor of the villain is heavily tied to how you want your story to develop, so it's all on you. Have some fun with it!

The Main Character

I saved the best for last because it is the easiest to fix. A lot of your readers have been getting frustrated (based on the other hundred reviews here) by the fact that your MC has stagnated. Let me explain, and this has two sides to it. Your MC started as a snarky, quippish guy who was just adjusting to his circumstances and it was done beautifully. I probably got past the first page of his character before recommending this novel to everyone I know. The issue now is that he hasn't changed. As I mentioned earlier, he has passed the adjusting phase of his tenure in this world and he still acts like the snarky, quippish guy who was using confusion and witticism as a defense mechanism. The other side of this, and likely the one everyone has issue with, is that your side characters don't react to this realistically. All of them are either awed by his gibberish, or don't react at all.

Lastly, you don't need to tell us that something is having an effect on Jason. We've read enough of his character to be able to see it when it happens. So rather than "Jason was, for once, silent. He had no words to say and Sophie was shocked when a bit of that mask fell away." you can just describe what happens like "Jason stood, quietly, admiring the simple beauty of the fireworks. Sophie spared him a quick glance, her worried frown giving way to a small smile as she saw rare sight of his unblinking eyes and open mouth."

How to fix?

This is the easiest one. A villain is a foil to the MC and will change him naturally as you write them both. Honestly exactly like your title implies. Hell, name your villain Abyss, that'd be fun. Also as you grow your sidecharacters you'll naturally flesh out your MC too so this one will literally fix itself once you address the other two.

FINALLY, AS THIS IS A REVIEW

Many stories aren't well written enough to have their issues wrapped up in a neat little bun with three little bullet points. Not many stories truly are cultured enough to include an appropriate Nietzsche quote. It is a rare story that has both of these and updates practically daily. Just know, prospective reader, that if you pick this one up, the story does suffer from the little issues that any story would if its author was required to output material as quickly as this one, pending edits. I say it is worth it. And, if you're an elitist that only touches stories from out of golden geese and dusted with diamonds, read the beginning.

UPDATE: My BOY the LION MAN has been given motivation, goals, and depth. Im so happy

Read the story up to 350 chapters and dropped it for few reasons. But let me preface that story managed to keep my attention up to this point so it did some things well. 

So lets start few "issues":

1. Dialogues - they are either snarky/witty or some kind of serious discussion about meaning of life or some other inconsequential thing. You will not see every day dialogue or any kind of dialogue normal humans might have. Which brings me to second issue.

2. Everyone is Jason - and if they are not you will not remember them. Honestly it weirds me out, Jason was supposed to be unique kind of character but he "infects" people with his personality just after few interactions. One of the side characters (Emyr) suddenly become more powerful copy of Jason with no prior indication that might be the case. And you will probably find difficult to describe any character that is not Jason or Jason-like, they either do not have enough screen time and/or their personalities are not distinctive enough.

3. Jason himself - I loved his character during first arc, he was perfect example why the Isekai genre exist. The utter confusion and choas when faced with utterly alien world meshed so well with his character. It gave a reason for his character of behaving nonsensically when faced with nonsense world. But then it kept going, Jason actually never changed even though story keeps "stating" that he did. Every event that he faced and the way he reasoned about them screamed kind of teen angst even though it was supposed to be a serious and adult. It was further diminished because no 10 chapters would pass without Jason pondering about his ego.

4. Apathy - I could not find myself to care about characters or events. Story failed to establish a bond between a reader and the characters. 

5. Lack of catharsis - simple, for the whole 350 chapters we have not seen any kind of major payoff, not a happy one, not a depressing one. Events that were supposed to be that payoff were undermined by the reasons above.

6. Show not tell - this one is probably my most subjective point. I always felt that story told to how are you supposed to feel and from time to time spewed exposition. 

I'm sick of the main character's inner turmoil subplot. It's been going on for 371 chapters and with all the "progress" and "Finding himself" it still goes right back to normal after a couple chapters. Normal being a constant drone of questioning himself and angsting over who he's becoming.

I can't tell even a little bit what he got from his most recent walkabout to rediscover himself, and I'm half convinced that's because the author immediately followed it up by events that don't let him show his new inner stability. He does the utter opposite of that in fact; Putting the mc in a situation that tears him all the way back down. It's what always happens, so he might as well not have inner stability at all is what I'm saying. You told us he was getting it, but it's nowhere to be seen when it matters and when it doesn't it's only the appearence of stability. You've told us something that's never shown.

There's a lot to be said about a story that doesn't ignore the human elements of a character, but at the end of the day he's a character in a story and his angst just isn't interesting anymore. It's been done to death and I really want it to end. It doesn't serve its purpose anymore, not to a degree where it's worth still seeing it brought up every other chapter. Literally every other chapter.

Just stop it. After 371 chapters it's well past the point where he should've "Found himself" and chilled tf out. Basically, please for the love of god just write him as a basic power fantasy mc! You've gone so far with it in the other direction and I'm so DONE seeing it brought up that's what the story needs to happen now. Just end the constant drone of moral angst... Please...

Each arc gets gradually less interesting. The first one, with the blood cult, was great; there was an element of mystery before we understood the power system and how Jason got to isekai'd, and there was enough comedy to keep things entertaining.

Then things started to degrade, and by the later arcs (as of this review, fighting the Builder cult inside the Reaper's pocket dimention) the fight scenes become incredibly dry. It starts boiling down to "character uses their power, but the enemy countered with their power, then character healed with their healing power." The main characters never seem to lose or be set back in any way. Very boring.

None of the characters are particularly interesting either. Jason starts as a sarcastic, irreverant man with a penchant to get in over his head, which works well with the early story.

But he then stays that way for the entire story as his circumstances change, which is less and less interesting.

The other characters are either bland or unlikable. The villains seem to only exist to make life hard for the good guys, with little motivation. Then they get unceremoniously defeated, with no build up or payoff.

The power system is really loose; I have no idea where the limits are or what powers a character can or can't have.

I've been reading this story for a few months, but I really feel no investment to continue at this point. The story was at its best when Jason was running around naked trying to complete a quest to obtain pants.

Generally a very well executed story.  If I'd written this 25 chapters ago I would have scored it much higher.  However, since then I've really soured on certain parts of the story, especially the MC.  Did you know that he's a brilliant social manipulator?  Well if you didn't, don't fret!  The other characters will tell you how smart he is, over and over and over!  Everybody loves him, you see, except the people who don't, and that's how you know they're the bad guys.  If I could find somebody to love me even a quarter as much as these people love Jason, I'd have the best wife in the world.

Update: Couldn't take it anymore and dropped it a few weeks ago.  Updated with my final ratings.

I've read up to chapter 517. The series started out great, with a fairly unique and entertaining main character. The magic system was executed very well, and the world was great. 

This all ended once you reach volume 2. From volume 2 onwards, there is chapter after chapter of the MC moping about the same few things. It's usually that he somehow managed to save hundreds of people against all odds and a few died, or that he's scared he's slowly becoming a bad guy. It was sort of interesting the first 15 times it happened, but it's seriously long winded at this point. The return to earth lasted far longer than it should have. It started devolving from a fun LITRP adventure to politics, and more politics. After the umpteenth betrayal from a large corporation, it really gets old.

That leads us to volume 3, where a problem that's persisted since volume 2 really shows itself in all it's glory. Characters will just sit around talking about how damaged and cool and powerful and amazing and dangerous the MC is. In the 50-ish chapters of volume 3, there are probably a solid 25 long winded conversations about how incredibly amazing the MC is. The MC also loves going on long winded tangents about not wanting to be used and respect and bleh. In the 50-ish chapters, there's been 2 or 3 fights, the rest being mind-numbing conversations about how people are worried about Jason, or how Jason is worried about himself, or how Jason is angry about people using him all the time. 

Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk, I can highly recommend reading volume 1 of this story, and I'd advise not to read further.

I will start off by saying there are definitely great elements in this story. It was the story Iooked forward to the most for some periods of time. I especially live the way it portrayed group fighting and the strategy of facing the wide variety of monsters as an adventurer. 

But I just can't do it. The everyone is Jason problem is real. You can end up reading multiple chapters in a row of Jason "snark" dialogue, and that gets draining when you are up to date and you feel like you wasted a whole update reading that. Second, the storyline, despite the attempts to give an overarching scope, is boring. The moments when this story shines are when Jason is discovering new and wonderous things about the new world around Greenstone, when he is learning about the essence system, and when he is learning the tools of the trade as an adventurer. Shirtaloons ability to envision complex builds for his characters, wacky items, and creative monster encounters is top-notch. 

Unfortunately, most of the story is instead spent on drawn out political encounters with egomaniac villains, a mind controlling-esque cult, and a corrupt church. These plotlines completely deviate for the sense of discovery and growth and get bogged down in dumb conflict and poor ethical monologues. 

Anyways, I love the world, but I think I am done with this now.

Standard isekai/gamelit fare. Interesting system. MC starts amusing, which gets a bit more irritating the more often strawmen are propped up to soapbox at. There's also a weird throughline that any kind of group or organization will be revealed to actually be evil/greedy which only Jason who is apparently the one always correct in every decision triumphs over. To be incredibly pithy, considerations like "save ten now or one hundred later" actually are "save ten now and then also the one hundred later, because obviously no one actually should ever consider larger ramifications since things will work out just fine." The few 'good' bits of personality are overshadowed by the sheer unnecessary aggrandizement of everything else he does. Its very much how a person who describes themself as an 'honest straight-shooter' thinks they are like, except actually they're a dick and tact/manners are pretty fair and reasonable things. Being frequently obtuse/lolrandumb is a teenager or friend in-joke thing, adults doing it is offputting, weird, and concerning when done to every stranger you bump into.

And then we are back to Earth and go through the same book but reskinnedt- learning the Magic World because he's teaching people, learning about these orgs which have always existed (#WeUrbanFantasyNow).

So at this point, its basically gone the way of Legend of Randidly Ghosthound in that it recycles, repeats, and drags out events to milk that sweet sweet patreon monies.

Others have talked at length about the shortcomings of this story, so mine will be merely a ranty update of sorts.

I slogged through this story's Greenstone arc and the ensuing Reaper Trial because I thought there was a silver lining. Surely enough, the fight against the Builder gave this story an overarching narrative and  measurable progression. Some of the side characters also seemed to finally stop being muppets. That's when the break came [Spoiler Alert] and Jason reached Earth, which basically reset this story.

'Fair enough' I thought. Maybe shirtaloon will now put to use the experience and feedback he has gathered. Fat chance. What has ensued is essentially Greenstone 2.0, where Jason again engages factions vastly beyond his power and they either start bending over backwards or become stereotypical villains, who will be dispatched without tension. The family side plot also becomes boring real quick and usually involves either 2-4 people snarking at each other or Jason mouthing off about his emotional butthurt and being an indignant prick. If anything he became even more immature and obnoxious, which is, on the few occasions this story shows self-awareness, explained away by the magic words 'psychological trauma'. It's ok if he's an ass because he has a trauma. It's ok if he lashes out at neutral parties, because trauma. I detest how that term is used for justification inside the story, as well as a meta tool to explain character stagnation (or even degenaration). 

For me, shirtaloon once again has squandered a wonderful opportunity to evolve this story and it's protagonist and I'm tired of waiting for pay-off. I regret not heeding the early signs.