Reviews of It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future
It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future
Madam Ru
- Overall Rate
- Translation Quality
- Updating Stability
- Story Development
- Character Design
- world background
Reincarnation. Check. Female MC. Check. Gender Bender. Check. Looks interesting. Check. Add to library. Check. Listed enough. Check. Yay! Another female protagonist! Hope this won't disappoint. *crosses fingers* ≧ω≦
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This is absolutely a gem. A kickass female MC who isn't tied down by romance. I love the other novels with female MCs but no matter how talented the female lead is, she is always inferior to her counter part - be it in wealth, nobility, popularity or skills. In this novel, our MC is the man. She doesn't take any bs and is on equal footing (or even higher) than her peers. Granted other MCs are like this too but atleast she doesn't have a shadow guardian ("the male lead") that makes her problems go away if shw cant handle it. Other than the great plot, amazing translation quality!
Ok, first things first. This is in the wrong genre. It is through and through Science Fiction. It's literally a Bros/Sisters Before Everyone Else kind of story, except the leader isn't a guy, but a girl. With Giant Space Robots that will rip your body into shreds with g-force. And Various Background Proxy Wars and underlying plot. As someone who has completely read the raws 5 times over in the past year while following all of the author's updates (I'm literally on my 6th run guys and I'm STILL finding new things that I missed the first few times around), this is one of the best stories I've read in a long time. It has amazing character growth, characterization, character relationships, plot, action, emotional turmoil, setting, depth - I could go on. Madame Ru can make you laugh out loud one moment and cry in grief the next - truly, it's a story that sets itself apart and has become a unique existence. There's so much going on, but it doesn't detract from your understanding due to how well Madame Ru hides it in the background through foreshadowing and Chekov's Gun. Not only that, it has a female protagonist that doesn't suffer from the painful cliches that one would expect in a genderbender story - which, honestly, makes a lot more sense setting-wise (how can you not be able to hide your body's gender if you have something like Little Four and high science fiction medicine). Also the setting itself is really fun. It's a hyper futuristic intergalactic empire with Xianxia elements - mainly spiritual power, qi, and martial arts. Except instead of being something fancy like martial arts sects, it's been integrated into lineages. After countless years of development, they've become something akin to 'military arts' rather than just wushu, with a heavy focus on usability rather than just display. Madame Ru meshes the two normally opposite traits beautifully and without a seam - keeping the core of the idea and evolving it into a completely new existence. And Ling Lan. She's not your typical female protagonist either - she, so far, has been my most favorite that I've come across. She is neither morally righteous nor evil - her morals don't follow the path of 'for humanity', but just for the small, small group of people she cares about, the people who believe in her. Her path is of the heart, and she refuses to bow down to anyone - her Dao is Hegemony. There is nothing more satisfying than watching her grow from her original self to the current self and following the hardships she goes through. She will become the strongest, but at the same time, she isn't alone - she has her little partners that she cares for and grows along with. Yes, her goal isn't to be the single peerless god at the top of the world, but to bring those who put their trust and lives into her hands along with her. This, in itself, is already a highly unique trait within stories. Together we rise, divided we fall. Anyway, sorry, I'm a bit of a chatterbox when it comes to this series. It's by far my favorite and I hope it will get the attention and representation it deserves. Let's all keep on fighting, little partners! Until we reach the top :3c
I really like this.... Can't wait to read more of this novel.... I should have had waited until there is more chapters..... I like it too much... I wonder who will be her love interest though.. Little four? I wonder if some of them(those she met during the testings) will turn gay... Though I think that the smart guy would find out that she's a she first.
I do quite enjoy this sort of novel wherein the protagonist's sole focus isn't to get stronger to uh, do a thing, or something, until the author runs of of things to write, or the translator gives up. Instead, the focus of this charming novel up to this point is simply staying afloat, adapting to the circumstances, and trying not to blunder too noticeably. The Level-headed protagonist really shows through when they aren't trying to become an Asura and slaughter the entire enemy clan for fun. I've lost interest in writing a review for this, so I'll just say this is a very nice (In borat speak), and recommend it to all.
This novel is far from perfect. Its main selling point is a fairly well done overpowered female protagonist. On the other hand, its main weaknesses are a terrible sense of blind Chinese nationalism, the weirdly stupid mind games that all the characters face, as well as the complete lack of research the author has done on any of the subjects presented in the novel. I first began reading this novel both because of the amazing review score it had, as well as for a cross-dressing protagonist. The story starts off quite well, with a female lead who dies in her own world but is pulled into reincarnating into a future world because of a "grandpa teacher"-like spiritual entity inside her mind. It continues on to quite hilarious descriptions of her mother and the other characters around her as she slowly progresses through life pretending to be a boy in order to be able to inherit her father's inheritance and legacy. The characters in the novel, up to the point I've read, are quite interesting. They're all varied in personality and working through their own motivations as they interact with our heroine Ling Lan. We have an overbearing mother character, a kind grandpa figure who's also a hidden ninja, a stupid yet competent AI assistant, as well as a wide range of friends that collect around her. Yet the most interesting character is still the MC Ling Lan, who despite being an incredibly talented girl pretending to be a boy, only has the single objective of having a normal life and ultimately giving birth to the most talented child possible. Another aspect of this author that I really like is her skill in describing battles. The author has a natural talent for describing and directing melee fights between individuals. While there isn't much focus on any actual martial arts or actual techniques, the author still does a good job with understanding the capabilities and physical limits of the human body and expressing the fights as a natural and fluid manner. However, at the same time, the author is quite terrible at understanding the limitations of non-human entities. This brings me to one of the main areas where the author has been negligent - her research into science fiction. This is undoubtedly a science-fiction work, but this novel does nothing more than throw around the jargon without understanding what any of it actually is. Ling Lan's "AI Assistant", named Little Four, is more of a little kid than an AI. At times he's smart and competent, but most of the time he's nothing more than a little kid throwing a tantrum (though this adds to the comedy). As things go, this is a terrible trait for any AI assistant to have. Next, there are the mechas. While I congratulate the author for adding the detail that the main obstacle for a mecha pilot is being able to withstand the G-forces of the constant accelerations the vehicle has to face, at the same time I also have to blame the author for not understanding the slightest bit about the mechas themselves. When faced with a complicated system like a humanoid robot, she believes that it's only possible to completely control such a robot using hand motions to individually manipulate each joint of the robot, causing a huge amount of stress on the hand-speed of the operators. She has completely refused the idea that such systems might use computer assistance to automate the processes, and views AI in controlling robots as a bad thing. This is only annoying when you consider that any AI system as advanced as the ones in this story should be able to pilot these mechas far better than any human operator ever could. In addition, there are several instances where weapons are magically enhanced by the addition of an AI into them, breaking out of physical limitations that they should not have ever been able to break out of. Ultimately, while this is a science-fiction story, it's also a terrible example of the science-fiction genre as it completely fails to understand the implications, uses, and limitations of the very technology it introduces. On a related note is the idea that kids mature much faster than in the past. In the story, it's completely understandable that kids are much more physically developed because of the various gene-stimulating agents and chemical therapies that they undergo from a young age. However, at the same time, there is no explanation for why 6-year-old kids have the same level of mental maturity and genius as a grown man. Right from the beginning, we see 6-year-olds engaged in mind-games and politics against each other. This would be okay if the story presented some form of explanation for why these kids have such mental stimulation, but if we just look at the experiences of the MC Ling Lan, there is no instance where the kids undergo any kind of mental augmentation at all. Even for Ling Lan, there is no explanation for why the "learning space" provided by her AI assistant expects 6-month-old children to be able to understand the human language and also start playing mind-games against trained military instructors in order to obtain training. One of the more annoying aspects of the story is the author's obsession with Chinese nationalism. Right from the beginning, we are made to understand that the new Federation is just the author's idea of a Chinese space empire. Later on, we learn that their main enemies are the Empire, which is overtly declared to be a Japanese colonial space empire, signaled by their use of the rising sun as their symbol and how their commanders all use childish Japanese words in the middle of the military talks to further clue the readers to that fact. The author also makes it clear of her vehement hate for the Japanese in several passages where she references the Nanking Massacre. The Japanese troops are always dressed in black, have black mechas, and are blamed for a lot of the faults in the government because of their agents who have infiltrated the Chinese government. In addition, the Japanese commanders are portrayed as incompetent egotistical maniacs who know nothing about their own troops and have to rely on their subordinates to make decisions for them. The Empire is very clearly a stand-in to express the author's own rage against the Japanese. The author also has a terrible habit of releasing spoilers in the middle of the story. It's as if the author is constantly afraid that her readers can't understand the implications of things, as she often reveals what will happen in the later chapters as an implication of the decisions that are taken in the current chapter. For example, very early into the story, in the middle to talking about Ling Lan's father's legacy, the author directly tells us that her father is not actually dead and will return in a later chapter, directly spoiling a major part of the story for us. Overall, this story is cute and humorous. It fits into the standard trope of female-oriented CN novels where we see an overpowered female lead who plays mind-games to defeat all her opponents. However, don't come into this story expecting to find any actual science-fiction elements, competent villains, or extremely consistent internal logic.
first thought was.. uh yay a new 1!.. wander if its any good.. before i knew it i was locked down, 40 chapters read! and i was hyped and left craving for more.. so now i just wanna cry because i now have to wait XD.. so if u ask me if this is any good so fare?.. the answer is a big earth shaking yes!! enjoy ;P
Helloooo everyone! I bring good news! Author has updated her Weibo (chinese twitter). It is a bit cryptic tho, but it basically means she's back! my prayers have been answered! Word is that she will start releasing new chapters on February (this I am not sure). her statement is something along the lines of: Body of scars but time has returned. (a little more context: she had said before she didn't have time, and she was hesitating and stuff.) anyways, please cheer up ^^ let's not rate the book badly, authors do have their life outside of writing. let's cheer them on and encourage them instead 😊❤
⚠ Warning ⚠ To the readers who are gonna start reading this novel please note that this book has been in hiatus mode for almost 2 years. There has been no update after 1482. So choose yourself whether you wanna read this novel and have a heartbreak in the end cause the novel is not finished. Although this novel is worth it. I love this novel so much that I feel so sad it has not been updating. And the biggest torture is I'm not even sure whether this is gonna get completed ever. ☹️
SO SO GOOD!!! I cannot emphasize how fantastic this story really is, honestly. This story has practically anything I'd ever ask for: a badass protagonist who happens to be female (and does not somehow gain a selective harem even if their personality is kinda ****), great world building- although it should be noted that this story is one of my first Chinese webnovels, so perhaps it is actually not so original. I would still love it anyway!- and a good mix of cuteness! It's interesting to imagine that small 6 year old children are fighting each other with martial arts... Ling Lan is probably one of my favorite protagonists ever. She's, well, a she. But this web novel has some of my favorite genres that are often prone to having a typical Gary Stu character leading it. It's action packed and absolutely thrilling. I cannot wait when for the male lead of this story appears so that I can get a good dose of romance too! Ling Lan by herself is already great, and even without a romantic aspect this novel would be just as good. Ling Lan's personality makes me sigh with relief, because she is actually quite calculative and calm in most aspects. Of course, she is older than her peers, but that certainly doesn't lessen her. I've read some other Chinese webnovels, but I find that female protagonists seem to often be a cutout replica of each other: black-bellied, cold-hearted, kind of an ass, but sOooO sTrOng anD cOoL! *note my mild sarcasm towards the end* I do like strong leads, but sometimes I feel like the leads are somehow blessed with incredible cheat knowledge from their previous life or something. Ling Lan? She spent her previous life reading manga and whatnot! She barely has any previous knowledge, besides the fact that she is basically a grown *****. She does have Little Four, but a lot of Mary Sues seem to have insane contracted beasts that might have exceeding powers. Little Four is definitely still a cheat-like existence though. The translation quality is great, and we get pretty much 7 translations a week! I just wish I could read Chinese though because I'd probably finish it immediately~
I really love it. For one, it has a cross-dressing female 2. It actually feels like it could happen, as in the problems that happen aren't just for no reason, there's actually a reason. Adding to that, the reasons aren't stupid. 3. The main character isn't OP yet. She actually has flaws. And if she does have unusual strenght in something, it makes sense that she does as to say that there is a reason for her strenght. which creates a perfect character. 4. Even the side characters, mobs, and cannon fodders are important. They have good reasons behind their actions and a solid character. This has got to be my most favorite book as of yet.
It’s truly one of the better female protagonist stories on Qidian. It does have the typical “Mary Sue” feel that’s prevalent in most web novels, be they male or female centric. I like that the storyline is easy to follow and that characters aren’t one dimensional. You don’t get a character who’s terrible and evil and who the minute he meets the mc, decides to blame all woes on the mc. It also contains some values of feminism, clearly criticizing a society where men are the sole inheritors. Overall, the characters are nicely paced; no one is too one dimensional and character actions are understandable, which is something that I don’t see in a lot of web novels. The flow of the story is nice and humor exists to lighten the mood. I guess you could say the storyline progression is slow but you can feel the build up in plot every chapter. It’s not like those ****ty web novels where suddenly people just decide to kill the mc out of no other reason than “I hate him/her” and with no other reason than “I hate him/her because I hate him/her.” This type of novel isn’t exactly a hard read—it’s really just leisure reading and doesn’t make you use your brain a lot, but it’s not like those vapid and senseless web novels that have literally no realistic aspect in terms of character and plot creation. I give it a 4/5 just because I consider it to be nothing more than just a good leisure read.