I remember reading this a few years back after reading all of its chapters leaving memories of man this looks cool and it has a lot of potential to shine This obviously hasnt aged well only the looks stood up and this is frankly a tragedy that the writing didnt get better for my main gripes are structural to the manga: too much of the story follows tell dont show instead of the opposite every few chapters we get long backstory exposition scenes that either: doesnt fit or contradicts a character ability item or areas previously defined or hinted characteristics ex: MCs self description says hes essentially stuck in a dead end job delving low level dungeons for a decade doesnt talk about the guild with any sort of affectionnor ever seems to have feelings or strong opinions but then we have one of the guilds staffers suddenly think about him out of nowhere and essentially say hes a generous pillar of the community that always helped newbies do much the entry death rate plummeted Wich is then further contradicted later by him being extensively cold and wary of a rather clueless newbie trying to scrape some money to save his Inn Explains a major story element later out of the blue that shouldve been referenced at least in any way wich does not stick with what we learned Ex: in the same page before using spirit power one only clerics the blessed and a few others can do MC explains that he did get that by a fairy a power that would not only have allowed him to easily get higher than bronze rank and never used it before in cases where he it wouldve been greatly helpful the dialogue is clunky and bloated: characters will drop information they knew and so did the reader and MC they had no reason to bring it Its as if the writer forgot what he wrote a few chapters back and never bothered to reread his stuff. characters cant for the love of god be subtle in their reactions declarations or revealing dialogue its essentially: Rando: so something hapenned to me it was terrible a dog bit me and it hurts and now im scared another dog may do that and thats why i fear dogs MC in internal monologue: hmf thats all? I was eaten alive by a dragon and now im undead and ive been ostracised and stuff yadda yadda... he said at chapter 5X.X Its as if the mangaka never talked with someone before. Overall if the author bothered to remake the dialogue and add indirect cues reactions that implies something instead of just giving the information outright he couldve reduced the dialogue to half its size at least and given himself much more leeway to deepen the characters and world later on on top of increasing dialogue quality considerably. the story is disconnected and unhinged: stories that goes nowhere: at multiple times do we find mini arcs the MC does with a new character be it with a new adventurer an innkeeper or with a blacksmith two lf theses are hardly mentionned and are just a tool for the author to add unfitting characteristics weve already been given before and the third one is litterally an answer to well where does he sleeps or eats Two more story bits are how he had a cape by visiting a secret part of a dungeon and finds way stronger people inside that gives it to him in exchange for him not ratting out and despite MC telling himself he wants to check it out again never does so. Same thing for the recurring quest to get dragon roses daily but is never even mentioned as if it stopped existing in the next chapter the characters like the dialogue is terrible: The MC possibly being a self insert is the least of its problems: He seems to have no personality of his own sadly a trait shared by more and more decrepit stories. The majority of stories exposes and develop character through a drive a goal and what they are ready to do/did to obtain it its less the chemistry between two characters. In this case our MC wants to reach mythril rank adventurer and possibly become human again but his actions are not what drove his progression he is so passive that the world essentially bends around him facing no real threat that isnt defeated in more than half a chapter his evolutions are subconscious he cannot decide what hed want the second evolution was outside of his control and third he had the blood through pure concidence in a disjointed plot where hes asked to see some aristocrat family none of these give any info on the MCs personality the other characters are nearly as bad but for how flat their personalities are the sorceress is the most fleshed out of all the characters but it still resumes to her being lazybut not because its contradicted later whos attracted by the MC for contradictory personality traits ive talked at the start. Other NPCs are so rarely shown that they havent had time to show any if not for the innkeeper whos a hardworking man willing to risk his life in a dungeon with a smile if it means he and his wife get to keep their buisness up hiding the pain. All the dialogue bloat that couldve been removed couldve been used to learn more about eachs personality and maybe have MC react in a way that it also show us info about him. This isnt the case sadly. the world is severely lacking in depth: dungeons are flat: The starting dungeon is as bland as it comes no sign of possible use for it before it became one no machinery or lack thereof like ripped out pipes its all stone/marble with mobs in it The volcanic dungeon is litterally skipped 2/3 in and is only used to have a dragon eat him and puke him out giving him rare metal bars the scale of the world is inconsistent and incongruous: Every out of town locations hes been to seem to be within short walk distance from each other including some desolate poisonous wasteland to the point where its somehow possible for a butler to go there every day to pick up a flower deep into the territory like if it was going to the bakery nearby towns arent even hinted about how far they were enough so that the MC casually walks there same for the sorceresss house or other locations. This world is tiny it seems or maybe everyones walking pace is on par with a car who knows? Because the author doesnt seem to know either. there is no stakes no apparent difficulty: Anything too strong becomes a gift event: Each time something seems to overpower him its always a positive from some stronger enemy seeing you as an invader casting fireball on you but decides not to and give you potent gear if you shut up despite having nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing that to an earth dragon eating him and actually puking him up unscathed and leaving the MC with rare magical bars only this kind of dragon could make somehow to some vampire hunter trying to kill him but the second after throwing money at him although a bit more fleshed out then the rest. anything not instantly overpowering him is beaten without any cost no physical damage no setbacks no relations or outside environment damaged or disturbed hes somehow so strong the main things stopping him is his own gear they essentially come out of nowhere and dies as fast as they came to be quickly forgotten they dont represent anything to the MC especially when it comes to chara ter. The mangaka seems to not understand why there are fights outside of putting up a show between two powerlevels forgetting its original use: to have an antagonist not just in power but a clash of ideologies personality worldviews and also as an act to show personality traits to the viewer and nearby characters it only happened once: at the very start when he just evolved into a ghoul saving a newbie from a skeleton way under his level. Right now he is at a powerlevel most other mangas would reach at chapter 7090 at the quicker side lacking storybuilding elements most covered by chapter 2030 this manga fits the technical requirements of a retarded story though it might lose that if the gap becomes so large it might simply lack a story altogether The art is comparatively great but its wasted on drawing expressionless faces simple environements and generic characters very little time or space is used to have contemplative moments where you can burst with style and meaning The author should maybe think about rebooting the entire story. ESPECIALLY given that he has caught the eye of an animation studio to animate his story. Its never too late to redraft when it isnt finished your work can only improve if you review your work critically and decide to improve it. If i was in charge of it the first things that would change is: a short 23 page rsum of his life the last 510 years in the first chapter a series of mostly outof context images representing some of the things he has done of note flashing before his eyes as hes about to be initially killed that will be of importance later and links it to his progression either have him lose some memories that hell randomly remember in parts during his sleep intrinsically linked to previously established memories or past dreams so that it explains why his character isnt exactly coherent with some peoples description of him have him emotionally react to theses memories or have them drive him to some actions he did in the manga based on what he remembers or forgot. give him a survival factor to stress him a bit so we learn more about him as a human being ex: as a skeleton he instead needs raw mana over time to not collapse or to periodically need flesh instead of easily findable blood in a few daily drops something to push him to make ethical choices or having to hide more from people like having to hide while eating some meat to not reveal himself and have people have a stronger reactions to having someone being undead. Have a map of the world or region with places he will go to later and have each new travel have at least one small event or dialogue inbetween give it time to breathe some exposition on where they are going personal worries or general observations about the world were talking about an adventurer whos done nothing but venturing the same dungeon for a decade give him some curiosity given he finally gets to see something new. Cut half of the dialogue to get rid of useless repetitions replacing part of it by insinuations clues of how the person feels about a subject so that if they actually talk about it it means they have invested interest in telling the MC about it. Replace the rest with either more detailed backgrounds or illustration to back up their words or add more dialogue adding onto the story info we didnt know it can be inconsequential at first but its free handles to hook onto later and really links the story together adding causes and effects. As a general conclusion: the art is good story is in shambles its anime adaptation will either be as terrible or extremely different from the manga if he is to try to save it from being known as a mediocre story Cialogue: 2/10 Character bg dev: 1.5/10 worldbuilding: 3/10 Artwork: 8/10