Xenos The Abysmal

This is a isekai/fantasy novel with the slow start common in some Japanese light novel series that starts out by focusing on the MC's life as a toddler and baby. The very first chapter shows a fragment of the MC's former life, but it doesn't make much sense. In the first chapter, the MC has a reckless and violent nature. After saving his sister, he runs back into danger and gets himself killed instead of being the least bit sensible. He doesn’t seem to realize how terrible his death would be on his sister, but that's okay--even after reincarnating, he doesn't worry or think about her at all. There is no other information about his family, original world, or original appearance. Nothing about the incident with those assailants was clarified or determined later. It's as though he never regarded his life as anything valuable at all. He also doesn't suffer from any psychological trauma after being killed and then reincarnated. There are some other questionable events as well. When he talks with the goddess, he is shockingly well-prepared to make wishes, and he doesn't request much explanation from the goddess at all. He doesn't ask about the setting of the world he's reincarnating in, whether the humans in that world are the same as in this one, how other races are described, what the society there is like and so on. The MC's wishes all revolve around making him OP, which makes him feel shallow. He doesn't save any wishes for later. Why does he want all this power? What is his motivation? What are his regrets from his past life, and how are they influencing him? The MC doesn't have much depth at all. As a baby, the MC matures and develops at a shocking rate without explanation. When he first opens his eyes, the visual perception area of his brain is apparently already experienced enough at identifying things to see color and identify what's what without developing like a normal baby's eyesight would. He can already move around and hold books when he's only a few weeks old, which is before a human baby can even lift his or her head. He walks and talks like an elementary student when he's only six months old; most babies walk and talk around one year old, although the speech may only be comprehensible to their parents. When he is four years old, he's already doing sword training. There is no explanation at all about whether or not vampires mature or develop or grow faster than humans or how we should interpret this. When he was six months old, did he already look like a ten-year-old child or what? The narrative hasn't given depth to any of the other characters either. Aside from the absent character depth and some logical fallacies, there are good points to the story. The clarification of the setting is done clearly instead of leaving readers hanging like many transmigration series do. The writing and grammar improve tremendously compared to the beginning, so the author may want to consider rewriting and editing the first few chapters again to prevent new readers from turning away. The grammar improves dramatically, but there are common issues in the first several chapters. Grammar issues include a mixture of past and present tense, passive tense, and poor grammar with thoughts and quotes. The commas, periods, exclamation points, or other types of grammar should be inside the quotes. For thoughts, the quotes can be done away with altogether and just leave the thought italicized. The first letter of a quote or thought should be capitalized, even if it isn’t the beginning of the rest of the sentence. Nouns that aren’t proper nouns, such as “math,” should not be capitalized unless they’re at the beginning of a sentence. There are run-on sentences. Small numbers should be spelled out. There are still some grammatical errors occurring, but they're much better than before. Story reminds me of Death Mage Who Doesn’t Want a Fourth Time and The Spearmaster and the Black Cat. The sword scene is very similar to a scene occurring in the manwha Witch Hunter. Of course, the set-up of the series is one I have read many times in Japanese light novels. This is all fine as long as the series is interesting. Reincarnating a character as a baby is a common trope in slow-starting OP Japanese light novels. Reading one makes me feel like I’ve read them all. These series have slow starts and often spend too much time with the MC as a toddler, making readers bored or begin to tune it out as they impatiently flip forward to the action. Some of them follow a slice-of-life/romance pathway while others go the harem route and some turn into action. Unfortunately, they are often predictable and without *******. Unfortunately, OP MCs inherently weaken the plot development and suspense because they can’t be threatened easily. If there is no viable threat to the MC's life, then why should readers care? Some authors try to rectify this by bringing the MC to normal or by putting restrictions on his or her abilities, but it's often done so late that readers will complain it's only done for plot. The MC hasn't announced any goal or dream in this new life of his either, so the plot hasn't been established yet. The plot feels like a repeat of many other stories, but it's still interesting at this point. The writing has improved so much that I'm looking forward to future chapters. So far, the weakness of the series is the predictability and lack of suspense with its set-up, but the writer has the option to make the series exciting and dramatic based on a few plot options for the story development. Hopefully, the writer will be able to work around that and give the series more of an impact.

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