The New Gate

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I'm sorry if this is a little long and too detailed, or not detailed enough where you would want a review to be, but I just wrote this the way I'd want someone to tell me about this light novel, with how much light novels rely on only text and can really eat up time before it's worth it. So I wrote it with that in mind, and here it goes.

So if you were too lazy to read or didn't get the synopsis, this is a story about a guy becoming godly powerful and winning the death mmorpg he and a bunch of other players ... were locked in, only to wake up in the fantasy world the game was based in 500 years later. I myself get a huge kick out of an op main character whipping out his powers and making his enemies and his friends jaws hit the ground before he wraps it up like nothing, but if you don't enjoy that, this is definitely not for you. But honestly, even if you do, like me, I can't really recommend this LN either.

The problem with the op mc genre is the lack of tension. With the recent Overlord anime, the climax of the season was a fight with one of his own team because the only people in that world even close to his power were his own people, and any other fights across the season lacked impact when you knew if push came to shove the mc could whip out his +9999 god broom and sweep up the trouble no problem. I won't say overlord did it well, but The New Gate is just insufferable by the end of the fourth volume. He wakes up with seemingly untouchable power and the whole first book is just him realizing he is basically a god walking around with crippled ants, and the only way the author can bring any tension to anything is that the MC is trying to hide his power because it would be so troublesome to show off and have the world's eyes move onto him. That's it. That's the first two books. He starts trying to feel out the world as quietly as he can whining about not wanting to stand out while he does unbelievable shit over and over. It's just tedious.

The sad thing is that I like Overlord, because even though there's no tension the MC just goes around doing what he wants and killing anyone who gets in the way or might spread his secret power around, something the "good guy" Shin of new gate would never do, choosing instead to do all he can to keep his strength a secret while constantly making sure you know that he could destroy everything if he didn't have to stay secret. The rub comes from the fact that The New gate has set up a fantastic premise that is just not at all utilized. Shin went from a fucking desk job behind a computer or a shut-in NEET life or whatever (it hasn't been explicitly said yet) to being trapped in a fantasy game with his life on the line, dealing with who knows what, similar to SAO fare (allies dieing in front of him, facing the harsh realities of humanity, yaddah yaddah). Imagine if the guy from SAO finished the game and was supposed to get out, only he was the only one that wasn't allowed to go home to his family and friends. After all of that hell he was just given more power and pushed further into his cage with no hint to where the keys are and left for the trash. Maybe I'm a wierdo, but I'd be pissed, or depressed, or feel something other than bland acceptance of this bullshit reward. This is a story about a man who should be on the edge, given godlike powers, and put into a world of crippled ants, which would seem interesting to me, but not a thought or tear is wasted on that. No, we have to make sure that no one finds out he's a god cuz that would be sooooo annoying, right?

Honestly the only thing that kept me going was the potential setups I saw. As I said above his situation seems really interesting to me, and as the story goes on his relationship with the characters he had known as mindless NPCs in the game, now given full life and consciousness is also very interesting, but it's all just laid out and forgotten. It may just be me trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill, but when it comes down to it that's all this is, a mole hill that I was sure could be a mountain. There's no tension, shallow characters, and recycled plot. It's not terrible all things considered, but I just can't get over how much potential is here that just gets pushed aside so that the character can whine some more about trying to hide his godlike powers and Tiera can gasp about how Shin did or said or had something that was impossible over and over.

And for this last little bit I just had two last warnings for people that are a little "spoiler"-y, so be warned. First off there's the constant reminders that Shin could, fo sho, deal with whatever situation he's in with a flick of his wrist if he wanted to, which isn't deal-breaking for me but gets super grating by the end of a novel that was already wearing me thin. And second, and this is a bit petty I guess, but at one point Shin is teleported pretty far from the character Shnee, and when he contacts her he finds her freaking out about his disappearance, he says the most bullshit and cringe-worthy line about how even though she was powerful, she was still a woman. It is just printed feces. Schnee even says that she is freaking out because Shin had disappeared for a second time, the last time leading to him being gone for 500 YEARS during which she had looked all over for him. I mean isn't that just like a woman, becoming upset that someone you put above all others as a leader and a love interest disappeared to who knows where for who knows how long. Women, right guys? This shit has been bugging me so bad since I read it. It's like the author is too dumb to make interesting, deep characters, so he's trying to squeeze them into the most ridiculous, digestible boxes he can. These two things the writer does were just ungodly annoying at times, so if this shit has riled you in the past, I'd say give this one a pass.

TL:DR
Honestly not a bad read, as long as you don't mind the lack of tension the OP MC genre tends to bring. But the waste of potential that is here, in my opinion of course, just sours me every time I think back on what I read or think about continuing the translations as they come out. So if your looking for something simple and like this kind of stuff, then this is decent enough.