The story is quite amusing. It's enjoyable to read because of some of the nonsense. The MC gets misunderstood or misinterpreted quite a number of times and leads to some arbitrary happenstance.

It's similar to Eminence in Shadow, although in the MC's case, he pushes all his work onto his subordinates and boom, misunderstanding leading to near death experience.

Art is so-so. Wouldn't say it's very good, not very bad either, so it's so-so. Characters design is pretty decent as well.

I would say if you enjoyed Eminence in Shadow, then this is gonna be good and I recommend both.

On my quest to find a new manga to read, I came across several extensively long named titles at the book store. One that stood out to me was "Let This Grieving Soul Retire! Woe is the Weakling Who Leads the Strongest Party"... So against my better judgment, I gave it a shot! Come to my surprise that an MC who on the outside, seems incredibly OP, but is actually very average is a great analogy for this manga.

Our story takes place in a world of fantasy and magic. Where there are well-known 'guilds' or parties of treasure hunters in search of adventure and artifacts (tools of magical power). Adventurers will join these parties and everyone is ranked by their level which gives a clear hierarchy. We follow our hopeless MC who is part of the strongest party in the world, but is actually weak himself (hence the title). Through shear luck and people continuously overestimating him, he has been sprung to the top as one of the strongest. When realistically he is fairly weak and tries to avoid fighting. Cue bad guys and somehow our MC accidentally wins without even understanding how or why.

Unfortunately, at the time of me writing this review, it sticks to that formula with no end in sight. The characters are charming, art is fine and story decent. I could see myself enjoying this manga in the long run, but there needs to be development to the MC. The formula simply does not change. Bad guy plots, MC drops his tea and says, "Oh no, I spilt my tea and stained this map." , everyone flips their shit thinking MC is galaxy-brained and reads way too into it. Cue bad guy being thwarted cause it turns the bad guy was at the tea-stained location and his weakness was the same tea MC spilt. Everyone continues to revere clueless MC as the strongest. Rinse and repeat.

There seems to be a lot of similar common troupes in a lot of these incredibly long-named titles where they throw in a bunch of generic ideas then run with it. It's gotten to a point where if a manga has an incredibly long title people don't take it seriously anymore. I don't think it's a terrible thing to take successful past ideas and implement them into your story, but it needs to have an identity. Something that makes it stand out from the rest.

"Let This Grieving Soul Retire! Woe is the Weakling Who Leads the Strongest Party" does not have anything that separates itself from its troupes yet. It is a decent read and had its moments, but hopefully in the coming chapters we'll get to have an MC who is more than just average.

If you're just looking for more manga with an MC who is deemed OP, but is actually not (As opposed to looking weak, but actually being OP), then give it a go. It's not a bad read and won't take long to catch up. If you're looking for that next manga that will wow you and make your jaw drop then keep on searching.

I'd give it a solid 6 out of 10. It has potential, but it's not being fully utilized yet. Hopefully I can be proven wrong one day! Until then, my grieving soul will not retire.

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