Maou no Hajimekata the Comic

Isekai manga that originally comes from a web novel, OP MC, anti-hero (Seemingly at first), and very unlikable. Aur, the MC, is Ainz from Overlord, but without any of the likability, the humor, the personality, the self-humbleness....oh and also he is a mass rapist. Like, I'm going to rape your partner in front of you while you can only watch in anger just so I can make a minion out of you type of rapist. As you read more and more you wonder, who are you supposed to be rooting for? The side characters who "threaten" Aur only to be either killed or raped and converted? Or Aur? The person who has zero personality or relatability whatsoever and whom is also Evil incarnate by the end of it? Its a cycle after that first one, it just happens over and over again. It has no sense of direction like many other Isekai novels out there.

The almost exclusively female teammates Aur gains are almost as unlikeable as Aur himself or are to be pitied. They are either people who betrayed their own friends and backstabbed them in the worst possible way or were completely literally brainwashed into thinking they were always on Aurs side with magic. Its truly baffling how anybody could write this and expect people to like them. The characters are easily the worst part.

The best thing I can say about the manga is...hey...atleast the art is good...most of the time.

Unless you are one of those few who can actually enjoying reading about such evil as the main focus of the story (I envy you), then stay as far away from this as possible.

So far, there have only been 5 chapters of the first volume released. I approached it after having recently read Overlord and Re:Monster, wanting a bit more of telling the story of the other side, in Maou no Hajimekata I found a new refreshing take on the tale.

Where to begin, the start of this jumps right in to forging yon necessary 'make follower x server you' macguffin and the start of setting up his power base. So, spoilers incoming.

Loved the fact that we were treated to some actual xxx rated stuff in some of it's glory, without it going over the top complete hentai style, but instead actually helping to build up a bit of background for our protanganist. Though after a while you forget that he's actually alot older than he looks, he displays a rather refreshing level of cunning, as some of the rules of the world they live in get explain.

So, while this manga is in it's infancy, what I really like is how as the story develops and he create his harem, the way he goes about doing it. He forces people to give him tribute, in return his magic provides them with more bountiful harvests, he provides medicine, and his minions send off wolves and goblin raiders. A beneficial relationship is formed.

But when the first hero fails her task of killing him and he instead tricks her over to his side by revealing the rather harsh truth of what the villagers were thinking, and exposing the corruption of the human mind as well as how people try to get something for nothing, only to face the consequences. Or when the dark elves come to him because humans have hunted them, and he comments 'so having been killed by humans, you come here to rely on me, a human?', the break down of tropes is brilliant.

And yet, I don't find him hugely evil at all. He wants something, like loyalty or tribute, yet he gives something back as well, a bargain or deal or boon. He is only overly harsh to those that refuse or defy him (sort of like how I imagine life living under Doctor Dooms rule would be).

Characters are developing slowly, and I look forwards to where this is going to go.

So, this manga has been an interesting read, however not a particularly good one. While the story reveals in its own grimness, it doesn't give me much of a reason to care for it. Just as a warning, let me say this: You will need a level of "sick" curiosity if you want to put up with this manga. As a video gamer who was always intrigued by the possibilities of an evil playthrough, but never had the guts to pull it off, this story peaked my interest.

The biggest problem with the story is its own weightlessness, which is a direct result of the fact that the story never gives me a reason to care. Throughout the story never once is it explained what the motivation of the main character is, which is the driving force of the plot. He likes to bloat about how the things go according to his plans, but it is never explained what these plans are. And since the story never bothered to tell me what the point of this all is, I simply became disinterested. Let's not even mention the fact that the Mc finds the source of ultimate power in the first chapter. Actually, the story doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, it juggles between being a serious story about the villain conquering the world, and between one where it takes itself less seriously treating all the cruelty as more self-indulgent. Nowhere is the story's duality more apparent than in the art style. When it is not the dark and edgy staff the art usually depicts the characters as cutesy chibis, and the tone shifts to an outright comical one. And these extreme tonal shifts are especially jarring when the manga goes from torturing someone to chibi comedy in the time space of a single page. The story's handling of time is also nonsensical, a single chapter can take up from a couple of days to weeks of time and then between chapters entire months can take place. It just becomes confusing, it honestly gave me the feeling that I am watching a montage of the more interesting moment of this villain's life.

Let's take for example the mini arc from ch.8-12, spoilers ahead (skip this paragraph if you don't want them). This arc is basically all about the torture and breaking of that adventuring party that goes to the Mc's dungeon. Not only is it confusing because it takes place over an indeterminate amount of time, but it also completely undercuts the main plot. In just the previous chapter (ch.7) we saw that the Mc started to conquer the land around him, but now it is just been put on the back burner. 5 entire chapters about Mc torturing this random adventuring party and the only thing you are left with is a question: Why? Why go all the trouble of converting them one by one, if he could have simply killed them? Fun fact: After these chapters, these characters completely disappear from the plot, strengthening the feeling that this was completely irrelevant. The only point was for the manga to reveal in its own dark edginess.

That is the thing, all the cruelty is extremely self-indulgent because whenever the story decides to do this, the plot comes to a crawling halt. And if you want me to put up with all the wicked and frankly somewhat disturbing things the Mc does at least give me a reason. But there is no reason, it's all self-serving. Also, if you want to shock me with rape and the Mc making women into his sex slaves, at least have the decency to do it only once, because after the fifth time I can't stop to just roll my eyes and think: "Here we go again."

Let's not even talk about the characters. The side characters personality wise, are pretty much non-existent. And they are not even parts of the plot, they randomly appear and disappear from the story.

Although I give props where its due, it takes a certain amount of balls to create a story like this. It is also clear, that a lot of thought gone into certain aspects of the plot. Especially to the building a dungeon thing, and it can be pretty creative when depicting all the deplorable things the Mc does.

On a short note, just because you fill your story with lots of gore, sex, and cruelty, isn't going to make it a mature examination of the concept. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this manga, if not for the shock value itself. It took an interesting concept and squandered it, 3/10.

(Spoilers) I'm not really good writing a review, but I found this manga so infuriating that I had to right something.
Don't get me wrong, I do like the approach with a character that is your perfectly Hero type, but the MC isn't a Anti-Hero, here is a Villain, it doesn't matter why he is doing what he is, if he does the same thing as Griffith from Berserk, he is in the same level as the worse villains out there in any story, with that being said, he isn't a good MC at all, the idea of the show is great, but a MC has to be likable or at least identifiable with the rest of us and I don't think anyone would be able to do what he did (Truly rape girls bodies and minds in front of someone who isn't even the Antagonist [or the target of all MC hatred]).

Again, I'm not good writing reviews, but I didn't like this character as much as I hate Griffith from Berserk.

A story told from the villain's side, something not usually done. I didn't know the source material but I had high hopes for this manga since is rare to see a something like this. But as chapters were released my interest plummeted pretty quickly.

The plot is linear, most of the chapters consist of the mc tricking girls into sex to turn them in cumdumpsters, being a sadistic fuck and boasting how powerful he is, rinse and repeat. Using smut should be an additive to a story like this not the other way around.

Characters are not better than the ones from an hentai manga, even the mc with his antics is boring and predictable, he is just a very cheap Yagami Raito. Once recruited, the girls can dissapear several chapters until the author brings them again like they were some sort of grunts from a jrpg.

I know the story is based on an actual game, but the job of the artist is to build a story around the premise of that game, not just copy the events one by one with the same pace and feeling as the source material.

The only reason to read this is the art, but why reading this when you have hentai manga with explicit scenes and a plethora of authors with good art, since the plot and characters are equally awful?

A disappointment. The premise had tons of potential.

The last review here was over a year ago and the last positive review over 4.

Before anything else:
First thing you’ll need to know is that the main character truly isn’t in any way a good person, however the story knows that and the character himself knows that. He wants to be an infamous dark wizard/sorcerer. Second this is basically softcore hentai there are scenes of sex in most chapters, the main character is not afraid to black mail or drug(magic drugs) girls into bed with him. If either of those bother you, I’d skip this one, and this review to save yourself some time.

Story/characters - I like it and have high hopes for its future
With that out of the way I can talk frankly about what I feel matters in this manga.
If you have ever played D&D, hero quest, or any of the contemporaries there is much in this that is quite fun to read through. It's the story of the dark sorcerer Aur’s humble beginnings, and his full rise to continent wide threat. One that is worthy of an entire campaign to be based around (now that I think about it I might do that with my play group). I like the setbacks and challenges Aur faces throughout, because despite how powerful he is things don’t always go the way he wants them to. From the looks of things in later chapters it seems they even have a real plan to attempt to humanize Aur, and I find myself very interested in this hopeful character arc. I wouldn’t expect much from other characters however, they are for the most part his play things. He faces a few enemies that have interesting motives to want to kill Aur, but everyone else is either being controlled by Aur or is completely subservient to him for whatever reason. If you read this, you are reading for the main character.
The biggest problem with the narrative is a hypnosis plot device used the drive all the sex in the story, I don’t really have a problem with the idea that the character uses it. However when its used and not used is a little vague so it's hard to tell which characters just want Aur’s d*ck and which he has hypnotized to want his d*ck. Normally I wouldn’t care that much but it starts to become plot relevant which are serving him because they authenticity want to and which are being controlled to. For some characters that are “not” being controlled it's pretty plot covenant that they do. Still if you know what you're in for, it's not that big a deal.


Art - inconsistent but used well
I really like the character designs in this story, I also really enjoy its use of cute versions of the characters especially Aur. Because he is just such a bad guy it’s very funny seeing him in that form. Oh and the softcore hentai is super well done.

Overall/ Enjoyment - Very fun if you can stomach an actual bad guy
I legitimately have a good time reading this, I understand why others hate it, but the same reasons they dislike it I enjoy it. I understand that the non-consensual sex scenes are going to be difficult for many readers but I think it forms the basis for why Aur is different from other would be conquerors in the story, its part of what makes him the “bad guy” if you’ve read this far you are obviously curious, that being the case I encourage you to look into the series yourself and make up your own opinion. It’s not even close to some master work, however if you like the premise and none of what I’ve said would bother you in a story, definitely give it a go.