Mezametara Saikyou Soubi to Uchuusenmochi Datta node, Ikkodate Mezashite Youhei toshite Jiyuu ni Ikitai
Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship!

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In this space opera, there are no carbonated drinks. The Protagonist, when discovering that he might never drink Cola again, simply said "Don't worry about me. I was just giving up on my hopes and dreams."

Story: There's NO shocking beginning. No murder, no traffic accident. And nothing else that might shock the readers in any way. The protagonist simply woke up in a different world, how and why is skipped over. And yet this story has a huge impact right from the start. The description of being strapped to a chair in a room, extremely cold and unsure of what the hell is happening. ... Only to realize the we're in the pilot's seat of a space ship. And you are in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Floating in space. Spectacular prologue.

"Sometimes, less is more." The author doesn't try too hard to stand out. This story feels almost minimalistic. The story is slow moving, in the beginning it plays out in a space colony (space station) where nothing really happens. And yet, me, someone who hate space opera, grows attached to the protagonist and an elf space mercenary. The plot isn't even important. The protagonist has a space ship in which he lives. He needs to make money for food, fuel, and future repairs. How? Mercenary work. Plot? Pff, please. Simply living in a space ship cost a friggin fortune. And that's enough for an interesting story. The end goal is to buy a house, on a planet. But that's apparently a privilege for the mega-rich people. As for the battles, they are well written and is easy to understand. Though they do use terms that might, at first, be unfamiliar to people that has never dived into the space genre. Shield for example, why would a spaceship hold a shield in front of itself for protection? What? It's energy shields? Da hell is that!?

Art: The art is pretty good when it comes to characters. They look original enough to be memorable, and the protagonist has black hair without looking like Kirito. So, yeah, good enough. The bad art in this sci-fi story though, is the spaceships. It doesn't have a sci-fi feeling to it, I can't even give an example of what the spaceship looks like. It's so badly drawn, that you can't compare it to anything. It's simply bad.

Characters: Here is the strong side of the story. We have three regular characters. All of which are well made. But the biggest strong point is that the protagonist has balls. He's brave enough to fight and kill people. He's manly enough to make sweet love to beautiful women. A real dude. Then we have the space mercenary sempai, and it's a female elf. Unexpected for role for an elf, but I like it. Along with a damsel in distress, mainly fan-service role for her, still likable though. No one is too exaggerated and there's no emotional flashbacks that drag out the story. All in all, great characters. We do not have a antagonist as of yet, but hopefully it won't be a long lost relative with a "I'm yo daddy!" scene. That would be too typical for a space opera. lol

So, overall. This story is slow moving at first. But the space setting is so well made. The world building is a good mix of wars to come and enough outlaws to always have action. And yet the way things are explained is interesting enough to hope for slice-of-life arcs. Everything from artificial food to fecal management, everything is mentioned and it's always an interesting read. Cup holders in the future, I never wondered about that, but now I know how it's gonna be. Epic.

If you want something good, stay as far away from this as you can. I started it simply because I love the sci-fi genre, but in spite of not being fantasy, this is as generically low-brow and low quality as isekai gets. The main protagonist is given from the start, and then gains every single tool needed to make every challenge that comes up a walk in the park. There's no difficulty to anything, and no point to anything that happens. No character has any real issues or problems to overcome that can't basically be brushed aside within a few sentences, and then there's nothing ... more. There's no character development right across the board.

It's also bloody terrible sci-fi. It's about as cheap and as lousy as sci-fi can get, because there's no effort whatsoever to craft a proper sci-fi universe. Every piece of tech there is given a name that's so generic, it just has to work. The author went about this as cheaply, with as little effort as is humanly possible, because any time any piece of exposition even comes close to an explanation, the generic protagonist just sites how he didn't know how some things worked in his own world, but he could still use them, so he wouldn't bother to try and understand now.

That goes for the writing in general, being as lousy and as slovenly as any writing could. Every relationship quote/unquote "progresses" faster than a boulder falling out of the sky. Not that anyone actually changes or has a semblance of development. Just like almost all isekai, this one goes out of it's way to glorify how the guy is a one-dimensional, transparent hound dog with all the depth of a puddle.

If you like sci-fi, or are just looking for a quality story, then avoid this like the plague.