The Return of the 8th Class Mage Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links   k2w55

Out of the countless regression manhwas I've read, this is one that has a genuinely interesting plot and multifaceted characters. The world building is fairly strong and the reasoning behind the main character's regression makes sense in context of the power system. This story uses many of the same elements from other manhwas in the same realm (your typical magician classes, imperial hierarchy, medieval fantasy setting, magic towers etc), but the interactions and conflicts between characters are refreshing and quite complex compared to other stories in the same vein.

One of the strongest elements of this manhwa lies between Ian's relationships with the two princes ... of the empire. In his past life, he was betrayed by his best friend, the 5th prince Ragnar. After he regresses back in time, Ian seeks to take revenge on Ragnar and personally see to his death. Ragnar is probably one of the best written characters in the series and a fantastic antagonist with unexpected depth to his personality and motives. He is a great villain to hate and drives the revenge plot forward. The crown prince Hayden is a very loveable character who is quite unlike his coldhearted, logical brother. He is kind hearted and playful, but lacks the public speaking skills and political strategy to gain throughout the kingdom. The dynamic that Ian has between these two characters is really what had me invested in the series and the resolution to this plot point was quite satisfying and well done.

However, I do have some gripes with the ending since many of the characters who had very little time together throughout the series suddenly developed relationships without any build up. It felt a little rushed most likely because the series was coming to an end and the author tried to mold their characters into a place that would seem conclusive without giving the time or emotional commitment that it actually takes to get there.

Overall, in a genre that is littered with unremarkable rehashes of the same over done tropes, "The Return of the 8th Class Mage" does little to separate itself, but at least the characters are genuinely interesting, the writing is pretty good, and the story continues to be engaging! I have thoroughly enjoyed this series so far and I would recommend it if you're looking for a well written regression manhwa with a fun cast of characters.

Note: My reviews are like a note for my future self. I try to not spoil anything in it, because in the case I want to reread the books, I don't want to know too much about it other than what I think I will or surface level details that don't really matter much. I just want to make sure my future self understands a bit of how I felt about it and why I gave this mark.

I was looking for a good read, one that is a finished series, and I stumbled across this one by mistake. Read the description, found it interesting, ... started reading it and just kept going and going. It surely caught me by surprise how good it is, and I just wanted to know more and more, even pushing the time limits I've set roughly for my sleep schedule.

Art: 9/10

The art is superb. Especially the clothing of characters, some of them are just perfect. Wish the fights would be a bit longer and more intense, and more, but they were still good enough for me. A lot of the art pages could be actually used as wallpapers for how good they looked.

Story: 8/10

The story starts strong and with good potential. It continues quite strong throughout the whole story, with a few twists and turns that I really liked, especially because the MC is finally someone that doesn't try to hide its powers and actually does things that you don't really see in other stories so easily done because of plot reasons. There were tho a few moments where I doubted the story's credibility, as in why would the characters do that when it was clearly obvious what happened and stuff, but those moments didn't last long enough and weren't that important in my eyes to warrant me to complain too much. It isn't a very complicated story, just a guy regression story with revenge at its base that meets a few extra things than predicted and becomes a bit more interesting along the way. Towards the end, it does get a big rushed, as others have stated and complained about, but it was still a good pace to me. Ig some things get solved wayyy to fast... Wished it continued and had certain aspects of the story more elaborated on, but I guess that is left to our imagination...

Characters: 8/10

While I do love seeing a MC that actually doesn't hide its powers and actually actively tries to show his power (in certain limits that you will find the reason of in the story), the characters aren't super duper complicated. I would say they are quite basic overall, with a few exceptional moments where I didn't exactly expect some decisions and such to be made. Some characters do like to be more involved then others and make decisions that I thought would come later or something. The interactions between the characters are all pretty nice and natural, but I wished sometimes we would get a bit more worldbuilding and character development scenes, and not use certain writing tactics to get over those... I call them tactics, but it s more like avoiding making more chapters and trying to speed up the story to reach the more interesting parts of it. Cool, but I wanted more.

Enjoyment: 9/10

I did enjoy it, it was kinda exactly what I wanted to read right now. A nice story that isn't very complex but has a good story overall, nice pacing and good characters.

Overall: 9/10
Right now it has 7.39 from 5.953 votes Ranked #3787 Popularity #1628 12,016. Imo it s a bit of a lower mark that it deserves. I would say it needs to be over 7.5 imo, that is why I gave it a bigger mark than I would normally. Highly recommend it to people that want to read a regression story where the MC is powerful and isn't afraid to show it.

This manhwa is a mess

There's a lot of inconsistencies with the magic, one minute the mc is doing crazy out if this world stuff and the next he's crying about how has limited mana because of his rebirth but then not even a few chapters later he'll do things that make even the peak mages in the worlds head implode.

The story itself is ripe with issues and incontinency as well, the side characters are naive to a fault and some of them are even characters that had a hand in the mcs demise and yet it's completely glossed over.

He wants to go into ... this world and get revenge and live his best life, and makes a point to mention his creed of revenge often and yet when it comes to other figureheads that indirectly caused this he just doesn't care? He's shown to care for like one single chapter, and then after that all worries are dissipated and gone.

It's like the author realizes they're just glancing over a pretty integral piece of story so they quickly acknowledge it and then move on so they can say "yeah I did it at least".

Not to mention the mc is shown to be either bloodlusted and vengeful or just completely meh about certain things in the first few chapters, it feels like the author was unsure of what direction to take the character but it smooths itself out and seems more consistent later on it's a very brief issue that I personally noticed.

The pacing though is the biggest offender for this series, the mc spends very little time on any real revenge it seems like it's kind of rushed. The plot points are blitzed through pretty quickly, and sometimes plot points are touched on extremely briefly as an after thought in conversation only to be brought up and shown as rather integral details.

It seems kind of weird, I feel like the author was trying to go for a show don't tell thing, but it just hinders the story because of the brevity and speed of certain things in the story.

On top of that, characters we are given very little time with and reason to care for are forced to be relevant. We are meant to care for them but it's kind of hard too when they're like like 10% of the total screen time and used merely for cheap ploys to tug on your heartstrings.

This is becomes glaringly obvious in the final 20 chapters, we are given 20 chapters to tie up like 5 plus plot points and a good bit of those final chapters are spent on pointing at the big bad final villain from the very first chapter.

It's used to paint him in a negative light and really drill into your head that you should hate them, but we already do well enough. We don't need a recap of the first chapter these chapters would be better spent on the more pressing final plot points rather than some cheap rage bait to make you angry. It's just very lazy.

Speaking of lazy, the art is abysmal for, I wanna say, the first season? Like 40 chapters are just filled to the brim with extremely bad CGI use that looks horrendous. Not to mention 90% of the characters in the first season are drawn without a face.

the only characters given even remote detail are main characters, and that's kind of to be expected in manhwa and manga alike but this series is a pretty bad offender when it comes to that.

The lackluster art and super rushed story just makes this series seem like it had zero care given too it, maybe the novel was just written this way and they're working with what they can but it's still no excuse.

It ended somewhat satisfyingly, but the feel good ending just lacks any impact as the biggest "pay off" involves a character we spend virtually no meaningful time with and getting to know.

I could honestly go into more depth with the nit-picks I have with the series but this all you really need to know.

It's just very amateur.