The Jack-of-all-trades Kicked Out of the Hero’s Party ~ The Swordsman Who Became a Support Mage Due to Party Circumstances, Becomes All Powerful

For the first dozen chapters, this was one of my favorite mangas. The ‘kicked from the party but I was the strong one’ trope didn’t dominate the story, and was manifest in understandable resentments that gave the story some emotional depth. The ‘OP but with limiters’ MC still had challenges, the worldbuilding was well-paced and credible, the side characters seemed interesting, I wanted to learn their stories.

But then it went downhill fast. Every personality collapses to one dimension, MC adopts ‘pointless insecurity’. MC’s powers become ‘whatever would be convenient on this page’. All stakes vanish. The worldbuilding is just abandoned, and everything takes place in “generic dungeon cavern”, “1930’s bank conference room (wtf)”, or “Coliseum”. Virtually every character is in on one of the secret conspiracies (which I don’t mind spoiling because they’re mentioned early and never really explained). The author’s barely disguised fetish of an amorous underage girl takes up a huge portion of the story time (ick). Then it commits the cardinal sin of storytelling

While I’m in full rant, to keep the underage girl on the page more often, MC inexplicably becomes the tutor of her novice crew, and we spend maybe 25 chapters watching these insipid children have zero effect on the plot. I hate them so much. Also, there’s maybe 30 chapters of poor to bad translation.

So, TBF, it turned out mid, and if you wanted swooshy punches, they do eventually show up. To me, it’s Fredo, it broke my heart. Read it if you want, it might not betray you.

Summary: Newly jobless Clark Kent mopes but rescues a moppet, who takes him home and makes him a mid-level executive in a 20th century Japanese bank library. Ex-Boss Zod decides to kill him, but neither has any Kryptonite. Lex and Brainiac lurk in the shadows for future stories.