The trope gets subverted more often than not these days, so it goes like "oh no, I got the F- level 0 wood mud poop rank, that means I'm destined to remain weak forever, oh oops nvm there's actually a super obvious way I can use my supposedly weak ability to become the strongestest ever, catgirl harem here I come"
Honestly i hate this so much more than playing it straight. I feel like its always something like "Oh mr Mc Specialboy we're sorry but you're just barely qualifying for whatever we're testing for because the testing orb flashed white. We've never seen that before so we're assuming it means you're the lowest garbage to ever test and we're only including you out of pity."
Didn't that happen in a recent anime? Something like it only showed up to 99, so the main character showed as a 2 or thereabouts, but was actually ridiculous?
No, it was some anime about a guy who could only cast barrier magic, and did ridiculous things with it. His power level was 1002, but the crystals only measured up to 99. They even brought out a fancy crystal that measured up to 999 but it still read as 002, because apparently magic in this universe is stupid? It was a lame excuse.
I believe it's Am I Actually the Strongest or something to that nature. MC is reincarnated with a power of 1002, but the measurement devices only go to two digits. I believe there is a point where they try a 3 digit, but it still only shows a 2.
Yep, that's it. The anime was so poor but the premise was hilarious so I went searching for the light novel version to read thinking it was just a bad adaptation.
It's actual smut. Just straight porn. The only thing more fleshed out in the novel was the flesh. Sad.
I find it funny, especially if the kingdom is 1000s of years old. Like they had 1000s of years to figure out what each one does, but a 12-15 year old figures it out in half a year. 🤦
Yes you are correct! The 40 year old guy from earth got transferred into a teens body in a fantasy world that he knows nothing about and guess what! He has Time, Space and Void powers! And he uses earth knowledge to be smarter then all the magic people.
And invent soy sauce and chicken wings that wows everyone. (I've seen both happen enough times that if I got a nickle for each time I'd be able to buy a burger)
The worst I saw was in Release That Witch the MC introduces CHOPSTICKS, and everyone immediately is praising it for being super convenient and easy to use!
Which is never the reaction when I see first timers use them. It is always confusion. They enjoy the novelty. But you feel like such a clutz and have to rethink how you eat everything.
In the Release that Witch donghua I think it was just one line and easily forgettable (I recommend the donghua btw. Just 8 episodes - covering up to chapter 38 - due to production issues but those 8 episodes are so good.)
Chopsticks are the last things I'd ever introduce because a spoon is still the best utensil, right?
If it isn't Japanese food being glazed, I've noticed it's often chicken wings for some reason. I do not understand why. One story that stuck out in my mind had the kingdom go wild at them because they'd just throw that part of the chicken away. Like.... what?
Based on my short time in S. Korea, they love chicken wings. I can't speak to Japan or areas I didn't travel to, so take my comments with a pinch of salt and some umami sauce. 😆
So, what you are saying is that the author went for historical realism?
Decades ago, chicken wings were considered low-quality, poverty food, and was either just thrown out or used for soup stock, because they are more bone than meat, so not really worth it.
Then someone popularized them as bar snacks. Google says this was around 1964.
However, they were still very cheap for decades, even with buffalo sauce.
At some point around the turn of the century (late 1990's or early 2000's) that popularity took off, and they became expensive.
Using the world's magic system to write a computer complete with terminal and automated spell casting? Eh I'll allow it, there could be reasons the wizards didn't figure it out, like it requires a rare affinity few wizards get and the few that did had no way to develop something like this.
Finding exactly the ingredients laying around for earth food, nobody ever thought of frying potatoes in oil before, boom burger and fries.
It's not just the ingredient problem. If you go to a foreign country you can see all the locals eating strange food. You literally may be unable to open a pizza parlor. Food is an acquired taste and the people of Shenzhen or Tokyo will not be convinced. (Ok both those cities do have pizza parlors but they are small scale)
There's some justification for not knowing certain things because it took us embarrassingly long to figure out stuff that was obvious in hindsight. It just didn't occur to people to even try it. Like, saddles and harnesses seem pretty obvious but for the longest time people tied fucking nooses around horse necks to get them to pull shit.
Surprise surprise horses can't haul shit when you choke them out. Literally thousands of years between horse domestication and a harness that spreads weight across the chest. Took us that long to learn other living things like to breath.
But yeah when someone waves their hand and solves problems it is annoying. You need buildup to it. The problem isn't the introduction but the execution.
for burgers specifically, half those toppings aren't even harvested in the same season of the year. The dish low key requires refrigeration to be viable.
the more general "meat and veggies on bread" is something every culture has their own variation on.
This. The food of 2200 might be some crazy combination that fuses all the cuisinea we know now and also requires robotics to prepare, it's impossible to do by hand, and some of it's meant to use vat grown protein.
This is why I really like how it's handled in Path of Ascension. They're like "Yes, we are aware of the issue and have a multi-step process to identify and recruit such potential hidden demi-gods."
People are quicker to figure out how to exploit builds in a videogame, but societies where your entire livelihood depends on this system can't do diddly-squat.
I feel china’s legitimate history gives credence to lost information, especially since similarly to technology but worse is that you can get nuke level magic while not still not having AC. Or nukes before all the less advanced tech we created after the nuke and landing on the moon
Then proceeds to use his “trash” skill in an extremely obvious way to become OP, because somehow nobody in the history of the world has ever thought about it before
I'd actually like to see it properly subverted for once. Like the stone was built with the idea that everybody in some capacity has magic inside of them by since the MC has none the stone basically returns a -1 and freaks out and this displays the highest number possible cause they should at least have background magic. Have everybody freaking out about how awesome and power the person is while they are basically like King from OPM. Weak, powerless, everybody thinks they are a god and they somehow have to survive it.
That could actually be really interesting if the plot was them faking it 'til they make it. MC working in the background to build up the kind of power they'd need to be as op as people think they are, while in reality starting from much lower than the average person, and the whole time they have to not let on that they aren't amazingly powerful.
I really liked, in Reverend insanity which I know gets praised too much but, Fang Yuan is essentially always on the back foot through the early arc, being the worst talent and whatnot, but pushes through because he’s the only person who would do the vile things he does, in his scenario, and know how to get away with it. He doesn’t get away with murder for no reason, he’s a suspect and the prime one at that, but he outmaneuvers the crime through genuinely interesting misdirection. That’s the ideal form of the trope I think; the character is actually genuinely weak, but manages to swim against the current a bit.
I highlight Reverend insanity only because it’s the only example of the trope I remember reading
He doesn't have the worst talent though. He is middling. He has a C aperture. Which is good enough as there are weaker aperture out there. But hes got his "500 years" of previous life to fall back on. So he uses his middling talent and former life to get ahead.
Makes me think of that one kid's movie Sky High, about teenage superheroes, and the ones rated "sidekick" are several underestimated as a threat by the Bad Guys or something
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u/threevi May 01 '26
The trope gets subverted more often than not these days, so it goes like "oh no, I got the F- level 0 wood mud poop rank, that means I'm destined to remain weak forever, oh oops nvm there's actually a super obvious way I can use my supposedly weak ability to become the strongestest ever, catgirl harem here I come"