The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong (Novel) Vol. 1

"If you cannot become strong, I will stay by your side and protect you." — Shen Qingqiu

SYNOPSIS: A half-demon protagonist rose from humble beginnings and mistreatment to become unrivaled in strength. With his dominance over both the Human and Demon Realms and his hundreds-strong harem, he is truly the most powerful protagonist...in a trashy webnovel series!

At least, that's what Shen Yuan believed after finishing the final chapter in his favourite webnovel. But after his sudden death, he is reborn into the world of the novel in the body of the protagonist's cruel mentor, Shen Qingqiu, who is destined for a terrible ending because of the way he treated his disciple Luo Binghe. The new Shen Qingqiu now has only one course of action: get show more into the protagonist's good graces before the young man's rise to power or suffer the awful fate of a real scum villain!

Terminally Online Millennial Mentor MMC x Future Demon Lord, Current Disciple Love Interest!

This was such a hilarious and trope-y yet subversive read. Our MMC is witty and sardonic even in the more dire and dangerous situations. And he gets into the MOST batshit insane situations!

The romance so far has been very slow burn, but that’s to be expected as the main couple is still just at the mentor and disciple stage of the relationship. There’s also a lot of fun and memorable side characters. From the cold master swordsman who now owes MMC a life debt, to the cowardly yet shameless surprise ally, I love the wide cast!

Seriously cannot wait to read the next volume to see how the MMC and the love interest’s reunion will go! show less

I’m not a fan of transmigration, or Isekai stories. I like my fantasy to be just fantasy. That said, I absolutely loved the author’s MDZS series and decided to just read all three of her series being published in English. I chose Scum Villain over Heaven Official’s Blessing to start because it only has four volumes and all four have now been released. I ended up enjoying this more than I expected.

Shen Yuan had been reading an online “stallion” web novel and dies in a fit of rage at the ending. (I can relate to screaming in frustration at an awful ending). He wakes up inside the world of the very novel that drove him to paroxysms. To add insult to injury, he’s been put into the villain doomed to be dismembered by the show more protagonist. What to do? Change the story, of course, and get into the hero’s good graces! Only, it’s not so simple since there is a “system” monitoring events: he can’t act out of character/OOC and has to make sure the protagonist becomes the over-powered tyrant he is destined to be. Moreover, if Shen dies – he won’t return to his world because he’s dead.

The system is what I found interesting about this storyline. It has rules and interacts with Shen throughout: granting him B points when he completes a quest or feat, deducting points when he acts OOC before he has unlocked the ability. It reminded me a little of Jumanji. The system has the vague rules & terminology of a video game, but Shen is able to exploit logic gaps and he knows how the story is supposed to unfold. This volume is a good intro to the world and the narrator, but all other characters are necessarily one-dimensional “character archetypes” which kept it from being as strong as MDZS first volume. Fortunately, Shen’s development/personal growth and fondness for other characters draws a reader in. I look forward to seeing where the story goes. show less

Of the three MXTX English print editions, Scum Villain is the one I've seen no adaptation of so knew nothing about. I was delighted to find it's extremely funny. The protagonist, Shen Yuan, is transmigrated into a 'stallion' (ie straight male fantasy) webnovel called Proud Immortal Demon Way as the hero's cruel master. His refusal to keep abusing the hero, Luo Binghe, causes events to diverge significantly from the original plot. Shen Yuan is hilariously lacking in self-awareness, despite being keenly aware of the genre and specific webnovel he's stuck in. The narrative satirises and deconstructs Proud Immortal Demon Way's cliches, plot holes, and compulsory heterosexuality. It's entertainingly dramatic as well as meta. I very much show more enjoyed Shen Yuan's perpetual annoyance at the arbitrary decisions of the System that rewards or punishes his actions. Towards the end it turns out the webnovel's author has also transmigrated into it, giving Shen Yuan someone to complain directly to. The author then whines that he is the victim here, being a much less powerful character than Shen Yuan who is just expected to organise and pay for things! The whole book was a really good time and I very much look forward to further shenanigans in the next volume. show less

I picked this up the morning I was having some major dental work done, wanting something really diverting and self-indulgent for the waiting room, and it was definitely that! Shen Man is cursing out the ending of a massive web novel he has been following for ages at the moment of his death -- and he finds himself transmigrated into the novel as a sort of afterlife! But not just any character in the novel, but the book's scum villain! Someone who abuses the protagonist to such an extent that he earns a bloody and extremely painful ending. Now we has to figure out how to keep the novel moving while also hopefully not getting himself horrifically killed in the end. Completely bonkers with lots of fun being poked at web novel tropes.

(I'm not entirely sure what counts as a spoiler with this series, considering the way it's written, so I've probably spoiler-tagged more than necessary. I also couldn't help taking a "series as a whole" tangent, so this probably isn't the most useful review. Ah well...)

Proud Immortal Demon Way is an incredibly long online serial, a "stallion" novel about Luo Binghe (referred to as LBH from here on out), a humble young cultivation disciple who is mistreated by Shen Qingqui (SQQ), the Lord of Qing Jing Peak, until he eventually awakens to his demonic powers, gathers up a massive harem, and kills everyone who formerly mistreated him. Shen Yuan has just spent 20 days plowing through Proud Immortal Demon Way when he suddenly dies and wakes show more up in the body of SQQ.

Shen Yuan had lots of complaints about Proud Immortal Demon Way and was known for being a massive anti-fan. As SQQ, he is told by System, a voice only he can hear, that he's being given the opportunity to "transform a stupid work into a magnificent, high-quality, first-rate classic" (14). It's a chance to finally address the original work's inconsistencies, plot holes, and various details that are brought up only to never be mentioned again. Unfortunately, the original SQQ was a scum villain who betrayed his sect and eventually had his arms and legs chopped off by LBH, the protagonist with invincible plot armor. If SQQ dies the same way now, Shen Yuan is dead as well. His first instinct is to suck up to LBH as hard as he can, but OOC (out of character) behavior is forbidden until he can fulfill some initial requirements.

SQQ somehow has to survive long enough to unlock additional abilities, earn various types types of points (B-points, awarded for being a badass, are the most prominent, but System adds other at will) so that he can afford to break rules or screw up here and there, and somehow still accomplish whichever story events System decides are vital to the book's existence while transforming Proud Immortal Demon Way into a "better" story.

I first read this as a fan translation, never expecting that MXTX's works would ever be licensed and officially translated into English. The fan translation wasn't great, but I still had fun with it, and this was the only one of MXTX's works I ever managed to read from start to finish (I'm 75% done with Heaven Official's Blessing, and I barely even started Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, although I had a little more success with the live action TV series). Even in awkward fan translation form, I loved the beginning of The Scum Villain's Self-saving System and was looking forward to seeing how much an official English translation might improve it.

I'm going to guess that the first few pages of this book were just overall hard to translate, because I don't know that it was much better in this version than it was in the fan translation I read. That eventually smoothed out, although I'd personally have preferred a few more footnotes here and there to clarify things.

The book was at its best during the "System vs. SQQ" scenes, as well as any moments in which SQQ was mentally screaming in frustration or horror as he tried to steer the story in a direction that wouldn't eventually get him killed. While System was kind enough to warn SQQ when he was about to do something that would lose him a fatal number of points, I wouldn't say that System played fair at all. As the story progressed, I knew, as the reader, that the rules under which SQQ was operating were shifting, but I noticed System didn't bother to clue SQQ in.

If I hadn't gone into this book knowing what I'd be dealing with, I'm not entirely sure if I'd have noticed the shift either - for those interested in this series for its m/m romance aspects, FYI, it takes a long while, more than just this first volume, for anything more than hints to show up. Also, just as a warning, as much as I enjoyed this series' humor, LBH/SQQ is my least favorite of MXTX's romantic pairings. If you think about it for very long at all, even if you're okay with teacher-student romances and their power imbalance, this couple doesn't make much sense considering how abusive SQQ was towards LBH prior to Shen Yuan being plopped into the story. And that doesn't even get into the horror of the sex scene that happens later in the series. ::shudder::

Considering what I know about how things turn out, I couldn't help but think about System's initial words to SQQ, about how he was being given the opportunity to transform this work into something better. SQQ, understandably, chose to make his own survival his top priority, but I started to wonder about that original goal. Did MXTX forget about it, or did we just have different ideas about what counted as "better"?

I've been toying with the possibility of it being the second option, considering the author (who I believe was in high school when she originally wrote this) and certain things that come up later on. However, even that doesn't really work, considering that Original SQQ's villainous behavior is inconsistent with Shen Yuan's danmei love interest SQQ - no matter which genre perspective you evaluate it from, Proud Immortal Demon Way is a bloated mess with details that don't quite add up from start to finish.

Which isn't to say that I disliked this volume. I poke at it because I think it could have been better (dear Universe, this is not a request that I die and end up in the novel with instructions to "fix" it or shut up). I had a lot of fun with SQQ's attempts to navigate System's often arbitrary rules, his enormous blind spots where LBH was concerned, and his habit of getting caught up in the story and its characters enough to really care about what was going on beyond the things that could directly lead to his own death.

I plan to read the rest of this, even knowing that I'll dislike the direction the series takes. Seven Seas is taking a bit of a risk, venturing outside of Japanese manga and light novels, and so far they seem to be pretty well committed to it and trying their best.

Extras:

Two full-color illustrations, black and white illustrations throughout, a few footnotes, and lots of appendices. There's a character & name guide, an extensive glossary, and a bonus image gallery with black and white illustrations of Shen Qingqui, young Luo Binghe, Yue Qingyuan, Liu Qingge, Ming Fan, and Ning Yingying. My personal preference would have been for more footnotes and perhaps a reduced glossary - I think some of the things in the glossary would have made more sense if they'd been more closely paired with their context. That said, it's a much better selection of extras than I expected, and I think shows that Seven Seas is taking this venture seriously.

The character guide starts with a warning that it may contain spoilers. While I can sort of see that (although I honestly didn't think it was very spoilery), I still think it's helpful to at least read the other appendices prior to starting the novel. The "names, honorifics, & titles" guide, in particular, is very helpful if you, like me, don't have much of a background in Chinese culture and martial arts stories.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

This xianxia entered my awareness when I encountered SVSSS fanfiction popping up everywhere on AO3 (currently there are more than 20,000 stories posted there). I was curious enough to give it a try, and I found it's a good example of a web novel that crossed into traditional publication. Better translated, and while the plot is a well-used reincarnation/transmigration with system trope, the particular twist is original. I've certainly read worse online in 2022-2023, my era of plowing through web novel sites valiantly. The author is parodying the revenge fantasy stallion (AKA harem) novels so common online.

This first volume is an introduction to the plot in the POV character is reborn into the world of the webnovel he followed as an show more anti-fan. Unfortunately, he is the villain destined to be tortured horrifically by the protagonist, Luo Binghe, and he must begin work to avoid that terrible fate. This is a danmei (M/M) light novel, but the first volume has only a few scattered plot markers for future direction of the relationship, and it's slow burn. The plot has comedic elements, but this was described as a tragedy disguised as a rom-com, so I am braced for drama.

There are already four volumes published in English. In total Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System is originally a novel series with 100 chapters in total. It has also received a 10-episode donghua (Chinese anime) that I've never watched. SVSSS also has a manhua, but it does not get updated anymore and has only three chapters.

I've no idea how long I'll keep reading, but I have volume 2, so I'll give that a try. show less

The translation is a bit clunky in places, but this novel is a light, amusing read that is often irreverently funny, and with nice illustrations as well. I will continue on to the next volume when it's available.