Reviews for The Executed Sage Who Was Reincarnated as a Lich Started an All-Out War

At first glance you may think this is another one of those revenge stories, but don't get decieved by the title, rather this is a story about fulfilling a dream of a lost loved one. So the whole manga has this lingering feeling of sadness and nostalgia. The premise is pretty interesting. It reminded me the story of Joane D'arc. In short: Herogirl saves the world, the world doesn't need a hero anymore, political parties feel threatened because of the popularity and the power she wields, the king and the cronies decide to falsely accuse and exacute her and her follower to get rid of them.Yeah, I know, we did see the same premise before, but this one is written really well. Yes, there is quite a few "uh, oh society" mono/dialoges, so it is pretentious sometimes, but still the message is pretty much spot on. We have seen countless examples in the history where multiple countries united against a greater foe, yet they continued the hostility where they left off the moment the common enemy disappeared. It depends on your worldview though, but I personally do agree with the writer.

My only criticizm is that nearly all the human leaders (aka enemy) are portrayed as powerhungry crazy lunatics, which is not neccessarly far off the reality, but still it would be better if the writer would choose a more nuanced approach in the future. Also, apart from the protagonist the other characters in general are kinda cardboard cutouts (except maybe the succii girl), but since the MC is in the focus it is fine for the time being.

All in all it still need some polishing to became really memorable, but it has the potential to became one. I have to note though, it is clearly not for everyone, since it is pretty dark, and the MC makes a lot of morally questionable decisions for the greater good.

If there's one thing I'm familiar with as a German, it's 2 front wars... but even I pale at the ‘only front war’ from ‘The Executed Sage Who Was Reincarnated As A Lich And Started An All-Out War’! ‘DO YOU WANT TOTAL WAR?’, the author of this manga must have thought, and so here we have a demon king who goes to total war. At least he pretends to. After defeating the previous demon king, the sage Dwight and his lover and heroine are executed. Out of love for the heroine, Dwight does not fight back, because she cannot harm the people she saved. So aftertheir bodies are thrown into a ravine, Dwight realises that he is kind of REALLY angry and so he binds his soul to his skeleton. 10 years later, he climbs the ravine and declares war on the (human) world!

That's how I would summarise the purely good aspects of the manga. However, the new demon king Dwight has a secret: in reality, he is only inciting the human nations to stop fighting each other and unite against a great enemy - him. In this way, he is trying to carry out the will of his deceased lover, who wanted to lead the world into an era of peace.

A lot actually happens on this ‘character level’ and I would like to emphasise a lot of it positively. Dwight's character in particular is quite fascinating - he is split between his desire for revenge, his doubts as a former sage and hero and his feelings towards his lover. This doubt plays an important part in the story, as his new friends always have his back. For example, one of them manages to make the undead taste again, which makes him incredibly happy.

While such moments are absolutely positive, Dwight's character is also the manga's biggest weakness. The constant doubting, especially the self-pity that often accompanies the doubts, is a constant thorn in the side, which occurs again and again during the blatant ‘HAHAHAH I'M AGAINST THE WORLD COME HERE YOU LITTLE MISCREATIONS! scenes. It mostly seems out of place, unfounded and as I said, it's just annoying. Especially because many of his enemies are just human scum - for example, here we have a priestess who actively turns the desperate population of a town into red and pink fireworks and takes perverse pleasure in doing so... Dwight NATURALLY falls into his doubts, even though he actually wanted to get such people out of the way in order to achieve his peace.

To summarise, I can say that ‘The Executed Sage Who Was Reincarnated As A Lich And Started An All-Out War’ delivers an interesting story that really has its moments. The characters, especially the protagonist Dwight, are a double-edged sword that provide both welcome variety and annoying distraction. The manga is also quite short with around 50 chapters and it feels like it takes ages to get new chapters.

If I had to describe this manga in one line, it would be- A pretty decent fantasy set-up which is slightly similar to Overlord for now with revenge elements. Story-8: The story although not being that deep still has a strong establishment where a former Sage with the Hero, who subjugated the Demon Lord are killed ruthlessly by humans as they were suspected of becoming the next Demon Lord and were pushed into the Valley of the Dead to die. The hate for humans burned deeply in Sage's heart, enough for him to become a skeleton and gain massive power in the process, although the hero wasalready dead. So, he resolves to bring "True Peace" to the world to make humans realize how wrong their concept of peace is and one day to also resurrect the Hero, the only person he cared about in the world. He brings with him an army of undead and announces himself as the next Demon Lord to the World and starts to lay waste to human's armies gaining some trustworthy allies in the process.

Art-7:

Art is pretty good for now, although it has potential to become even better. Some double panel spreads have been amazing.

Character-6:

To be honest, except the Sage, and his subordinates, not many people have been given enough screen time to develop their characters, although with the appearance of a new Hero, things are looking interesting.

Enjoyment-7:

Although, his revenge was short-lived as the former Sage destroyed the country, which killed him and hero the off, in a single chapter. His motivation of becoming the demon lord to annex human territories to bring about true peace has been pretty enjoyable until now. Most of the battles have been pretty one-sided except for the time when he fought with a former imprisoned archer who eventually became his subordinate. Also, as of writing this, 11 chapters have been released, and the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, where he gets ready to face off against the new Hero, so this battle might also pose a threat to him as the Hero uses Holy magic and being an Undead Demon Lord, his attacks would be super effective against him.

Overall-7:

This might be too early to judge this manga, but seeing how much potential this manga has on top of getting more and more views, I think that it might become the next big thing and even receive an anime adaptation if it continues to build up upon its story. Last but not the least, am truly glad that this aint an isekai, too many of them on the market, bruh.

This one remember a little Overlord, but the main history is slight different, is not Isekai, has no harem and so on, but, is as bad as Overlord, if not worse. The MC is is a delusional tyrant that justifies all the suffering and destruction in their path as righteous, the difference there is that the MC was betrayed and killed, and have some reason to be a evil being, different of the MC in Overlord, that was a pitiful human being in life, and became a pathetic puppet after being isekaied. There's basically no world building, the whole world is corrupt, nearly all humans are corruptand deserver to die.

The supporting characters are generic, childlike beings with twisted personalities, that are made likable following the trend in the last years to make the bad guys look cool, sexy or simply plain stupid.

The art overall is good, but being pretty to look is not enough.