Only Sense Online - Art 8, Characters 7, Story 8, Overall 8

Only Sense Online is a very good MMO manga that centres around the progression and growth of a crafter and his shop while having a lighthearted and peaceful atmosphere.

+ Main points: Laid back and peaceful atmosphere, centres around gathering and crafting, very good art
- Weaknesses: Slow paced, no world building, characters are likeable but not very complex

This manga is for you if you like Isekai and MMO manga that are mainly focused on the mechanics of the game. It is most similar to 'Bofuri' and resembles some of the more laid back chapters (that centre around the core game setting) of other Isekais like 'Rising of Shield Hero' or 'Log Horizon'.

If you want an interesting plot or world building you might not like it. Also do not expect to much of its economic explanations. It is not an manga that tries to analyze its political and societal foundation. If you want something specific from your Manga like in 'SAO' (action/ love story), 'Log Horizon' (in its world building) or 'Rising of Shield Hero' (political story) you will not be very pleased with this one.

I am about to discus some of the main points of this manga and explain why some of its weaknesses are not that relevant, while others do hinder its quality.


Basic Premise:
This manga's premise is, that the MC starts the game without knowledge of the best combination of skills to choose from. Since MC wants to be an unique character and be of use for his sisters, he tries to be a supporter. This leads him to combine different skills in a unique way, which allows him to make money by gathering, creating and selling items. Since MC is not adapt to fighting there is not much action in the beginning. It mostly resolves around his daily struggles with gathering, upgrading his skills and building up a name as a merchant. This basic premise is done pretty good. I do think that the explanations of the mechanics of the game in the beginning are understandable and plausible (in comparison to 'Bofuri' or 'SAO'). Also the loop of gathering, creating new items and getting new skills is very well done. If you like to watch a character grow by analyzing its environment and adapting to it, this will be interesting. Other than that, it is mostly fun to see the MC make new friends and interact with other people.

Story:
Most of the story resolves around the basic premise. MC tries to make new interesting items and build up a shop. Other than that the manga starts with new story arcs that are resolved parallel to this premise. These are your usual MMO and Isekai story arcs, like special events, item quests, mob hunts or similar. Most of these story arcs are presented interestingly and they often link back to the overall premise by giving the MC a new material or skill to work with and progress from. This combination of premise and story arcs therefore feels progressive and rewarding. It is through this story arcs that there starts to be a bit of world building and character explanation, but not much. Overall the story arcs manage to feel more than just your regular fillers and are wrapped in nicely.

Lack of World Building:
Despite this there are some obvious weaknesses. And in my view the lack of world building is the one that harms it the most. It never really is explained how the surroundings around the MC works. There are towns, dungeons and players. Everything is pretty generic. This is especially glaring in view of the towns and demographics. It is nothing said about the kind of world that they are playing in. Is it a kingdom? Do they have some kind of institutions like a research labs or military? Are there social distinctions like races? Is there a preferred clothing style? Answer for all of them is: Probably not, since all of those questions never are discussed. It feels empty because nothing specific is given about the world and its society (compared with Rising of the Shield hero, where this is one of the main aspects.) Even about trading as the main aspect of the story is not said enough about. You have your usual merchant stalls and player merchants but it is not explained how this is organized. The most we get is through a friend of the MC that does understand the market situation better than him and sometimes talks about the front line, merchant price variations, upgrading your stall to a shop, starting a crafting organization and so on. Still this all feels very generic and is most often only mentioned breefly. Later this issue gets more and more resolved since many of these things will affect the MC but even at Chapter 54 it still feels very unspecific and is not as good as it could.
This same problem also goes for the interactions between players and MMO. Is not explained how players or Players and environment interact with apart from when the MC or known Characters are involved. It just is assumed that players play the game and that is it. It is not explained how and why they are playing it (compared with 'SAO' or Log Horizon in which this is one of the main aspects). One does learn about this things mostly through side events and other characters like MC's sisters. These events show the interaction between players and environment and motivation of the characters, but never go beyond your generic MMO and Isekai standards. It just feels very empty and unimaginative that most of this is left out or is kept as generic as possible. I think that it would improve the quality of the manga, if there would be more insights into this that go beyond the individual characters that the MC interacts with.

Atmosphere:
This manga is mostly about peaceful interaction and discovery of new items and skill combinations. It therefore is pretty easy on the emotional part and never really pushes an overarching plot that is of importance. There are not many action scenes in the beginning. In the middle the actions scenes increase but often resolve around the preparations of the MC and his use of new or adapted items and skills. Therefore the battles often fullfill the purpose increase the variety of items of the shop. There is also a good amount of comedy that does feel entertaining without being to distracting. All in all it feels like a good and chilled manga, that you can enjoy without getting to much invested with its plot or characters, while still giving good value.

I think that the premise and atmosphere is done very good. While it would benefit a lot from some more world building and character explanation it still feels engaging enough to be worthwile if you are interested in the main setting.