Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS as I try to give an idea of what a person is getting into with this show. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation finished its season today. The show was really solid and worth a watch. Interesting characters and great world building. The world seemed really thought out from the political climate between the different races and the history of what has happened prior to the start of the show. All the characters grow and change throughout the show. The main character Rudeus starts out as a terrible person with a lot of baggage and trauma from is old life. He does somethings that are objectively bad, but as the show continues you see him grow as a person. And Rudeus is not the only one that grows. A majority of the cast goes through interesting development which I felt was the overarching them of the entire show. Bettering yourself over the course of your life no matter how much you fail. It does have some controversial moments so be prepared for that going in. Like a said, Rudeus does some terrible things but I felt like the things that happen in the show make since to where he is as a character and how it furthers his development as he learns from his mistakes.

I don't get the hate. It's not that I didn't try to understand it, I just don't get why people hate it so much when their is so much to love about this show. Mushoku Tensei or I will seriously try if I go to another world is what you expect from a show that is called by some fans "The father of isekai genre". It follows the story of a guy who died from truck accident and got reincarnated to another world. It's typical isekai. But what elevates it is the beautiful art work and animation, amazing world building and incredible details put into the worldby a talented staff. With all this going for it why would someone hate the show? Let me start by that first. A flawed character. Rudeus our protagonist has had a tough life or rather a scummy life in the other world. He was a pervert, a scum and didn't care about other peoples feelings. The way the show introduces him is almost like the author wanted you to not like him. Even hate him. He got exactly what he intended. Rudeus is not supposed to a relatable main character and was not meant to be. He was a 36 year old man with nothing going on in his life who get's thrown out of his house and get's his by a truck. All what he deserved. Then he get's born in another world to Paul and Zenith as his parents. He makes a promise that he will try this time. Try for real to become a better person than he was in his previous life. Now here is where the problem starts. As a 36 year old scum is in a newborns body, people watching the show expected him to change instantly to a better person. Not really how it works. Rudeus is flawed in many ways even after he is reincarnated and the show never stops telling you that. His past life is not thrown away like most isekai protagonist. Jobless Reincarnation is a story about redemption and Rudeus getting over the traumatic experiences of his past which led him to become the way he was. The show deals with his previous experiences like bullying, depression and the trauma you go through because of that. Rudeus is not a hero and never will be. He has good and bad qualities like any person but the problem is people see his bad qualities more than the good ones. It's completely opposite to me. I'm talking about the time AFTER he got reincarnated because before he really was a scum. Rudeus this time really wants to try and I admire that. He wants to change and do something good with the second chance he got. He tries hard no matter what happens. He cares about others and when helps people. He tries hard to overcome his fear and when he does you can't help but cheer for him. With that I would like to end it about Rudeus and get to the actual review about the show. The story takes place in a beautiful world with it's own magic system and creatures. It's awesome and it shows that the author has put some thought into it and it's easily better than most of the isekais we see and even many fantasy anime in general. There is so much lore here with the backgrounds and histories about the different creatures that live here to the environments and the structure of society that you can't help and be amazed by it. You get introduced to all these aspects episode by episode and it never feels out of place or too forced and just fits. Special mention to the incredible animation staff at the newly formed Studio Bind who added to the show by adding elements and detailed from out world and real life to the show so beautifully to really elevate the beauty of this world to another level. The magic system works like any magic system. You might have been lucky and have good genetics to learn faster and much more than others in a short amount of time if you put some work into it. The show does give some benefit to the main character as he can learn quicker due to him being a grown man in a childs body but not too much because he is nowhere near the most powerful character even in his hometown. He has to train and work towards it. Something that I don't like here is that the progression of the main character happens really fast and even though it is cool to see him learn new spells we don't really feel a lot of satisfaction as it all happens too fast instead of gradual progression something the novel does better. And another thing now is the characters which I am not a fan of. The only one I like so far is Roxy who is not even that of a great character. They all seem weak and not well written enough, especially the female characters. The male characters like Paul and Ruijerd have some personality and some backstory to them to make them more engaging. And as much as I talked about Rudeus him acting perverted does feel extremely forced at times. Even if the author intended those scenes to be seen as comical they still made me uncomfortable at times. Coming back to Paul and Zenith, I don't like the portrayal of their marriage. I get how Paul is supposed to be like this but he just feels like and asshole and the show tries too hard sometimes to make him look like the good guy. The story is progresses a little slow until the last few episodes but it never feel like nothing is happening and there is always some action going on or the magic system, the character development and the world building takes the center stage in the story and it's always entertaining. Not many dull moments I can think about except for some unnecessary fanservice of both male and female characters and some extremely unnecessary implied sex scenes which are impossible to take seriously and are sometimes treated as a joke. There are some funny moments here and there which are a hit or miss most of the time. When Rudeus leaves his hometown we see the actual worldbuilding and story which the show has to offer. The story progresses faster and we introduced to the structure of the world. Sometimes though there are somethings that you question like the idea of Rudeus that he wants to learn new languages without any reason than "he finds them interesting" before you-know-what hits. How convenient. He doesn't just learn these new languages, he learns them really fast which he tells how it's because of his young brain which is just a cheap attempt by the author to convince us that this is not just plot amour. The thing that I do like about different languages is that they exist and are used and yes I know that it should just be normal for another world but it's not in anime and the main character actually have to put some effort to learn it rather than him just being able to speak it by default. Now to wrap thing up. I would say that that Mushoku Tensei is a traditional isekai at the genres best. It is a fantasy which uses the isekai troupes at their best level and elevates them by a good story surrounding a big cast, amazing world building and good character development. You can watch it as an introduction to this genre or even if you are bored with all the same isekai with no effort put into them that we get nowadays. It's memorable and a good experience and very enjoyable as it progresses with some issues. Truly the father of isekai.

A child molestation fantasy story decorated with some generic isekai elements. The story begins portraying a horrible middle-aged pedophile with the main flaws being a recluse (hikikomori) + leech living off his parents (neet) + literal pedophile. After reincarnating in a fantasy world and getting a second chance at life the MC says he will take life seriously now (it's literally the title of the show), so there was a reasonable expectation from the audience that it would be an interesting redemption story, only to utterly fail at that: the first 2 issues are quickly and magically fixed in the first few episodes while his lustfor children never gets fixed and instead is written off as cheap comedy gags throughout the show. The MC received for free all kind of benefits just by reincarnating: good looks (from the character's point of view), family with good social status, big magical power, secretly having an adult mind to take advantage of others, etc. He got for free things that a stereotypical loser character think they need for being a "better person", hence, it comes across as a shallow wish fulfillment story where the MC's creep behavior is rewarded with typical things that a lolicon otaku would want (loli harem, little sisters, etc). The convenient plot writing is all over the place making sure the MC is involved in all kinds of ecchi situations because "he can't help it" (e.g. convenient misunderstandings, "it's legal/not big deal in this world" stuff, most males portrayed as worst than him so he "is not that bad" compared to them, etc), and the inner monologues reveal that this is how the MC fulfills the disgusting dreams he couldn't realize in the past life. Besides that, the story is the typical generic isekai having the MC going on quests as an adventurer with the purpose of making him seem like a cool hero. In terms of production value, the animation is good and the art style is attractive, although the quality went downhill in some episodes towards the end. Male characters are unlikeable as most of them are portrayed as perverts or cheaters, which I guess is convenient for the underlying ecchi theme going on. Female characters seem to mostly exist for fanservice and to fall for the MC. Overall, this looks like an ecchi anime that pretended to be a redemption story but ultimately failed at that.

Mushoku Tensei might well be the most controversial anime I’ve come across in a long time. Interspecies Reviewers generated a lot of discussion recently, but that was mostly due to a moronic Youtuber flexing his popularity and trying to mess with MAL. Mushoku Tensei, on the other hand, divides opinion by simply existing, caused by the character traits and story it follows. Some people, a lot of these LN fans, believe that whatever Mushoku Tensei has done in the anime is just a realistic portrayal of medieval times. Some think that pedophilia and libido for every character is not a good representation. While I knew whatI was getting into when I first started Mushoku Tensei, my problems begin when the characters get away with rape, pedophilia and sexual harassment and instead, the show plays all of these very sensitive topics in a comedic sense, almost as if they were no big deal. Rape is played off as a joke, pedophilia as a character quirk that has nothing wrong with it, and sexual harassment like flirting. I don’t argue against the fact that these things can be represented well in anime, but I am not supportive of how easily it’s played off as a humorous copout. I’ve never read the novels, so I speak of what I watched in the first 11 episodes of Mushoku Tensei. LN fans insist these issues will dwindle and Rudues will change for the better as the story progresses, which is fine. Hell, it’s not Rudeus or the characters I have a problem with. There were, and are scumbags in the world and there always will be, and I don’t mind their portrayal in anime. In fact, I think some anime have too many characters without flaws. My problem is with the presentation. If you’re going to touch on such delicate matters, there’s a fine line that needs to be tread. They can’t be played off as a joke by the show itself and, sometimes, I certainly felt Mushoku Tensei explicitly did that with its portrayal of those scenes. Also, almost everyone in the show thought with their dicks and tits 24/7, and no, that’s not a realistic representation of the world. If you think it is, you need to get out of your bubble and know more people. The story starts off like any other isekai. A useless otaku meets an accident, dies and is transported to a new world. In MT, the MC gets a completely new start as he’s born into the alternate world instead of having his old body transported. And the first thing that the reincarnated protagonist, newly named Rudeus or Rudy for short, does is ogle at his mother’s breasts and tries to fondle them. Even after realizing that she’s his new mother, he still says “Sucking on a hottie’s tits for free rules”. Already, this left an appalling first impression. It was just awkward? I’ve seen my fair share of ecchi anime with perverted characters, but this was already having me have second thoughts about continuing a few minutes into episode 1. The first episode pulls no punches in showing how much of a trash Rudeus is, as he scrounges for panties of women in his house even before he turns one. What follows are several time skips within a few episodes until Rudeus turns seven. The start is pretty generic, but I’ll be honest, it’s kinda interesting. If you get rid of the problems many people, including me, have with the portrayal of some issues, then the first season of Mushoku Tensei becomes a polished version of what a lot of other isekai try and fail over and over again. Some do it with some success, but those are few amongst the can of worms that the isekai genre is. So Mushoku Tensei undeniably falls on the better side of the isekai scale, lopsided as that scale may be. Mushoku Tensei fans like to call it the “Grandfather/Mother of isekai”, but I doubt the validity of these claims because several other popular isekai novels had already come out before it, and SAO (talking about the anime here) might not be an isekai, depending on what your definition of isekai is, but that’s the one that started off the boom of what has basically become a genre now. Talking about fans, some fans even claim that the people who have issues with pedophilia, rape, etc and how the anime portrays these in good light, are soft snowflakes. According to them, anyone who thinks these things are actually a problem shouldn’t use their own morals on a show. As a protagonist, Rudues is agonizing to watch. This holds especially true for the first half of the season, as he seemed to not even care about how creepy some of his actions were. He’s a degenerate in the truest sense of the word, with very little to redeem his character. I understand he has trauma because of the bullying he was victim to in his first life, but that doesn’t justify his actions. Of the few flashbacks we got of his previous life, he was shown to have been fapping to child porn at the time of his parents’ funeral. Then, in his new life, he still retains the mind of a middle-aged, useless pedophile, who, even in his new chance at life hasn’t changed after spending five years as he’s fantasizing about turning a five-year-old girl he saved from bullying into his ideal woman. Oh, there’s a change this time though, he’s gifted with abilities far surpassing almost anyone in the world. One of the things that I always find funny about isekai is how the protagonist who is usually pretty useless in real life becomes a genius; not just physically gifted but mentally having over 9000 IQ. Having said all of this about Rudues, he becomes better in the latter part of the season, although still having bouts of his lecherous habits. My biggest gripe with Rudeus as a character is that his filthy actions are not driven by physical attraction; if they were, he wouldn’t be stealing panties or trying to grope women before he turned one. It’s his mind that’s corrupt. Eris, the main heroine for season 1, is a typical tsundere who starts off as a hotheaded, spoiled brat before the MC wins her over. I wouldn’t say she’s that interesting so far, but I kinda like her. Roxie is another character who got some attention through the run of the season. She’s a Migurd woman and actually is 30+ but the show never tries to make this known until much later. Looking like a 13-year-old instead, we see a young Rudues, maybe 5 or something, trying to sneak peeks when she’s bathing, changing or even masturbating. And of course, stealing her panties is a given, right? Paul(o), Rudeus’ new papa, is a bastard. He cheats on his wife, assaults girls and rapes them, gets away with it, apologizes to his wife for cheating, then writes a letter to his seven-year-old son saying how he’s gonna cheat on his wife again while bragging about it. Again, my key concern is the show playing these things off as a joke. Considering there are people who've experienced these traumatic events, the author and studio had no empathy from conception to creation. A few of these things might have been fine if the show was a comedy, but it’s not. It can’t claim to be a serious redemption story and still play most of this shit off for shits and giggles. Other characters don’t really have much to talk about; not yet anyway. The visuals in Mushoku Tensei are fantastic; the attention to detail evinces the care and work that Studio Bind put in while crafting the world. It’s got some stunning backgrounds, gorgeous colors and ambience to paint the world and characters. The art is the strongest aspect of the show. My only real critique is the grainy art style which I’m not too fond of, but that’s just one minor complaint I have about the visuals. The animation is pretty fluent most of the time, and more importantly, the animators knew which moments to highlight and which they could put less work toward. The OP playing while showing the ambience is one of the biggest props for Mushoku Tensei. It sets up the episode by giving us a feel of the area that most of the episode is going to be in. Speaking of the OP, it’s pleasant to hear in itself. I know plenty of people skip anime OPs, but Mushoku Tensei gives you a reason not to because it’s part of the episode. Apart from the OP though, the OST is bland and lacking. Nothing else made me pause and repeat a scene so that I could hear the sound again, and I didn’t even notice too much of it. That’s not that big of a deal as this is the case with most anime anyway. Overall, the production values were top notch and you can see that Studio Bind views this a long-term project, considering the studio was created especially for Mushoku Tensei. Although I’m interested to find out where the story goes after this, I’m not totally sold on Mushoku Tensei yet. Most of it is due to the aforementioned problems in its portrayal of serious issues as jokes. The latter part of the season wasn’t as riddled with those concerns though, so it’s getting better, at least. According to novel readers, it only gets better and better from here, so we’ll see where it goes, but that’s pretty much all source readers, right? The second cour is scheduled to be back after a season break, and I’m interested to see how it turns out.

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