Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu Part 2

Isekai.

You’re probably familiar with this term. The sheer number of shows that come out each year from this genre has gotten to the point that many are just sick of it and would rather skip than watch the same formulaic anime. However, not every Isekai is created equally.

There is one which has gathered somewhat of a cult around it - one that is seen as the grandfather of modern isekai, using pre-existing tropes but executing them properly. One that truly has the right to call itself an isekai.

Welcome to Mushoku Tensei.

This is the tale of a man known as Rudeus Greyrat and how he ... is forced to live in a new environment with completely unfamiliar customs, traditions and a never before seen power - magic. Contrary to most Isekai stories fans are familiar with, Rudeus’ flaws and regrets from his previous life carry over to his new body - flaws and regrets he often needs to reflect on. Throughout the series, the audience can see how he grows physically and also mentally. However, that does require patience. Changing is not a process that can happen right off the bat, instead requiring years of time and effort to accomplish. It’s an aspect of the show which is constantly being driven home.

The world around you and the people you meet will change as you grow. Nothing is static and will always move, forcing you to mature along with the world around you. It may be a painful experience. It might be sufferable. But truly living life to your fullest, not having any regrets and doing all you can so you can die without any is a task hard to accomplish.

The characters in this show have some of the most realistic depictions of human beings that I have ever seen. In a typical Isekai series, the MC and their party are often tropey characters, ones whose personalities can be described in a few adjectives, very one dimensional and uninteresting entities. But when it comes to writing compelling characters that resemble us humans, it is important to factor in the fact that mankind does make mistakes and that nobody is perfect. We are all flawed individuals that often make mistakes, act irrationally and hurt others. Most of us have plenty of good sides but also bad ones that we try to mitigate or get rid of. We have complex personalities, and these aspects are what defines us as human beings.

In Mushoku Tensei, the way in which audience is introduced to the characters is by showing them in the worst light possible, with their flaws on full display, to later make their growth visible as they change. Throughout the duration of the journey these characters have to face their vices and develop as people, slowly mitigating aspects of theirs that hurts those around them. The series teaches us that sometimes first impressions could even prevent us from seeing someone for who they really are - confusing it with who they appear to be. Willing to see past the flaws of someone and giving them a second chance is something that people should strive to achieve.

Often times changing yourself requires a lot of effort and many just give up without ever trying to get back up. Looking at yourself in the mirror and acknowledging your mistakes is an important part in life. To see the flaws within ourselves and understanding what parts of us hurts those around us is the first step in becoming a better person. However, simply having the conviction to change is not enough and it may often require help of other people that will extend a hand and direct you on a different path.

The animation and art is extremely well done, by some very talented animators that bring the series to life. It’s fluid, it’s natural and it heavily immerses you to the world, captivating you almost instantly. There is a lot of depth put into it, showcased by various elements such as the grip on a sword, balance on the sand, fire changing color depending on the heat, the list goes on. These are aspects highlight just how detailed this show is and is part of what makes it so compelling and grounded. To add to the immersion, Mushoku Tensei has many openings, changing depending on the region the characters are current in. Each of these songs perfectly sets the mood.

Overall, Mushoku Tensei is a story unlike any I’ve seen before despite, at its core, not doing anything groundbreaking. It has managed to execute the tropes flawlessly and has such wonderful character development and high production value that it stands out amongst many others from the same genre. I’m sure it’s one that’ll be remembered for years to come. This is only the beginning of the long tale of Rudeus Greyrat and I'm convinced that many wish to see more of it.

If there was a person next to you who struggles to change, who is suffering a lot, who is unable to read the room and may often hurt those around them - would you be willing to give them a second chance and help them on their journey?

Or would you abandon them on the spot, turning a blind eye and ignoring them?

That’s an answer that only you can find and I hope this show will open your eyes to it.

I usually don't write more than one preview per season, but this anime is SOO hyped that I have to break my rule. Mushoku is quickly becoming one of the most popular series on MAL. So why is this series so popular? I'll try break down some of the pros and cons.

Pros:

For an isekai series, Mushoku does invest fairly heavily in world building. Compared to the average isekai, it's pretty impressive that Mushoku created countries, noble houses, a little bit of history, and even hired a linguistics graduate to create a fantasy language. That happens pretty often in the West ever since Tolkien blazed that ... trail. Klingon was created in the 1960s and is a full language with fleshed out vocabulary and grammar rules. Same goes with Dothraki and even Na'vi from Avatar. However, that really doesn't happen much in anime. Garzey's Wing attempted it to disastrous results. So kudos for Mushoku.

The animation and OST are actually pretty darn good. I really have no complaints on a technical level. Mushoku was a very successful light novel series in Japan, so this anime received a generous budget. They didn't have to worry about this making money with Japanese otaku. Mushoku is going to run another 5 seasons at least.

Mushoku actually cares about its magic system. Us geeky anime fans love to know how stuff works. How much energy and experience is needed for a certain spell. What is the spell's recharge time? What is the effective range? How does magic work in this world and where does it come from? Can anyone learn magic? This is why fans will constantly bug people like Akira Toriyama and Hirohiko Araki with these sorts of questions and those 2 will usually respond with "I don't remember, I was drunk when I wrote that shit. Why do you even care? It was funny!" The author of Mushoku cares and he's happy for you to ask all the questions you want.

Cons:

Whether or not you like a character is entirely subjective. However, I will say I greatly dislike the MC in this series. It's not just that he's a bad person. There are plenty of characters who do horrible things and yet are compelling and interesting characters. A great character doesn't need to be some goody two-shoes who is immediately loveable. The issue is that Mushoku presents itself like a redemption story and it honestly isn't. In life, Rudeus was a loathsome piece of shit who would rather fap to loli porn than go to his own parents' funeral. However, he gets a second chance at life and vows to become a better person. He uses his adult knowledge and formal education to completely outpace his peers, learn the fantasy language by 2, and become a powerful mage. However, he's still a pedophilic degenerate who makes no effort to improve morally. He isn't a latent pedophile who struggles against his body's natural desires and feels tremendous guilt. That would actually be interesting. Instead, he grooms and bangs all the girls in the novel series because he's a power fantasy for the male readers. He doesn't improve and there are no negative consequences for his actions. Ever.

Halfway through season 1, the God of the Mushoku universe comes to Rudeus and starts telling him what he needs to do to advance to the next part of the story. Whenever Rudeus is stuck, we get literal deus ex machina to save the day and keep the plot moving. In the first episode of season 2, Rudeus needs a power up. So God tells him to buy some food and give it to an obnoxious loli begging in an alley. It turns out she is actually a bratty demon lord and knockoff Disgaea character who rewards Rudeus with the Sharingan from Naruto. Now that Rudeus got a free power up, he can instantly defeat Eris and completely undermine all of her training. This is necessary though because he needs to be the alpha if he's going to groom and bang her. Which he will. I'm going to come out and say it. The plot of Mushoku is pretty bad. The fact this is a novel series is embarrassing. There are plenty of 1990s JRPGs that are better written than this.

This is another subjective factor, but I have no love for either the comedy or echii content in this series. The English dub at least tried to improve the comedy, but when I watch it subbed I don't even smile once per episode. I am a very easy person to make laugh. I laughed at Peter Grill at least twice an episode and those are 10 minute episodes. This anime is comedically getting its ass kicked by Peter Grill. It also entirely fails to titillate or arouse me, since almost all the fanservice is from loli characters. I'd rather masturbate to the characters in Plus Sized Elf than this garbage.

I gave this a 4 purely for technical reasons. I like to have at least a little objectivity in my ratings. However, I can honestly say that I'd rather be watching Goblin Slayer season 2. I had a lot more fun with Redo of Healer. I've already alluded to the fact that on an enjoyment level, I think Peter Grill is better than Mushoku. If I didn't have horrendous anime taste myself, it would physically hurt me to see a series this mediocre get so hyped. So no, I don't recommend watching Mushoku. If you have to see what the hype is all about, I would at least wait for the dub to come out.

Mushoku tensei is great, probably even the best anime of this year


I mean c'mon mushoku tensei is So good that you don't even have to be a isekai fan to love it

Gorgeous Art i mean real beautiful , most of this can be used as 4K art assets for AAA video games , Mushoku tensei doesn't stop giving us new desktop screensavers in every freaking frame. Animations in battles are crisp and almost no recognizable 3D is ever on screen due to clever camera placement .

Great characters , each easily Distinguishable, the Girls are not in the anime just be waifus and are actual ... people (and waifus) ,Rudy the main Focus , is a complex and flawed character who you aren't supposed to like (actually you pity the guy more often than not)but sometimes he can be a real bro .

The music is easily so creative it is an all time classic like bebop or champloo. It sets the atmosphere so well. Upbeat but still medieval,the kind that made us admire the unskippable opening since it is also filled with additional Art .VA is well done the switching between old rudy and young rudy is done so well that even tho they are distinctly different we always know they are the same person the other characters have great established seiyuus as well.


Story is where mushoku tensei really excels it goes to different tangents from a very simple premise without making it feel odd the main goal of MC was not decided at reincarnation like IMMA DEFEAT DEMON LORD or anything its always been down to earth like , I just gotta earn money for my best friends sylphy’s tuition , i gotta help eris get home , it's my responsibility as her teacher and most importantly I just need to live my life properly and without regrets (that is basically the full title of this anime).


Mushoku Tensei is truly a benchmark good Isekai anime. Hell, I believe it Should BE THE BENCHMARK anime due to the sheer potential it has in all forms: beautiful Art, immersive story, well written characters . its a modern masterpiece and I am glad that the studio incharge seems equally as passionate as we fans are for this adaptation.

Cancel culture however, has a way of ruining things so allow me to address a couple of aspects being used to fan the HATE WARS.

the main concern is pedophilia.....

1)He may look like an ugly bastard straight out of hentai in his previous life but there is more to Rudy than meets the eye. Rudy is fundamentally a 17-year-old kid at the start of the anime. Yes I know he is physically 37 but a thing or two about his MENTAL GROWTH: His growth stopped exactly at the point when he refused to communicate work or even interact with society in any tangible form (look up Genie, the feral child in google if you wish to know what happens to people who totally disconnect), yes one might say he still had his computer and all that but would I really call that mental Growth? I'll call it mental deterioration, learning all sorts of nefarious things that the internet has plenty of. Even if he got any good advice from his parents or the internet he won't take it since he feels “this is only a trap to make him go back outside”, hence he is just a 17-year-old boy with nothing for a moral compass except whatever his broken brain approves of (including pedophilia) and a loose understanding the laws of civilized society (through his education till highschool and online experiences).

2)Main character in an isekai must be A kirito clone or an Edgelord
Rudy makes several mistakes all the time he tries to make things right , but fails . tries to find an easy way out , fails . Thinks he can just use talk no jutsu against criminals , and fails again. The Thing is he is so broken he still believes that the GALGAME simulation self that he tries the create is the best solution and in a way is still failing to accept that this is his new reality and the consequences are real and the death flag is NOT A RESET POINT anymore.


3)MC must be a badass ice-cold killer who kills enemies like flies
He still is unable to because well it's too violent and raw for someone who has led a peaceful like Him he may have great power but he has yet to cross the line. Moreover, someone who has always been meek and submissive his entire life cannot easily come to terms with such a deed, THE DUDE WAS A BYSTANDER IN HIS OWN LIFE how can we expect him to act on such an ordeal.

tl;dr I cared way too much when writing this review, and it’s really fucking long. However, you probably won’t find a more comprehensive and personalized breakdown of Mushoku Tensei anywhere on this website. The whole time I was working on it, I kept screaming to myself, “This is fucking stupid! No one’s ever gonna read this!” So hopefully you prove me wrong, and I didn’t do this all for nothing.

I finally figured out why I was wrong about this show, why it’s actually good, and why my prior complaints were foolish. My reviews where I come across like a snobbish attention whore are where I ... most often find success, but whenever I actually care and put genuine attentiveness into my reviews, no one reads them, so since I’m too jaded to think this time will be any different, I’m not going to feel bad about going into meticulous subjective detail and writing something WAY overly verbose. I was actually going to write a review for part one back in March, but by the time I got to episode eight, I had no idea how I felt about the series, and I actually ended up dropping it. Saying, “I got to episode eight,” though, is kind of a stretch, since I had spent the last three of those episodes falling asleep, getting drunk, or fucking around on my phone or something because I was so bored, but if for no other reason than the appreciation I had for its astounding production quality, I decided to give it another shot. Instead of picking back up where I left off, I figured I had zoned out way too much when I originally tried to watch it, and should therefore restart from episode one and actually pay attention. I can usually tell just by looking at the studio, source material, and staff list whether or not an anime I’m about to watch is worth my respect, which for me means no alcohol and no speed-watching, but this show was the first time my intuition ever missed the mark. The only person or entity involved with this project I had ever heard of was the composer, Yoshiaki Fujisawa, and while his music is incredible, that wasn’t enough reason for me to take seriously something which looked like bland copy/pasted isekai trash…which I guess is my excuse for judging this book by its cover, but when I gave it a second chance, there were many moments which stuck out to me which didn’t before. To explain why, let me first explain what I originally liked and originally disliked about the series. I absolutely loved the first four episodes of Mushoku Tensei, because they had gorgeous animation, gorgeous colors, gorgeous backgrounds, and gorgeous character designs, but because most of all, they were uncharacteristically well-written not only for an isekai, but for a light novel adaption in general. Good writing is hard to complement not only because 30% of the community understands what “good writing” even is, but because 99.9% of the remaining 70% don’t care to learn—let alone admit they need to.

I could gush endlessly about the genius and hilarity of episode four, and don’t be sure I won’t somewhere in this review, but for now I think the perfect example to make my point is this scene in episode eight where Eris plants herself on Rudeus’ bed like a landmine. She’s sat there in a night gown just stroking her hair awkwardly, and in his head all these red flags are going off. “What the fuck?! Why is she here? Is this a trap? Should I fuck her? What the fuck is going on?!” But when I first watched the scene, I don’t think I was really taking all of this in. I’m fluent in Japanese, so I can watch anime like a radio drama if I want to. So I was looking at my phone, and when I glanced up to look at the screen, I saw that first-person perspective shot of Rudeus breathing heavily, slowly looking down over Eris’ half-naked, hyper-sexualized, carefully shaded loli body and thought to myself, “Okay. It’s a fanservice scene. I know what’s going on.” And then went back to my phone. But on the rewatch, it quickly became one of my favorite scenes in the entire show, because the way it actually plays out is brilliant. When he comes in and tries to playfully shoo her away, teasing her with his perversion, she essentially says, “I’m here, so…you know. Do what you want with me.” And this fucking guy goes full Tomihiko Morimi. Do you remember that running gag from The Tatami Galaxy where the main character’s libido is represented by a literal voice in his head, a cowboy named Johnny—“Johnny” being a euphemism for penis—riding a bucking bronco? This scene honestly felt like that, because Rudeus, being a clumsy, horny, eager idiot with no sexual experience, fails to loosen her up or make her feel comfortable, so she kicks him off of her, goes “alright, you made it weird,” and just leaves unceremoniously. That scene is definitely loli fanservice, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also a better and more honest piece of characterization than most anime even have the writing prowess to include. That scene demonstrates that despite being a cynical, forty year old NEET failure at life who always acts like he’s too jaded to take his surroundings seriously, Rudeus can actually become a boyish, innocent virgin who’s completely at a loss when it comes to sexual tension, and it also shows us that despite always acting like a stuck-up, oujo-sama bitch who’s better and tougher than everyone around her, Eris can actually become demure, vulnerable, and emotionally honest when she’s around the guy she likes.

That scene was so brilliant in how it used a situation everyone in the audience can understand—that of clumsy, first-time sex—to instantly tear down all the characters’ false pretenses and expose them as the lovable, dorky, clueless virgins that they are and humble them to themselves, each other, and the viewer. It was immeasurably endearing, and this impeccable characterization which gives the cast so much more depth than the archetypes which I first thought they would forever embody is the number one reason why this show is so well-written. This extends far beyond just the characters, but Mushoku Tensei almost feels like it was made for the sole purpose of including tropes, only to turn around and flesh them out so comprehensively, the viewer is forced to invest despite any initial judgements of its decision to include said tropes. When Eris first showed up in episode five, I physically rolled my eyes, sighed, and completely checked out. “Oh, great. Here we go again. Another tsundere loli brat. How fucking unique is that?” But when rewatching the show and witnessing her subtle changes and growth over time, I had to take a step back and realize I was watching something which was fully prepared and able to subvert whatever expectations I may’ve had about how shallow its presentation suggested it would actually be. After all, my initial judgements regarding its generic presentation were the original source of my indifference. I hope I’m not alone on this, but I absolutely hate isekai. I hate just about every overused anime trope you can name with a fiery passion, and the second I think a show is dipping its toes into such territory, it immediately loses my respect, and if I don’t drop it, I just stop paying attention. Mushoku Tensei is an isekai, a really, really, REALLY generic isekai, and don’t try to tell me it’s not fair to call it generic because it’s the progenitor of modern isekai—as if I give a shit about the history of such a trashy genre—because while I can acknowledge the fact Mushoku Tensei is a trendsetter, and I can respect it for being a trendsetter, that doesn’t make it any less trendy, and I am so fucking bored of all these trends. This is why I originally stopped caring after episode four. The presentation was always generic, but its characterization was also always stellar, and I know I just talked at great length about how I only managed to appreciate the well-written characters on my second viewing, but that’s kind of missing the point of what I was trying to say.

You very much feel this show entirely through the lens of what has become a jaded, forty year old man, and it undoubtedly makes other characters feel like archetypes, which they sometimes are, but with the exception of Sylphie whose scant screen-time leaves her feeling like a generic soft-loli archetype, this doesn’t really become a problem until episode five. There’s moments after episode five where the in-depth writing really hits you in the face, like in episode eight when Philip offers to let Rudeus force himself onto Eris so he can enact a coup and win the succession battle between him and his brother, and you really get to see how dark his ambition truly is, but since I had already gone full bitch-mode by then, I only noticed the goodness of episodes one through four. Rudeus was not one of those handsome, young, one-dimensional, Japanese students who gets hit by a truck and finds himself in another world with a borderline sociopathic lack of attachment to his old life. He was a big, fat, unemployed, otaku NEET loser in his mid-thirties who’s emotional baggage comes along to haunt him in his new life. The first full-length scene we see of his old life is him skipping out on a relative’s funeral. Some of his family members burst into his room while he’s masturbating and are disgusted by what they see on his monitor. This is some of the most debasing, nightmarishly humiliating and degrading depictions of a protagonist I’ve ever seen portrayed in fiction, far from the generic, sanitized, uncontroversial cardboard backstories we’re usually treated to with young male anime protagonists. Then, when we actually come to the new world, we’re treated to Paul, Zenith, and Lilia. And this was clearly a very particular world the author wanted to portray. Zenith is a young woman with talent and promise who abandoned her life as an adventurer to become a mother and get happily fucked and felt-up by her perverted husband literally all day, Lilia is someone who internally admits to seducing said husband after growing unmanageably sexually frustrated hearing them fuck through the walls every night, and Paul, the main character’s literal father, is just a fuck machine. Everyone talks about this. Like, he’s fucking everybody. He fucked the beast girl, he fucked the maid, he fucks his wife, and he’s even implied to have made passes at the mother of the neighborhood bully, and I hate to break it to you here on on this pure, holy website, MyAnimeList dot net, but that’s realistic.

Since most otaku are men who are scared of real women, characters usually don’t fuck at all in anime—let alone parents and they’re doing it all the time—so I loved the boldness of this presentation, but a big issue I nevertheless had the first time I watched part one was my complete distaste for Rudeus. I know this show is controversial for reasons tangentially related to him and his exploits, and I know our contemporary culture of unmitigated narcissism and self-righteous preaching encourages people to moralize about these kinds of things, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. I just genuinely didn’t like him as a character, because I thought his portrayal was dishonest. Rudeus is reborn as the most privileged person imaginable. He has two loving parents with plenty of money and connections, he’s good looking, he’s exceptionally talented at magic, and he’s surrounded by cute girls whose only initial excuse to fall in love with him is the utter depravity and maliciousness of every other male character in the series. He also retains all his memories while somehow simultaneously being a hardworking guy who's really good at decision-making and social interactions, which, to me, felt completely out of character considering his previous life. He should’ve been anti-social and lazy, right? The perversion stuff not being punished is just another extension of that, as he is conveniently reborn in a world where that's not seen as particularly offensive behavior. Again, I’m too old to care about this kind of thing triggering college kids and their need for a likable protagonist to fit their moral echo chamber, but while this may be the reason Mushoku Tensei is maligned, it’s not the reason I felt the story was flawed. I simply thought it failed as a redemption story, because Rudeus has everything given to him on a silver platter while the series seems to simultaneously play defense for his less flattering actions. It’s like the show has male characters who are perverted degenerates, but then shows their redeeming qualities as if it's an excuse saying, "See? Perverted degenerates aren't that bad. They can be really good people on the inside.” Which then makes the audience who are like him feel better about themselves. What I found to be even worse was how easily he got over his trauma. He shouldn't have so easily become fine with going outside, let alone dancing with a girl of high status in front of a crowd. The characterization in general was bold, but the development of Rudeus himself just felt lazy.

The biggest misunderstanding I had about this show is one I got over the second I began my rewatch and actually paid any attention at all, and I’ll get to that in a second (spoiler: it’s the part about being a redemption story), but by overcoming the issues I had with what I first saw as rushed, lazy character development, I actually gained a whole new level of appreciation for the series. I think I had failed to realize just how fantastical of a situation Rudeus was actually in. This is a grown man in his mid-thirties having to live MULTIPLE YEARS looking through the eyes of a baby’s body as a cognitive adult, functionally immobile and illiterate, but perfectly lucid and intelligent. Think about the mental transformation you would undergo after spending MULTIPLE YEARS with all your wordily possessions ripped away from you, trapped in a body you have little to no control over. Forget about losing his Earthly attachments, given these circumstances, if we time skipped to him as a three year old and he had become a literal Buddhist Monk at one with the universe who had completely put to rest all his past anxieties, I wouldn’t even bat an eye. Indeed, the fact he still had anxiety about going outside even after those MULTIPLE YEARS of introspection is itself a testament to how the series not only doesn’t make light of the trauma in the way I thought it did, but actually overdramatizes it to a significant degree. I’m honestly kind of embarrassed I even made that criticism in the first place, because I’m always the first person to call people out for missing details the author chooses to trust with the audience. The Sybil System in Psycho-Pass is actually a benefit to society overall, but since the show hyper-focuses on criminals who slip through the cracks, we’re presented with a warped view of how effective it really is, and Urobuchi Gen trusts the viewer to appreciate the millions of people on the streets whose lives are being actively improved by the system; Rudeus undergoes a whole process of transformation, but since the show jumps through the formative years of his new life in a few minutes, we’re presented with a warped view of how existentially agonizing such an experience would actually be, but the author trusts us to realize he’s been spending MULTIPLE YEARS fumbling around in this unnatural out-of-body experience, pining for his old life, and putting to rest his old addictions, constantly making remarks like, “I may be reborn, but I still want to play with a computer.”

As a depressed, suicidal loser who’s suffered from years of bulimia, self-harm, and alcoholism, I’m pretty familiar with what it’s like trying to drop addictions and break habits, and I think now is a good time to introduce a concept called “cold turkey.” This phrase is commonly used, but just in case you’ve never heard it before, going “cold turkey” is when you abruptly stop using an addictive substance as opposed to trying to quit by gradually lessening the amount you take/drink/do. Going cold turkey when you’re severely addicted to things like alcohol can be dangerous due to life-threatening withdrawal symptoms unfortunately for some of us (boo hoo please feel bad for me I need help), but generally speaking, anyone who knows what they’re talking about will tell you that going cold turkey is the best way to quit an addiction. It sucks at first, but if you can commit to it, you’ll empower yourself, gain resolve, and break your habits in the quickest way you can. Rudeus was literally forced to cold turkey his entire fucking lifestyle. Notice that after the initial time skips, he’s never shown to have obsessive compulsive longing for his old video games, anime, light novels, or whatever, but the second he has to spend ten seconds outdoors, he clams up. If this is failing to appreciate the severity of mental trauma, I don’t know what isn’t. It pissed me off so much that his mental hurdles were seemingly jumped over so easily after I had considered him a character whose trauma and anxiety I could actually relate to, but now I see how interpreting this as rushed character development was stupid. And while it’s true I still have social anxieties I can’t get rid of—like how I get paranoid about people walking closely behind me, or how I still can’t eat in public—so does Rudeus. Almost immediately after his big triumphant speech at the end of episode two about how he’s totally ready to go outside and be confident, he sees Sylphie getting bullied, and it sends shivers down his spine. He didn’t suddenly get over his trauma in episode two, but he was suddenly forced by Roxy to take the first step and realize it could be done. Of all the things he had to cold turkey when he was reborn, the safety and comfort of the indoors was not one of them, and training with Roxy provided him with the initial push necessary for change, just as her company provided him with the companionship necessary to brave it. As someone with no close family, friends, or even vague acquaintances, this was seriously touching.

So what about my issues with Mushoku Tensei being a misguided redemption story? Well, like I said, that one’s easy. Mushoku Tensei is quite obviously NOT a redemption story. It’s been made crystal clear to me that I’m far from the only person to give this show’s presentation of gender roles a lopsided glance, but I live in the Bible Belt, and I therefore know a lot of submissive housewives who are happy as can be spending their days at home, being mothers, pursuing no careers, and cooking for their husbands when they get home from work. Most of these women—people who I generally find to be much more at peace and fulfilled in their lives than most urban-dwelling, internet-connected individuals, myself included—have a strong distaste for the contemporary feminist movement because, to them, it seems to suggest not simply that traditionally male activities can also be undertaken by women, but that traditionally female activities shouldn’t be undertaken by anyone, as doing so would run them the risk of being deemed inferior. But this isn’t how they see it. From where they’re standing, women have the right to do whatever they want in a free country—simple as that—and if that means sticking to positions which were, in the past, promoted by a patriarchal organization of society, then that doesn’t mean they’re being taken advantage of, nor does it suggest, as is often implied these days, that they’re too servile, supine, and ignorant to choose a more “liberated” path in life. Again, my perspective on this may be a little skewed after having grown up in Texas, but the fact a nation as conservative as Japan would produce media which doesn’t share fanatical Western opposition to anything which even remotely suggests an older way of life may not be all that monstrously evil isn’t really that big of a surprise to me. And as far as the perversion and degeneracy goes, allow me to digress for a moment. Like me, my uncle is an alcoholic, but unlike me, he let his alcoholism destroy his life and devolve him into a wife-beating bum. After his wife ran out on him, he was able to coax her back with the promise that he would stay sober and get an honest job, so they remarried and moved back in together. However, over twenty years later, he still has yet to ditch the bottle or hold down a job. He doesn’t beat her anymore if you were wondering, but that’s beside the point: he never changed his initial habits and the world never punished his degenerate lifestyle. He is complete, irredeemable scum.

If your argument is you personally hate this show because its characters are disgusting people who aren’t fun to watch, then cool. That’s your opinion, and I respect it. But if your argument is a character being contemptible somehow makes them poorly written or unrealistic, then I’m afraid that’s where you’ve lost me. The problem, if anything, seems to be your thin skin and deep naiveté. Please also accept this friendly reminder that writing quality does not equal personal enjoyment. You can absolutely detest every single moral underpinning of Mushoku Tensei and still have the maturity to put yourself aside and acknowledge good writing. When I first saw episode four, I was like, “WHAT THE FUCK?! What a fucking asshole the dad is! How could they write in a bastard plot to this wholesome family show?!” But then I was like, wait a minute, this show IS fucked up and weird, and I kinda like it for that. Do I approve of Paul’s actions here? No, and Lilia seduced him. We get an inner monologue where she’s like, “I literally made this happen because I was so horny hearing them fuck through the wall every night.” And the way that scene was presented, my first instinct was to be like, “woah, that’s kinda rapey, he just walks in on her,” except we’re literally hearing from her perspective, “I did this on purpose to seduce him.” It’s constantly presenting me with daring pieces of characterization which proceed to make the characters compelling, memorable, and uniquely mature in the context of the show featuring types of people most anime don’t. Like, when Rudeus goes to live with Eris’ family, they just love bunny girls. We see her grandpa just fucking some bunny girl one day because, well, she’s a maid. Of course he’s gonna fuck her; he’s the Lord of Roa; he does what he wants; everyone’s cool with it; this is what’s known to be done. Some fiction are about morals, they’re about learning a lesson and watching role model characters, and others are not. This is very much in the later category, and you have to have the intelligence to be able to differentiate between the two. I mean, should you ever try and pull the panties off a twelve year old girl? No. Does it reflect poorly on our protagonist that he did that? Yes. But I’m an adult. I’m not looking for moral guidance from a cartoon. And maybe I shouldn’t be so blunt about this, because if a show can glean for me some valuable moral or life lesson, then great, but I can compartmentalize aspects of people and recognize the parts of them I don't like while also being interested in the story and world built upon where these flawed characters exist. I don't need the author to tell me something is bad. I can make that judgement myself, and it makes the experience that much more challenging and engaging, especially when—let’s not forget—the point of the story ISN’T moral redemption.

All I’ve done for the past decade is autopilot through life, devoting the majority of my brain capacity to fantasizing about the life I wish I was living. Ever since the whole “literally me” meme took off, I’ve always joked that Ringo from Mawaru Penguindrum is literally me, because despite our age difference, she and I are identical dumpster fires. You know when prototype planes crash, and the engineers collect their shattered pieces and reassemble the crash site in a controlled environment to examine the possible causes of failure? If you did that for the crash site that is my life, the debris would look exactly the same as Ringo at the start of that show, and unless you understand this mindset, I don’t think you’ll be able to fully appreciate Mushoku Tensei. This is a wish-fulfillment fantasy, NOT the redemption story which its critics insist it’s trying and failing to be. For those of you who need to use shitty translation tools to understand Japanese, the subtitle “Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu” may yield different results, but if you want me to localize it for you, I’d say the phrase is best translated as, “when I get isekai’d, I’ll get serious,” and the way people choose to interpret this I find highly illuminating. When people characterize this show as a redemption story, they always point to this subtitle or the end of episode one where Rudeus almost says it verbatim as proof, but I’m afraid people are misunderstanding the implications of “get serious about living.” He doesn’t mean “living” to say, “get a job, become a salaryman, be an adult, and make Abe proud,” he simply means—to quote all the lovely hate comments on my profile page—that this time around he’s going to touch grass. That’s it. He’s not saying he’s going to become a moral, upstanding member of society or whatever. He’s saying he’s going to go outside, pursue goals, and fuck bitches. Don’t ascribe to this show a noble purpose it doesn’t have, only to then criticize it for its ignobility, as its priorities are made very, very explicit. In episode four, Rudeus narrates the history of sexual deviancy between Paul and Lilia, goes on this whole laundry list of reasons why Paul is a scumbag, but then openly states he nonetheless respects and admires Paul solely because he’s a strong, buff, chick magnet: the personification of the man he always wanted to be, faults and immoralities be damned. His arc isn’t about becoming a good man. It’s about becoming the man he always wanted to be, which—yes—is not a particularly clean-cut gentleman.

Now that I’m finally done dissecting the characters and themes, I was going to jump right into gushing about what makes this series great, but I actually have a few complaints I want to get out of the way first. My complaints with the plot and presentation differ from my complaints with the characters and themes in that they’re not nearly as large, but also in that they weren’t inherently wrongheaded and therefore can’t now be excused. My issues with the plot and presentation are simply that the latter sometimes gets in the way of the former. Again, Mushoku Tensei is a really generic isekai, and while its execution is honestly amazing (and we’ll get to that here in a second), the foundation never really gets any more interesting. This would be fine, especially considering the stellar execution, but what’s annoying is the series will often include elements that play into the meta comedy way too much. There’s a lot of fanservice and ecchi shit, and I get that, half the cast is unspeakably perverted as I’ve already detailed at great length, but there’s also a lot of other pandering which, unlike the fanservice, doesn’t really follow from the setting or characters or anything. There’s small things that don’t really matter like a character in episodes sixteen and seventeen who wears a bikini for no discernible reason, but then there’s really annoying shit that takes up huge swaths of screen time like episode twenty. The entire episode is based around a joke where the antagonist is foiled by his brother coming out of nowhere and saving Rudeus in exchange for his Roxy figurine, and while this could’ve been really funny since they’d been building up Rudeus’ figurine trading monopoly since episode six, the way it was executed was just so overbearing and unfunny. Am I even describing this well? What I’m trying to say is sometimes the pandering otaku shit ruins my immersion when it doesn’t logically follow from Rudeus, a literal otaku from Japan, or something which makes sense in-universe. A good comparison would be how back in Roa, the Boreas family had an animal girl fetish. That’s an otaku thing in real life, but it works in-universe because beast people actually exist in-universe, and it makes perfect sense that some people would have such a sexual preference. It then works well as meta comedy since, again, furries actually exists in real life. However, in episode six when Eris does the nyan nyan shit out of nowhere before this fact is really established, it’s groanworthy. Do you see what I mean?

Other than that, the only other issue I could possibly take with this series is some inconsistent animation in part two. The first three and last three episodes are consistent with the rest of the show, but the mid-section can be a little shaky, especially episodes fifteen through eighteen. But wait. “Inconsistent quality? You mean the problem that plagues 90% of all anime airing these days? If the quality is dropping…then what’s it usually like?” Well, I’m glad you asked, because the quality is usually out of this fucking world. The staff behind Mushoku Tensei loved it so much and were so committed to doing it justice, they established their own animation studio and production house in order to make it, and their hard work and effort absolutely shows. Mushoku Tensei is easily among the highest quality anime of 2021, with the only shows I can think of to definitively match or outdo it being Ousama Ranking, Sonny Boy, and of course Production IG’s Kaizoku Oujo and Kyoto Animation’s Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S, with Wonder Egg Priority and Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song coming close. No matter how much someone like me may want to bitch and whine about it looking or feeling “generic,” anyone with even the slightest appreciation for the craft of animation simply has to concede the point that Mushoku Tensei looks captivatingly gorgeous. If I remember correctly, episode five was animated entirely by one person, and while this doesn’t actually reflect poorly on the production in the way a layman may think (at least assuming it wasn’t a decision made out of desperate necessity and the animator in question has the expertise and experience to pull it off), it requires a healthy schedule to do, and to say the absolute least, healthy schedules are hard to come by in the current industry landscape. The double split cour release schedule and the aforementioned inconsistencies throughout part two might suggest the schedule wasn’t as healthy as maybe the staff would’ve liked, but I honestly think it’s just a matter of ambition. Not only did they produce an incredible looking TV anime, but they animated separate PVs for each cour, both of which look absolutely breathtaking. I feel like the team has gotten more efficient in prioritizing their heavier work loads in the more important sequences, and the animation in the pilot episode was so jaw dropping, my jaw is still on the fucking floor twelve months later. What’s even better than the animation though, is the color palette, compositing, and background art.

Despite its generic isekai foundation, this setting is SO rich, it’s unbelievable. When Rudeus was still living in the village at his parents’ house, the backgrounds were great and all, but the setting wasn’t distinctive enough for them to really pop out at me, but the second he left and went to Roa, The Demon Continent, Millishion, The Shirone Kingdom—all the environments just blew my fucking mind. The art direction in this show is honestly so good, I’m tempted to compare it to Takeda Yuusuke’s work on Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, and the color design is equally outstanding and worthy of just as much fangirling. First of all, I love it when a show has the expertise to get dark, and I don’t mean conceptually, I mean when a director knows how to literally make the screen dark without making the show look like a muddy, black mess where the audience is constantly squinting at the screen and can’t tell what they’re looking at. There’s many instances of this throughout the show, but the moment which stuck out the to me most was this fight scene in episode fourteen where a guy with tan skin, brown hair, brown facial hair, black boots, a brown vest, and a black trench coat fights on earthen dirt in the dead of night against a backdrop of dark brown trees and blackened leaves, and every sequence of animation looked perfectly smooth and cohesive. Trust me when I say I could talk for hours about how much I love this show’s deep colors and constantly changing, unique palettes for each different environment—all of which pull from different architectural sources for the layouts and details in the background art, by the way—but now that I mentioned fighting, I simply have to move on to the action sequences. The action in this show is fucking sick. These days, anime action is all about shitty 3D backgrounds, CG characters, and epileptic ufotable digital effect spam, but Mushoku Tensei is a classic, hand-drawn beauty. There’s tons of training sequences and sparing matches sprinkled throughout the series, but instead of treating them as trivial, they often have ridiculously high-quality sakuga. There’s only like one real fight with actual narrative weight in the entire show, and it might just be the most nail-biting, heart-racing, intense action scene I’ve seen in years. What’s more, and what makes Mushoku Tensei come close to being a complete technical masterpiece, is how all of this meticulous and impressive animation production design contributes to enriching the in-universe world building.

I’m sure you’ve already heard everyone talk about this in every form and fashion, but I simply must gush over how astronomically amazing the world building is. In episode nine, Ruijerd kills this giant turtle, and I thought to myself, “Wow, that’s a big fucking turtle. You could probably make a house out of that.” Next fucking scene is this village of giant turtle shell houses, and I nearly screamed at how genius that was. You can tell that whoever put these details in—whether they be the original author, the director, or even the individual animation staff—actually put some thought into this setting as a medieval fantasy world. For example, when Rudeus is studying with Eris and Ghislaine, they're using reusable wax tablets. Any other cheap, thoughtless isekai anime would just have them waste paper for writing, and that would be glaringly unrealistic to anyone who knows their history. The same goes for the sex. What else are they supposed to do in their free time when they live in the country and own literally four books? Sex is free and fun, and in this world promiscuity is obviously much more acceptable for the young and those with power. I would take even the most problematic moments from Mushoku Tensei over some stupid, “Oh, no! My clothes dissolved because of the slimy acid!” trope or whatever other generic anime fanservice we’ve grown used to. Since I was watching this show seriously the second time around, I was wearing my good headphones, and barely eight minutes into the very first episode, I was already getting annoyed by how good the sound design was. Rudeus was reading Zenith’s magic book, and I kept thinking I was hearing shit in the background, like my neighbors being obnoxious or sirens blaring on the street, but in actuality, I was just hearing the countless animals around the Greyrat’s farmhouse. This show is so much more immersive than your average anime, it became momentarily unimmersive, and that’s an achievement. There’s a scene where Rudeus shoots a drill of heated rock at this character, and the sound it makes when that character deflects it and the shattered pieces hit the ground is a sound effect I don’t think I’ve ever heard in an anime before. Anime sound design is a dying art form, because most viewers don’t give half a shit, and since the studios know this, they usually chose to expend zero effort in this department. Most people just want to see flashy lights and lewd-able waifus. But whenever you watch something like this with actual love and care put into every facet, the competence and attention to detail on display can be such a refreshing reminder of what real anime can achieve.

There’s so much more I can say about a series this rich, but this review is already preposterously long, and I guarantee fucking no one is going to read this far in, so I’m just going to use this paragraph to collect some final thoughts, and then make my way to a conclusion. The first thing I never got around to mentioning was the incredible magic system. The magic system is so intricate and fascinating, but what’s impressive is that it never devolves into a Hunter x Hunter snorefest where the protagonists have to literally sit down for entire episodes and have a teacher explain it on a fucking white board. I always complain about how Greed Island made no sense, but only because I fell asleep during Heaven’s Arena. In Mushoku Tensei, you learn things naturally, piece by piece alongside Rudeus (who also knows nothing) experimenting alone in his room. This natural, non-infodumpish manner of exposition serves as the foundation to understand the later advancements he makes, so at the end of the day everything feels cohesive and gradual. Then there’s Hitogami. I saw a lot of people complaining and saying Hitogami was a deus ex machina, and while I see what they’re saying, I also can’t possibly be the first person to notice that this so-called God—even from the perspective of an anime-only such as myself—is obviously not a God, at least not in a traditional omnipotent sense, and also obviously duplicitous, so calling him a plot device seems to me like a dull-minded thing to do. Then there’s the romance, so I’m going to have to say a few spoilers. I appreciate how the sex scene with Eris wasn’t presented as romantic or erotic, and was instead genuinely contemplative, depressing, and awkward to fit the tone. I also find the overall approach to Rudeus’ harem to be odd, because given the show’s apparent commitment to developing each girl separately and given the fact we’ve already seen functional polygamy in this world, I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to get a legitimate harem ending, but either way, that’s a long way off. Other than that, I guess the only thing left to do is reiterate how genuine of a personality this series has. In episode twenty one, when I saw the fireball change colors in accordance with Wein’s Displacement Law right after being reminded this show features two principal characters named Laplace and Ørsted, I was like, “this author must be a physics nerd.” In episode eight, when I saw how Rudeus scared Eris off by rushing the foreplay, I was like, “there’s no way this author is a virgin.” I’m talking about the subtle touches, the details that reveal things about the creator and make their creation feel human.

I really hope this show gets a second season…and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, or however many it needs to adapt all the novels, and I hope they stop trying to force a two cour show so they can keep consistent quality. They should do a one cour season per year, adapt three volumes per season, and pace it out slowly into twelve or thirteen episode cours so they don’t have to cut content. Given how gorgeous this show is and given how rich its setting feels, I wouldn’t mind a slower pace at all. The sequences we get of characters just walking from place to place, looking over a field or a hilltop, or witnessing an establishing shot of a new setting—they’re all so seductive to me. This world just feels good to sit in and experience, because it’s so fleshed out in ways few are. If I had been serious about watching this show back in March, I could’ve given part one as high as an eight, and while the general inconsistencies throughout the mid-section of part two will likely earn it a six, I’d still give the whole season an average score of seven. Since the animation is so good, there’s tons of delightful, expressive sequences of character acting in this show, and while my favorite example of this has to be Eris pacing around, trying to console Rudeus on the bed in episode sixteen, there’s a behind-the-scenes story I wanted to share about the scene in episode twelve where Rudeus meets Kishirika. The animation staff was so in love with Kishirika and so excited to work on that scene, they actually fought over who would draw it, and the description one of them gave on Twitter really made me smile. “I’ve told some colleagues that I witnessed a real ‘Waifu War’ at one episode I worked at, and it was indeed this one. The ‘War’ being the animators fighting over the new cute girl of the series. It happened that almost all the animators in the episode (including me) wanted to animate the Kishirika sequence, because it was simply hilarious and the character is so cool. So we began flexing and bargaining with PA-san so we could get the sequence. Things like: PA-san, I promise I can make this sequence faster, so please give it to me! It seems we put PA-san into trouble, because he didn't know whom to give the sequence, and we were all putting pressure. I think it even delayed the production like a week XD. So that was it, ‘Waifu Wars’ are real for some episodes. We might be professionals, but the weebness is stronger.” Toshiyuki Sato won the fight and got the privilege to animate the scene, but I’d say the real winners were us: the viewers. The sheer personality in each individual frame of that sequence had more love and character put into its creation than most entire anime do from top to bottom. Simply put, this show has soul, and in an industry that grows more cynical with every passing day, Mushoku Tensei radiates with the passion its creators so clearly have for it, which I guess is kinda funny, because if I never found the motivation to endure its tropes and find the surprising depth therein, I never would’ve gotten to experience its expertise, its flair, or its beating heart. I like this series, and though I’ll probably never love it, I would've missed out if I simply wrote it off as generic, degenerate trash. There's more than just fool's gold here.

Thank you for reading. I’m serious. If you actually read this far, I love you. <3

Mushoku tensei is a masterpiece that has no equal in terms of imersiveness and worldbuilding and the undeniable anime of the year, here's why
(Spoilers ahead)

Okay so all the episodes came out and there's absolutely no way I'm not talking about it so since it's still flaged as a prelimanty review I'm gonna keep that review as it is and talk about the rest of the show at the end.

This show is really a special one to me, I've never seen any piece of media make me dive this deep into the world they've built, each time an episode is out I take the time to ... enjoy it to the fullest, in a dark room on the big screen in my comfortable chair, I've never did that for an anime but here, it's worth it.

This show is an isekai about a 34 years old pedophile/NEET who gets reincarnated as a baby in another world with magic and swords and do erotic things to girls that are physically his age but not mentally.

I think I can't describe this show any worse and what I said is true, on paper this seems like the most generic/degenerate show ever and somehow people including me love it, but why, how a show like that can be that good when There is the most despisable character in all of anime and the word Isekai in it.
I'm gonna answer that question right now and it's gonna be long.

I'm gonna start at season 1 cause I want to talk about it as a 2 cour anime where the second part is delayed because the two of them are heavily intertwined.

In the first minutes of the first episode we know exaclty at what type of main characters we are gonna face, a scumbag, an unlikeable piece of garbage, and shortly after that we are introduced to this new world with magic and swords, we can notice an interesting artisitic choice by the studio, that fact that when he talks he has his child voice and when he thinks he has his old 34 y/o voice its pretty uncommon for this genre, the show doesn't want you to forget that he is a scumbag and it offers a nice contrast in some dialogue and sound more real when he thinks about big brain strategies or questionable thoughts (you know what I fucking mean)

And thus begin the training arc from 0 to 9 or 10 I don't remember, with his family and his new mentor Roxy, and that's a good transition to talk about how the magic systemworks, Rudeus doesn't know shit about it neither the viewver, and we discover that system with him (1 point on imersiveness) it's pretty easy to grasp and isn't overly complicated but still interesting,

And now we are following the adventures of his studies with Roxy and his new green haired elf friend named sylvie.
Fast forward to the trip to the city even though we got a little affair bewteen zenith and that fuckboy paul but whatever.
Rudeus goes to the city right of the bat he needs to deal with a little tsundere that doesn't want to study and is pretty violent. Rudeus then makes a plan to convince her that studying is important and sword isn't all that matter, but that plan goes pretty wrong pretty fast and they now need to get out withotut getting selled to malicious people. They managed to escape but get stuck in an alley when the bandits were prepared to kill them ghislaine the mentor of Iris and highly ranked sword master comes and what come after that is one of my favorite scenes of all fucking anime, THE scene that made me think "Ok this is real",
Ghislaine cut the bandits heads at lightning speed with no hesitation with insane sound and visuals. that scene made rudeus realize that he is not in the same world, people can kill with no hesitation and he is scared by that, that scene is craved onto rudeus memory forever and me too (another point on imersiveness).
There is other really interesting things happening notably with Iris family but I'm not gonna dive too deep on that.
And then THE plot twist happens and it's litterally a /tp all it's so goddam simple and yet so goddam interesting, and we follow again rudeus and iris who teleported with him as well as a superd, a really REALLY powerful species but are known for being traitors because of a manipulative demon and thus begin the story of dead end which has for objective to get back home... I know pretty ironic, getting from town to town and meeting the families of both roxy and ghislaine. now I just wanna know, what happened to all the others characters, well we do know for some of them Roxy is searching for Rudeus when he is getting a demonic eye right next to her, Iris grandfather is fucking dead, but for the rest of them I just wanna know right fucking now

And that's how you make a good worldbuilding/story where eveything makes sense and feels real and doesn't feel like everything is centered around the main character like in most anime and especially isekai

About the characters, even if most of them are unlikeable as fuck, somehow I love them, and I think thats a incredible exploit to make me like those scumbags, I want to root for rudeus and Iris, I'm attached to them even if the show does everything against that, can you think of any piece of media on the top of your head where you shoudn't root for the protagonist, personaly no, It goes straight up against the fundamentals of writing a story, it makes the show original and made me think, "maybe Rudeus can change" even if we're litteraly reminded at the start of each episode how much of a scumbag rudeus is, but not only him there are multiple charcters who do what they do only for their own benefit.

Now let's talk about studio bind and what those geniuses have done to make this show even better, First you can see that right of the bat but it's beautiful, the training fights look better than most anime fights out there and when rudeus uses a spell (the first water canon for example) its breathtaking, they really have a thing for getting impactful scenes to the next level, and did you notice that the anime seems a bit shaky and grainy, well it's on purpose and adds to the immersion and also the fact that THEY'VE MADE ENTIRE LANGUAGES FOR THE ANIME but not just at the start and then translated, fully fledged unknown languages that when people speaks in that language it's from begining to end,
and let's talk about sound design, a different OP and ED every episode with that beatiful music, everything we hear is calculated perfeclty to make us dive in the stroy to never get back to the surface
Studio bind has made an incredible job at making this show the most imersive show I've ever seen

I'm saying it again but it is the most imersive show I have ever seen period. it's truly an experience everyone should do, if you're not bothered by the "borderline" scenes we got

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HOLY FUCK, I just can't fucking stand it anymore, this show just hit the spot on every single aspect it's not even funny.
so fricking many important events happened :

first rudeus finds his dad, and it's not going well at all and it's perfeclty normal, Rudeus is considered as a genius Paul knew he was fine, and when he came back with no news and not even the slightest sign of research in rudeus's part about his family and on the contrary paul having searched for them since the teleportation, he gets mad, Paul prioritizes his family more than anything else, that can be easily seen with Norn being well-dressed, and the fact that she loves her dad.

After a touching reconciliation. Rudeus continues his journey with the dead end group with a new objective finding the rest of his family and guess what that so called god tells him where they are isn't that amazing but before that a quick Roxy break returning to here village which she have bad memories of because of here inabilty to use telepathy (also really touching episode),
the arc of saving lilia and her daughter was a pretty meh to be honest but after that the last 3 episodes were fucking INSANE and by far the best episodes so far on the series

episode 10 : rudeus is on his way with ruijerd and eris to get back hom when suddenly, they crossed paths with orsted who is a litteral god, and the strongest (or 2nd ?) created in this world, eris and ruijerd feel that they need to not talk to him in order to survive, rudeus on the other hand is completly ignorant, and make litteral small talk with him, in the scared gazes from his companions, at the single mention of hitogami, orsted jumps on him and following that one of the coolest fight scene I've ever seen and rudeus litteraly dying.... yeah litteraly, but mystery god up there is here to save the day. a nice reflection on rudeus life so far, and after he's been resurected he more motivated than ever.

episode 11 :
After a very long and hard journey, Rudeus made his way home, but was it for the best ?

Instantlly in the first seconds of the episode we hear the first opening song of the series, the one we started with, when the journey of rudeus didn't even began. but instead of the happy village he knew, he sees a ruined land where hope barely lives. he says goodbye to ruijerd since his mission is finished Then, they meet once again ghislaine and find out Iris family is dead,

Iris visits Rudeus in his tent and... well as she promised... they did it.

BUT he's reluctant to it at first it's Eris who pushes him out, when a few episodes earlier, he would've jump at her the second she said that. He questions himself, "is it really okay to do this now ?", "does she really want to do it after knowing what happened to her family ?". (well there is a little brag the morning after that but still)

and then what I think is remarkable in this episode is the end. Iris decides to leave Rudeus with ghislaine even if she said to him that she wanted Rudeus to be her new family.
Now he is all alone. The group where Rudeus has gone thorugh so many adventures just diseappeared in one episode.

Now he is all alone just like his previous life, The dream we saw at the start of the episode came true. this episode is named "The dream that became reality".

even after the dissolution of "Dead end" It seems that rudeus is facing one.

episode 12 : this is an expected conclusion, Rudeus facing once again the situation he was in in his previous life, multiple impacting flashbacks and an overview on everyone lifes after rudeus passage (short haired Iris is the fucking best). it's time for him to get his ass moving and search for the last two people he needs to find, his mother and his childhood friend sylvie, after the last ending, we finally get to see sylvie, with no news since episode 5 of part 1, and she's dripin with her white hair and her fucking sunglasses.

To finally finish this review, well I think it was apparent that I love this show I can't find the words to describe how much I like it it's probably in my top 3 anime I've watched ever and I'm hyped for the next season (gonna read the light novel though).

Mushoku tensei is a masterpiece thag setted new standards for this oversaturated genre which is isekai. and I really hope It's gonna be only better and better from here.

Mushoku Tensei is one of the most divisive anime I’ve seen on MAL. Certain online communities have fallen apart and friendships between anime viewers have also ended because of this show. I’m not even joking. Take a look at the MAL forum posts for MT. It’s almost impossible to have a cordial discussion between a fan and a critic because of all the back-and-forth and toxicity. It’s also why almost any criticism or praise has been met with immediate backlash. That’s why I will admit that this review will not be completely impartial. However, I still want to try and capture both sides of the ... debate, because reviews are opinions meant to help potential viewers. So this review will not be just one, but TWO reviews. One shall only criticize MT as a wholly bad show and explain what people don’t like about it and the other review shall only praise MT as a flawless masterpiece and explain what fans like about it. I have put full effort into both. Here is what I have to say.

Why MT is one of the worst anime in modern media:

Mushoku Tensei is conceptually appalling. It is one of the worst incel redemption stories ever created and has spawned so many more. It combines all of the worst parts of anime and media in general into an ‘enjoyable’ experience for a specific group of viewers. It uses male dominance and toxicly masculine beliefs to justify its system as ‘real’. No one would be complaining if that was not present in the show. MT is a male power fantasy about a 34 year old man who got hit by a truck and reincarnated in another world with all memory intact, a cliche premise at best. Rudeus is also an unlikeable MC, but not for a well-written reason. His primary flaw, making him the most dislikeable amongst most if not all critics is that he is proudly pedophilic, even in his second life, and has extreme issues with self-control; if he was a person in real life, he would be in jail because of all the sexual harassment he’s committed. A good way to redeem Rudeus would be both acknowledgement of his horrid actions, never repeating them again, and actively making up for what he’s done, but as of now, it only gets worse and worse.

One of the contributing factors to Rudeus’s failure to change is the comedy, the subjectively worst part of MT. Let me just say my bar for comedy is fairly low. My favorite genre is comedy. If something is funny, I cannot hide a smile from my face. However, if Rudeus was a comedian, he’d be compared to Bill Cosby and Louis C.K.. Yes, that’s the type of person he is, unapologetically so. Pedophilia and rape jokes were never funny and still are not. Comedians who think otherwise are delusional, attempting to normalize such sensitive issues as ‘comedic’. When a character-driven story is focused upon an incel and there is comedy, degenerate comedy is always sure to follow. Some of these stories are successful like Onanie Master Kurosawa, arguably Re:Zero, and even Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun. But why do these media succeed while Mushoku Tensei doesn’t? It’s because the incel comedy either evolves or outright disappears along with the incel characters they relate to. Mushoku Tensei’s comedy has and always has remained the same in both cours. Whether it be peeping on young girls naked or treasuring their underwear, Rudeus keeps repeating his actions. It is evident that Rudeus’s fundamental flaws are not actually acknowledged, staying true to MT’s dark incel comedy rather than criticizing him for what he is. For instance, take the infamous figurine scene, a whole minute exhibit of a Roxy statue Rudeus had crafted. One of the characters narrates every last detail about the figurine from Roxy’s clothes coming off to the little features of her nude body, practically breaking the fourth wall. Rudeus feels no shame nor regret towards his nasty creation and actually provides even more information about it. This scene is considered a funny marketing gag to fans, but at the end of the day, fans are still going to buy it. The audience is never shown why this statue is morally bankrupt nor offensive. If there were any actual self-criticism of MT’s ‘waifu marketing’, rather than just self-awareness, all efforts have fallen flat. Mushoku Tensei is unabashed in its comedy, but it never actually reflects upon itself and shows the audience why it’s wrong. Instead, it capitalizes on ‘waifu marketing’ and perpetuates it even further.

Even if Rudeus stays a pervert, he can still grow in other ways right? If Rudeus actually demonstrated character development, it would be obvious. The evidence for character development is clear from a comparison of Rudeus at present and the past. What are his flaws at the beginning of the show? He is a NEET lolicon who has made many poor life decisions. Rudeus never addresses his mistakes with a direct apology nor actually tries to make up for his bad habits from the past, only occasionally ‘reflects’. Has he changed from any of these obvious flaws? Not really. Even though he stopped being a NEET, he is still a pervert with the same bad habits. He also doesn’t actually apologize for his bad behavior towards friends and family. Instead, he selflessly saves a bunch of helpless people from whenever he hops towns and becomes a hero on multiple occasions, but he never addresses his fundamental problems as a human being. That’s why Rudeus is a failure of a redemption story. He uses his heroic acts of kindness saving generic villages as a bad excuse for actual character development. It would be nice if the writer actually acknowledged this.

In fact, Rudeus is one of the most idealized heroes since Shield Hero. He’s a Gary Stu that’s never considered flawed by other characters except his adversaries. Even when he gets placed in prison, he will still help his captors when they are in trouble. He is a hero who doesn’t bear grudges. Anything questionable or nonconsensual he does, whether it be peeping, or touching someone uncomfortably, is immediately forgiven by his harem and everyone else since they love him or will eventually bow down to him. No one in real life would be able to do this because the stuff Rudeus does can be scarring and even traumatizing. But since Rudeus is a Gary Stu, he will always be unconditionally forgiven. Rudeus is unconditionally loved and Rudeus unconditionally loves the young girls in his harem but in an extremely uncomfortable and morally disgusting way. In fact, he’s usually rewarded for his bad behavior that’s portrayed as good or funny even. In the world of MT, Rudeus is normal. If he makes a ‘mistake’, he takes responsibility and is forgiven for that. And then he does the same thing again, and again, and again…it’s a cycle. He is inherently a hero in the frame of the story. When people look at Rudeus in fear or look down on him, the audience is always supposed to empathize with him. He’s not actually flawed enough to not be considered perfect because of the way Eris, Ruijerd, or any ally will always love and support in all he does even if he’s in the wrong. It’s not normal. Just because he doesn’t see himself as a hero doesn’t mean the audience is being told not to. It’s all about the framing of the narrative.

Even ignoring everything said before, Rudeus is handed all his power-ups whether it be reading a foreign language or incantation-less spellcasting while still in a diaper, a tremendous advantage along with his mind as a 34-year old, meaning he is overpowered. From a writing perspective, he is unrealistic even in the confines of his own fictional world, making him objectively flawless. He still gets handed super-powers in the second cour like his future sight eye, giving him an obvious advantage over everyone. This is not only boring to watch but it also means Rudeus will always end up on top, just like any other male power fantasy. Even when he loses a battle, there are never any substantial consequences.

And we have the other problematic characters...Eris is a tsundere and also Rudeus’s cousin. Because of Rudeus’s tendencies, particularly in episode 11, in which Rudeus disgustingly grooms her, that means there is incest. She’s literally 14/15 but still fanservice for Rudeus and the audience. I hate to call a minor this, but she is one of the waifus of MT; just cause ‘adulthood’ in MT is 15 doesn’t mean she is actually an adult. She’s the perfect young girl to comfort our ‘miserable’ protagonist and his struggles as a ‘flawed male’ when he’s practically perfect. Her own arcs can be broken down into training and friendship. Training arcs have never been praised and still are not in MT; it’s a weak substitute for character development, especially if there is no thematic value to it. Even when Eris actually becomes strong enough to overpower Rudeus, Rudeus will immediately be given superpowers such as foresight to continue his male domination over her, so it’s meaningless. Even when Eris gets a full arc with the Doldia tribe, a group of beast-people that Rudeus’s party encounters, she remains the same person. People like Eris’s character for her progression from a cold personality to a warm one. She remains 2-dimensional the entire time. The only thing that makes someone feel emotion towards her is the cheesy piano music in the background during her ‘development’. It is literally impossible to find someone like her in the real world because she is a tsundere.

Roxy is a loli. Her development is apparently from an ‘immature’ loli to a ‘mature’/kuudere loli so she got even worse from a writing standpoint. Her purpose is to get sexualized for merch and help Rudeus out. Her backstory is provided as development but it doesn’t explain anything about how she became a kuudere. An inability to communicate in what is essentially the writer’s cringeworthy attempt at a segregated setting leads to Roxy running away from her village without explanation and somehow surviving in the middle of a desert. Tears fell down from Roxy during a painful reunion but none fell from the audience since there is never enough build up or reason to care for such a shallow character nor story of alienation. Even if her backstory was more impactful, the more lasting impression on the audience is the aforementioned ‘comedic’ nude statue of her in a following episode.

Rudy’s father, Paul, is one of the worst characters of MT. Not only is he complacent in forcing the idealism of toxic masculinity on Rudy, he’s very misogynistic in the process. When he is no longer the confident alpha male he once was, we’re supposed to empathize with him for his failure. The recurring media trope is that once a strong male loses something of importance, then we’re supposed to admire their development from that. But this development never addresses his problem as a character. He is a domineering alpha male that takes control of everything and doesn’t see people, not even his loved ones as equal. Paul is so toxic. His development is the laziest possible way to develop a toxicly masculine male. Rather than using a resolution that involves Paul acknowledging and working towards his flaws, every horrible thing Paul has done will be forgiven since he is now a hero who rescued all the villagers from the tragic mana accident. Paul doesn’t address what’s wrong with him as a person, Paul uses a workaround as an easy way out and we as the audience are supposed to forget all the horrible things he’s done. The writer thinks that just having Paul suffer and just apologize is enough to make up for all of that. But that’s not how mending family and relationships work. Apologizing is the BARE MINIMUM. Then, you have to put the work into changing as a person, actually treat other people with human dignity, and learn to put others before yourself. Paul’s core development is “forget[ting] everything [that] happened” rather than accepting his mistakes and growing as a person. Like father like son, he is a failed redemption story.

Even the antagonists are one-dimensional. They all have barbaric motives at best. They’re comparable to old Disney villains. Once bad, always bad. Interior motives don’t matter since we know they will either betray Rudy or are just overtly horrible people. A pathetic antagonist is not the same as a good antagonist. They should have as good of a motivation and character as the protagonist, instead of being as cliche as possible. One of the antagonists use threats of rape too. We don’t need that. Rape threats are not good dialogue and it doesn’t characterize them in a complex way. It only adds on to their simple personality of being sexist and horrible like everyone else in the show. Just because Rudeus knows the antagonists are creepy or pathetic doesn’t make it better. It’s the same as SAO antagonists. Their only purpose is to be defeated so the protagonist is rewarded and heroized.

People always praise the audiovisuals but there are sometimes numerous still frames and off-model faces in scenes where there is no sakuga. Sometimes Rudeus and Eris will look blurry if they are in the background or if the angle is pointing at the side of their faces. There are even a few times that they are barely recognizable because the budget wasn’t allocated consistently. The music is also annoying. It actively tries to pull your heartstrings and force you to feel certain emotions but it always fails. The overall OST is just boring and lacks any feeling to them since they are for the most part reused and just generic background music. It has no identity of its own. Even the world-building, MT’s ‘strongest point’ might as well not even exist. They just go from one generic village to the next after Rudeus’s party saves the day. If explaining how magical powers work is considered good world-building, then any sci-fi show or movie has inevitably failed because they don’t explain magic. World-building doesn’t make a story good. I cannot even name a single MT arc nor town because the location and setting doesn’t really matter.

Why did I watch MT? Because it’s become the new SAO, the new Re:Zero, the new best isekai…except that it’s supposedly the FIRST best isekai. MT is popular for all of the wrong reasons. Mushoku Tensei at its core had potential as a legitimate redemption story, but it failed miserably and did not even attempt to fulfill its primary theme of character growth beyond a surface level because Rudeus at his core never changed. It’s a relatable tale for people like Rudeus in his first life, except it’s actually an escapist tale of fake struggles and undeserved rewards for doing less than the bare minimum. If you’re not sure whether or not MT is for you, just give the first few episodes a shot. If you’re disgusted, drop it like a piece of shit in the toilet. If you’ve managed to watch all of Mushoku Tensei and find yourself still not on the hype-train, know you’re not alone and that you should be rightfully appalled by this utter catastrophe of an otaku fantasy.

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Why MT is a dark masterpiece

Mushoku Tensei is the best isekai in existence and will forever be remembered that way. It is a redemption fantasy about a 34-year old man hit by a truck, reincarnated in another world as a newborn known as Rudeus Greyrat. Premise sounds familiar? It’s because MT was the first isekai with this premise and inspired every other one that we know of today. In his former life, Rudeus was bullied into becoming a HS dropout, becoming a shut-in, refusing to even attend his parents’ funeral many years later. However, his reincarnation is a second chance at living life to the fullest and where his story really begins.

Unlike most isekai, Mushoku Tensei is unapologetically a cynical view of how the real world functions and will use morally ambiguous, but believable themes to express its intentions. It has a realistic main character that can be related to because he is flawed and honest about it. His internal conflicts are a part of how flawed real people are and how they must learn to become better and have self-control. Rudeus’ constant battle against his lust and his past self is derived from his subtly hinted shame. If he truly was horrible, he would be Makoto from School Days. He simply is not. He struggles with self-restraint. Yes, he is a pedophile, but Rudy always gets called out for it and apologizes. Just because I am a fan does NOT mean I support everything Rudy does. In fact, I think it’s funny when he gets punished for his pervy-ness. Rudeus has anxieties and fears that he confronts all the time. He has very low self-esteem and tries to improve but struggles. Even when he started out with an advantage and is given help by Hitogami, he is still plagued by his past traumas and failure to protect others. He is an extremely in-depth character for that reason. Even if Rudeus has mostly developed away from being a shut-in, the appeal is that he still has much more to grow. The fact is, Rudeus is selfish and makes mistakes. He isn’t able to save everyone all the time. There are occasions where he almost let Ruijerd and Eris almost die, and actual people get killed due to a simple mistake. Rudeus has blood on his hands and still feels that way every time he fails at protecting friends and family. However, when presented with a choice between letting a stranger live or die, Rudeus will actually think about it. A perfect hero would not even think. Rudeus is not like that. He just has basic morals. He’s not heartless but he values his own life. Rudeus is the perfect example of how people can realistically change, little by little, regardless of how slowly that is.

By Rudeus’s side we have Eris, a strong female lead. She works hard and is like a rival to Rudeus, strengthening their relationship as well as herself, whether it be her physical training to become a warrior and an adult, or her tender, subtle care for Rudeus and vice versa. Her individuality as a tomboy subverts gender roles and is well portrayed. Eris is a perfect example of a character that shows instead of tells. The way she expresses herself through her actions makes her a human person. It’s hard not to like her as a person. The way she shows genuine emotion and weakness through uncharacteristic tears is so heartwarming, because of how much she values her relations with others. She's just so innocent and pure. Despite suppressing these emotions, she tries her hardest just to be equal to Rudeus, particularly in ep11, making her another admirable character. She brings life to Mushoku Tensei with her exciting personality and has inspired other girls like herself in other isekais, but none will be as good as the original.

Roxy is another well-written, in-depth character. Even when she’s not on screen, Roxy’s personality shines. For example, her very inferiority complex is revealed through details put into a figurine of Roxy, crafted by Rudeus himself, also showing self-awareness of what’s wrong with the anime industry. That’s a product that someone could consider buying because of the thought that went into its creation and on the screen. Funnily enough, it’s nuanced art. On a more serious note, Roxy’s backstory is probably the one that hit the hardest. Her childhood is one in which many can relate to, not being able to fit in with everyone else. Using barely any dialogue at all, the writer shows how alone Roxy was, being unable to make a single friend or even talk to a single person, due to a disability. Amongst her village, she is deaf. She can’t understand others and others cannot understand Roxy. It’s a simple metaphor for being unable to talk with others in real life, but it is even more emotionally resonant because of how believable it is. It explains why Roxy rushes to become an adult and desires to hide her weakness so she can’t be pitied any longer. She seeks to be more than she is, which is something we should praise. Despite her size, she ends up being one of the bigger people of the series, by returning to her village and reconnecting with those she had abandoned, making for one of the most heartfelt moments of the series.

Another one of the underrated characters is Paul. In the first cour, we see how imperfect he was as a father but how he still addressed his mistakes and tried to raise Rudy right. However, this cour, Rudy’s father becomes a shell of his former self. He’s someone who tries to right his wrongs after losing everything, which leads to one of the most climactic moments of the series, the reunion between Paul and Rudeus after the mana explosion. Due to how physically and seemingly mentally healthy Rudeus appeared, Paul shuns Rudeus for having a carefree life, guilt-tripping Rudeus for not suffering enough and putting his efforts into saving others from the village, despite the fact that Rudeus had indeed undergone such experiences. However, Paul’s conflict with Rudeus is one of genuine meaning as it came from Paul’s own failure to protect his family and village. The value of life is significantly emphasized and development is shown through Rudeus’s own empathy toward Paul and reflection as a person. Through communication between father and son, both Paul and Rudeus are able to accept not just each other’s mistakes as human beings, but also their own. For some reason, Paul’s development is heavily underrated in his arc despite the fact Paul had to endure nightmares for months about family members dying and Rudeus losing body parts. By acknowledging his own mistakes as well as Rudeus’s own struggles in the Demon Continent, the audience was able to witness one of the most clean resolutions to a family squabble in anime! Paul’s own redemption arc really showcases how the writer does not leave even supporting characters untouched.

Rujierd is my personal favorite character in Mushoku Tensei. Just like Scar from FMA, he has one of the most conflicted moral compasses and some of the best characterization in the series. In the beginning, we learn he’s from the Superd tribe, a clan shunned for their former rampage in the Demon Continent, and is portrayed as an antagonist. However, Ruijerd is simply someone who wants to clear his clan’s name of wrongdoing and improve relations with other races. His initial inability to see individuals beyond just ‘good’ and ‘bad’ was horrifying as he brutally murdered anyone who he deemed as ‘bad’, particularly those who harmed children. Ruijerd’s development beyond such a shallow form of judgment is quite refreshing compared to the typical do-good hero one would see in other isekai, as Ruijerd learns how to compromise his own values with others in order to protect those who are important to him, Rudy and Eris. He is the supporting character that is needed to train and protect Rudy’s party as they try to find their way home, until they’ve grown into fine adults.

The antagonists of MT add to the dark atmosphere of the show as a whole. They’re also comedically written to the point where it’s obvious they are meant to be laughed at. The way Rudeus sees them as people who can be taken seriously or as a threat makes sense because that’s what a real person would do in real life. Characters like Pax quite literally act like a child and that’s how they should be viewed. They have very believable motivations. Just because some of their dialogue lines are offensive, doesn’t mean the whole show should be treated like this as a whole. Context matters. They serve to showcase how messed up the world of MT is, it’s not rainbows and sunshine. They’re not there to heroize Rudeus either. In the Doldia Village arc, Rudeus actually debates whether or not to just flee to safety rather than fighting the antagonist. When Rudeus struggles against Pax, he uses the perverted Roxy figurine to set himself free. Rudeus isn’t perfect, even in combat scenes which is why he’s written well. The antagonists only serve to showcase Rudeus’ complexity and creativity as a person.

The art and animation are just as brilliant as the story itself. It has some of the best sakuga since Demon Slayer. Compound that with the sound and you have the best possible audiovisual experience to accompany the best possible characters. Even though there is no opening song, the expansiveness of the world-building can be seen throughout the journey of Rudeus and his party. From bristling yellow fields to snowy lands to the intricate treehouses in the Doldia Village, Studio Bind illustrates their passion through animation. There’s a reason Studio Bind has not animated any other shows/movies, and it’s because they knew Mushoku Tensei was one of the best, so they pulled out all the stops, rightly so. Heck, they even invented their own fictional language, just like Lord of the Rings and Futurama! And don’t forget how the magic system, power system, and power-ups are explained down to the most minute detail, almost as well as Hunter x Hunter. On a technical level, Mushoku Tensei is a masterpiece. I think even critics will begrudgingly have to agree with that.

In conclusion, Mushoku Tensei is a must-watch for fans of subversive isekai. It’s a gift of 2021 with the best possible quality. It’s hard to imagine this won’t age well considering how it’s still well-received by fans even 7 years since the light novel was first published. To those out there unsure what to feel about the series, don’t let anyone decide your opinion. Your opinion is rightly your own. Even if I don’t view MT as flawed, I can acknowledge those who do and I hope they do the same for me as well. It is a controversial series, but it’s one full of love and passion, which is why it is a masterpiece.

Alright, I wanna get right into it. Mushoku Tensei is a series known for being the grandfather of the insanely popular Isekai genre of shows, and it has a lot to its name, but these 23 episodes that they open with are not good. Straight up.

I want to give credit where it is due, though, so let me talk about the technical aspects. This show is done by Studio Bind, and it’s actually their first time ever doing an anime series. Let me tell you this—be excited for what else this studio has to bring to you, because from what Mushoku Tensei shows you, it ... will at the very least be visually stunning. Each scene in this show is so beautifully done, and each visual quirk added to each design or moment is so important to what makes it so amazing to watch. The magic in this show comes not only from the spells cast, but from each water droplet, each window of crown glass, each fight scene, each facial expression, and everything about the world it brings to life.

The sound in this show is front-to-back bliss as well. The voices cast for each character are perfect, with each talent being able to show off a wide range of emotions, while still keeping in character. The songs in the show manage to team with the visuals greatly as well. This show has no real OP, but instead, an opening sequence of events. Each episode starts off with scenes that showcase the vibrant, and lively world that our characters live in, and their adventures—all backed by these grand, and breathtaking folk ballads to accompany the equally grand and breathtaking scenes of animation. Once you set aside the plot, this show is nothing but a technical marvel.

Now, let’s get into the plot. Oh geez.

This show follows Rudeus Greyrat, and his story from death, rebirth, and the life that comes after. Before Rudeus dies, he’s an absolute no-life and a shut-in; he even misses his own parents’ funeral to jack off in his room. However, he still dies protecting someone from their own death, and for some reason, he opens his eyes to a brand new world. In this life, Rudeus learns how to interact with others once again, fight with magic, and much more. Above all, though, he’s still a degenerate. He is a pervert and a lecher through and through.

Though there are a lot of very slice of life moments in this show, it’s not one that lasts forever. There is a lot of tension and action laced between each episode. While there are a lot of episodes that just felt weird to me or were just there to set things up in the future—the one with Pax stands out to me the most—it’s not all bad, at least. There are a few moments in the show that actually get me invested. Above all, the moments where Paul and Rudeus interact in the second cour are the most important to me. It shows actual moments of growth and reflection for two flawed characters, and that’s something I desperately want from this show. It gets you to understand Rudeus and Paul from both sides, and in the end, it makes their reconciliation all the more impactful.

One of Rudeus’ strong points to me, though, was his show of trauma. It was so interesting to see how his PTSD still carried on into the new world. He is an emotionally and mentally stunted person who never got the chance to live a good life because of that trauma. It’s a point where I can actually slightly understand Rudeus. Though, still, the show itself puts a lot of this baggage aside for “children sexy owo.” I would like it more if in an entire season of the show, you would put more moments of reflection for the person we are basically always following. That would be cool.

I'll try to keep an open mind to the rest of the story as it plays out, but my biggest problem is that while I get that it's trying to set up character growth in the future, a lot of Rudeus' perversion is played off pretty light-heartedly or it just comes out as a joke. I also get that Mushoku Tensei as a story is supposed to be a biography of Rudeus Greyrat and his growth, but a lot of the time they really want you to side with Rudeus. If we think about it from a storyteller's perspective, Rudeus is set up to do a lot of good things. He is a very selfless and heroic person a lot of the time, but his degeneracy brings him down a lot from me seeing it like that. I understand that his actions aren't unrealistic if we consider the fact that if a guy like him were to be sent to a fantasy world like Mushoku Tensei's, it wouldn't be too far off. What I don't like is really just how everyone else seems to react to it, especially how a lot of the female cast is treated. Rudeus gets off scot-free a lot of the times, with his sexual harrassment leading to nothing but a slap on the wrist, and—in my opinion, the strangest part—no lasting effects on really any of the relationships he makes.

I find it weird how people like Eris feel a bit weird right now. I think Eris is a bit too lenient with Rudeus, especially that scene where Rudeus said that he might touch her next time she's asleep or something. I get that their relationship is deep and close, but that feels like a bit too much to let slide. This applies to a lot of the other female characters as well. If they don't want you to necessarily side with Rudeus, I think they still want you to be able to understand him. Fiction is no stranger to morally grey or generally-non-heroic characters, but again, my biggest point is that the show just fails to show the actual severity of Rudeus' nature. If their point is to show off Rudeus' degeneracy as a bad thing for character development, I think more of it should be more serious and less fanservice jokes. Sure it’s shown heavily, but is it shown properly? It may be heavily shown, but the tone isn't there for me, man.

What drives me so crazy about this show is how it never seems to learn its lesson. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Cour 2, Episode 11. Jesus, what a disappointment. This episode is emblematic of what a lot of this show feels like to me—tons of good moments, but it’s able to make it all fall down just that quick. Let me give you a run-down of what happens in this episode:
This episode starts off amazingly, with actual moments that go on to affect what will happen in the future. Party member and mentor figure, Ruijerd acknowledges the trials and tribulations that Rudeus and Eris have gone through, and the ones that they will have to go through in the future, before saying goodbye to them. This is so emotionally engaging, and I actually believed that I cared about Mushoku Tensei. Afterwards, Eris is put into a tough place emotionally because she's just passed in the eyes of someone she admires, but has to part ways with them; and then she reunites with people she cares about, but immediately has to make a decision with stakes this high. I get really invested now. Later that night, she's so emotionally desperate, and goes over to Rudeus because that's the only place where she thinks she can solve all her problems. She asks him to sleep with her, but Rudeus for the first time has the thought that he should control himself because he would be taking advantage of someone he cares about if he doesn't. Oh my God, an actual moment of reflection and growth for this guy. I am absolutely blown away by how much growth Rudeus has gone through by the fact that he stops himself from taking advantage of an emotionally distraught girl, even if to him, he sees her as attractive.

But then, Eris says something about kittens, and then there's this really long scene of flashbacks interlaced with shots of Eris and Rudeus that heavily imply something sexual—all with elegant violin music playing over it. And then Eris leaves him in the morning. And then I stop caring once again. How does one ruin a good and emotionally engaging experience with important chances for character growth like this.

Let me calm down again before we close off this review.

I mean, yeah this show is a slow burn and there will be tons and tons more to come in the future, but to show as little growth as Rudeus does in these 23 episodes is just disappointing. Even if you’re supposed to find him icky, presentation and execution proves that showrunners still secretly want us to look at the sexy lolis or whatever. Off topic now, but they had a scene with Rudeus and another guy where they leered over this figure of Roxy and it was really long and really weird. But also they made a figure in real life of that exact same figure. Above all, making money is what matters, right; so to sex up a lot of the visuals at the cost of maybe actually showing how creepy Rudeus is would in the end net them more people watching the show.

With all the hype this series receives, it’s gotta get better, right? But right now, considering it really is just one season so far and how long an anime takes to deliver, a lot of that isn't shown unless you are in the anime community. Someone else might not be so well-informed on what comes in the future and they won't get to see it come to fruition since they would be repulsed by the beginning. The only reason I still hold out hope for this show is because people keep telling me it gets better, and I want to believe that. That's why I think it's important for the show to present the message better. I so badly want to understand this show and the hype around it, but it makes it so hard for me.

It’s not enough that it’s a biography of Rudeus’ life, because I don’t give a crap. A story is first and foremost a work made by an author. To write a biographical tale that showcases a deeply flawed person, you still have to write an engaging story. So to have a main character that does these kind of messed up things in the show have no real consequences related to these actions or any kind of seriousness regarding their behavior—I don’t care if I’m not supposed to sympathize with them or they’re supposed to be flawed, I will just end up hating them and hating the show.

There’s a lot about these cours to love, but so much more not to.
I am feeling a Decent to Strong 4 on Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation.

Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu came out in the early part of 2021 and was among one of the most popular anime of the year. Shocker, right? Now imagine the show getting a part 2 and achieve a similar amount of success, at least popularity wise. Popularity doesn't equate to quality and this anime isn't without controversy.

In fact, this anime is notriously known for having one of the biggest perverts in recent isekai memory. Forget guys like Issei from High School DxD or Mineta from My Hero Academia. Rudeus Greyrat is the type of pervert who puts on a poker-like gentleman face with ... no bounds. Behind that little smirk is a guy with the mentality of a 30+ year old. Ever since he's reincarnated in this new world, Rudeus has been living his life as an adventurer. Discarding his previous life, let's just say that Rudeus isn't exactly a great role model unless you're on his good side.

Of course, part 2 of Mushoku Tensei assumes you are familiar with the story already. And although it has one more episode than part 1, the anime tried to exmplify its isekai elements at every chance it gets. The structure of part 2 features an adventure following the journey of both Rudeus' party and Roxy as she looks for him. Their adventures takes them to places such as Doldia Village, Millis, among others. If you're familiar with the main cast already, be aware that overall, the characters don't change much in terms of development. Only perhaps Eris gets the most noticable change in terms of attitude. She transforms from a bratty girl to a more daring adventurer who geninuely falls for Rudeus. And yes, before you ask, there's a particular episode that takes their relationship to the next level. I'll just let you imagine that in your head.

I'll be honest. Mushoku Tensei Part 2 is hard to enjoy when you have a protagonist like Rudeus running the show. He represents a character with personality flaws. It appears the anime tries to make us understand his character better through his actions. Remember, no one is really perfect especially in this show but Rudeus pretty much represents a guy who tries desperately to change from his former ways. Deep down from his gentleman-like persona, Rudeus is a relentless pervert who is afraid of himself. In this anime, he is also afraid of hurting people he loves. In part 2, he isn't with his family anymore and goes on an adventure of exploration. With the people he encounters, Rudeus learns the cruelty of his world, perhaps no different from the one he was in before. Now, I'm not sure what kind of lesson this anime wanted to teach to us. Is it to show how someone like Rudeus can make a difference to their world or for himself? The message isn't clear, at least for Part 2. Because from his adventue, Rudeus is still a character with flaws. Those flaws take a toll on his personality and honestly, he's a very unlikable character.

In contrast, there's Roxy, a mage who trained Rudeus in the past and has a much more mature personality. There's one particular episode that shows how much she cares about her family and even in part 2, she still seems like down to earth about who she is. Somewhere down the middle is Eris, the short tempered girl who literally beat up Rudeus during their first encounter. She has obviously personality flaws with her aggressiveness and child-like behavior. However, a big change occurs in this season when she seems to have developed feelings of love towards Rudeus. Can it be called a charming romance? No. Let's just say that the aftermath of their fling wasn't exactly pleasant. Nonetheless, I do find Eris only slightly more bearable than Rudeus when comparing the two. If you can stand a tsundere who can never seem to stand still, then you'll be fine.

Unfortuantely, the anime doesn't take its character roster far with the remaining cast. Guys like Paul only get sproadic appearances while others introduced such as Pax will absolutely rub viewers in the wrong way. Silphy, one of the main characters from Part 1, hardly even makes an appearance. Despite these drawbacks, I do give some praise to the anime making Ruijerd relevant and likable. He is loyal with a kind heart yet also displays great deals with courage. Unlike Eris or Rudeus, he displays great self control. Why can't more characters be like him? Oh right, I almost forgot. This anime is more about a guy with the mentality of a 30+ year old.

There's not many reasons to watch this season unless you want to get invested into this franchise. From Part 2, we got a glorified adventure following parties, most prominently Rudeus. It felt like playing an RPG game at times but with a detestable protagonist. The novels follows a much deeper story as the anime only scratches the surface. But for now, just know that Mushoku Tensei and controversy always belong in the same sentence.

I'm righting this review as of episode 10, which made me drop the show.

As an old fan of the medium that is anime, I grew accustomed/desensitized over the sordidness that comes with it but by watching Mushoku Tensei I've come to realized that I've grow tired of the mishandling of certain topics, that this anime employs too often. Why would this particular anime be the catalyst for my displeasure over anime archetypes? Lets start with the premise:

• Isekai, introduces a contemporary element (the main character) in a high fantasy medieval fictional world and establishes relatability with a contemporary audience;
• Main character is a NEET, common ... trope in Isekais were self-insert escape fantasies are king and the main character tends to be one form or another of a society reject;
• Main character is a 30 year old, probably aiming for a mature story with a somewhat mature audience;
• Main character is a ped*phile/lolicon, now you would think this would be a complex topic which the author/production would handle with some fineness, spoilers they don't;

-Spoilers---Before Reincarnation--Spoilers-

The story starts with the main protagonist, which we are never privy to his original name (as a good self-insert escapism story does), skipping a relatives funeral while masturbating to child p*rn of his niece, thankfully the anime only shows a couple frames but here is the excerpt from the novels for full context (https://ncode.syosetu.com/n9669bk/1/):

" 俺が一体なにをしたっていうんだ。親の葬式をブッチして無修正ロリ画像（兄の娘を風呂に入れた時にデジカメで撮りました）でオ○ってただけじゃないか……。"
"What the fuck am I doing? Not only did I not attend my parents funeral, I was also masturbating to some uncensored erotic image, which i got from secretly taking a video of my niece while she was taking a bath".

This excerpt eventually got censored in the novels for obvious reasons, but the rest of the story wasn't rewritten to accommodate this change and it does become apparent quiet quickly. Also to the fans who argue that his niece was an adult (which would still be sordid), the anime drew her in the same art style as the other children in the show, so I rest my case on that point.

This is what eventually precipitates his death and reincarnation.

-Spoilers---After Reincarnation--Spoilers-

The protagonist now named Rudeus is reborn as an infant but plot twist, he kept all his memories including his misogynistic predisposition towards women/females and worse yet his sexual propensity for children. But maybe his new family will have a positive influence on the baggage he carries:

• Zenith Greyrat (Mother), she's an adventurer in her twenties who specializes in magic and settled down to have a family, she has a considerable sex drive and a perverts face (whatever that means, that the protagonist Rudeus inherited);

• Paul Greyrat (Father), he's an adventurer in his twenties who specializes in sword-fighting and settled down to have a family, he also employed a maid Lilia a women who he raped in his youth and then cheats/impregnates his wife with;

And for the fans how say he didn't rape her, the novel uses 無理矢理 (muriyari) which is unambiguously non-consensual, also she resisted but she wasn’t strong enough to fend him off and cried thru the ordeal.

• Lilia (Maid), she's the only one in the household who notices Rudeus behavior to be more complex than a normal child, which initially makes her dislike him because of his perverse actions;

What's Rudeous perception of his immediately family?

That they are children when compared to him and he uses this to manipulate them, example:
When Zenith finds out of Paul's infidelity and the pregnancy he emotionally manipulates her into accepting Paul's infidelity. Now you could propose he did this so to protect the maid/unborn child, but he immediately proceeds think of how she will be indebted to him and Lilia immediately makes a vow of herself and her unborn child to always serve Rudeus.

So no help in confronting his inner demons from his inner family circle, lets look outside:

• Roxy Migurdia (Magic Instructor/Mentor) and forever lolita lookalike which Rudeus takes great pleasure in by describing how he would to like to marry a prepubescent like her who probably doesn't got pubes yet. He harasses her throughout his magical instruction and steals her underwear without reproaches in fact she even amuses his antics at times;

• Sylphiette (Childhood Friend), first positive relationship he formed with someone he defended who was being bullied and had no ulterior intentions until in a plot twist were he finds out she's a girl, he immediately comments on how he would like to groom this child into becoming his ideal wife; Now some fans will say that Rudeus is also a child despite his 30+ years of experience, to that I'll refer to how he perceives and identifies himself in the anime:

Rudeos: "Mentally, I'm a 40-something bum: as scummy as it gets."

Rudeos: "Then why do I look like this?" (same appearance as before reincarnation)
Man-God: "That's your mental form. Your body is fine."

So far no luck in find something or someone who will help address his behavior, but lets look at his extended family:

• Sauros Boreas Greyrat (Grandpa Figure), seems a well respect hothead leader of the region that partakes in slave trading of beast people to serve as maids and he's also a serial rapist of said slaves. Rudeus even considers having is own harem if he could become the head of the family;

• Philip Boreas Greyrat (Cousin), proposes that Rudeus rapes his own daughter a 10 year old at the time for political gain;

• Eris Greyrat (Second Cousin/Under Rudeus Tutelage), daughter of Philip. Is sexually harassed by Rudeus when she is only 9 years old. Then when she's ten years old he tries to sexually assault her, she tells him to stop but he continues until she overpowers him but she (a 10 year old) promises to have sex with him in 5 years which he celebrates.

-Spoilers---Eris's promise, The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back--Spoilers-

Now one would think this would be a joke that didn't land or that maybe the author intended the character to undergo a transformation during the following years until he realized a child can't make such a promise and that he was being predator/groomer with her but sadly no. He persists on harassing her for the next 4 years, saying things like he can't control himself around her, spying on her while she bathes, coxing her into being complying with his perversities.
Some fans will point out that he was in fact taking care of her and trying to get her back home, but in this latest episode (10) when he almost dies what he comes to regret is how he almost didn't get to have the promised sex with Eris, basically admitting that he only protects her because she's promised to have sex with him.

By now I fully realize there's no redemption in this story. Its a story about blaming our world and society for not allowing the main character to enjoy his attraction for children, because when you transport him to a world who supports his behavior he's suddenly is considered a great person.

**THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER FREE**

My opinion
It's finally here the adventure of our young pervert. God knows how hyped I was when the season 2 was announced. I really liked the season 1 for the anime. And the main question does the season 2 match the level of season 1? It surely does. We get to see a lot of exciting things in the anime and some new reveals too.

Story 8
Well no one disagrees that Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation had a new concept for the isekai. Well at least it was new for me. It's quite common to see people dying and reincarnating into ... another world. But we hardly get to see how did they grow up in the new world in detail. And Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation does it perfectly. Now taking it even further it's season 2 explores its world even more and I really like that thing. So in story I would give it an 8.

Art 8
Studio Bind did a great job in animation for the anime. We get to see some cool visuals & animation. And the art obviously was amazing. Honestly the detailing in some scenes were quite good. The fight scenes were well choreographed & well animated. I would give it an 8 in art & animation.

Sound 7
I am not quite the fan of the opening and ending of this anime. But they where the still fairly decent same goes with the OST's for this anime. But all the sounds blend perfectly with the theme of the anime. So, I would give it a 7.

Characters 8
What good it is if an anime has a good story, good art style & animations, decent sound tracks but lacks in character development. Well guess what Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation has a great character development & a huge variety of old & new characters. It shows us how can side characters be give fair enough screen time while not hampering the screen time of the main characters. So I would give it a solid 8 in characters.

Enjoyment 9
After reading all this you might have a fair idea that this anime was really enjoyable for me and I wasn't bored while watching. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation follows the lead of it's previous season while giving us a well balance between fan service & a good storyline. So I would give it a 9.

Overall 8
Well now to the conclusion. I really didn't found any major flaw for in this anime that could make it rated below 7 or 8. It was really a treat after the bunch of crap anime's of summer. I would give Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation an 8 overall.

This review contains mild spoilers for Part 1

Worldbuilding has become such an overblown thing in anime. It doesn’t matter how many maps you can draw of the world, how many different species of dragon there are, or how many generic medieval town look-a-likes there are, a bad anime will still be a bad anime. Mushoku Tensei markets and presents itself as an isekai with a large focus on worldbuilding and adventure, and this is truer than ever in the second installment of the series. I love a good adventure as much as the next fantasy fan, but in Mushoku Tensei good character writing, a believable ... power system, and a structured narrative all get left behind as Rudeus travels around the map partaking in as many pointless complications as possible.

While the first season mostly involved Rudeus growing as a character from one location, Part 2 is almost the complete opposite. It feels as though a new species, biome, or village is introduced every second episode. There’s nothing that connects each location to the overall plot, they simply exist for the sake of it. It’s understandable that this is done for the sake of making sure Rudeus’ journey is a genuine adventure, but nothing ever feels like it serves a purpose. A cool tree village of beast people is introduced? Too bad it’s gone the very next episode with nothing being gained. If you’re wondering what role the beast people serve in relation to the rest of the world, how surprised would you be if I told you they were often subjected to slavery in other countries. Maybe this would be an interesting concept… if it didn’t already exist in every other isekai to ever exist. I must admit though, it was great seeing the heroic Rudeus take an official “slavery bad” stance, which even he himself wasn’t too keen on at first.

The worst part of such an adventure focused cour is that the cast is constantly being shuffled. There are numerous opponents and obstacles, but never a central antagonist that is the focus of one arc. An interesting character might show up for one episode then not appear for the rest of the entire series. Remember when all those unknown characters were hinted at in Part 1? Turns out it was just a massive bait, and they’ll be on screen for at most one episode each. There’s one rule a lot of fantasy writers tend to follow that I find interesting, and it’s to only introduce world elements as they become relevant to the plot. There are obviously successful exceptions to this, but Mushoku Tensei seems to deliberately go out of its way to introduce as many irrelevant things as possible. There’s one character that is supposed to be important to the story, but will show up out of nowhere, give the protagonist a convenient power-up, and disappear. They add nothing to the current storyline, but sure do add to the needlessly large cast of characters. It’s not just some characters that this applies to either. Every single character besides the main trio will never be important for more than three episodes at a time.

It’s disappointing how little purpose the side characters serve, as the three who actually do stick around aren’t all that special.
Rudeus’ hyped up character growth continues as he figures out how to be less of a pervert. He isn’t quite there yet on the maturity scale, but good on him from going to constantly sniffing panties as a baby to only occasionally spying on naked children. He becomes even more overpowered of course, how else would viewers be able to relate to him if he didn’t have numerous random power-ups.
Ruijerd begins to hold beliefs other than “only save children,” something that still holds up as the most nonsensical moral I’ve ever seen a character have.
Eris exists.
Roxy? Sylphiette? Who are they?

But on a more serious note, Rudeus is still too much of a ridiculous character to take any of his growth seriously. A lot of his laid-back attitude was supposed to be resolved after the guild quest in Part 1, yet he still treats every serious event as a casual occurrence. His perverted actions are obviously supposed to be something bad, but there are a serious lack of consequences to actually show that his actions are wrong. If anything, there are too many characters that actively promote Rudeus’ behaviour, with they themselves having unnecessarily perverted characteristics. Ruijerd is still too one-dimensional with his only trait being that he saves children, something that only impacts his decisions very occasionally in the first place. Eris suddenly becomes a skilled swordsperson off-screen, but her growth is hardly ever shown outside of training. Her biggest role at the moment is to be a love interest for Rudeus, after all what’s an adventure without a cocky princess for a heroine travelling along with them.

As much as I’ve complained about the worldbuilding, the art and sound are fantastic and do a brilliant job at maximizing the potential behind the world. Character designs make each character truly feel like they’re part of an immersive fantasy world, even with them being as generic as they are. The openings are interesting, and I like the idea of introducing the different settings through unique openings for each episode. I have zero complaints about audiovisuals, and I hope that Mushoku Tensei sets a good standard for future fantasy adaptations to come.

Part 2 of Mushoku Tensei was one big buildup with no payout. It would’ve been great to see more done, but the story currently feels like its expanding on the world for the mere sake of it. A good adventure series will do more than just attempt to fit as many locations as it can into the shortest amount of time. There was no reason for Mushoku Tensei to be as expansive as it tried to be. It appears that this is only one part of what will be a series that explores Rudeus’ entire life, but man I hope he’s finally completed his super revolutionary omega fantastic character growth by the time he’s a grandad.

I dont like to judge a work early, but I dont expect this to become outdated by the 12th episode, and thus (Also please dont hate parade me, I'll just delete it anyway, thankies) :

Pacing, animation, voiceacting and even lots of deeper themes are superb, in many cases top of the industry, so why the low rating? Simply: Im sick of the Mc being a pedo. Yes, yes I lambasted critcques of the previous season for "not getting it", but tbh, it doesnt seem like the author does either, the pace at which this "redemption" takes place seems to be slower than a fairytale love ... triagle, meaning it slowly inces and teases towards the slightest hint of progress over hours and hours of screentime, only to be completly rolled back under a comedic pretense, I am sick of it and am geniunly questioning the underlying motivations of this story at this point, cause incompetence to do better can be excluded through this work's more impressive aspects.
Argh, I really wanna like this show. Heres a prayer to this being irrelevant by the end of the season
Here's the obligatory section breakdown
Story:____9
Art:______10
Sound:___ 10
Character:_8
Enjoyment:3
Overall :__ 4
(edit: removed a double pasted section)

The original premise of Mushoku Tensei that captivated an audience was the idea that a person can live a life that is fulfilling. A life where they can reflect on their past and change for the better. In a way, I wanted to witness that aspect of it. But for a person to change and grow, there’s a need for the right environment to stimulate that personal growth. Henceforth, I praised the slice-of-life aspect of Mushoku Tensei Part 1–a part where there were people such as Rudeus’ parents despite being flawed themselves.

However, I feel like that original concept was completely disregarded towards the conclusion ... of part 1. By the end of part 1, the narrative had shifted in the direction of fantasy adventure, which is fine. But by neglecting the original core premise that made up this show is where the structure fell apart for me. Additionally, Rudeus’ pedophilia nature was not changed in part 1 and nor was it challenged and changed in part 2. The series just let him do whatever he wants regarding his uncontrollable sexual temptations. This aspect of the anime is not only reflective of Rudeus, but also the series as a whole. Men in the world of Mushoku Tensei are all degraded to one aspect: fulfilling their sexual desires/fantasies. The series even went out of its way to write about scumbags like a prince of sovereignty who openly touts his fantasies of kidnapping Roxy and turning her into his personal sex slave. But fans of this series argue that it’s a trope. An aspect that’s used to further the development and contrast for Rudeus. Except it isn’t a contrast because Rudeus is a man who couldn’t resist his desires either. Sure, he might not have gone to the extreme level where he openly admits his fantasies to others. But Rudeus definitely thought about these temptations, committed the act of preserving Roxy’s underwear, and even groped Eris. The fans of Mushoku Tensei argue that it takes time for Rudeus to make that change. If this aspect is rushed, it only makes the transition feel unnatural. Except that defense is completely illogical because he had years between the point he was reincarnated and the point he’s at now.

The worst part is that none of these actions are held accountable, belittled, or battered on. It’s all viewed as a normal part of their society. Men are shown as the dominant force, while women, on the other hand, are used to fulfilling men’s wishes, and I realized that’s the point of this anime.

Speaking of wish-fulfillment, the entire secondary female cast is part of Rudeus' love interests. Let’s be honest here, the female characters in Mushoku Tensei, like Eris, are the typical embodiment of overly done anime tropes. But it wouldn’t have been so bad if Eris as a character could stand on her own. Because other than developing her physical strength in the art of swords, she doesn’t have any other drive. She has no other struggles, which is disappointing because I was expecting some sort of conflict to be inflicted inside of her after being taken into the unknown. And no, I don’t consider her being more open and kinder to Rudeus is significant because, in my eyes, that falls back into the trope that she embodies. Finally, by the end of part 2, she leaves Rudeus after she had sex with him. This single moment solidifies it even further in the wish-fulfillment fantasy, as Rudeus brags about it afterward. And I don’t care if Rudues’ reincarnated body is the body of a teenager. The fact that remains is that he’s still the same 36-year-old pedophile. The series is only disguising it with a younger body.

Now, what about Roxy? The only interesting exploration that we got about Roxy was that she couldn’t communicate telepathically with her people since birth. And the series emphasized that was the sole reason which led to Roxy’s alienation among her people and her eventual break away from her family. The forced break away from her family was supposed to have a very traumatic impact on Roxy as a person because of all the emotional conflicts that were accumulating inside of her. Except the series was very surface level about it. Instead of fully exploring her state of mind at the time, the series brushed it off with a surface-level presentation in one episode and shifted the focus back to Rudeus because Roxy’s sole purpose is to serve him.

In regarding its magic system and world-building, I would say it’s still a major strength that the series has a grasp on. Never once were the rules that were set in place being abused or broken. Characters in the fantasy setting of Mushoku are still limited by the boundaries set in place. Because of this, the series demonstrates that intelligence and cooperation with a bit of luck is the only way to get through the difficulties that are set in place. And each of the regions in its world has its own distinctive social structure, though it’s somewhat ambiguous. Regardless, this tiny positive is insignificant overall when compared to the overall faults I formed while watching through part 2.

The main reason I wrote this review in the first place is to discredit the praises I gave for Part 1. I was ignorant to think that Mushoku Tensei was anything but a wish-fulfillment fantasy. I was fooled into thinking that Mushoku Tensei was a series that would take its initial powerful concept of redemption, self-growth and execute these themes without ever losing its focus. Mushoku Tensei’s continued usage of superficial elements in resolving personal conflicts and drama between Rudeus and characters like Paul only further devalues the series for me. The series has long lost its original concept and has shifted into a more male power fantasy, but I do understand that some might not feel this way. That’s fine. After all, this is my perception of how the anime has progressed and it isn’t indicative of one’s own.

Score: 3/10

The first cour of Mushoku Tensei was heavily focused on the coming of age aspect. There weren’t any big bads to fight or need for magical aids to stop them. It was enough to make most overlook the pervy side of the protagonist and to consider it the best isekai of all times. The second cour, however, no longer has that element and comes off more like an adventure, so the need for conveniences and magic nonsense increased tenfold for the sake of the main characters not dying every ten steps they make.

The plot keeps favoring the protagonist for no other reason than him being ... the protagonist. Major examples include: Mangod constantly telling Rudy what to do instead of letting him choose himself or work things through on his own. Rudy comes off as not having free will because of it. Besides that, demon lolis give him cheap magical power ups without having to train. Bad guys set fire in a forest exactly when Rudy is about to set it on fire, so he won’t actually have to do an evil act. Aristocrats are conveniently revealed to be otakus who help Rudy out without him having to first earn their trust. People appear in front of Rudy exactly when he was talking about them, just so the plot can continue immediately after an infodump. Gods return Rudy to life after they kill him without him doing something for earning his resurrection. It all feels cheap, lazy, and contrived. You never feel there is tension because of the convenient way everything plays out. Not even when the protagonist’s party gets defeated and he is seemingly killed. Why would you think he will stay dead when he had just infodumped a lot of stuff that haven’t happened yet?

Along with all that, the pervy antiques of the protagonist did not go away and in many ways became far worse. He clearly does not want to stop being a pedo and there is no redemption story in sight. There won’t be one either, as confirmed by the author himself. Heck, his own family tells him he hasn’t changed one bit at one point. He is never punished for his behavior and is given no reason to change. And no, light scolding and comical slaps don’t count as punishment. Neither does his imprisonment at the beastmen village, since he was wrongfully accused.

The isekai world he ended up in is sexually objectifying and taking advantage of women at every chance it gets without repercussions for the men. I mean, how can I overlook the fact that a maid got raped by a cheating husband and the outcome had the husband scoring a second wife? Or omitted details, such as the nymphomaniac she-elf who was cursed by men to be like that? Or that the almost naked chick that follows the pedo protagonist’s father is slutting herself so men will continue to treat her like a slut after she got raped by them? And before some smartass points out how it is exactly what was going on in the dark ages, I will remind him that this show is full of powerful female adventurers therefore it gives them privileges whenever it suits its videogame aesthetics.

The show even has the nerve to treat such touchy subjects like a joke and thus ruins its theme exploration. For an anime that many like for its world building or attention to detail when it comes to slice of life, it breaks immersion whenever it reminds you it’s a silly anime that expects you to treat sexual exploitation as comedy. Also, let’s not pretend that the camera does not zoom on the crotch of underage girls or doesn’t use hentai camera shots for the sake of pleasing the degenerates.

Mushoku also fails to have compelling villains, since they are all sadistic pedo rapists. In practice they are even sleazier versions of the protagonist, and made to come off as one-dimensionally evil so Rudy will seem better by comparison. They have no redeeming qualities and you just expect him to kick their asses so he will come off as a hero. Without any grey zone, the cast becomes flat and artificial.

I kept the worst for last (and it also happens at the very end). The last episode is the worst in the whole series thus far, by using really dumb excuses for why the UNDERAGE redhead girl wanted to have sex with her 12 YEAR OLD COUSIN. And of course the pedo protagonist did not show his maturity by refusing her moves either. There was absolutely no need for that sex scene to happen other than pleasing the sickos watching this crap. And then, as if throwing insult to injury, the redhead abandons him for the sole purpose of Rudy not having a steady relationship for the rest of the story and thus leaving him free to sleep around with more children. Completely deplorable.

So yeah, whatever good impressions the first cour had left me with (not many) were completely trashed here. I know most in the community love this horrible show, because they see it as escapism fantasy. Who wouldn’t want to molest children without getting punished and getting convenient power ups and magical resurrections with zero repercussions? I don’t watch anime for that, therefore Mushoku Tensei is officially another cancer of modern anime.

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to another season of Ugly Bastard's Bizarre Adventures! Where a NEET and perverted main character is in a body of a 12-year-old boy.

Mushoku Tensei is probably one of the anticipated anime from the fans who watched the first season and the fans who read the novel, written by some helmet guy who has fetishes in his story. Tbh the first season was like an ecchi adventure that somewhat has a fine story (even it was sometimes boring though), but this one? This season I consider being one of the lowest isekai. I never usually write reviews for the show I really ... like but this one's bugging me why this show a highly rated. Is this show is for cultured people?

Story:
The story was after the mana calamity, Rudy, Eris, and the bald guy created a party in which they tried to go back home from the demon continent. Well, as for the other viewers who said that the world-building is a masterpiece, for me it's still not. It's just like a medieval Europe in a fantasy world so nothing new here. We saw new characters that are just forgettable. Beast men here, fox ladies there and it was quite generic like in other fantasy animes. I noticed some ass-pulls from the show like Rudy was given a magical eye from a stripper who flashed her panties in front of Rudy, just because he gave her food (Rudy is still a perverted af). Food for a magic eye. Sound dumb, right? As for one of the ass-pulls, the god who reincarnated and guide him through his journey, that an one big deus ex machina. If Rudy is in grave danger, the tables will suddenly just turn. Rudy became an overpowered MC because not only he has a god on his side, he had a strong lady and a powerful bald guy. One of them encountered was a prince that has fetishes on Roxy. I mean, what? The prince kidnapped the maid and Rudy just because of his fetishes? And the part when many audiences were overreacting over one guy that might be one of the antagonists in the story. They just introduced that guy and the whole audience clamored that this show is a masterpiece. Nah... It looked like just Demon Slayer ep 19 where nothing to be hyped about. And btw, this show has an incest moment. Rudy is the cousin of Eris but they engaged in sexual intercourse. Grown-up Rudy didn't want to take advantage of her, but in the end, he did.


Character: We all know that Rudy is a grown man that was reincarnated in another world inside a child's body. The first season's events were kinda childish but after the mana calamity, his character development was somewhat moved forward. But, heck... in every event in the second part, his character development took backward like wtf. He saved helpless people in many towns and somewhat became a hero, but his problems as a human being were never addressed. It seems that his act of kindness and heroic deeds are just a bad excuse for his character development. He's still a pervert af. I mean he is a grown man but in a child's body so he should have mature thinking. I don't know what his actual resolve is because he constantly repeating his mistakes and he didn't learn from them. Again, he is a 34-year-old grown-up man. The difference between his past life and the current one is Rudy wasn't a NEET anymore but with bad habits. As for the other characters, Eris became a waifu bait, Roxy is a lolicon, Ruijerd was like a walking statue, and Paul was a jack-ass character and he sucked.

Art/Sound: The art isn't like the others said. The art is blurry, not eye-catching, and somewhat generic. It seemed that it is fine art for the story but 'amazing' like what they said. If the angle is far from the characters, they looked like ass. The production and the budget seemed low for this anime. The music is annoying. The OP and ED feel off and don't have a heart. It sounded like humming all over again and the background music is generic like you can hear in some other fantasy animes. Boring, no emotions, and no identity at all.

Overall:
This anime might be watchable for fans who love isekai. You can love it for the subjective elements, or hate it because of the incestuous element of the show, and the sexual assaults of the pathetic main character. This show can be beautiful if the author removes all of those flaws but instead, he wrote it as fanservice that the story can be inappropriate. If you remove all the objective flaws in the story, you may think this is a perfect isekai anime. It's your choice to decide whether you will watch it or not. But overall, this show is utterly overwhelming.

Mushoku Tensei is the promise of isekai fulfilled.

The idea of getting a second chance at life in a different world has been often explored, but rarely executed well. Usually isekai devolves into wish-fulfilment power fantasies with harem scenarios and fan-service. It’s not often that we get a genuinely fantastical tale of magic and wonder, so when Mushoku came along and delivered those it was an instant hit, and for good reason.

Part 1 of Mushoku Tensei gave us a small glimpse into an extremely rich and diverse world full of lore and unique characters. The animation, art and direction were among the best in years. ... You’ll be elated to learn that things have only got better in the second part of the anime. The advantage of having a studio founded purely to make one anime is that every episode will feel cinematic and have feature length film quality. From episodes 1-12, you would have no problem losing yourself in this rich world, the story flows together in such a way that it keeps you coming back. The stakes and drama were increased from part 1, adding a lot of emotional moments and satisfying pay offs in this second cour. By the end of the season, it feels like we’re still only scratching the surface of Rudeus’ story, because we are. There’s so much more to come from this franchise and I could not be happier that a studio of such talented people is working on it.

Some people will have complaints of certain aspects of Mushoku’s story, particularly the sexual scenes. I think those people are being wilfully obtuse. Sex is a natural part of life, and artists incorporating it into their stories does not make them sickos or “weird” Yes, Rudeus was originally a 30 year old male, but he has been reincarnated as a child and is now going through physical puberty in this world. Him developing an intimate relationship with another person of his age group is anything but pedophilia.

As a Light Novel reader, I believe the studio did an awesome job with pacing and were very faithful to the LNs in the second cour. In fact, Mushoku is one of the rare cases where the studio actually elevates the source material. A testament to the care and love that went into making this anime.

Mushoku Tensei’s second cour shows exactly what isekai can be when all the nonsense is cut out. I don’t say that to bash isekai or isekai authors. I love isekai, it’s my favourite genre in fact. However, I would be lying if I said that many aspects of the genre weren’t overdone to death. MT is a breath of fresh air and encapsulates to the sheer wonder of a fantasy world. From the OST to the rich LOTR-esque lore, this is a magical experience that I am glad I get to be apart of.

Mushoku Tensei second season gets 10 Roxy statues out of 10.

Creating a redemption story about a pedophile of all things is some of the worst writing I have ever seen. No matter where you go, everyone, including the big Anime YouTubers, refuse to address the elephant in the room when it comes to this series: pedophilia. In fact, many viewers embrace it. I do respect the passion that went into the production quality, but this sickly degenerate and disgusting series has too many flaws and not much going for it if you can see past the fan service and animation. Not only that, the fan service brings out the worst in the viewers as the ... discussions I try to have become too disgusting to take seriously.

Often, people say this has great world building. How? Texhnolyze is an example of amazing world building. The viewers know what to expect, what kind of people they'd meet, and how to survive in the worlds of that series. They become knowledgeable of the inner workings and politics. If the viewer was there, they'd know what to do, what not to do, and where to go, where not to go. The amazing and memorable art gives the viewers a sort of mental map of the city. I can give endless examples of world building in Texhnolyze. What about Mushoku Tensei? Besides the constant boring and aimless walking through pretty backgrounds, maybe I can run into a demon girl who will rip my eye out and give me a demon one. Or, I might walk into a monster orgy. There was so much potential in world building here, but hardly any at all is explored. Likewise, the magic system is barely touched upon. The writing of this series is blinded by how perverted it is.

This all ties into one of it's major flaws: It focuses too much on the fan service and abandons more important parts of the series that should have been developed instead.

Some say Rudeus is one of the best protagonists in all of anime. How? He hasn't grown at all and there isn't much to him besides being a former useless and deplorable neet. He is a strong mage because he just is? Just when you think he is turning over a new leaf it turns out to no one's surprise he is still the same. He is still sexually assaulting little girls, and the staff disgustingly felt the need to add in even more anime only content to show more of his degeneracy. In part 1, Rudeus was seen to be yet another cowardly written protagonist that doesn't know how to get his hands dirty when needed, and he is so naïve about fighting back it gets characters killed. Ruijerd was right about taking out the animal abusers. There's no place for pacifism when it comes to reality. A sadistic villain with no conscious, whether it's a person or a government, wouldn't even know what it is, anyways. In season 2 he hasn't grown much at all from this. It doesn't help that his father is a worthless alcoholic and womanizer.

To partly salvage this series, the production value is incredible. The opening songs change and pour out more scenes rather than having a constant opening. The animation can be beautiful and the music decent. You can see the passion the staff put into that, but animation doesn't write a good story. This is something that seems very difficult to understand. Mushoku Tensei goes down the similar path of Vivy Flourite Eye's song: A series that had everything it needed to be a classic but failed in the writing department. This happens all too much.

Character wise, Eris became that obnoxious obligatory tsundere that decreased season 1's quality until they finally fixed her character and made her much more likeable. In season 2, she essentially becomes Rudeus' personal guard dog that constantly barks for him. Sylphiette had potential to be an amazing character but got the Milize from 86 treatment and got shafted into the void 99% of the time. Most of the characters didn't have much going for them, were there only to be useless and hollow pieces of fan service, and overall not that memorable. Roxy is one of the few characters I've enjoyed since her story is among the better ones, but she rarely appears.

The only character that I grew to love and appreciate is Ruijerd. He is the voice of reason among the foolishness of Rudeus and the others. He is the strong protector and wise teacher of his comrades. He is highly respectable and a great man. Sadly, the source material readers felt many of the time that too much of him was cut out for the adaptation. I get not everything can be adapted, but at least he still came off as a great character with what the series showed.

The CGI God is always amusing with his odd personality, but there really isn't much to say about him besides that he is Rudeus' plot cheat machine.

Then there's the constant 10/10 best Isekai ever talk; an assumption that is an insult to anime. Saying this is the best isekai ever is nonsensical because the ones saying that have not watched every isekai, let alone any anime before the year 2000, and considering it's a genre littered with terrible media, it's honestly not saying much anyways.

Sadly, part 2 is awful for all the same reasons part 1 is. Nothing changed or got better besides prettier animation to gloss over this corpse of a series.

Mushoku Tensei has become my most favorite isekai to watch ever since Winter came along. Keep in mind, I went in blind without knowing of the PV, news, or anything that spoils details of the original light novel. Part 1 was phenomenally great, I watched back the series a couple of times without getting tired of it. And when Part 2 came, it became greater. Never has an isekai had me rooting for the cast and reeled me into the fantastic world of Mushoku Tensei.

Story: 9/10
The story is told from the perspective of our main character, Rudeus. This allows us to perceive the world as ... if it were to be real. For anyone who loves storytelling, you will get that with its brisk pacing, more details into the lore of Mushoku Tensei, and compelling writing.

Art: 10/10
It's absolutely gorgeous, the characters may look simple and cartoonish at times, but the choreography, animation, and background art are phenomenal. I could look at it for days and never grow tired of it. As the show is also known for its questionable moments, I expected them to fully animate it and yet I have found gold. They handled the mature scenes with great care and tactfully avoid scenes that would spark controversy.

Character: 9/10
Rudeus is a very well-written character. He has the most fleshed-out details out of any cast in Mushoku Tensei thanks to the story being told through him. Not to say that the others don't have that, in fact, I adore them. Their adventures and chemistry were there.

One thing I do notice is that there are people who don't like Rudeus because of his perverted personality during its runtime. Rudeus may be a reincarnation of a guy who was previously 34 years old, but how dirty do you have to be to imagine that to happen?

Enjoyment: 10/10
The anime is simply breathtaking. Anyone who loves great characters, creative storytelling, beautiful animation, and good music should have a chance to watch this piece of art. It's not simply an isekai, it's an epic fantasy.

Mushoku Tensei is amazing but certainly is not for everybody. Having already read the light novels and web novels I am very impressed with how they are handling the adaptation and the direction in which they are taking it. Certainly, it is not perfect, but there is much to be commended.

Story: 9
The story of Mushoku Tensei is nearly perfect, as it is very interesting to see how what was a worthless piece of trash decided to live in this world and use their second chance. What I find to be great, but a little lackluster in some moments is the pacing, most of the time ... the anime makes sure to spend time fleshing out the story and events, but sometimes things that should have taken longer feel like they flash by in an instant, this isn't much of a problem though as it is only apparent in some episodes. It is really interesting to see the background of the world and how it is built, all of the issues and moral injustices that may be reflecting Rudeus' personality and acting as the catalyst for his character progression. The different situations in which Rudeus finds himself are all relevant to his character growth and they all cause some sort of conflict (either internal or external) which is great to see. The comedy is also really appealing to me, and I find myself audibly laughing to most of the jokes or out of pure excitement of what has been created, something I really rarely do otherwise. What makes this even better, is how suddenly the mood shifts, contrasting the much more positive outlook Rudeus has on this world than it actually is.

Art: 10
The art is phenomenal, no complaints there. Every single location feels alive, and the character designs are also slowly progressing to look older, a really great detail. The art greatly accentuates the awesome worldbuilding in Mushoku Tensei and makes it much more interesting to see. The fight scenes are fluid and pleasing and are usually well choreographed. I personally like seeing the different fighting styles of the different types of swordsmen and how they overcome their opponents.

Sound: 10
Everything about the sound in this anime is great, the OST is really good and it makes for a great viewing experience. Usually I skip both the beginning and end of most of the stuff I watch, but for Mushoku Tensei I watch the whole thing through which says a lot.

Character: 10
Each character in MT is unique and entertaining to unravel and observe, the progression of the characters also makes perfect sense and does not pose any problems. Rudeus is most interesting to watch as he slowly grows and begins to develop throughout the series, beginning to understand that this is a real world in which he lives with real people, not just NPC's. His actions affect those around him in negative ways, and he tries to change himself to counteract that. All of the cast of Mushoku Tensei is entertaining in my opinion, and I've grown to root for some aspects of the characters to improve, which makes it all the better to see when they actually change in the direction which I want them to.

Overall: 10
Mushoku Tensei is what I would consider being perhaps the best Isekai, but it is certainly not for those who are looking for something lighthearted or even looking for the main character to be the epitome of perfection. It starts off rough, but slowly you grow to appreciate parts of it as it grows into something more complex. The art is spectacular and there are no moments of awful CGI that will ruin scenes. The sound is perfect, and fits the anime really well. And if you enjoyed Season 1, then I am sure you will find Season 2 even more enjoyable.

(Spoiler-Free)

Mushoku Tensei is a modern classic. If you like stunning visuals, powerful soundtracks, fantastic character development, and unmatched worldbuilding, Mushuko Tensei is for you.

Note: Mushoku Tensei has mature content and themes which some watchers may dislike, but add substantial meaning to the story in perspective of its world and character development.

Mushoku Tensei is essentially "Redemption Arc: The Anime" with a lot of quality exposition and accompanying art.

At first glance, you may find Mushoku Tensei's plot similar to many modern anime: where the main character is reincarnated, but don't let this stray you away. The source material Mushoku Tensei is adapted from is heralded as one ... of the most influential of its genre and has this status for good reason. In Mushoku Tensei, you follow the hardships and growth of an irredeemable character into a respectable and mature one. This story format lends itself to sensical worldbuilding; your understanding of the world grows as the main character, Rudeus' understanding of it does. You're left shocked, overjoyed, and heartsick at the same things Rudy is. Having Rudy restart as a child gives the character the ability to grow emotionally and build relationships much more naturally, resulting in an overall greater attachment to the characters and the beautiful world they inhabit.

The soundtracks and sound effects of Mushoku Tensei are incredible. Namely voiced by the talented Yuiko Ohara, the opening and ending tracks are powerful yet supple, and the openings are seamlessly incorporated into the anime, unlike any other show, creating a meaningful relationship between the world and the opening themes. The background music brings the immersiveness of the show to the next level. The period-specific instruments make you feel like you're right there with Rudy on a fantasy adventure. Just the same, the sound effects bring life to the world of Mushoku Tensei: the carefully designed sloshing of water magic, the sparkling tones of explosions, or the whistling of a fantastical creature flying far above.

Mushoku Tensei's characters are easily distinguishable and each have unique flaws and graces. Rudeus is the most flawed of the cast; to put it bluntly: you won't like Rudeus at the beginning of the story as he is initially extremely perverted. However, despite what you'd think, Rudy's flaws are one of the show's best characteristics, because, as I stated earlier, the story's main focus is on Rudy's growth. Each female main character has a unique personality and appeal but is still relevant when it comes to the plot, unlike many similar shows. The unique artistic design and well-developed personality of each character make Mushoku Tensei's cast unforgettable.

The art and animation of Mushoku Tensei are, in a word, incredible. From the graceful flow of water magic and sparkle-filled explosions to the carefully choreographed character movement, whether that be in fight scenes or in impressively expressive body language, this show's utterly delectable visuals fill this world with character and marvelously convey the ambiance of each scene.

My enjoyment of Mushoku Tensei comes from a combination of the attributes listed above and many more which would turn this review into an endless rant. I rarely give 10/10s, especially across the board, but Mushoku Tensei is truly outstanding in every sense of the word! I can proudly say that Mushoku Tensei is on my "favorite anime of all time" list, and if you watch, you might just find this breathtaking show on yours as well :)