I have been a fan of the Isekai genre for quite a while. This isn’t a surprise to anyone who reads my blog regularly as one of the big stories I’m writing is based on the genre. A few years ago, we watched the first season of Mushoku Tensei with the promise that the studio behind it was going to adapt the entire story. It was a redemption story of a socially awkward man who got a second chance at life, although even in this new life things wouldn’t be going all that great at all times. Many of the fans of the novels were quite clear about the growth that Rudeus – the main character of this story – would show throughout the seasons. In some aspects, this definitely happened, but there were other aspects of his personality that didn’t show nearly as much growth. I know it’s obvious, but spoilers for both Mushoku Tensei and The Beginning after the End are coming up.
Throughout his time in the story, Rudeus becomes friends with several women. And when I say women, I mean children. Little girls who are mentally still teenagers at best and Rudeus is the mind of a grown man in a boy’s body. I’ve talked about this show before and I mentioned that I believed that this discrepancy between a body and a mind could be addressed in a good way. Instead we have Rudeus having sex with all those children, and the one adult he picks out looks like a little girl as well. At that point it’s no longer an age specific thing, it’s got another name to it and we all know it. If Rudeus showed any remorse or at least doubt about these things, it would have been a more interesting story, but that’s not the case. At the time of writing my opinions, I didn’t really have another example of this kind of thing done well, since it was relatively rare.
But that has changed since I read the first couple of chapters of Tbate recently while waiting for dinner with my coworkers. It was a nice day out so I found a bench in the sun and did some reading since there wasn’t enough time between work and the dinner to get home and back and also spend some time at home, so bench was my friend. I quickly got hooked on the story and before I knew it I read the entire thing within the span of a week. And in Tbate’s Arthur Leywin I finally have a character that has been put in a similar situation to Rudeus, but handles the situation much better.
Arthur was a king in his previous life and lived a difficult life, not really gathering many loved ones around him as he ruled his kingdom. He now has another chance to get a family, fall in love and do all those things, as well as some crazy powers that make him a one of a kind powerhouse. Arthur is charismatic, kind and all around a good guy, which admittedly makes him a very different protagonist from Rudeus. But he also has to deal with the strange problem of growing up with girls that are physically the same age as him, but mentally much younger. He makes the decision to not start any relationships with these girls. Not just because it would be weird, but also because he doesn’t feel that sort of attraction to children. What’s interesting is that in his internal monologue we hear that he has a similar disinterest in older women, who would have matched his age in the old world. We get a much more complex look at this dilemma as Art expresses the different emotions he goes through.
What complicates it even more is that – as of current day webcomic – he definitely seems to be getting some feelings for one of the other characters, namely the elven princess Tessia. They’re childhood friends, they’re both very powerful and have been close for almost their entire lives (at least Arthur’s life in this world). She’s kissed him at some point and even though he rejected her after, it does feel like those budding feelings are there. For reference, both of them are now in their mid-teens which still makes them children, but Art’s body has gone through puberty by now, which likely changes the way he feels about things. Yet he still does not act upon this feeling, understanding that it would be a complicated relationship, which makes him doubt it.
What I’m trying to point out with this comparison is that even though these characters may experience the story through their own body and growing up in it, we as readers as well as the author are looking at it from an outsider’s perspective. A character can do some very questionable things since this is a fictional story and sometimes people do bad or at least morally questionable things in stories. But we should not represent these actions as positively as happens in Mushoku Tensei. With Arthur being on the other end of this spectrum of character, we get someone who handles the situation well, so we don’t need to have the author actively telling us that their actions are bad, since they’re not. It allows for more nuance, a better story and even a proper romance in the long run, when Arthur’s an adult and his future partner knows his background and isn’t deterred by this. But that’s my opinion. This is probably the last time I’ll be writing about Mushoku Tensei, but knowing me I probably said that last time as well. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 