Back in 2021 I posted this review of Mushoku Tensei. To this day it is by far my most viewed post on the website and I still do not understand why, but that’s okay. What I do understand is that even five years and several seasons later, Mushoku Tensei is doing really well and is very popular. On anime-planet the show currently has 4.5 out of 5 stars which is a very good score. And I will admit I’ve been keeping up with the show all this time, enjoying a good chunk of it. The worldbuilding of this show is very solid, I’ve said that at the start and I still agree with that. But there’s a glaring problem that needs to be addressed.

Rudeus Greyrat – the main character of Mushoku Tensei – is a pedophile and a groomer. We knew this back in season 1, but there were quite a few fans of the original light novel that came out of their basements to defend the series, saying that Rudeus is supposed to be a shitty person at the start and will grow as the series continues. At the end of season 1 I recommended people to watch this show, as I thought the good outweighed the bad. That last part also took into account the potential of the character of Rudeus. His actions also hadn’t gotten nearly as bad as they have now, and that’s impressive considering I was already grossed out by stuff in season 1. Let’s go over what we’ve had happen in this season’s first four episodes.

Last season, Rudeus had a child with his childhood (using that term loosely) crush Sylphiette. Sylphie is a minor, and there are definitely some moral issues with their relationship, but one could argue – I sure wouldn’t – that Rudeus is in the body of a teenager so he counts as one. The issue I have with that logic is that Rudeus does not see anything wrong with his actions, nor does the author. If we look for a comparable situation, we can point at Arthur from The Beginning after the end. Arthur lived a full life as a king and was then reincarnated as a baby in a new world. Arthur rather quickly found a close friendship with an elven princess and she clearly has a massive crush on him. Different from Rudeus, Arthur pushes most female advances away due to still feeling like an adult mentally. Of course he gets flustered at times and doesn’t always know how to handle the situations he gets into, especially with how popular he is with women, and how he doesn’t feel like he belongs with girls his age, but also not with older women. No matter what conclusion he ends up making – and I wouldn’t be surprised if he does end up with Tessia in the long run – at the very least he’s put a lot of thought into it, is aware of the moral implications of his actions and doesn’t start having sex with random children just because he is in the body of a child.

Rudeus on the other hand has no such restrictions. He doesn’t even seem to have a moral compass when it comes to sexual acts. He is in an active relationship with Sylphie – a minor – while also pursuing an active relationship with Roxy – a woman who looks like a child and was his teacher when Rudeus was still a young child. This second situation somehow feels like grooming in both directions which has to be something unique to this anime. And while all of this is going on, Eris is training to become strong enough to fight alongside Rudeus, considering him to be hers already. Now, neither Eris or Rudeus communicated their feelings well to the other, but Eris is a literal child and Rudeus is a grown man, having lived for over 50 years at this point. It also doesn’t help the show that one of the side plots is about an elven woman who is cursed to be horny all the time and she is also marrying a teenager. It’s not a moral quandary that the author is trying to figure out through his writing, it’s pedophilia and it’s not even hidden all that well.

I am not a big fan of dropping shows. I blame the autism for that, but when I start something I really want to finish it or it’ll kind of irritate me. I regularly come back to my list of dropped anime and see if there’s something I can stomach enough to finish. Not exactly healthy behavior, but what can you do? Despite my dislike for dropping series, Mushoku Tensei is firmly going into the dropped pile. If Rudeus had shown even the smallest amount of growth as a character I would have loved to continue watching it, but I can’t stomach the latest episodes at all. The man is happily married but still has his wife’s period stains and his girlfriend’s used underwear in a shrine hidden in the house he shares with them. There’s no excusing his behavior and even though we should absolutely separate art from the artist, I do wonder about this particular artist.
This will be the last time I’ll write about this series. To all of you who read the first post about it, thank you so much for making my blog feel more alive and seen than it otherwise would. Please check out some of my other posts too, I promise I’m usually more positive about the shows I watch. Thanks for reading!