Here we go again. Another damn isekai. Why am I still doing this? Really, why?

Well, the anime industry seems to be in a really long and seemingly perpetuous muddy realm. The hyped fighting shounens are damn boring and unexpressive, offering tiresome jokes, annoying characters, and rarely even being able to put some decent action. The mecha genre has been officially dead for a decade. The high-school love-coms have been plagued by the dick protagonist and ruined from the very beginning. Oh, and the high fantasy shows continue to be as pathetic as they’ve always been.

So, here we are, once again resorting to a generic isekai, which seems to be the only place where RARELY something new and interesting comes to play. Yet, the formula is long past its due. It’s a decomposing corpse, but it seems it is the best-looking one in the pile of death that has become the anime industry.

Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu (Mushoku Tensei), which seems like a short title for these days standards, is the new hype of the sub-genre that has eaten every other genre alive. It got hyped for some form of redeeming arc for a disgusting protagonist as well as being a well-produced effort from the guys behind Studio Bind. These are both valid, but only to a point.

The tale surrounds yet another failed japanese citizen, the typical person who never had a social life, was a shut-in that hated people, and so on. This guy is a notch above the failed japanese people from other isekais though, he is seemingly a porn-addicted virgin whose only non-selfish act was trying to save a few students from a runaway truck, which is what prompts his death and resurrection in another world.

We’ve seen it before

In a way, Mushoku Tensei traces back to an earlier isekai that was… really good, which is Tanya. In that tale, the revived japanese retained part of his intellect when he reincarnated in the little evil loli that would rise in the ranks of nazi-inspired Germany to prove that god was a dick. Here, the failed citizen reincarnates as Rudeus with all his memory of his previous life. Yeah, a forty-years old man in the body of a baby.

From here on starts a few threads where the protagonist tries to understand if this is some sort of redemption run for him or not. His older mind makes him a creepy child, for sure, and one that seems to grasp concepts such as magic much earlier than what is typically normal, thus making him rise in the ranks of society before even getting into his teens.

He is a ridiculous dick though

No surprises here. The pervert he was in his previous life remains no matter how much the show tries to push this superficial “redemption arc”, blooming even as pedophilia as he nows interact with young girls too. He assaults women, he steals underwear, he stares at boobs, he is the same pedo guy, just in the body of a child this time around.

That would be ok if he slowly learned to behave himself or if he was punished for those awful behaviors, but nope. Cheer creepy otakus around, Rudeus is immune to any form of punishment for being a dick, a pervert, and a rapist. He gets a tsundere slap here and there, asks for forgiveness a minute later and gets out with it, or simply continues his behavior because the victim seems to… enjoy it? Heck.

What is even worse is that his behavior is normalized across this fantasy world. Basically every male adult he meets is a sexual predator, like his father is, and gets away with being a dick, a cheater, and a pervert by simple excuses such as “oh, he is charming”. It’s quite disturbing at many points, which completely derails the original premise of having our protagonist seek redemption in his new life. It seems assaulting women is as normal or even more accepted in this new world than in ours.

It gets almost everything else right though

Well, despite the dick-protagonist template being a massive issue for the show, almost every other aspect tackled by Mushoku Tensei is quite… great. It starts with this high fantasy world that is smoothly introduced to us by exploring the details of daily life instead of trying to give us a broad view of everything. There’s no save the world shit, no immediate villain introduced, no gods, demon lords, or other trash that typically spoil the fun of high fantasy tales and similar isekais.

Mushoku Tensei approaches things with a decent care, restricting its narrative to the surroundings of Rudeus and making us learn more about the world along with the protagonist, something that seems basic, but is incredibly rare in this kind of work. This exploration aspect is further enhanced by the show’s great artwork quality, animation, and sound direction. It’s a solid package that manages to beat any issue stemming from the dere’s templates that dominate the girls that surround our little ravisher protagonist.

And it gets interesting

Well, I cannot say that Rudeus never really learns, because there is a somewhat reduced amount of dick moves as the episodes go on. It’s good for that to happen, although his behavior changes for random reasons instead of being a reaction to reproval or punishment. By the end of this season, the young Rudeus seems a more vivid character than at the start, and his quest shifts quite drastically from the daily life typicalities to an adventure that borders the annoying MMO-inspired quests. From there on it can either get really good or become just another generic isekai to the bones.

Mushoku Tensei is a… good isekai. Especially considering the male protagonist, which is typically something that completely ruins any experience of this genre. It gets close here, with these absurd actions never suffering real consequences and the failed japanese citizen template breaking the limits of what I can tolerate.

The presentation of this medieval fantasy world, however, is what made me stay. It’s charming, low-profile, and surprisingly detailed. You get this point of view of a typical family from the start and it sticks true to this idea for a solid amount of time, and even when it veers towards the high-profile important people, it does so by keeping us in the dark, as is the protagonist.

If typical high fantasy shows become eye-rolling from the start when they present their godly beings, evil demon lords, and bland warfare, Mushoku Tensei does the smart thing and gives us a much more tangible and charming medieval world. It’s still plagued by lolis, nekomimis, and the protagonist nearly ruins everything, but it gets above the traditionally shitty bar that has been set by other isekais.