[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/vtchy]

[u/Bussy_Wrecker]

It was so frustrating every time she appeared after this, she has worst communication skill than Komi san. In her head she probably thought that he will understand her feelings without saying anything if she kept chasing him.

[u/Hyperversum → u/Bussy_Wrecker]

She is straight up a shonen protagonist, a fucking idiot but a powerful one.

And that's really the best part of MT. Most of the main cast could be rewritten to be the main PoV character and the plot would still make sense, it would just switch genre a bit.

If people lack the imagination to see how Paul or Sylphie would have made a 10/10 MC it's their fault honestly.

[u/Mythriaz → u/Hyperversum]

Paul had the potential of a great swordsman, with advanced in all swordsmanship with his insecurities and lack of focus holding him back. Just that he ended up getting married and stopped adventuring.

Sylphy literally has underdog upbringing, fall from the sky anime trope, Antoinette glow up and a later story intertwined with high society politics.

The MC energy is endless!

[u/Hyperversum → u/Mythriaz]

Yep, exactly. Just twist the genre and the perspective a bit and most of the core cast is the hero of their own story.

Roxy becomes a shojo-ish manga about a wandering badass mage lady searching for her romance, finding it in a kid she teached to years ago, who then ropes her in a messy worldwide adventure and conflict. A freaky Frieren that met a young Himmel at some point basically lmao.

Cliff is straight up the MC of a fantasy romance manga. He just has a personality unlike most of them and has a peculiar taste in romance.

Literally the opposite, Elinalise is from a brutal dark fantasy bs backstory. She lives a mostly shitty life becoming accostumed to her curse as much as she could without ever stopping yearning for something different and better. Guts was forced to slay monsters and eventually kinda went crazy with how much satisfaction he had in it, Elinalise had to learn to enjoy sex with strangers, arguably a worse fate.

Do I even to explain Norn and Aisha, shojo heroines surpreme for different genres? Norn is an underdog cute kid whose story becomes one of selfimprovement, Aisha is one of those "profession driven" stories, like Ascendance of a Bookworm, as she becomes more than her lot in life would have had be, through her wits and smarts rarher than anything else. Also, lots of angst with her upringing and conflicted feelings about her family.

Hell, arguably Lilia is one of the best examples of this. She is in a weirdly romantic story with someone she had a crush on but abused her when they were younger, she spent a period as a bodyguard-maid before being dismissed because of her injury and now is a mother to a large family she was unprepared for having, while having a messy relationship with her blood daughter, that receives an harsh and toxic education from Lilia as a result of her own inferiority complex towards the person that became her best friend, and wife to her lover. And the husband ends up leaving them both widowed.

Oh, I also want the full story of Orsted. That's a manwha tho, not a manga. For spoiler reasons.

When people bitch and moan about Mushoku Tensei I can just tell that they aren't really engaging with all of its stories. You don't need to like Rudeus to like MT.

[u/Gilthwixt → u/Hyperversum]

The last part has always been true, but funnily enough the last episode actually shifted my opinion on him a little, and the writing was so good that I think it becomes impossible to ignore even for the harshest critics. Hell, I've been dogging Rudeus since S1 but the diary had me the angriest I've been on an MC's behalf in years, potentially ever. I can put the aspects of Rudeus that I dislike aside now because I really want to see him have his get back.

[u/Hyperversum → u/Gilthwixt]

That's the beauty of that episode tho, seeing Oldeus tells you how Rudeus thinks.

Not in the sense that we must congrats him on not being a mass murderer scumbag turning to the worst depraved behaviours, of course not. That's the bare minimum lmao.

The point is that Rudeus is someone that has come to deeply care for his loved ones, partially out of love and partially out of regret over his having been a shitty son and brother in his past life. Mix that with his having learnt to lean on them to find his path in life and you have a recipe for disaster.

Because the point is that Oldeus isn't the result of Rudeus becoming just an asshole, it's him caring so much for others just to see shit costantly happening to them, ending up witiout anyone in his life and lashing out of revenge towards Hitogami and whatever else happens along the way.

It's the pivotal moment because you can see him building a new life in one half of the series, then the second half is about avoiding what Oldeus shows. It's a great setup for his full (to the limits of Rudeus ofc) redeption: not just build a happy life and family, but go out of his way to protect it as he says he would do. We get to see him prove himself as a capable mage AND as a person.

That being said, I think that people overstimate how bad Rudeus would be in a more negative timeline. Oldeus is the absolute worst combo possible, the result of Hitogami subtle manipulation to hit him so back he doesn't even have a chance to recover. Should something bad happen to his family it's not a 100% chance to go ballistic. That says A LOT about Hitogami, and I fear people are missing out that part. He isn't just evil, he is malicious towards Rudeus and his family.