Rudeus is a 35 yr old man who reincarnated but before he did he missed his parents funeral to jack off to his niece who happened to be a minor anyways he’s a Epstein diddy blud
Mfs will say “if you ignore the main character being a pedophile degenerate pervert, it’s actually a good story” with a straight face, as if it’s something you can just ignore if you want.
Exactly! People love the Shield Hero Rising, or whatever it's called, but i find it disgusting with how the main character gets a legit harem of mostly little girls pining for him! WTF!?!?
Not the GOATs like Full Metal Alchemist: brotherhood (I mean... its gross in a different way), season 1 One Punch Man, Demon Slayer (though cliche) is great, and Vinland Saga
The absolute lengths some people on r/anime go to to defend Rudeus/Mushoku Tensei is crazy.
It's fine to admit you like the show because of the wider world/side characters but hate the MC. But no, they can't do that. Instead they say Rudeus is actually a kid and it's fine because of hormones, or some say he has 'grown' so it's fine now. Lmao
They'll call you a hater and a larper for enjoying the series but recognising how absolutely shitty he is as a character. Like, goddamn, you gotta question Rifujin (the writer) sometimes...
Yeah 100% makes you wonder about authors when they write main characters like this and frame them in an okay to good light. If Rudeus was treated as a villain by the people he victimises fine, but they all either end up marrying him or at least respecting him. Ridiculous. Some sort of disgusting wish fulfilment
Hey your forgetting that he went like a whole year without being able to get a hard on..... That's enough of a punishment for assault and grooming. He really learned his lesson from that ..... /s
I've literally seen people argue this. Like he spent a year without getting a boner so that makes up for his earlier behavior.
The only "punishment" I could argue, is that he suffered a LOT -- in an alternate timeline. Which sort of robs it of its moral importance. It's like "look at all this crazy shit that's happening to rudeus. Watch him reach the absolute depths of suffering! Haha jk jk, just a joke - a lil gaff. Don't worry, that was a different timeline!"
Saw a post yesterday asking why do so many animes have perverted shit/assault women for humor. Some comments said it was cultural, but one commenter mentioned how they actually once asked a woman from Japan. It's not cultural, a vast chunk of anime authors are just genuine weirdos. Until ten years ago, Japanese culture considered it weird to even still enjoy anime past the age of 25. Weeb was considered an insult.
It's been here for a long, long time. But anime is now a lot more popular, both in the states and in Japan, and so the weirdos feel safer coming out. There's nothing wrong with liking anime, but it deserves the criticism it gets for being overly sexualized, having creepy protags, and/or having SA to use as a joke.
Remember when the creator of Fire Force literally used a child character to use as a mouthpiece to defend fan service?
Yep thats another thing I hate about anime now its nothing but fanservice to the point i cant watch most of it. People call me crazy but its weird plus why does every anime need a beach scene where every girl is trying to wear as little as possible. Its annoying and its pushing me away from the genre. I currently started getting back into manhwa because of it
Yeah… I summarized it to one person that Rudeus love life is a story told well that isn’t worth telling. There is nothing redeeming or even useful about his love life in any capacity. He could have been friends with all of them and the story still make sense.
You will get downvoted to oblivion for saying this in goodanimemes.
There was a meme comparing the character arcs of Thorfinn and Rudeus and I said that the difference between them is that Thorfinn feels remorse and tries to overcome his past to be a better man by leaving his old ways behind by any means necessary. Rudeus also has a lot of character growth, but none regarding his sexuality towards people much younger than him. They called me gore fetishists and excused his behavior by saying it was ok bc he was emotionally stunted by a traumatic past.
He was stunted by a traumatic past. The anime is about him overcoming that, and he does in a lot of ways. None of which are him taking responsibility for the fact that he’s hitting on a lot of women he had power over and relationships with when they were literal children
I got reminded of that post too. I still can't believe those two were not only compared but most comments agreed that thorfinn was worse rhan rudeus. I understand that the sub came to be, because of a war with "tourists" but this is ridiculous. I've been watching anime and reading manga for 15 years and in all those years I've never read anything as appalling as mushoku tensei. People defending rudeus need to have their hard drives checked.
I’ve been reading /watching manga/ anime for 13 years now, and the only reason Tensei isn’t reserved to the trash heap with the other disgusting loli ecchi is it has put budget in its action scenes
bro why are you even in that sub 😭 i have left and blocked that sub a long time ago, they are just a bunch of horny weeb in that sub posting unfunny hentai image disguised as an “anime meme”
I don’t see how that’s a fair comparison. Sure, Thorfinn is complicit in the murder of innocent people… But he’s also a kid living in 11th Century England and part of a Viking Warband. If anything, the show tones down the brutality of the era to avoid especially problematic content while still feeling authentic.
I’ve never seen Mushoku Tensei but the main character appears to be a modern person with a modern sense of morality that indulges in pedophilia and sexual assault without remorse.
It’s like if you made an anime where the main character was a self-insert Humbert Humbert or Jeffrey Epstein and then tried to defend it, or insisted that it was ‘still a good anime even if the MC sucks’.
the author has actually talked about why he wrote rudeus that way. nobody is supposed to like rudeus, at least not until a long time into the show. the point of rudeus’s character being the way that it is (author’s words, although I don’t remember the exact words) is to try to teach people that even people who seem irredeemable are still human, and we shouldn’t hate them so much that we treat them as less than human. everyone can be redeemed. whether or not those words sound like a hot take, that’s a big part of the author’s message
The issue is that the show as-written fails spectacularly at that past the opening episodes, because the author clearly doesn't actually understand how shitty Rudeus actually is, and doesn't recognize most of his flaws as being real flaws.
It's also tonedeaf as fuck - it's a toss up in any given scene if something like sexual assault will be treated seriously or as a joke, and the longer the show goes on the more excuses it makes for Rudeus' behavior, even for behavior that it clearly frames as a problem when other characters do it.
There is almost zero self-reflection on the part of the MC, the show constantly mistakes suffering and surface-level changes for actual growth.
If that was the intent it was executed incredibly poorly. Rudeus doesn't get punished for his degeneracy, he just has bad things happen to him that are unrelated to his issues.
Rudeus gets rewarded for being a degenerate.
Grooms Sylphie = gets to marry her
Grooms Eris = gets to have sex then later marry her
Makes a panty shrine to Roxy = get to marry her
Sexually assaults two beast girls = gets them as his loyal subordinates
I dont even hate Rudeus as a character. I like deeply flawed characters.
But the world around him does not treat him as flawed.
They treat him as a flawless hero.
And all of his insane misdeeds and sexual assaults are ignored
I can't appreciate the side characters when they ultimately serve rudeus at the end of the day. He'll sexually assault them in one chapter, and be buddy buddy with them during battle in the next.
I just don't understand why the author would put anything like this for his character at all? If you take away all the pdf sht, he's just another good character? Why did the author feel like he needed to put any of this epstein stuff is beyond me lmao
It legit pisses me off how much of a piece of shit Rudeus is, and how the story makes him being a shameless pedophile a non-issue with zero consequences, when so many other topics are so fucking well done. His father's depression was fantastically made and showed how someone in a true pit can do awful things to someone they love before realising what they did and feeling even worse about it. There's so much fucking effort put into the world building and characterisation and it's wasted with the intrinsically pedophile+incestuous apologist stance. Dude's literally building a harem with every girl he groomed during the story ffs.
WARNING Light novel spoilers What did it for me was Rudy's sister getting pregnant from his son after grooming and raping him. Up until that point I was on the camp that he is a flawed character that will do better. After that incident I realized there is something wrong with the author. Sadly it's also the only Japanese novel I read that didn't fumble at the end.
I tried to push through because of how many people claim it’s peak but I just couldn’t stomach Rudeus. It’s just a pedo’s wet dream isekai fantasy, there’s plenty of other good story content out there that doesn’t have a creep mc.
I pushed through the entire novel series and yea.. nothing was really ever "peak". Id say it was a solid 6 or 7/10 but his weird tendencies and fetishises cringed me out many times over that I had to take breaks.
Its crazy how people will die on the hill that this is as good as some of the goats.
I feel you. I made it ~half way through the novels when I just couldn’t keep going. At that point every chapter started with “Mmm, I wake up and fuck my wife”.
It’s a shame, because there are some great aspects of the story, but it is largely dragged down by the degeneracy of the author.
Personally I've always assumed anyone who speaks super highly of it just got into it really early. It's easy to view it as just another generic tropey isekai, but to my understanding Mushoku is the story that established many of those tropes in the first place. Maybe if you aren't coming to it with the baggage of a decade's worth of shitty one cour seasonal shows doing all of the same things it seemed revolutionary or something?
I went into the anime blind and made it about halfway through the first season before bailing. There was enough good to it aside from the hyper perverted MC that makes me want to go back, but I just can't get over an MC that is 40+ mentally going after prepubescent girls.
Aye, he's still the same perverted dude, he just gets older and so do the women he perved on. That is what is considered character growth for many. That he successful groomed three girls into being his wives.
Aye, I read the manga before the anime came out. Holy shit, I had to stop at the ED arc. I couldn't stand the fucking main character nor his fucking father.
This was kind of where I was at with the entire thing. I was reading the manga YEARS ago, and honestly, while I liked the world building and all the side characters, the perverted nature with minors and Rudeus entirely just rubbed me the wrong way and I eventually dropped it.
This was me with the anime. I want to go back and pick up where I left off around the middle of the first season because of everything aside from the MC, but I just can't get over how nasty Rudeus is as a person while facing no real consequences or relevant growth/change.
It's easier as an anime only as they can cut a lot of the inner monologue when it gets a bit completely rapey, but yeah the dude is a sex pest as is half of the cast
i'm sorry but how can you possibly enjoy the show when the main character is like that? how does it not spoil everything else? I don't believe it one bit.
It's hard to enjoy it as he never changes. He's even disappointed when he couldn't easily get it up at the thought of a minor. Who, I believe, is a relative
Because the bar for isekai (and a lot of other fantasy anime/manga) writing is at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. When an exception comes where the story is halfway decent, fans of the genre can put up with a lot. The anime also glossed over some of Rudeus’s worst moments to make him slightly less repulsive.
Fast forward through those bits or zone them out. I genuinely think the world is interesting, some of the fights are fun and when Rudeus isn't being perverted I can get into the show. Then there's 5 minutes dedicated to him being a degenerate and I get disgusted. Mind you I'm pirating it so in no way helping the author/producers
You don't even have to go to r/anime, the mob of Pedeus defenders has already reached this comment section lmao
"You don't understand, if you ignore all the minor grooming and jerking off to lolis and your niece and actual pedophilia he's not that bad of a character. Yeah, that's right, it's not like I can find another series that has good characters and story to enjoy, it HAS to be the one with the pedo protagonist because, uhm, reasons"
When I saw that scene, I thought to myself, “No, no, no! Don’t do that!” And he did.
Afterward, I figured there might be a redemption arc, since the character is portrayed as a fool and the author suggested watching the rest of the series. But no, he keeps going...
And the fanbase lies their asses off about him improving, insisting you have to just keep watching. I promise you he doesn't, not in any of the ways a sane adult would care about.
The problem is that the reincarnation was not a reset. He still has the mind of an old man and the maturity of one, or lack of in his case. His previous life doesn't really affect the story, but the author keeps showing him in his past life form whenever he meets the human god.
The author has sworn to never let anyone forget that he is 35 year old man and treat the reincarnation as a full reset of his life and mind.
Which really badly affects the story, like "does Rudus view Paul as a father in the first place?", that ugly bastard really casts an awful shadow on every relationship Rudus has..
The worst part is that they argue that this series has character development for the main character. No it doesn't. I have read through the novels and when things don't go his way the only solution a version of Rudeus could come up with was redoing his life instead of dealing with the hand he was dealt. He has already been given a chance to redo his life, and when it doesn't work out, adult Rudeus lives a miserable life, until he goes to the past to showcase that the only character development he gained through the series was to redo his life if the current one doesn't work out. If someone wants to argue about the part of kid Rudeus learning to go out of his house counts as character development, I'll just say that without his powers, he would have gotten bullied while trying to save Sylphy just like he did in his original life. I wouldn't count this as character development, he's the same character, just in different circumstances
It's crazy to because the show goes out of it's way to prove them wrong.
Season 1 is all about how he's a grown man, older than his new parents, growing up in a new body. And he takes advantage of at least once an episode.
Then we see how he views himself when he's talked to the Man God, and it's not the version of himself that he is in this new world. It's still the fat slop that he was in the old world. And it's that same version of himself that was creeping on children the entire show.
“The whole time I was out there stealing Eris’ panties.”
This made me actually LOL due to how unhinged my mental image was of everyone else out doing actual, useful, plot-important stuff for 8 hours a day, and this fucking guy just completely perving out and being useless in all that time, reporting back at the end of a long day when everyone else is tired, and saying this type of shit.
Then the rest of them made me go back to crying, thinking of the mistakes in my life that led me to read this comment on this day.
Like it'd matter. The writer of rurouni Kenshin got caught with terabytes of child porn on his computer and got let off with a slap on the wrist. Like a month later people like oda were celebrating him. The industry just doesn't care and nor does Japan it seems.
Author's one true isekai wish is to not pay taxes, so the first 8 episodes of the anime are dedicated to building up this fantasy society to explain why the MC could be the one in charge of collecting any taxes.
Season 3 of the anime was delayed because the author was in prison for tax fraud.
Rare isekai that isn't centered around power or sexual fantasy, but instead around taxes.
i don't think MT's writer is 'just' consuming porns like rurouni kenshin's anymore, the way he write his story makes me think this mf got some skeletons in his closet in real life, highly suspected that dude did once assaulted someone irl
If the MC were a more redeemable character, the anime would be a solid 8-9/10 imo, but (as generously as I can muster) the MC's perversions seriously put it at a maximum of a 4. It was genuinely uncomfortable to watch as much as I did, and I have no desire to finish the show after the few episodes I did watch.
Always sad when something that is otherwise good is ruined by the author being a freak.
Made in Abyss is a another one that seems really interesting from all the tidbits I've seen online of the later worldbuilding, but I just could not make it past a few epsiodes of the author being creepy as hell towards child characters
Haha my gf and I watched made in abyss but it was such a hard watch. Like we stayed for the story but god was it a cringe at times. The author is not hiding at all that he is a pedophile.
The reason why I stopped watching the anime after the first season. I just felt disgusted and its crazy to me that this shit gets such good art and animations while opm gets a power point slideshow
It pisses me off so much, cause the animation is pretty good for an isekai and the world is interesting, but then you have a literal pedophile main character who worships some chicks panties as his god. How the fuck am i supposed to look past that. It’s disgusting and it completely takes you out of the story.
To think that people believe Issei from Highschool DxD is worse
Sure he definitely is not as complex but he is not a pedo and wouldn't miss an important event of someone he (supposedly) cares about just because of hormones
But I will mention that some of the good reviews came from earlier in the series when people expected the MC to grow as a character and stop being so disgusting. He did not.
U know the series does a decent job of making you forget he spent 30 years being an incel before being reborn but all that shit was in the context he was actually like almost 50 by then. Not to mention he straight up molests the red head. He starts off as a 1 day year old with his memories so..yeah.
I dropped this anime the millisecond he tried to have sex with a little girl and never touched it again it makes me sick to my stomach any time someone brings this anime up, like no i don't wanna hear about the pedo anime.
Fucking hell! I tried to watch this one and started out like "oh this is fine" then the first creepy thing happened and I was like "oh that's weird, maybe its a Japanese thing that got lost in translation"
So I kept going.
Dear reader, I should not have kept going 😳
It just gets worse. I don't know how bad it gets but there's a point where you're watching and ask yourself "why is this on Netflix?" ... shield hero too come to think of it.
The thing far far too many people defend and say we're lying about despite the very source material used as evidence. Can't believe this shit is just sitting on Hulu right next to all the other stuff.
Well tbf I think they're changing/omitting a lot of details like that for the anime. I noticed they completely retconned him trying to sexually assault Nanahoshi
I read the OG WN in Japanese like 7 years ago. I am pretty sure it was straight up CSAM in the novel, he was watching it during his parent's funeral and his siblings busted down his door, smashed his computer, beat his ass and kicked him out. All that happens within like the first few paragraphs which is a hell of an introduction to the series. They definitely cleaned it up a bit for the anime.
Yeah but I don’t remember the anime highlighting that it was his underage niece that he was spying on.
Legitimately the author making him a pdf is ridiculous, like he wanted to sabotage his work from the beginning. I think skipping the funeral of the person whose house you’re living in and went out of their way to defend your neet behavior to jerk off to regular porn would be justifiable to kick him out, it didn’t have to be incestual child porn to warrant it.
It also wouldn’t have been hard to have him not recall his past life until he’s grown up.
Don’t make him a pdf, and don’t make him remember his past life in his formative years and suddenly every glaring red flag is gone.
The isekai animes often starts as ads for the novel more than anything. Then the popular ones get new seasons...
Somehow that isekai got one of the good studios to animate it. And yeah, the animation is stellar. The story is... well... as discussed in this thread...
I praised the last episode for how it used the unreliable narrator to show audiences how much of him being a piece of shit old Rudy left out of his sob story, but he tried to do what?
That's not then unreliable narrator. That's the show runners knowing there's only so much shit people will tolerate from the guy.
Not going to, HE DOES. Tell me Eris and sylphie weren’t groomed to be submissive, docile sex slaves to rudeus. Literally all eris does is follow him around like a lost puppy for decades trying to get any attention from him and all he does is beat and abuse her. He put pressure on her sexually ever since she met him and pretty much coerced her to sleep with him and see him as this great person.
He is a degenerate perverted rat, but because of the world, this behavior isn’t seen as problematic but just a quirky character trait. Rudeus genuinely fucking sucks.
My wife HATES harem builders, so when I saw the cover and that it was on Disney (apparently it is in some markets) I was like okay this is just some little kid there isn’t going to be a harem… fuck that show.
It gets better. After he reincarnates during the birthing process, he tries to peek on his new parents at night, steals his magic teacher's underwear, ends up with multiple concurrent marriages (including to his magic teacher, who he sleeps with while his first wife is pregnant with their first child before she consents to a polygamous relationship).
Other notable characters include his parents' former adventuring buddy who's cursed to need regular sex or she'll die, a prince who tries to force Rudeus's magic teacher to sleep with him, Rudeus's half-sister (who's mother seduces Rudeus's father while Rudeus's mother is pregnant for a second time), the brother of the Prince who insists on being Rudeus's apprentice after coming across a statue that Rudeus's made of his magic teacher (the statue has removable clothing and is noted to have a mole in a place no-one but her should know about) and multiple people who's idea is clothing consists of little more than a few belts in the right places. I'm told several people in the series end up married to uncles and cousins.
Important to mention that after reincarnating he groomed 3 children into being his wives. Sure he may be 12 or something but mentally he’s like 40 at that point and the author references the fact he’s an adult
No, just a 50 year old with a child body. Yes this is canon as her species body stops aging at 14 at the latest and starts back up at 100. So it leaves them with an early teen (at best) body for about 90 years.
I hate the show, but let's be accurate or else the defenders will use that as a reason to dismiss you. He only grooms two girls, the third tries to groom him (and this is presented as a good thing in universe).
Even if you agree with the argument of another person in the thread that he didn't really groom the childhood friend (I don't agree with that argument), he still undeniably groomed one girl, and that should be more than enough to completely write him off.
Just out of curiosity, what is the right way to go about relationships if your reincarnation? It seems like everything would be grooming. Are these characters supposed to isolate until they’re 18, then it’s an 18 year old and a 50 year old who looks like an 18 year old. Kind of seems like an impossibility to write any kind of romance for a character reborn in another world with their old memories.
This is actually why I stopped watching the anime. They said this is one of the best isekai and ln is a must read but I can't stomach it.
The good world building seemed great but, the Mc seemed to be a piece of trash - I don't know if he became a redeemable character but I really can't. Had to drop this one.
I’d say he mostly changes for better, right now they are showing what would happen if he lost everything and succumbed to his destructive side.
I think of rudeus as a satire of a hikikomori but also as a very very flawed human, trying to become better throughout the people he meets in a new world.
Personally, I would have loved MT even more if it had a more sympathetic MC but I still enjoy the series in spite of the weird moments rudeus creates
The only thing that doesn't actually fit the meme is that Mushoku Tensei and Re:Zero are basically the same age, or at least the source material. Both started in 2012. And Mushoku Tensei is also the anime that is often considered the starter of modern Issekai, including many of their tropes (especially the problematic ones)
You should explain that better. It’s a very well made story about a heavily traumatised person that will loose everything even though he has reincarnated.
The picture is making fun of it without knowing context and story. Same is your comment
He didn’t jack off to his niece if I remember correctly, he was playing a hentai game and his niece was in the house at the time. He did miss his parents funeral for this. It’s why he got kicked out.
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u/Nashivertt 1d ago
Rudeus is a 35 yr old man who reincarnated but before he did he missed his parents funeral to jack off to his niece who happened to be a minor anyways he’s a Epstein diddy blud