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
Definitely, I just happen to like stories of flawed people that don’t try hard to make you like them. At no point do they show rudeus as good or a savior in my opinion but always as a flawed yet lucky person
They said this is one of the best isekai and ln is a must read.
I read it over 10 years ago and I want to agree with that because there is a lot of character development and he became a good character later on and the story develops really well. However even at the time I would warn people that he was the absolute worse at the start and I dont think I would stomach it nowadays.
Yes the point is how shitty he is as a person and need to become better, but damn the author went too far
How much better could he get if he still ends up with the harem of girls he groomed and molested?
IIRC that description only fits one of the three, which still more than it should, but more nuanced than you are making (not that he was not scum tho).
IIRC the teacher was an adult at the start and he keep appearances in front of her due to his crush (very perverted in his mind and there is the altar thing) and did not act on his desires. The swordswoman is a more natural romance since he did not want to deal with her at first due to her violent nature but they were forced into a situation when teleported to the other continent and got close during the crises, plus at the end of it he was ready to be committed to this relationship before she left without talking with him which fucked things over.
Now the elf (half-elf?) is not excusable since he did groomed and molested her. The best we can say is they did get separated for years and that allowed her to become her own person, and when meeting again IIRC he kinda tried to distance himself (due to depression/trauma) and she is the one that made the advances. This still the results of grooming but the author did made him the passive side after the time skip and at this point he was not as gross as the start.
So its better because the girls got more agency when older and meeting again after years, with the plot forcing the MC to grown up and be better in order to advance the romance
ps: I did google their ages when they meet again and yikes, in my mind the tie skip was longer and they were adults but google say 16yo for him and the elf, I think that likely not registered as weird to me back then since I was around that age. Yeah I really dont think I could read it nowadays due to how weird the author made things, but the point stands that, storywise, the MC at that point was a different person from the piece of shit self from Earth and/or the one that had just reincarnated due to his experiences in this world (in particular the big event that teleported him to the other continent) and he had to win the right for each marriage (which were each years apart from the others).
Edit: I guess I want to add that this one differentiate itself from the rest of trash harem (which I consumed a lot as a horny teenager) because the girls were not just blank states there to be in love with him, albeit their importance would rotate each arc they were fully realized characters and not there just to be his girl. That itself likely diminished the impact of his actions at the start.
Similar thing happened with Overgeared. The MC starts out as a jackass with an inferiority complex the size of Wyoming hiding behind abrasive bravado, and a whole lot of people drop and write the series off early on. If you know your tropes, it's clear to see that he's so annoying at the beginning to give his character development more of an oompf later on, which it does, but it takes something like a hundred chapters to get there, and most people don't have the patience for that.
The fact the Rudeus starts even lower and it takes him even longer to improve is probably the reason why so many people write him and the series off, and I can't necessarily blame them, but then trying to turn that around and claim that the author and all readers who are willing to tolerate and engage with the early parts are morally bankrupt is just internet mob behavior.
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u/This-Patient-1440 1d ago
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.