Discussion Mushoku Tensei is a deconstruction of Isekai

Because he's written to be a terrible asshole that you can sympathize with. And his character arc ends prematurely with his death.

Basically, he was just wallowing in self-pity back then, and wanted an easy route for escapism, which ended up being "My son is fucking awesome, he can do everything even if I don't tell him what I want done".

 

Mushoku tensei is Bleach
But in isekai genre

 

"true" harem

 

the novel is shit.

 

I hate Paul cus hes got 2 wives and one is a maid. Yes, its cus I'm jealous, deal with it.

 

Honestly I like how we can see the protagonist from a baby til death, it's just so beautiful and we can see his struggles not as a person who reincarnated but as a person who truly lives in that world..

 

This sounds true too... I mean, I haven't read the novel in years either.
But in hindsight, is it not a critique of the modern novels of isekai that you see so many of? Just go and read some trash harem nowadays, then look at a few lines of Mushoku Tensei. It dares to go beyond the line into the territory of actually doing something, and it develops its cast over the course of the whole series, and not just introducing them one arc then deciding that they're going to be there for the rest of the ride.
Don't forget, it's even said in the novel where the ending where he lives a happy life with 2 beastgirl wives is made from Hitogami controlling his fate. Taking a step back, it's just saying that the trash harems are just deus ex machinas with no rhyme or reason behind them.
There's a lot which Mushoku doesn't do, but what it does...

 

Probably because it's a tensei novel, he was reborn, but he was still the scummy guy from the past life for a good portion of the story. He gets a new chance at life, is immediately surprised that he isn't perving on his mother; he gets fully engrossed in magic, to the point where he nearly kills himself, and he just starts perving on lolis the first chance he gets, with dreams of harem. It all made perfect sense, if you were reborn, would you really go out of your way to live a Just, or chaste, life, or would you aim for a harem, and then hide away from all the evils of the world when you realize you aren't all powerful?

 

I disagree heavily that it's"trash," there seems to be a bad trend of simply calling something trash if it's not particularly great. It's just ok. It's a good first read for newcomers maybe, but it's terribly uninteresting and becomes hard to read (for me) past the first seven volumes or so.

 

from the lot of Isekai/reincarnation/transported to another world-type manga/novels/anime, i liked Mushoku tensei a LOT, it was the only one i truly enjoyed, with a specially satisfying ending imo

 

Mushoku Tensei is pretty much the reason I don't read Chinese battle novels here.

The Hitogami "war" is the best depiction of a God vs Mortal battle.

every time the MC in a Chinese novel fights a "God" it just feels like he is just fighting a strong dude.
compared to Chinese war gods Hitogami is figuratively and literally on a different dimension.

 

Yep! I agree with you. That Hitogami isn't even on the same dimension of MC and only manipulate people like true god.

 

I actually don't care too much for later Infinity genre novels. I like the ideas they brought, but at least all of those that have been translated all seem the same at their core. The mc's are all gun users with high intelligence and love to scheme. Terror Infinity has many, MANY problems but its far more interesting as a story. The author had many great ideas, but failed to carry them out to the end and sort of self destructed.

 

In few words....

Mushoku Tensei is an Isekai (sub-genre Reincarnated Individual) well done. Very well done.

 

Seriously, you can't touch him, but you piss him off, and he will fuck up your whole life so bad, that several instances of time travel are needed just to leave you only a paranoid nutjob hiding in the mountains.

 

The way I see Mushoku Tensei is that its the first completed isekai novel on here that has a true harem that doesn't feel slapped together for the sake of giving the MC a wonderful life. The characters are well thought out and most people have obvious goals that they are working for. The story completes the journey of Rudeus from start to finish for us. While it might not be the best ending for most people it is a complete ending in the fact the story meant to be told through Rudy is finished. The story for that will might still go on but not through his eyes.

As a whole its one of my top three stories I've read on here. It has some good highs and some pretty bad lows but to me its a complete story that stands on it own quite well. I've used it as my go to for establishing if I can call an isekai well done or not.

 

I haven't read Mushoku Tensei, but the description doesn't sound much like a deconstruction to me. It just sounds like it does things differently than how most isekai novels do it, but it's still pretty firmly in the same mold. Being an older novel as far as the genre is concerned hurts it here as well because it simply can't comment on conventions that were adopted after it came out.

It's like me saying that Twelve Kingdoms is a deconstruction of isekai novels. That series is a lot more different from modern isekai than Mushoku Tensei can dream of being, but because its core concepts were developed so long ago, it can't say anything about the modern incarnation of the genre.

From what I've heard, Mushoku Tensei is written in a very unique voice that lets it stand out among other web novels.

 

Terror Infinitys baggage was so bad that it destroyed all other parts of the story, even the goods ones. And what was left of the salvage was all crap.
The Author was creative in his design and absolutely horrible in his execution.
I surely didn't make it as far as you but even for how far I made it, the novel was already a dud.

In my example I use the infinity genre mainly for the reason that those authors who came after him refined his idea but wrote good characters and fixed a myriad of big problems TI had. Infinity genre wasn't hard to improve upon after TI's messy entrance into the world.

I largely agree with you, all I was trying to say is that the genre and market is largely filled and bogged down by authors who take that original, carefully and expertly crafted world and add so many things that just don't work in an attempt to be different.
They try to splice things together and hope they work instead of carefully crafting their own world and ideas.

That's why Isekai novels have such a bad wrap because a lot of them just add stuff cause they can with no thought.

 

How far did you make it? For me I started feeling something was off at volume 14 and around 19 it became unbearable, I read chapters on and off, and I dropped it.

 

End of Volume 4.

I couldn't handle anymore how in a world with so many possibilities and powers that the only way the MC ever won was from shitty dues ex Machina power ups at the last second which allowed him to beat the boss.

I want to read more but I just can't when I think of the illogical choices the MC makes and how no matter what happens the only reason he will ever likely survive is due to be last second power ups.

There are other issues but that's the one that made me grind my teeth. Took away all suspense.