Discussion Mushoku Tensei made me hate harem series more than ever

You realize it just now? People's taste have been trash for the longest time.

 

I see. Now I get it. No wonder this novel is popular, since it jacks up teenage hormonal phase too.

Probably why the english publisher omits so many things and changes lines too.

 

I love how they use the excuse of having a "flawed" protagonist as good. "OoOOhh... because Rudeus grew up to be like this and like that, so his **** personality is justified."
Um okay? Hitler also grew up with a terrible childhood, guess those six million deaths are instantly justified?

Also, I don't have a problem with harem at all, since I'm open minded with everything, like polyamorous relationships (I definitely won't like a person who's into polyamorous relationship though) but like... some stuff just draws the line you know. The scum father is a literal ra*ist. His scum-ness, in fact, reached a level that even the publishers decided to censor parts in the english translation. Yet, you still get some fanatics saying that "ooh, he's not actually a ra*ist and abusive, he's just a bad father, that's all, UWU."

Plus even if Rudeus' actions are technically not pedophilia, it's still and IS grooming PLUS ephebophilia.

"I don't agree with you, so I'm just going to pretend I don't know anything you're talking about."

 

While I feel that it is a shtty novel, its kinda lean more into how we journey ourselves into the world of webnovels. In my first novel, it was Date a Live and it was basically a harem. Sure, it had its worst moments but as a kid? Even for me who wasn't as expert in the world of novels? I thought it was pretty good or even a masterpiece if they made a novel of it.

Its basically how we had grown up over the years and how our taste had developed.

At first, I hated Harem novels because of how it relates to the TV drama where adultery and divorce mostly happen to the shows I watched with my mom.

However, I began to grow love to harem, even with its shtty plot or even the characters themselves as I slowly think and learn more of their stories. Sure, some characters or plots made no sense but I still love them as a Trash reader myself.

If not for that novel, I would have been reading CN novels and rotted my brain over the repetitive cycles of it but if it weren't for that, I would not actually discover being a writer myself.

It basically inspires me to write even when people began criticizing it because it how the plot revolves, the character, the questionable scenes and whatnot but we all started from a trash novel and grew out of it. That what makes you understand more.

The novel is basically sht when compared to now but as we were all young, did you all remember that we thought it was good? Thats what it was in the past and we highly praised it because we were all newbies with a lack of novel reading and maturity. We just like it since it was popular and we were all influence by it.

If it had come before, we would still love it and hate it just like SAO. It basically that. We hate SAO because of the plot but we love it and even pioneer some new anime fans.

TL; DR: In the present is sht but in the past it was great. Thats what I'm trying to say. Basically if it had come out before, we would have love it like Shield hero but then hate it in the near future. We were just narrow minded at that time.

 

Haha when English publishers had to censor content from the novel to protect themselves from legal trouble then you know that people are defending the indefensible.

Why is it so hard for people to accept that even if they like the story, there are parts that are just plain wrong

 

Well, it's your taste and opinion but I would like to adress some of your points:
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"promotes pedophilia, adultery, sexualizing women like too much."

• First, I don't think showing something equals promoting the same thing, specially when the MC himself calls himself out and is crushed for what he did, even thinking about dying. It's not promoting anything, it's using it to make a point of how low of a human being he was.

And I don't see the problem with the sexualization since most of characters in the story are pretty sexual themselves. And the women in the series are not passive agents, they do what they want when they want.
Put that in comparison to most of the novels linked in this site...
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"the mc didn't give a f of his mother's feelings of being betrayed by her husband who cheated on her for how many long years. He let the woman who homewrecked his parents' marriage stay and ignored the hurt mother."

• Shit happens, he was more worried about the life of his innocent future sibling than with the adults that could take care of themselves, and I can't see how that's problem.
His mother got hurt, but hurt feelings in no way has more value than a life.

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"lack of empathy"

• In the beggining I do agree he lacks empathy, the author himself says so. That he saw people of this world like NPCs, but he certainly changes a lot and that's already by Vol. 1.
After that point, this point makes no sense.

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"mother get abducted but the mc only cares of his dick and forgot her"

• Didn't he spent years looking for her and trying to raise his name so it could be easier to find her because he had no clue of where she was?
Not to mention that when he discovered where she was he abandoned everything to go save her against the assurances that she would be fine even without his interference and even became handicaped during the process to save her, losing his arm... and another member of his family.

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"cheating husband emotionally abuse his wife and son"
• What's the problem with that? I'm not saying what's the problem with Paul, but what's the problem with showing that in media? I highly doubt many people here should've at least seen a feel Paul's in real life, if not worse.

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"the plot is good but ruined by mc too much pervertedness that gives me creep and the flat characters"
• That's more about taste, not a problem with the work per se.

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"toxic relationship"

I don't know what you're talking about, but I know there's some pretty toxic relations in the series to varying degrees, but nothing out of what happens in real life. So again, it's not a problem. The story is direct, it shows shit because that's what it is.
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Let's not forget that this series is for an older audience, working adults with their minds already formed. The target audience are not young people with impressionable minds that will get influenced by what is shown in media.
So the author can focus with showing things with an understanding that the audience knows it's not promoting the problematic themes shown.
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A working adult should be more than capable enough to know the difference between right and wrong and deal with the realities of the world. And more than capable enough of knowing that showing problematic themes in media is not the same as promoting said themes.

 

Yes I agree the dad is trash and so is the mc he gets Ed and goes travelling the world to find a cure and cries about it it’s not even that big a deal apart from that time he lost his virginity it wasn’t like he had sex all the time just move on and wait for it to get better cause it’s cause by emotional problems but he ends up going to a op magic academy to cure it instead

 

I'd say his problem at this time wasn't even the ED. He was simply depressed and the ED was just a symptom.

At that point in time he had taken hit after hit of failure and lost everything and everyone after years fighting to come back. His relationship with his father was broken almost beyond repair, one of the worse was the broken relationship with Norn since one of his main motivations for his change was to become a good brother. This affects him to the point where he even refuses to identify himself to Aisha in shame. His mother was lost to the world, and the worst of all was that he wasn't even aware of it. With Eris only being the final nail in the coffin.
Another thing in support of this is how even after being drugged with an extremely potent aphrodisiac, he only got "cured" after noticing that Fitts was Silphy and realizing that he still had at least one connection from his life left.

 

I am not reading/watching this series but is Rudeus worse than the maing guy in "Redo of A Healer", which I am also not reading/watching?

 

In no way, shape or form.
Rudeus is a bad person doing all he can in his power to become better than he was before. He may fall here and there, but doesn't stop aiming to be a better peson.
He is more of a misguided soul that had 20 years of eroge as a moral compass, which we know is in no way a good example of how real people behave, but it was the only guide of moral he had from for 20years since he was 14. But as soon as he sees that his way of thinking and doing things hurts someone, or someone calls him on his bullshit he changes.
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His biggest and most disgusting act happens around vol.3, I believe, Episode 8 of the anime, and after his mind goes back to normal and the weight of what he almost did hits him, he even briefly consider dying.
From this point on he tones down a lot, still a pervert though, but always taking care to not do anything hurtful to anyone. It is also after this point that he is forced to get his shit together.
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Well, it's a redemption story, it would been meaningless if he suddenly became a paragon of moral right after being reborn and left without anything to redempt.
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In contrast, Keyaru was abused by some bad people and embarks in a journey of rape and torture without a care for anyone other than himself.
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While Rudeus may not be the best person there is, as a reviewer said, 'I'm an adult, I know right from wrong, and I'm not looking for moral guidance from this character', or something along these lines.
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My opinion is that most of the problems people have with this series is that it forces you to stop ignoring real world problems. Because there is way worse things in the media and nobody bats an eye. Many of the fucked up shit that happens in Mushoku are fucked up things that you can see day to day in the real world. And it presents them as is. People that you know and love will do fucked up things as well and they may not be as good as you originaly thought. And also just like in the real world, shit happens and there is no magical solution to make everything better, no great hero to bring the culprit to justice. People just have to kind of simply deal with it and go on with life. It's also not embelished to be easier to swallow. It just is.

And this kind of thing is EXTREMELY unconfortable to some. Enough to make them go crazy and do anything they can to make it disappear from their eyes. It's like having your whole worldview challenged. Everybody wants to identify with the hero that solves everything, but nobody wants to admit they are the bystander that just watch and does nothing because it's not in their power to do anything.
If it was extremely exagerated to be real many people wouldn't say a thing, the main problem is that it hits way to close to home.
I've seen people screeching, not in a literal sense, about how some of the events makes no sense and would never happen in real life, while I'm like "Seriously? I can remember around 10 cases right of the top of my head. Seen some way worse, actually. If it's only of hearing about it would be way more."

 

I don't know what my threshold for "This harem series is too much even for me!" is, but Rudeus and Keyaru are examples of why I am avoid such series. At least in some series the protagonists who are intentional perverts gets beat-up at times, so some justice is dealt against those guys.

 

< Le me read Mushoku Tensei in my middle teen years

< It's so cool.

< Several years later in my 20s.

< What a perverted scumbag.

< I'm getting too old for this shit.

 

Rudeus's original self reminded me of the 'otaku killer'. Kinda groundless, I know, but that ruined the whole perspective for me. After episode 5, it didn't feel worth forcing myself so I quit. Seeing this discussion, I'm glad I ditched the anime.

 

So it's true true.
Mushoku is fun and all for those who breeding their hormon lol