- Grimgar
- Mushoku Tensei
- Hunter x Hunter (2011)
- Frieren
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
- Dorohedoro
- Dungeon Meshi
- Made in Abyss
- Ascendance of a Bookworm
- One Piece
From the most recent discussion about the best anime worldbuiiding, my choices continue to be Made in Abyss—as in I agree with the article in this case—and Violet Evergarden, but Witch Hat Atelier is getting to be a contender.
People look down on the idea Mushoku Tensei and Ascendance of a Bookworm would have good worldbuilding, because both are isekais, but unlike a lot of later series they aren’t simply copypasting stuff from earlier series, and they got a lot of original ideas.
Take MT for example. (warning: actual spoilers, some heavy ones)
A creator god made six worlds, all of them unstable, and patched them together into a die-shaped one. Then split his soul into six, each becoming a god.
Orsted’s father was the original Dragon God. As he died, the title went to his child. He’s also the grandson of the Human God. The series has a literal god as a villain-then-ally. (told ya I’d mention spoilers!)
You know who is not a god, though? Hitogami! Born in the seventh world, the void formed within the “die”. He killed and usurped the role of the actual Human God. He’s also responsible for the death of the first Dragon God, and the Demon God’s soul splitting into two (one half being murderous). No wonders Orsted hates him so much.
Hitogami always does his shit indirectly, through three or four “apostles” — people whom he shows visions, and automatically trust him. He tried to do it with Rudeus but it backfired, since Rudeus’ soul is not from the six-sided world the “you’ll automatically trust me” gimmick didn’t work.
For example, his intervention against Laplace was to make the Fighting God an apostle and have both fight. You’ve seen that Fighting God; he’s that huge four-arms “WAHAHAHAHA!!!” guy, Badigadi.
The evil half of Laplace fooled the Superd into madness, creating their bad reputation… and the discrimination against people with green hair, like Sylphy. Additionally, people who have green hair are likely to have the Laplace Factor, it’s like the other half of Laplace is slowly tweaking with the inheritance of multiple people, to create a perfect vessel for his reincarnation over the course of millenniums.
There’s at least one religion in the world, the Milis faith, but it’s clear not everyone follows it. It preaches monogamy, while apparently most people are fine with polygamy. The difference in mindset becomes clear near the end of the second season, look at who gets pissed at Rudeus for bringing a second wife home — not his first wife Sylphy, but his sister Norn! Guess who follows the Milis faith? It went worse for Zenith, though, since the guy violating her religious principle was her husband Paul. (And then her son. Poor Zenith. Nobody cares about your faith.)
Time loops are an actual thing in MT, and the reason Orsted has such an odd reaction towards Eris when they just met. Or he says Paul Greyrat was supposed to have two daughters, not a son. There’s also a second “loop chain” where Rudeus visits his past self, to tell him to not trust Hitogami; in that timeline Roxy died, Sylphy left Rudeus, and he never married Eris. He did this because Rudeus and Roxy’s daughter Lara has a pivotal role on defeating Hitogami.
Orsted’s curse doesn’t apply to Rudeus descendants, by the way. Now imagine all three of Rudeus’ wives terrified of Orsted… while their children are like, “dad’s boss! He’s a cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything”.
I didn’t even scratch the surface of MT’s worldbuilding with the spoilers above, by the way. I could’ve talked about politics of the kingdom of Asura; or what exactly was the Mana Calamity; or the role of Nanahoshi into the story. The more you dig, the more you find, it’s frankly addictive.
Honestly I get that people are turned off by Mushoku Tensei. I think being an isekai is the least of its problems.
I personally really like it but you have to be able to deal with how uncomfortable the MC is.
I think it’s both because I’ve seen people also dissing Ascendance of a Bookworm, simply for being an isekai. Even if its worldbuilding is extremely detailed and well-thought, like:
And it does those really well IMO.
That said, I do agree with you that Mushoku Tensei also puts people off because of the main character; probably more than for being an isekai.
Quotes of the prologue of the first LN, plus comments
He’s a “nice guy”, hated by his looks. Sure. Totally not hated for his behaviour. /s
Lives off his parents, can’t be arsed to attend their funeral.
If his brother achieved something, it shows the issue is not simply “his family was bad”.
He is not just a paedophile: he’s a paedophile NEET who gives no shit about his family and is completely nonchalant about it.
I’m quoting the LN but the anime does follow fashion.
At least for me it’s clear why Mushoku Tensei does this: it goes out of its way to represent the main character’s start as the rock bottom, because it helps to deliver the theme. MT’s theme is *“persevere and try to become a better person, regardless of your failures; it pays off” — and if even scum like Rudeus can do it, the reader (who’s likely better as a person than Rudeus, it’s hard to not be) can do it too.
His attitude towards his family in the LN volume 12 (second half of the second season) shows that rather well IMO. In no moment the reader is told “Rudeus has changed! He is not the same as that Earthling, he’s a better man!11one”. But his actions show he cares about his isekai family in a way he never did about his Earthling one, and yet they feel natural because he has been becoming a better person over the course of the years.
Spoilers from LN volume 12 / s2 part 2
From that, you can go two ways, I think. The first one is to accept the MC is shit trying to become less shit, and enjoy the story and worldbuilding. The second one is to skip it; I don’t blame anyone for doing it, if they want a more relatable main character, I think different people want different stuff and that’s completely fine.
Additionally there’s a third way: some people instead lie / bullshit / assume that the work defends NEET-dom, or paedophilia, or not caring about your parents. I think it’s lack of basic media literacy.
Sorry for the wall of text!
More about the “Quotes of the prologue of the first LN, plus comments” spoiler:
spoiler
It’s not just uncensored loli porn. It got censored in the LN from spy cam footage of his niece in the shower (the main reason why his brother gets so violent). In the anime adaptation, you can actually see that they have gone back to that plot point.
The Redundancy Chaper 25 make this canon again in the LN run:
And here are some more choice quotes from the LN:
When talking about Sylphie:
Hikaru Genji fell in love with a 10-year-old, kidnapped her when her guardian died, raised her, and then married her.
About the mental age argument you sometimes hear people make to excuse his actions:
And in LN3 the Man God is directly addressing his mental image of himself:
Some more quotes from later on when he is supposedly be all changed:
That’s from volume 18.
Basically, there is a lot of mental gymnastics going on with a lot of people to paint Rudeus as anything other than a pedophile.
I believe in option 3.5: there are too many instances (even outside MC’s actions) in the series where terrible behaviour is normalised, hand-waved, or trivialised as funny, to be just there to build character. Look at Rudeus’ father as an example outside of MC. While MT might not necessarily be a work to defend neets, pedos, cheaters, etc., it is clearly written in a way so that it doesn’t step on those people’s toes. Are they the sole target audience? No, but they are a large part of it.
I’ve also seen an interesting discussion about how much of the author’s personality is reflected in their works.
The anime and WN are a bit more explicit on that, but even the LN is crystal clear on Rudeus being a paedophile. And I think the folks doing mental gymnastics to claim otherwise also lack basic media literacy, just like I criticised the “third way” ones.
In the meantime I find your “option 3.5” fairly reasonable. It’s completely fine to criticise the work for not doing a good job of calling out shitty behaviour, specially in the light of its theme.
Rudeus does mention once that Paul (isekai father) is scum, and that’s why they understand each other, but… that’s it. In the meantime Paul cheats on Zenith (who’s monogamous) with Lilia (who’s employed by Paul, so Paul is in a position of power over her), and gets away with it.
It’s somewhat clear for me that Magonote doesn’t really care too much about social causes, such as the role of women in society. And that he caves in to readers’ pressure a bit too easily. But past that, I don’t know, really.
That part also gets a bit deeper and more disturbing in the WN (I’m not sure if the LN has cut that part or not):
WN spoiler
In the WN Paul rapes Lilia, a fellow student, in the academy and gets kicked out as a consequence. He then starts a family with Zenith. Lilia, on the other hand, somehow did fall in love with her rapist and seeks him out to insert herself into his family, where she knowingly creates a situation where Paul would cheat with her (leaves the door a slit open while masturbating). Once Zenith finds out, they enter the harem route, with the consequences being that Paul has to sit on the floor in the hallway. I remember this written in a way that made it sound like it was slapstick (haha, look at that pitiful man that has to sit on the floor haha).
I’m not a prude. Rape happens. Cheating happens, and harem routes are an anime staple. The problem I have with Paul’s story is the message between the lines. If you rape a girl, she will fall in love with you. If you cheat on your wife or are a home wrecker, you will enter the harem route, where everyone is happy. And all that without any bad consequences for the bad behavior. And this was something I’ve seen in all aspects of the series throughout. Sure, bad things happen to people, but it’s as a consequence of unrelated factors instead of their shitty behavior (i.e. the displacement is bad for Paul, but it’s not happening because of his raping and cheating, etc.).
In earlier discussions about this, I’ve seen the argument that it is just realistic and that bad actions don’t necessarily come with bad consequences in reality. And while this is infuriatingly true and can’t really be argued against, it still rubs me the wrong way in entertainment, even more so than MC being MC.