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2 days agoWhat’s really fascinating is that I read through the entire thing without dropping it. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion. You don’t want to see it, but you can’t look away either.
If my monsters are imagined, why do they trigger the motion sensor lights?
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Cake day: February 10th, 2024
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4·2 days agoI’m late to the thread, and there are already some real highlights mentioned so I’ll just add some that are criminal ly missing:
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.
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.
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:
I had brothers and sisters. Brother was married already. And had kids. Two of them. Both girls. They look different from Norm and Asia. They’re Japanese after all, but they shared in their innocence. Brother’s house and my house (that is, our parents) are close by, so they’ll stay over often. Along with his wife and kids. I took advantage of that. Set up a hidden camera in the bath for my niece. In other words, I took voyeur shots.
And here are some more choice quotes from the LN:
Underage. Scornful eyes. Socially awkward. That right there was the trifecta. She was perfect. I wanted her to be my bride.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that my teacher was a junior-high-aged girl at the budding edge of sexual maturity. That was kind of an awesome situation. In my old life, I could have gotten off to that mental image in three pumps.
When talking about Sylphie:
So why couldn’t I just stay here with Sylphie until we were old enough to get by on our own? Sounded pretty good to me. We’d grow up together…and she’d grow up into my perfect woman. Hikaru Genji style, baby! Gweheheh.
Hikaru Genji fell in love with a 10-year-old, kidnapped her when her guardian died, raised her, and then married her.
…Crap! No. No. Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. What happened to the whole ‘oblivious’ thing, buddy? You’re getting way too far ahead of yourself. Hm. Well, that said… there’s nothing in the rulebook that says an oblivious protagonist can’t brainwash their childhood friend, right? Gah! What am I thinking?! But… ugggh. The girl was only six years old. She was clearly very fond of me, but she wasn’t capable of feeling romantic love yet. So, uh… yeah. Let’s put all that on hold. For how long, though? Now that was the question. Did I need to wait until she turned ten? Fifteen? Even older…? What if she ended up hating me for wasting her time? Her affection meter was at max for now, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way forever. Could I live with myself if it dropped to zero? No. Hell no!!! I’m a man who knows my limits, damn it! Seriously, she’s so soft and warm and fluffy! And she smells so freakin’ good! She’s baring her soul to me right now, and I’m supposed to just sit here slack-jawed?! That’s so messed up! We both know how we feel, so we should just take this to the next level! Why force myself to waste precious time? Why not just admit I made the wrong call?! That does it. I’ve decided! I’ll make her into my perfect girl! I’m…I’m oblivious no more, Sylphieeee!
About the mental age argument you sometimes hear people make to excuse his actions:
I had to keep in mind that, while I might have been a jobless high-school dropout, I also had the mental age of a person in his midthirties. I could do this!
But now I knew all of my missteps. With all the knowledge and experience from my past life, I could finally do it. I could finally live life right.
A man more than a decade my junior had gotten married, had a kid, and was now struggling with how to raise him. Given my thirty-four-year-history of indolent joblessness, you wouldn’t think I’d be able to outdo him at much of anything.
And in LN3 the Man God is directly addressing his mental image of himself:
Well it’s not just a dream. I’m speaking directly into your mind right now. Hard to believe your mental image of yourself is so different from your body…
Some more quotes from later on when he is supposedly be all changed:
Don’t tell me this guy is a true-born lolicon who somehow witnessed Julie doing something perverted. I mean, the two of us might have something in common then, but I definitely don’t want him coming anywhere near my daughters in that case.
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.
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.
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.
Uh-oh… Why would they put Klaus on the key-visual? Please just stay true to the source for once. Dias’ axe also looks more like a halberd or a spear here. I haven’t seen the manga adaptation, is this how it is depicted there?
i mean it like “people who like animes with cute girls interacting with each other”.
That’s usually called CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things).
A nice week with Land Mines, Frontier Lord, and Tiny Witch.
<Witch and Mercenary> Vol. 6: Part 2 by Chohokiteki Kaeru - ★★★☆☆, 136 MynePages™ - Finally some witch action in this volume, but there were a lot of fighting scenes so that sucks.
<The Disfavored Prince Is a Genius Alchemist: All I Want Is to Spoil My Little Siblings> - Volume 01 by Umee - ★★☆☆☆, 226 MynePages™ - It’s more palace intrigue than creating alchemy, and the end is extremely rushed and resolved too neatly.
<Starting on Hard Mode: God Levels, Got Problems> Volume 1 by ririnra - ★☆☆☆☆, 126 MynePages™ - Terrible prose, shitty and formulaic plot, and somehow even worse soyboy MC. Apart from the usual Japanese self-insert passive- and timidness, he is also describing himself as an anime, manga, and light novel otaku but doesn’t understand what a girl means when she asks him to form a party <- complete with the usual stuttering and overreaction because uh-u-uh-uhh a g-g-g-girl talked to me?!?!
“A party?” I repeated. She looked deadly serious, but my response came out flat because I hadn’t fully grasped what she meant. The first thing that came to mind was a birthday party. But inviting a stranger to a celebration would just be creepy. That’d be straight-up flirting…or worse.
This “otaku” also speaks to a girl with animal ears and a tail, and when she introduces herself, she tells him her name and that she is a beast girl. We then get this banger of inner monologue:
Right. Beastgirl. Unfortunately, I had no idea what that meant. It was probably common knowledge in this world, but I was an outsider.
Let me remind you, he’s supposed to be an otaku, is looking straight at the beast girl in question, already has commented on the ears and tail, and still is stupefied about what in the world a beast girl could be. It’s the type of MC that’s so infuriating that he makes me root for the monsters. Or suicide.
Oh, and the title is also a lie. General power levels in the world are described as strong when someone is in the 300s in one stat (yes, this series is using video game logic), and MC gets reincarnated with 10000 in every stat. So, no “hard mode” anywhere in sight.
Just because it’s so much fun, let’s put some more quotes:
I’d turned my eyes away in time, but the instant she’d pulled off her top, I’d still caught a glimpse of— No. Stop. Don’t think about it! Thankfully, I hadn’t seen anything beyond that. I’d only managed to cling to my last shred of sanity thanks to quick reflexes and, apparently, very high stats.
That’s right. Seeing a boob would drive him insane, apparently.
<Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start With Magical Tools> Volume 12 by Hachi Komada - ★★★★☆, 219 MynePages™ - Typical Dahlia volume. This time, with a heavy emphasis on the relationship between Jonas and his stepfather.
I’ve given up completely on the WIT adaptation. I just hate-watch at this point. The animators neither read the source material nor do they give any shit about it.
No cliffhanger, but the story goes on in the source. So many people would rather see that continue than having a spin-off.
new Gate coming out,
The upcoming GATE season will follow a completely different set of characters, and the ones from season 1 only show up in cameo/guest roles. Its set a couple of years later (so, not a new timeline). Also, navy instead of army.
What has the world come to? Is nothing holy anymore?
Azure Lane is indeed a gacha game about waifu-ed Warships. I would place it behind all the other suggestions you got here. I just mentioned it because it came to mind with the military theme.
“Legend of the Galactic Heroes” for some space flavor. “Sound of the Sky” for some Slice of Life. Or get your Isekai fix with “GATE” or “Alderamin on the Sky”. There are also some Gundam shows that are more militaristic than others, but I’m not the right one to say which of them fall in which category, since I only watched them sporadically.
Then there are franchises like Azure Lane and Girls and Panzer to take it into the absurdist direction. Girls and Panzer is actually not bad once you come to terms with the general premise. Give it a chance.
Chihiro in the English dub of Spirited Away, for anyone else wondering.
Names are generally a problem in this series. Myne used to be Main (Ma-I-n, an analogue to the Japanese マイン), but I guess the English audiences were too confused with the word “main” so they had to change it. (No such consideration for the German audience in Frieren).
And then there is the whole Eustachius/Justus situation.
How could you ask that? Making me choose! It’s like asking Myne or Rozemyne?
Rozemyne. Easy.
1st - The Happy go lucky - Kumoko
See? The early volumes are clearly the best.
Let me ask this way: Who do you like better? Kumoko or White?
Spider was really great for my taste in the beginning, but then there was some sort of shift in the plot (just keeping it vague here, but you will know what I mean once you reach that point), after which I lost interest completely. But those initial Kumoko getting stronger volumes were 10/10.
Sounds good. I hope it gets an official translation.