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Apr 15, 2024
(Updating the preliminary review since it was about time to do so)
This review was written after I decided to revisit the story with a more developed mindset than what I had when I first read the web novels as a teenager/young adult, which were what I considered to be the pinacle of writing in any isekai work I've ever seen up to that point (the anime further pushed me to get into it again). It was (and honestly still is) something that I could very easily, in various specific regards, give a perfect or nearly perfect score to. I've read everything, including the extra content
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in the other web novels part of the series.
However, upon revisiting the story through reading the updated and slightly toned down Light Novel version (which is by all means the even better version of the story, and expanded upon about every single thing it could possibly have), I realized that I was sorely wrong about my thoughts on this series, and before anyone goes "hur dur SJW", mind that I don't care much about even sex sales and gratuitous fanservice and pervy, riské content. I genuinely have Ishuzoku Reviewers as a 10/10 on my anime list, and I have no regrets on putting it in there for reasons I could perhaps better justify in a review that isn't about Mushoku Tensei.
I do care, however, for writing and thematic consistency. Which is why Mushoku Tensei is what I now consider a huge mixed bag, in retrospect.
The more I think about Mushoku Tensei, the more reasons I find to give it a bad score, for several hypocritical (supposed) character development and progression it tries to portray. Why must the most central part of Mushoku Tensei be so poorly handled, particularly at the start, when everything else is so fucking good?
Hell, even the character's redemption arcs would have been great, if the single most damning flaw of the protagonist was even considered to be addressed instead of glorified to the end. I'm talking about 10/10 worthy material right here, too. The story and SOME character arcs and redemptions get amazing, and the plot twists are absolutely bonkers.
But consider the following:
Imagine you have a genuine 34 years old ped0phile protagonist, fapping to uncensored child p0rn during his mother's funeral, who also once believed (as in, as the author once described), one of his biggests regrets in life was fapping to his preteen niece (aka, the aforementioned uncensored child p0rn, which was formely the kid he filmed taking a bath and was fapping to in the WN), since it's his lowest point which makes him get thrown out of the house by his siblings, and dies after saving some unaware people from being ran over, ending up being ran over himself (and to ultimately seek self-improvement and trying harder in the next life).
Well then, he reincarnates as a baby with his adult conscience in another world. As he grows up he starts to recall his past life mistakes and problems (many caused because of bullying). Tries to solve them going forward, EXCEPT his biggest flaws and lowest of the low he reached by a long shot, as he glorifies his perversions in every opportunity even 26 book volumes in, never once addressing it properly, since the author treats it all as comic relief at worst.
Instead, sexually molests 9 years old sleeping in barns, steal panties of an adult mage that looks like a kid thinking she is as young as she looks (then enshrining the panties and making a cult out of it). Having sex with aforementined 9 years old after grooming her into sex at 15 years old fully aware of that fact (and generally just finding them hot precisely because of their age, in his own monologues, in his kid body, with which he gets away with it without any serious consequences).
Hell, he has rape tendencies in those monologues, at times thanking his after for entering the room before he could lose his mind and becoming "a villain" with what he would do to his tomboy elf childhood friend (she was like 5-6 years old), masturbating elsewhere to compose himself not to sexually assault Eris (the 9 year old from before, by the time aged 13-14) while travelling back home with her after a teleportation incident, etc...
By the time he is a preteen, he gets to have sex with a 15 years old girl. His mindset? He is very accomplished by that fact and never once addressed his own situation internally, despite being reminded even by himself (other than by a certain character) of his actual mental age and self). Consider everything I said about his past life, and this story being about him supposedly getting redemption for himself.
He never redeems his most glaring flaws. The story handwaves it away, rewards him for it (yeah, he marries and impregnates every single one of the aforementioned girls before they even become adults, someone who should have more than 30 years of age in our world from which he even borrow moral outlooks from time to time, ironically enough.
He truly never does, his self-claimed and overall thing to be considered his biggest flaw by anyone reading, is never addressed over the course of all these books. In fact, much for the contrary, they are the one element that he still glorifies and even gets cocky about it in every single opportunity he gets to the very end of the web novel itself (though it becomes irrelevant by then, with all the other major crazy stuff going on). And he gets away with it, every single time, and rewarded for it, repeating!
Now, imagine my disappointment analyzing this more throughly by rereading the slightly toned down and updated version of the story in light novel format, and realizing that this "redemption story" is a hugely hypocritical façade that makes for most of the central plot, since we are seeing mostly his PoV in particular. The author cherrypicks what to develop and make this a mixed bag for the ages in Isekai history.
It's the biggest element that makes the story what it is, and ends up being a very selective and baffling character development/redemption arc, paired with a superb worldbuilding and a cast of otherwise really interesting and well written characters for the most part (except how tropey and generic his love interests turn into whenever things are about him later on, and his "alpha male"-like harem protagonist status even as a kid in some portions, which starts going basically sitcom, like "Oh, that perv Rudeus~! What kind of sexual advance he will make on me today I wonder lol").
Hell, if it wasn't for this, even the protagonist would be well written in several other regards, and this would be one story in my book, about otaku hikikomori redemption, to get on the same level as NHK ni Youkoso, for once. It's just a huge chunk of wasted potential with a twisted thematic value that just doesn't work the way it was intended. It's hard to sympathize with such a disgusting character, and be happy for any character envolved with him considering the sort of perverted predator he is from the very start and never bat an eye trying to fix it.
And people defend this like, "oh, but when he grow up, he will be a sexual deviant towards his ADULT harem, so it's totally okay" (even if he stays a pedophile that never changes to the very end and gets away with it inconsequentially even in his own situationally self-reflective head, despite that being his own glaring biggest flaw that he fails to address in 26 fucking books).
So, how can I analyze this properly, when the rest of the content is so good, while the most important element of the story is handled so badly, so horribly addressed and constructed? The problem isn't even about him being a pervy harem protagonist like many others before him, it's more about him being a manchild pedophile with a huge contrast to anything he genuinely and maturely develops for himself later on, and the author willfully allowing it and giving it a pass as if it was just a quirky thing.
Unsurprisingly, he is a huge Rance fan, and this is basically what if you turned that rap1st black comedy protagonist into a child molester that gets away with everything and gets to fuck a harem worth of targets of his own, in an actually serious story that is trying to make you feel for him and find beauty in what it is portraying.
It's stupidly inconsistent writing, and it almost feels like, in the author's own words, it could just be there for sex sales (which wouldn't be a problem, again, if only it wasn't part of the biggest plot thread of the entire story). The beauty is tarnished by default and never stops being as such even as he reach adulthood, since you forever have the context of the entire progression in mind.
And for someone who actually wrote other sexual themes that were much better executed in this very story (albeit not that complex by any means), this even feels like the single biggest plot hole I've seen in any isekai (in a meta sense, in this case). The author should have read Nabokov's Lolita to learn a thing or two about how to handle the sort of flawed character he is using in this story. As it stands it's a fetichist otaku wishfullfilment ride that makes most of his developments into "a better member of society" very much pointless, in retrospect.
Well, now that I really presented by revisited overview of the source material, I can firmly say that even the flaws in the content covered by of both season 1 and 2 (volumes 1-12 roughly) of the anime heavily outweights their merits. Something written THIS badly have no place as the most important thematic element in an otherwise superbly well written masterclass of a worldbuilding.
This fails in every level as a redemption story in a complete analysis. And its biggest crime is that it would could have been a masterpiece if it wasn't for that, talk about a waste of potential, it's enfuriating.
The light novel series I will have to go with an overall 5/10 (hell, I will have to go with a 5 score in both Story, Characters and my own Personal enjoyment, because is half-half something I can genuinely call phenomenal in places, and something I can also genuinely call terrible because of above stated reasons).
Concluding:
It's the perfect example of a complete mixed bag. An otherwise most perfect chocolate bar, that has some creamy diarrhea inside. People will say it is still one of the best chocolates, but it will still taste like shit to consume it (even if the chocolate taste on itself is so superb). One should even be grateful that I even considered the chocolate taste in separate when analysing the thing, as I blame no one for disconsidering whatever gets tarnished by Rudeus, which is basically everything.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 30, 2023
Bleach TYBW Season 2 Review - A Clear Case Where Adaptation Expansion Was Done Right
--Introduction--
Battle Shounen manga are tricky to write at times. For one reason why, their critical reception (be it positive or negative) by the public usually undergoes a rather binary surface analysis in regards to what works and doesn't according to their usage of a collection of plot devices that define what it is for such an audience, and what ultimately gets subverted enough to become its own thing within the analysis, which is why innovation is rather sought after within the genre (and perhaps, a bit too prioritized and overglorified for
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its own good, as it's not necessarily a must, nor an automatic positive/negative element).
Bleach is a work that was most definitely in the more innovative side for its time (the late 90s and early 00s), and such a claim can be double checked even very late in its run, despite still relying in many minor exposition elements that at that point were showing their age.
One Piece, Naruto and Bleach were considered the Big 3 not only because they were massively popular juggernauts that seemed to air endlessly with their gigantic anime adaptations, but because they brought with them an ever-evolving wave of world-building-focused battle shounen stories that came to become the staple, the base to be followed from that point onwards, if you wanted to create a long-running series in the genre.
One could also point out other contributors for other sorts of tropes which most definitely also influenced even the big three, such as HunterxHunter's mind games and radical change of settings every other arc to keep things fresh, or Gintama's parodizing approach to everything that represented Shounen Jump content by the time it started publishing (be it gag manga, battle manga, sport manga, bildungsroman manga, Slice of Life manga, and the list goes on). This sort of approach would come to influence on how other Battle Shounens in the future would come to be playful with old tropes and even justify them in interesting ways that would make for both a convenient use for exposition, and also as a way to pay homage to the old school elements in a way that evolved the formula towards something more grounded over time (even Bleach, as late as in the final arc. started using such parodic elements to some extent to call out its own tropes in regards to one in particular that I'll mention right now).
My favorite example of the latter, a battle shounen I'm also enjoying quite a bit airing in this very same Summer 2023 anime season would be Jujutsu Kaisen, for example. It takes inspiration and pays homage to several of these elements in the now considered old school (thus no longer innovative for this day and age), and use them in ways that makes them smoother. Such as the good old "I'll now proceed to explain my every move and why you are getting absolutely trashed", which usually resulted in the counterpart responding with "And I'll explain why I can counter that move and why you are going to lose", because we are not using mind battles with lengthy monologues in those (only in some fights, as truth be told, even with a proper execution, they can get very tiring very quickly to read, and even more weirdly paced when animated). While Jujutsu ends up falling victim of both disadvantages at once at times, what it decided to do to shake up the formula was to just state "the more I explain and the opponent understands, the more effective the technique will be". And when it doesn't, we get lengthy, glacially paced mind battles, with HxH-like textbook size narration that really hopes you are sharp with your knowledge on the power system.
So, with all that being said, what is to say about Bleach the manga, compared to what we are getting now in this anime adaptation, that would make this entire section even worth the reading? As one may have guessed at this point, this adaptation decided to both maintain its old school elements (whether they aged a bit compared to something like a spiritual sucessor series like Jujutsu Kaisen) and also create different scenarios by expanding upon fights with anime-original action, and making them more compelling instead of necessarily following that formula with a straight adaptation (more in the lines of the successful JoJo's Bizarre Adventures anime adaptation by David Productions).
--Story/Fights--
The story covers roughly volumes 61 through 67 of the original manga (heavily expanding upon it later on with some very interesting side information from both databooks and sequel novels that really complements the overview and worldbuilding in a major way). That's around 66 and a half chapters, more or less only 3 more than the previous season covered. Which is actually surprising, considering how battle-heavy this entire section of the story is (some episodes covered 8 full chapters in one go, like Gremmy's fight). We came to understand why when suddenly, other episodes in the cour started expanding upon the material with entirely new content, particularly the final 3 episodes, which is likely why there weren't to many more chapters adapted compared to the first cour's wordier content.
The Second Invasion is a portion of the final arc in which we get an all-out war with non-stop cool fights all over the place (very reminiscing of aforementioned JoJo series, which starting from part 3 gives us an enemy stand per story section of a given part, usually divided in multiple chapters, and, likewise, adapted either in one go or two episodes in the faster paced anime adaptation, compared to the slow weekly pace of the manga anyway).
It's far better appreciated in a marathon for me, personally. That's true for this entire arc in the manga, really, it just wasn't fun to follow it weekly due to how much focus we had in action, which made all these fights take months to be completed. This problem is nearly absent in the anime adaptation right now, but that was the possible ultimate reason why the anime just couldn't continue adapting the way it was doing beforehand (5 min recap, 7 minutes fight, 5 minutes flashback to what just happened in the fight so far including the previous episode, and 3 minutes for OP/ED, with the rest of the time being used for the comedy skits at the end of the episode). That was a sick joke not even the numerous fillers were remeding by the time we reached Hueco Mundo.
The formula for said battles is like stated above, and I cannot stop thinking how influenced by JoJo's own it is. You have Rule of Cool, insane power abilities being used in twisted ways and zigzagging the tides for the entire duration of a fight, which 90% of the time ends with the good guys winning against the threat (the other 10% being either a setup for the arc where defeat is inevitable or genuine deaths of major protagonist/antagonist characters, which in JoJo usually only happen as the Parts are coming to an end (while in Bleach, they are mostly reserved to the charismatic antagonist major cast, which unfortunately for fans, are some of the favorites, particularly Ulquiorra).
Formulaic as it may be, that isn't really what the battles are about, and honestly, negatively addressing as something formulaic or predictable just because the good guys will almost always win is as much of a falsely equivalent statement as saying that series that kill their characters unpredictably are in any way necessarily better. When it comes to Battle Shounen, execution and fun trumps most other elements. If the hero doesn't have the so-called "plot-armor", one will be wasting precious character development and established iconic figures, usually for the sake of stakes, development of others in the cast, or shock value.
It's a waste of time to even argue with anyone that will say something is predictable because a central character won't die, and given that Bleach is an assembled gigantic cast of slowly introduced main characters that share the spotlight for just as long as the protagonist himself in several regards. It's not necessarily neither a good or a bad thing, it all depends on how you are executing a final act of a battle-focused story in which several characters will live to the end or will die in big numbers.
In the case of Bleach, luckily, they kill major characters or permanently debilitate others to great effect in this Final Arc, whether they are or not numerous. What results of it are several battles with fan-favorite characters participating in battles against enemies that are just as fun as they are insane with their destructive potential, as Quincies' powers gifted by Yhwach are ludicrously gargantuan.
It comes to apply, of course, the discourse from before about having fun with these old school elements, such as not just once a character on the good guys side will brag too much about a power that could clearly win the battle... if only they stayed quiet! Resulting in hilariously brutal beatdowns from enemies until the big shots come to the rescue and win the battle. That also happens with enemies, and some are more self-aware than others as to how dumb and funny it is for both their allies and their enemies to get bodied by their own ego while they explain in detail why they are awesome and why the enemy will get destroyed for the sake of exposition (there's even more to come from this next cour, and in there, some of the best comedic bits are precisely about this sort of thing lol).
Overall, it's a whole lot of fun with some old school elements that also get their own little anime exclusive expansions here and there for a more engaging battle from start to finish. You just have to keep in mind that it's playful with these elements in general since the very beginning of the story, a bit more substantially so now that we reached the endgame phase.
TL;DR the story mostly used these fight elements for rule of cool and smooth exposition on the spot with all the action, meaning thus SO SHOULD YOU!
--Characters--
Quirky as usual, Kubo never needs much screentime to make most of the villain cast chaotically fun to watch. In the short time they have to establish their own thing to make the battle entertaining they do so. As for the more important ones, naturally they get much more depth than those, but they are selected few.
I don't personally think that's necessarily a problem, and I don't think all villains have to have any sort of substantial depth to them before they go down in the hands of the good guys in this genre of story. In fact, as of late, I think this is getting more and more detrimental due to -again- poor execution when paired to themes being delved upon by the conflict in hands (I'm looking at you, Kimetsu no Yaiba, giving every single villain a sad backstory that doesn't really add much to the overarching other than "see, they had feeelings too").
In the case of Bleach it's very simple and you really don't need these characters to be surprisingly deep characters you HAVE to know all about by the end of their lives within the conflict with a sappy, 10 minutes long flashback just before they die. The little glimpse at the miserable life of some is usually more than enough to make you think "damn, this guy's life sucked, and I feel bad for him even though the only thing I know is that he was trapped in a closed space and that never knew true freedom even in his own imagination, which was kept in check so that he didn't grow too strong". How many minutes did it take in the anime to give you that impression without interrupting a single second of glorious high-octane cool action? But 3 seconds of eyecatcher text explaining this bit, and 2 minutes for the character explaining his feelings to his adversary, and it was all very effective.
You can do a lot with very short time as long as you have the good old keyword "execution", even cry for a life going by in 5 minutes of film in Pixar's Up. The same goes for a strong first impression that keeps you engaged. Bleach never needed much time to establish a cool character in a way, and make them somewhat memorable and fun to watch and read about, for as short as that time was, and this is what I would call a strength if anything. An achievement in simplicity matters little for one that always expect depth, but it's not like depth is always necessarily a must to give you a compelling product in its own regards of storytelling and, in this genre, most importantly, fun.
TL;DR the characters are fun to watch, and the most important ones get nice depth to them as the narrative requires them to.
--Animation/OST--
To keep it short, it's very well animated, albeit not perfectly consistent (but what wasn't can easily be fixed in the BD release (the actual final product), which is the same as last cour, pretty much, I wouldn't be much bothered by the nitpicks in that regard.
OST is really nice and I listen to it here and there in separate (these are mostly cool remixes from the glorious old soundtrack), but I have one complain that I don't think I've heard much about, which would be:
The volume is a bit messed up, the OST is too low at some particular times, and thus makes a lesser impression because of it. When it's in proper volume, the scenes give you that feeling of "IT'S GOING DOWN BABY!", but when they are not, let's say I cannot completely feel like Number One.
--Enjoyment--
It's rather clear that I enjoyed this anime adaptation a WHOLE LOT.
Final Score is a solid 9/10.
I'm looking forward to all the nice adaptation expansions yet to come with the next 2 cours.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 10, 2019
Well, that sure does it for me with this show.
After watching literally 999 episodes and with the 1000th one just around the corner this next Friday, I think it's safe to assume I'm so deep into this show's endless nature that I will likely die before they stop making episodes for it (and movies, and Specials, and OVAs, and...).
I'll take a big On-Hold hiatus from this until it somehow comes to an end (which I doubt), just to say that I'm not actually dropping it, because stupid me here never drops anime for pure OCD at this point.
Such is the longevity of Japanese family fun
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anime ever since Sazae-san (that one I can't even watch whether I want it or not, since the eps are not preserved and no copies were made for several of the lost ones). Gotta say though, as much as I enjoy watching this to pass time, it's bound to get amazingly repetitive with the quirks, humor, eventual flanderizations and even some of its smartest comedic aspects.
You still get here and there absolutely hilarious episodes, legit tearjerking moments (some of which even directly connects to a bigger picture made into a movie) and overall a lot of fun with the cast's great chemistry with each other. But at this point, you are also bound to find one huge mixed bag of overdone content and unfortunately very toned down comedy edges for a series that actually had a history of being quite the risquè enthusiast with many of its elements (being instead substituted at times with Disney Junior levels of "for kids" content, which was quite a shock considering how much this series used to really never stepped down too much from always trying to be very accessible for both parents and children to have their share of giggles).
Other than that, this bit is quite obvious for anyone familiar with the series:
Art and animation were always mediocre at best, although becoming a lot more fluid and well animated over the years in several specific occasions.
Sound being your usual japanese slice of life comedy generic tunes with some memorable songs thrown in at times and of course, if you account on this category, your usual old-school cliche sound effects and punchline delivery shenenigans.
And for an anime this long to only have had 17 openings and 15 endings is a bit weird and underwhelming as an element to look forward to in several cool plotlines that could have been made into them, if you allow me to do a nitpick, but that's just my opinion as a OP/ED lover myself.
The characters literally make this show by themselves and are the true shine of this whole anime however. You really got to appreciate just how many situations they come up with in which the characters by simply being in there and acting like the audience would expect them to (and sometimes the situation being severally subverted for better or for worse, just to make a side note as to why this show can be unpredictable with part of its character interactions even taking in consideration the issue with flanderization mentioned above), and you have a funny time for solid 7-13 minutes depending on how long the segment sets itself up to be.
Talking about that, something that makes this anime works in the Enjoyment portion is just how much it really tries not to overstay its welcome, always opting to going for 2-3 short different segments per episode (saved for some exceptions), many times being animated and written by different people of the anime staff, which gives a bit of lively variety in its own way.
This anime has, as to be expected for such a long long-running anime, a lot of flaws and a mixed bag of episodes (to the point of several times being a mixed bag as a segmented episode per se). But you can't deny the overall appeal, influence and just how good it is in many regards in its own merits, for a comedy series.
Besides all of its problems, I can't help but to give a solid and well deserved 7/10.
If you are not a crazy person like me that goes completionist mode with every anime they touch, do yourself a favor and give a try at least in the first episodes, I can guarantee that, even if it isn't quite your kind of comedy, you will still have a good time with it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 8, 2017
And then, this wildly cute ride is finally over.
There may be a sequel or just a spinoff follow-up (will read it regardless), but here's a small review for this clever little gem.
Himouto! Umaru-chan is a Slice of Life manga about a super-active hamste- highschool girl who has very bad life habits inside her house, is a completely obnoxious and very dependant spoiled little brat towards her brother (which is the completely opposite of her in every single aspect)... but who is actually a prodigy with whatever she actually want to do (including being at times quite a bit too manipulative and egoistical for her own
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good... yet, interestingly enough, never actually egocentrical at all).
What helps her habit to become a partially healthy one is the fact that she is at least sufficiently responsible with all of her must-do-ings, including school. However this is a bit of a problem for her, who ended up developing multiple personality issues when it comes to interacting with people outside her usual inside house life.
As the story progresses, she starts better building her inner self based on her interactions with many other friends she meets and develops relationships with, all of this while trying to equilibrate and hide her alternative personalities she only uses with exclusive people and/or events ending up making her life a character development crazy ride in all possible ways.
I think the best part of this series isn't just the smart and soft take on the multiple personality issue while using bildungsroman structure of storytelling (she goes changing her egoistical attitudes and trying to handle with these problems progressively better), but the fact it is almost 100% adorable family friendly fun for anyone to read, besides the demographic being for adults.
Not to mention this manga has such a nice cast with every enjoyable interactions and a very colorful light plot (which actually carries some interesting twists here and there as the manga progresses, which in many occasions give certain depth not only for the main cast, but also for some secondary characters as well).
It's a very enjoyable and heartwarming time-killer, would recommend giving it a try at least because of its unusually smart setting besides being so apparently simple at first.
7,8/10
Too many Umarus (just to end up in a "videogame reference" note at that, which this series has plenty of as well)
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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