Forum - View topicINTEREST: Mushoku Tensei Author Addresses Criticism about Perverted Protagonist
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1008 |
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And that's part of the problem I have. That being "lazy and unmotivated" is considered more of a problem in need of fixing than "being a gross pedophile". |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2301 |
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Huh, that's disappointing. Given the two were woven together in his backstory, I thought it seemed likely his growth would involve addressing both. re: perverseness -- does he at least stop focusing heavily on underage girls with his leering and such? I don't really care if he continues to be super horny throughout the series, but his interactions with Roxy-like characters are just a bit much to stomach over and over throughout a long-running series. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3448 Location: Finland |
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As in new age, or new age + old age? spoiler[He will have relations with girls his age later(ie in terms 'new world age'). That will include even Roxy herself, a lot later(though Roxy being a demon she's a lot older than her appearance suggests). Can't see anything wrong with that though, you can't reasonably expect him to add his old age to any potential love interest in the new world, now that would be squick...] |
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Swissman
Posts: 768 Location: Switzerland |
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I couldn't care less if the protagonist is a creepy pervert or portrayed as a former consumer of pedophilia. What I completely dislike however is the tone whiplash within a single episode, especially episode 2. The creators seriously want to sell me the tragic backstory of this miserable sad sack in all seriousness, with big realizations and epic orchestral music, but why should I take all of this seriously when spoiler[they show us Rudy watching young Roxy masturbating] in the first couple of minutes or when spoiler[they end the episode with a short & lame panty gag]?
I haven't even mentioned the creep's inner monologue.... |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2945 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Why? Because they'd be "old"? I think the part that seems to be flying over your head in particular is that most adults, if they magically woke up in a child's body, would not be attracted to children or teenagers. The "Roxy is actually a spoiler[super old demon so it's okay] is especially rich since your last post was passing off a 34-year-old dude in a toddler body as normal toddler things. Which is it?
I know anime in general really hones in on the sex appeal of teen characters (usually by other teen characters) but most adults actually aren't horny for kids. I don't know if this dissonance is just from not hanging around a lot of real life teenagers or what? Any excuse for how he is falls apart when you try to compare it to the real world, so it's better to just not. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2301 |
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I'm not really looking for age parity, really; I guess that'd be ideal in some abstract optimizing sense, but I'd settle for just both parties being portrayed both physically and mentally as adults (note: the 'actually, within-universe this baby demon is 10 million years old' style of reasoning doesn't really cut it here, in my opinion; when I say physically and mentally as adults, I mean taking real humans as our reference point, which I think is a burden the author adopts when treating romance between highly anthropomorphic characters), and for not explicitly being treated to clear call-outs of child fetishes the protagonist has carried with him from the within-universe real world. As an example: Rudy at 30 years old in new-world age / 60 years old in combined old-world + new-world age and dating a new-world 30 year old (which I mean both physically and mentally, with real humans as reference) would pose some interesting questions about maturity and how that relationship's likely to grow, but it wouldn't make me recoil from the show. Last edited by NeverConvex on Wed Jan 20, 2021 6:10 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Blanchimont
Posts: 3448 Location: Finland |
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Why though, the normal body functions and pains one would expect when growing up should apply even if one is reincarnated if one starts as a child. And for all intents and purposes ,at least physical, he's restarting from point zero his old life and knowledge notwithstanding.
I only mentioned it in passing since she will be spoiler[a love interest later], but the rest of his spoiler[wives will indeed be in his age bracket(new world age).] |
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Slashman
 Posts: 253 |
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Was there this level of outrage in Scum's Wish when a fully grown female teacher casually boinked her underage student(and likely boinked other under aged students as well) and then just went off and got married like it was no big deal?
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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Maybe those people are just watching better anime. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 2945 Location: Email for assistance only |
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I can't tell if you're serious or not. You know there are actually a lot of people who end up taking hormones and experience a "second puberty" as adults and don't go out and sleep with teenagers, right? Like I said, this show has no real-world foundation or basis that excuses how Rudy is. It is fantasy with tenuous explanations for the main character's behavior. Your insistence for attempting to excuse pedophilic behavior in fiction by bringing reality into this is ridiculous and honestly is starting to set off my alarm bells. The story is actually very simple: the main character is a creep but teen anime girls are hot and the author wants to write an excuse for said adult guy to be able to perv on teen girls so he reincarnates him into a body where the teen girls may think he's less of a pervert because they don't know he's mentally an adult thus giving said character the opportunity to get his rocks off with teen girls (and he does). That's it.
All the relationships in that show are framed as bad and dysfunctional, especially the teacher. |
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harminia
 Posts: 2000 Location: australia |
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Scum's Wish didn't portray it as some funny comedy thing or try to pretend it was acceptable. It specifically called out the fact she was a bad person, and she acknowledged she was bad. I think it's a different situation to a show like Mushoku where it cares more about him not being a hikki than it does about him not being a pervert. The pervert stuff is meant to be funny (not sure who finds it funny but someone must), whereas a teacher having a relationship with a student is shown as bad, and she's shown as a generally awful and manipulative person. Mushoku Tensei/Jobless reincarnation - The focus is on him being jobless in past world and becoming more socially adept Scum's Wish - the title literally calls all the MCs scum. ___ I haven't watched Mushoku but it seems like such a shame that rudy is such a creep. The animation seems amazing, and based on screenshots it looks like some of the scenes are quite well done in an emotional development way. But I don't really want to watch a show about a guy that was actively a pedo creep who gets reincarnated in a form that lets him creep more, and who has no plans to change his creepiness. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Huh, I haven't seen this show, but the circumstances don't seem very different than Kazuma and Araragi in their leering/molesting children/youths.
And from what the author says, it sounds like the MC has gone from 100% pervert to 20% pervert, so I'm not sure how y'all can say there isn't some improvement in the MC's behavior if that's even remotely true. |
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Slashman
Posts: 253 |
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Were they really? And what exactly did she get as punishment for her being a horrible person? A fairy tale wedding and a totally oblivious (whether by choice or just completely out of the loop) husband who doted on her even after she told him she would likely cheat on him. There was no framing of any of that as being bad...it was framed as just by the way, There was no outing of her deeds to the school board, no firing of her or even being sent to therapy. She got married and lived happily ever after. But somehow you folks ate that up and wanted more. I just think it is rather amusing that this guy pervs on under aged girls and suddenly it is time for a serious and introspective look at his character. And we're all frowning now and shaking our fingers at how uncomfortable that is. Maybe her little speech to Hanabi about doing better next time or whatever was her punishment and retribution and time of deep introspection. 
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 2945 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Nah, it was absolutely framed that way. If you didn't get it that the teacher was 100% a horrible human being that viewers were supposed to and did hate, then :¯\_(ツ)_/¯:. It's not what this article is about anyway, so I'm not going to derail this conversation to be about whether Scum's Wish was good or not so that means people can't criticize another show.
Also surprise, most sexual predators are never punished. Last edited by ANN_Lynzee on Wed Jan 20, 2021 6:27 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2301 |
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In-universe consequences of this sort -- like some kind of anime karma -- isn't really what I usually have in mind when I talk about framing. I think instead of how the show naturally invites the viewer to judge a particular action or behavior; what tone does the show suggest, if any? Does it play it off as funny, reprehensible, virtuous, boring, sexy..? Any of these frames can be adopted regardless of whether the in-universe characters agree with the framing, and certainly independent of whether they suffer for or benefit from their actions. EDIT: There are, separate from the issue of framing, good questions to be asked about whether a character's suffering or lack thereof creates a good story (e.g., I prodded a bit in the main Mushoku thread about why the author felt the need to give him chantless magic so early and easily in the story, piggybacking on someone else pointing this out). That's a pretty different conversation, but has more to do with in-universe consequences (or lack thereof) for character behavior, as you're talkng about here. |
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