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Mushoku Tensei wants to have its cake and eat it by being a pensive fantasy epic about redemption with immersive worldbuilding whilst incorporating trashy seasonal ecchi power fantasy elements operating on hentai . logic into its narrative. Instead, the former narrative style gets engulfed by the latter because the author can’t help himself and the end result is a sum lesser than the parts that reads like a degenerate fanfiction masquerading as a coming-of-age story. This disconnect plagued the first season and jeopardized any prospect of Mushoku Tensei being a serious story, but the second season thoroughly exposes this tonal and thematic mess as the failed assimilation of the two antithetical storytelling approaches that it is; this season only serving to expand the MC’s forced harem. To some, the insufferably grating MC is part of what makes this isekai special. In actuality, the series shows no signs of meta-commentary about this character chasing underage girls as a 21st-century first-world Japanese male inside a medieval fantasy world. The show instead fully embraces it and I suppose its only half-hearted attempt at self-awareness is always playing it off as laughs with the overreliance on vulgar humour. As with any joke, it stops being funny the nth time it's used. Rudeus is continuously shown to still have the mental age and awareness of a 34-year-old contemporary otaku through various forms of dialogue and his interactions with Man-God even depict him in his past-life state to reinforce that fact, yet the story does nothing meaningful about it in order to justify the very concept in which it's founded upon and lets him fully pursue his perversion.
Some moments were honestly baffling, too, such as how he switches from being completely mind-broken during the events of the fifteenth episode to being totally normal (albeit with a desire for revenge) in the next.
I say all this, but the eighteenth episode is actually one of the best episodes of anime I have seen in quite some time.
Let me explain.
Where the first two thirds of the anime spent its time showcasing unnecessary gore, Subaru's stupidity and empty characters who exist for little more than space on hug pillows and other creepy merchandise, the eighteenth episode redeems the anime and gives meaning to all that has happened, even if it doesn't erase its mistakes. It is an episode dedicated entirely to characterisation. It is a single conversation where Subaru shows remorse for his actions, recognising all the mistakes he has made and why he kept making them. He understands that he is a deeply flawed, broken person incapable of saving anyone or indeed even himself. It is at this moment that Subaru becomes aware of who he is. And you know what? I stopped hating him as a result, even if I still fundamentally disagreed with his actions and his character. He showed himself to be a human being for the first time in the entire story.
I have great respect for scenes such as these.