Let me start by saying I love this story and highly recommended it. But like everything it's not perfect.
While it's start out perfectly (loved the first volume) the following volumes are mixed. Some are great, others not so great. There are times when an entire arc felt boring and dragged out and I honestly considered dropping it at time but never fear, it gets better. Plow though the slow parts and you'd be rewarded by the amazing volumes following it.

... Last updated on October 16th, 2015, 3:36am

start good, but lately, maybe run out of idea, after using time loop/future thing/etc , story starting to not so good, because if the story move in bad direction, the author can use time thingy then restart the plot, if so, it's useless to read long story.

Well after reading through the whole series so far, I came back to find that there were a few people that had really disliked the series, and like the fanboy I am I decided to silence and harshly rebuke those few people who dared not to like what I like.

Well jokes aside I do wish to give my own take on the series and address some of the criticisms directed at this series, which while by no means is perfect, seems to get some people that really hate it for very small things. Anyways before I start I have to offer a few caveats, firstly I haven't read many light novels, so I can't exactly judge it according to it's peers, instead I will just give my own impression of it. Secondly I both have a soft spot for fantasy, and I am the exact type of person this series would aim for in terms of wish fulfillment (wasted parts of my life, deeply regret it, love the idea of a second chance in a world based on swords and magic, etc) so I will probably be biased to some degree, though I will attempt to be fair. Anyways I'll just get started.

Firstly I will look at the basis of the entire thing, the writing, or rather because I can't read the original language it was published in, the translation.The translation of this is relatively smooth (well I assume at least), though in parts it gets very rough around the edges, and there were chapters that were annoying difficult to comprehend, though that is rare. The writing style of the series is a very conversational chunks of thought format, mostly from the point of view of the main character, though interspersed throughout are more details from a sort of third person perspective. This style doesn't really lend itself to any flowery writing, or much else really. Though it's very good for quickly giving the reader an understanding of the situation and character who's view point we are looking through. It is a very quick to read style of writing, and suits the "light novel" status of the series. I can't really complain about it as it works well for what it is.

Secondly let's take a vague spoiler free look at the characters. While I wouldn't say that most of the characters are amazingly unique and lovingly crafted, or even not archetypal or stereotypical to some degree, the author till manages to make things interesting. The characters in the series are rarely static, most of the time they do experience some growth. The characters interactions too are interesting enough to keep reading, because they do change, so too do the interactions which I believe is a major draw for the series. The author also has a really great way of illustrating some of the characters by switching to another POV, and allowing us to see inner thoughts of characters that we have only seen the actions of. Personally these parts were one of my favorites, unfortunately the author doesn't actually switch POVs that often. The main character while annoying in some ways due to his character flaws (the main one of these is that he's a pervert) is fairly consistent, and not totally unlikable so long as you can get past the perversion more than occasionally spoiling the mood.

Next I suppose would be the world building, it's so so. It's there, and there's a map and a geography for the world, even a history (though we only know a bit mostly through one or two stories the MC heard as a kid, or through some brief glints of insight through characters that have lived for a long time). I get the feeling the author is going to delve deeper into this stuff at a later date, but for now it is workable.

Finally (assuming I haven't forgotten anything important to add into this review at a later date) would be the plot. The plot for most part is divided into arcs, each one having a general logical progression. Though in a few cases something unexpected does happen to move the plot along swiftly. One of the complaints I heard in one of the reviews, was that the author didn't seem to know what they were doing and were just throwing things out there, but I really don't think this is the case. I have always had the impression that throughout the series the author has had some sort of overarching idea in mind. There are cases of clear foreshadowing of major points, and of lesser points and characters there are clearly threads left for the author to pull on at a later date. Perhaps it isn't fully fleshed out exactly what he is going to do for the minor details of the story, I still wouldn't say that the author doesn't have any idea what to do next.

Anyways all in all, I would say that the series is admittedly leaning on the side of almost generic, however the character interactions are entertaining enough in my view to make it worth it.

Anyways with the basics out of the way I will address one of the few complaints that seems to have caused the most hatred in these reviews, that the MC is somehow a pedo. Firstly I would like to say, that I don't actually think it matters if he was or not, because all that matters is how something like that is used to tell a story. This is fiction after all. Anyways though I said it wouldn't matter if he was one, I have to say it's hardly written like that at all. Yes there are sorts of jokes here and there about breasts and sex appeal and stuff like that, but it's never written in a way that's realistic or seeming like it's meant to be in any way close to the real world, or even fantasies of that sort of thing. I honestly don't see what the problem is when the entire thing really has almost no effect on the story or actions of the guy in any way, I think you could even adjust the ages of everyone to be ten years older and the basis of the interactions would be the same, it's really not written in any appreciable way to actually effect stuff. I know moral outrage isn't something that you can control, but it is really irksome to see ratings of 1 on a decent series with very little justification besides a perceived character tendency.

Anyways moving on from that pointless rant that has been said before, I will address some of my own concerns with the series.

Firstly the harem, I can't say I'm a fan of harems to begin with, maybe I'm just a sucker for Victorian ideals, but I always prefer more dedicated relationships, or at least complex ones. The problem with this work ending up as a full harem work is more than my own feelings however. The problem is that by marrying the main character, the three wives become essentially tied down. For various reasons (mostly pregnancy and children) those other characters that had interesting development until that point suddenly become fixed, they are no longer actors moving about of their own accord but either always accompanying the main character. Before they ended up like that, they did admittedly revolve around the main character, but they also had some sense of agency, one of them traveled the world, one of them trained and met interesting characters, one of them formed deep relationships with some of the important players in the world. But now they are tied down to the house. I can understand why that would be, but it feels annoying. It feels like the entire scope of what we can see, and who will interact with the world has narrowed considerably. While before it wasn't exactly common to see the outside world with their eyes in a POV switch, it did happen and was enjoyable. This I personally find to be one of the most annoying developments in the series. I really hope that the author will break them out and at least let them make some moves in the future.

Another complaint I had, that tallrice right under me reminded me of, was the way that the series sort of took a mishmash of ideas from other places and tried to make them it's own. Sometimes though it failed to be a good thing however. For instance, as tall rice said the video game references. Now personally I never really was a JRPG man myself, and I do understand that it is deeply embedded in the culture of a certain age group in japan, but I really felt that some of the borrowed ideas cheapened the experience. For instance the ranking in the adventurer guild, it really felt far too generic, and like the author put it in without even attempting to make it his own thing. Though in other cases I do think the author at least attempted to make them his own, and that's why something that feels ripped directly from a game feels so jarring.


Well anyways I think that's it. Though I know the series isn't for everyone, and does have many flaws, I really hope people won't get turned away by superficial complaints, I hope others will at least try it out and see for themselves.

First, this is definitely not a perfect, or even amazing series. It's definitely not terrible either... The author has a very good writing style for the most part, he captures a lot of the dramatic irony allowed by the dual persona and he has the patience and detail to go through different aspects of the world and life of the character. After the first volume, I was quite ready to give this series a 10. By volume 11, however, I dropped the series, and my 7 rating is just because I did enjoy reading a fair amount of it. Note that I read the original, so I can't comment on the translation.

I'm going to start with this, since it seems to be the topic of most of the debates here. To be quite honest, I don't really care if a reincarnated character has a -implied mostly- h-scene with a girl his own age, in his new body. Part of the idea of reincarnation is that you should be dealing with new social circumstances, hormonal changes, age context and it's not as if he's taking advantage of little girls in order to injure them - he was in reciprocal romantic relationships with them...

Except that the author doesn't really write it this way... there are these really irksome, misogynist ways that the author objectifies girls in the series. If it was to represent a certain characterisation or if it was just one aspect of his descriptions, then I wouldn't be quite so annoyed, but it's constant, in pretty much every single chapter, right from the beginning. There is very little romance involved, since all the relationships are driven by the protagonist's arousal rather than any actual caring or interest in the thought, culture and lifestyle of other characters.

Now, before inferring that I mean the author is a misogynistic pervert or something, it's worth taking a step back and seeing where this comes from. The author really treats women in his story not like actual people, but like anime characters from those moe subculture shows that I admittedly don't care for... If you like moe archetypes such as the slightly tomboyish but completely devoted childhood friend, the tsundere noble girl, the clumsy library girl, (and some hentai archetypes like the slave-elf, yeah, that one appears later on too...), oh, don't forget the maid and the little sister, then you'll have no problem with the harem women in this series, and you'll probably think little of the characterisation of them, since, well, they whole point is that they are not like intimidating irl girls who might actually want to have a relationship with someone other than the MC or not ever show their dere side to you (oh horror). Just don't expect actual 'relationship' to the relationships, it's more that the MC 'wins' them. No sharing of his own emotions or life stories, no actual trust, he might teach them things, but never actually learns from them, nothing that would be remotely relatable to real relationships...

Also, may I mention that there are almost no male characters in this series. I don't mean none, just none that stand out. I was actually quite excited when the MC made his first childhood friend because I thought it was a boy... until we learn it isn't... After that, there are hardly any male characters (other than his father, who plays a semi-important role) until the doll otaku and another character (trying to avoid spoilers...) who become his proteges later on. Even in those arcs though, there's just a lack of significance of the male characters... the world being made here is harem genre, but I guess if I criticise this series for it, i should at least point out many other series lately are way way worse...

But, the author isn't stupid, just brainwashed by this way of seeing society, so he actually manages to make some character development, makes the women tough enough to fend for themselves, and some of the best parts of the novels are when he switches the perspective to particular side characters/girls' perspectives, which he does every so often, and he actually manages to bring forth compelling psychologies when he does that.

And, the main character isn't actually all that badly made. Besides his comments on women (which are too often, unfortunately), he's pretty decent. He has a complex past, he tries his best to do fun things. He is a total cheat character out of any run-of-the-mill shounen manga, but there are defined limits to his powers and he generally thinks about his actions, when he's not reeling from unexpected situations where you seem him desperately trying to recover from unfortunate incidents. This puts this series at least on 'good' level compared to the dozens of ridiculous stories coming out of this web novel industry lately that, once you get to chapter 2 or 3, the main character is vying for strongest in the universe...

Another selling point of this series is the complexity of the world. It has a reasonably developed magic system, by no means original, but well described and elaborated, it has an actual world map, with different peoples and cultures, again, nothing original, but he gives traditional fantasy (and anime) cliches his own spins, he has some politics and cultural clashes going on that the characters interact with, some historical mythology. Most of all, I enjoyed his early representation of language - although he doesn't make anything particularly complex, we finally have a fantasy world where the main character doesn't magically know how to communicate from day 1, but has to learn it... I was annoyed that only took a couple chapters and that he picked up other languages in the space of a few pages, but at least he learned them.

The world, however, starts to break down in explorations of it. Some countries were essentially reduced to the similarity of some of their foodstuffs with japan's foodstuffs - we passed through this country, they had rice! it wasn't as good as Japanese rice - and, of course, despite living in this world for 15 years, by that point, our character had developed no appreciation of his new world's (and mother's) cuisine. (Also the country of our doll maniac, which I was sceptical of, but he isn't so terrible a character in the end).

There is also too much video game influence in his description of the world... for my taste anyway. Note that I'd be fine with this if it was a novel about a video game like SAO or Log Horizon, but this isn't a video game based world. Nevertheless, the way the author demonstrates learning is by ranks of skills. The skills are all discrete, everyone uses the same fireball spell or slash skill. The wild is all random encounter monsters, essentially, that wink into existence in places with enough 'magical concentration', and although there is some historical background to the world, it is all the legends of so and so, who will have a direct effect on the story, like the usual video game lore...

Most of all, however, the annoyance for me of the game influence is the structure of cities and professions. The author thinks of the world as being based around adventurers who go around killing monsters and picking up drop items (at least they have to peel the hide of things in this world). Of course, the main merchants are 'weapons' and 'armour' shops, main organisations are adventurer and magic guilds, etc... This makes a lot of the world building feel superficial. I should point out that despite the limitations he sets on himself by depending on video game descriptions, he does get out of this mould sometimes, so it's not entirely immature.

Anyway, I still give it a 7, because I quite enjoyed this series. As far as light novels go, it is one of the better ones... but it's still mediocre as far as good writing goes, though it has potential if the author wanted to revise some of his characterisation and world building for the printed version. EDIT: I am told the printed version is the same as the web novel, so no luck there.

... Last updated on December 26th, 2014, 8:41pm

Reading all types of manga for the past 10 years, i have never taken a liking to light novels.
I have nothing against it, its just my brain fails to visualize characters, plots and settings without pictures. I gave up reading novels.. Until i met Mushoku Tensei.

Ive read close 300 manga over the years and i have to say its been a very long time since a story has both captured my imagination for fantasy action while still satisfying my craving for romance.
The story has so many mind bending plot twists and a masterpiece story telling.

One of the best stories i have ever encountered, period.

Reincarnation done right. Reincarnation in many religions is supposed to give the soul the opportunity to mature and grow not a tool to simply exploit the knowledge of past lives for some kind of wish fulfillment. I am mostly hating on Gun-ota. Re:monster and Slime Tensei have the same feel of being reset back to level 1 after the game over and more like they are playing a video game. Jashin is a reincarnation novel that isn't really a reincarnation novel. It is more like rising from the dead as a God combined with going to a fantasy world. Reincarnation is more like he got a job to pay off his debt and work his way to retire in heaven. Souen no Historia uses Reincarnation to give back a life that was taken too soon and part of the novel is leading up to people reuniting with lovers long thought dead. That Novel's protagonist is more deserving of his gift of new life as evidence of him receiving the same name as his previous one.
Mushoku Tensei is more of the journey to purify yourself and learning from mistakes. Rudeus has the strongest character development and story. The novel even has character development for other characters too.

I like the series, but I have mixed feelings about the main character. Rudeus is 25 gallons of pervert in a 1 pound bag. But he's a hard worker, and a decent character when it doesn't involve women. He tries to keep himself modest about his abilities, because of his previous life, which can be annoying at times too. Overall I like the series though.

Well, I look through half the comments and the general consensus is mostly good, but the other side is: GODDAMN pedophiles! First off we have the loli harem and claims of underage sex, by our standards yep he's a pedophile, but then again physically he was 14 and she was 15, so technically not really, but mentally he is a pedophile by our standards, but let's take a look at the flip side, is it more likely that medieval fantasy will have medieval values or modern values? and by medieval values the level of atrocities that happened in interpersonal relations the infractions in Mushoku Tensei are rather small and accepted by the medieval standards, I mean no one touches on the rape, the kidnapping and torture, and the blatant sex slavery mentioned, but focuses on the interaction of the mc and the heroines.
Well whatever I took a liking to the series because it is rare for storytelling to go through an entire lifetime of a person from infancy to adulthood. The MC is strong but he can be beaten under the right circumstances, there is a good villain that isn't a powerful demon king but a mastermind type that plays the game like chess, and in a clever fashion. The author himself gives the MC useful motivation to work hard and not just the usual "I was raised by lions so I'm powerful as crap"-type setting. His reincarnation is a driving factor early in the story but if you notice it becomes less and less active in the story, kind of like he's integrating into the world.

... Last updated on December 6th, 2014, 8:04am

This LN comes in the top league for me.....The best thing about is its different from its contemporary novels and has an amazing flow of events.For me,MC being already 34 and all that rather than repulse by that idea,It was quite funny how he tries to indulge in his perversions even as a baby.If you take it,I am sure you will read it to the end with how incredible the storytelling is!!!!!!

Let me get this straight, have some people even read this novel or have they been reading too much pedophile news lately? Are your minds okay or maybe now you're seeing pedophiles everywhere?

I'm seriously worried.

First of all, in no part of this novel is there any underage sex. There are many moments where you're teased with lolis, but the MC never sleeps with children, only adults. Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn't read the light novel or is probably just jumping at the first hint of a kid because their minds can't take it anymore.

Also, to certain individuals, I think there is a serious need to separate fantasy from reality, you're starting to confuse the two. Someday you're going to start attacking people because you think they're reincarnated pedophiles from a manga. I certainly don't need people like that near me.

Obviously, once you have such a bias, you can't appreciate the storytelling. It goes in the face of all the normal shounen cliches while keeping things interesting. Wait, is narration in books relevant on a forum for manga & light novel mediums? Seriously.

@bnad
Cool, I see you're acting like a real person on the internet, you're definitely not an anon.

Your intent is righteous, but if you read your own review, you'll find the logic is downright ridiculous. A fictional character is going to return to "our" world? And this is not even counting the fact that he has no loli harem (wtf are people reading? and your line "I'm a grown up with a responsibility to protect my family." is especially ironic if you ever read the light novel...)

At no point have I condoned this so-called "loli harem" or pedophilia, this novel simply doesn't have it. When you go as far as to say authors can't even tease readers with loli, I understand what you mean by the danger. But this also is ridiculous, because authors everywhere tease readers with dangerous ideas. Next you might as well start a campaign against books like Lolita by Nabokov. In all your righteousness, have you even considered some of the violence and other "alarming" messages in these mediums?

Are you going to start a war against all these works because of what they tease? It's called fiction for a reason, and you'll probably understand that one day when you get older. Otherwise it is just sad.

Humbert is entirely relevant because, despite his grotesque end, he thoroughly indulged in his sick pleasure. If you are so scared of the pedophilia epidemic, no need to look further, Nabokov was the one who brought it into the public. Certainly people like you thought so when the book came out.

FYI: If you are going to apply "our ethic and our moral standard" to decidedly fantasy literature, then no one can help you with your strange situation. You haven't heeded my warning to stop confusing fantasy with reality, so I suggest you stop reading most of the material on this site (especially the wish fulfillment genre) if your tendencies are so prudish. Stick with nonfiction, it's usually safe for genteel minds.

By the way, please go protest against those countries with 15 as a marriageable age. They need to be thoroughly indoctrinated by your Puritanical ideals of justice and political correctness.

1. Don't bother, stubborness makes correcting mistakes a pain.
2. This is really awkward, but I'll just quote you: "I don't want him near my house. I don't want him near my daughter's school. I don't even want him on facebook or twitter." /facepalm
3. Good luck changing the historical standards of centuries. If your argument is 15=child, I pray you don't go around the Middle East calling people pedophiles for marrying young women. As I imply before, that idea is perfectly normal but the line of reasoning that got you there is just zealotism, thinking your ideals and ethics are universal, when it's not. Case and point, world history 101.

Again, don't misunderstand. I've got no problem with culling the world of malicious adults who sexually abuse and exploit children. Just don't overextend, and start calling everything pedophilia because it doesn't meet your personal standards.

... Last updated on November 6th, 2014, 5:12pm