I tried to understand his 'humble beginnings' as a shut-in NEET since it was caused by the trauma of being bullied and it could happen to anyone. I even made excuses for him when he admitted he was jerking-off during his own parents' funeral. I also thought he was forgivable for lusting to his Nanny's breast and being a little bit inappropriate to his own mother while she was breastfeeding. Just by reading I could tell they are very both gifted and he was a baby with a mind of a deprived otaku, so 'forgivable' for now. I also find it understandable when he had a sort of a crush to his first teacher, Roxy, and he started 'coincidentally' witnessing her naked every time it is time for her to take a shower. He even took her panties and treated it like a divine item. I can say "Understandable" since Roxy is aware and an adult who understand things in a certain level.

What really irks me is how a 40+ years old, mentally aged person would try to manipulate little girls to submit to his desires.

First he tried to turn Sylph, who is obviously very vulnerable since she had no one she could consider a friend because of her appearance, into some kind of submissive, obedient doll. Thank all the gods of that human world, his father noticed this and made some repercussions.

I also didn't like how he almost lay his hands on Eris when they were only 10 and 12 years old. Even if she kinda gave him consent, I can't stomach it. I mean he already knew that she was being pimp by her whole family and despite that, he still tried taking advantage of her. Also, I can't overlooked the emotional manipulation he did. He obviously acted like a lonely kid separated from his family while she, in response, just wanted to make her only friend happy letting him do what she knows he wanted the most.

I understand that the genre includes Ecchi and Harem. I don't mind a good Ecchi and I could tolerate Harem, although I don't particularly favor it.

However, emotionally manipulating someone is simply unacceptable. I mean even doing it with anyone either a man or a woman of considerable age is considered malicious. At least, if it is an adult they can somehow see pass through it or understand the consequences but most of his victims are "children".

Not to mention all the aforementioned women, excluding his nanny and his mother, became his wives. I didn't know how since I accidentally found out reading some characters' information. But yeah, after all the harassment, they still married him. And him after promising not to become the same scumbag as his father, he actually surpassed him.

– Masturbates on his parents funeral day

– Sees a group of s*aves, who are beaten/raped and near death btw. What does our MC think first? Of course that they are nearly naked, what turned him on, ignoring their wounds and sorrowful bodies..

– Mother gets abducted, it’s highly possible that she’s getting beaten/lives miserably as a s*ave. MC does not even care. Forgets her and lives his life, chilling with his girls. Who cares if his mom is getting raped all day? As long as he lives fine everything is good. /s

and him marrying another and then the first girl comes back like, uhhh, do u still love me?
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I didn't read after the first female lead ran off after their first time... like WTF?!! Thinking 'he would understand why she left'..........

I had skipped to the end to find out the ending FYI

in the end, he successfully create harem, with 3 most influential girls in his life, have a happy family. Although the ending somewhat unsatisfying, but it concludes his lifetime goal. And the super spoiler part is... The last boss in the ending is not properly defeated, I don't know, maybe the author wanted to write sequel of it? I just hope so

when the human god told him not to worry about his mother, and told him to stay put, he defied it, even after he was told that he'd regret it if he come to save his mom, he still, in the end, came to rescue his mom.

And when his grandmother from his mother side wanted to take over his mother care and how she planned to marry his mother to some nobles and use her as a tool to giving birth (because his mom is disabled, and according to the grandma, it's the only usefulness she had left) the MC Became furious and defied his grandmom. And how is that categorized as don't give a damn?

As the reason why he didn't do that earlier, because hr believed in that Human God, he didn't know who or what the God was, but it was the only being that knows him and he knows was a divine, so he trusted him.

The powers are broken, but not to the point that it breaks immersion completely. The MC is OP, but that's fine, that's something I don't mind that much if it is handled correctly in the series. But in this case it is not, not really, the MC is good at magic but not good with the sword? His mother is a genius magician and his father was a genius swordsman. So, why is he good at magic and not the sword? They try to excuse it later on as it being because of some bullsh*t with Laplace or something, but I consider this as an asspull for a convenient excuse for a power-up. I understand that the author didn't want to make him too powerful, but that was poorly executed, since he is a magician/warrior there was no real meaning to it. It felt more like the author did this to not change his inner character as an otaku too much, since it would be harder for them to relate as well as a potential weakness. The story also seems to stay too stale for its own good at times, and the author uses shock factor techniques to spike interest. Such as Paul's death and Zenith's state in the later arcs. Although, those were great moments in the overall story, it is easy to see that those things were added mechanically to give drama to the overall plot.

The harem factor was added in a mature way, although the Roxxy's and Eris parts were to lazily handled at the end, but since we had lots of time to get to know them in past, it was passable I guess. There were a few quirks about the girls personalities and they were somewhat closer to plot devices, but they weren't one-dimensional so it can be excused. The author seems like he or she wants to shy away halfway through from the harem he or she created, I mean the MC already had 3 girls in the harem, plus the gangster girls plus the imouto (not promoting incest or whatever but you know this is a LN). The worst part of it all is their endings, since the girls that didn't get in the harem train had somewhat of pathetic endings (to my knowledge), at least give them boyfriends. Especially, for imouto-chan she needed it the most especially since since she works with so many guys around her (I think the author didn't want to give her boyfriend to not piss off otakus).

There was a lot of nonsense, things that make no sense unless to serve as a plot twist. Such as one of younger sister marrying Ruigerd? because she took care of him while he was injured and he was nice to her when she was a child. That for me killed the character that Ruiberd (I don't know his name so I am going to butcher it each time) was painted as, I could excuse Nell? but for Ruijeberg?, there is no excusable way for a man such as him to make such move. But again this all happened because the plot required so, since their daughter would later become one of the heroes that would kill hitogami.

The ending was nothing short of disappointment, it felt more like the author had no idea how to kill hitogami. Since he was painted to be this powerful godlike existence, for him to omit the final moments of the only antagonist in the entire series felt cheap. Some would consider the dragon guy and the monkey as antagonists, but they weren't to me since none of them had true malice towards the MC. Hitogami was the only real antagonist in the series, he was the second character after the MC to be the most fleshed out. He was smart, careful and planned ahead and stood strong till the end. That's why he was cheapened at the end and we were robbed of an epic finale between the two, instead they just talk for a bit before both of them die while transcending time and space. One word, cheap.

The overall story was decent still suffers from no plot, and this fact became most obvious during the school arc (school ruins everything), it was only used as gimmick for the MC to have an awkward romance with Sylphy. And also used this time to develop side characters too much for their own good, since they weren't as important for the new main plot (defeat hitogami) which they threw away midway for a cheap ending.

last but not least, the MC was decent. Light Novel decent, not as true character, he wasn't bland but inconsistent when the plot required him to be. He felt like a plot device, but he was somewhat well-enough portrayed to seem like a real person (otaku), that was sent to another world. We were never given much setting of the world in general to know exactly how the different places differ except for the races, climates and important places. Politics were also ambiguous, and superficially touched so the overall setting and the MC interaction with it was shallow at best, so we got things towards more of the emotional side of the spectrum. Plus at the end when he became a father, things only went downhill, since his character was struggling to be so many things at times that it became even more inconsistent.

There are many things that Mushoku Tensei did right, it promoted the "isekai" (Truck-chan) genre more, even initiated a few tropes by being one the first ones in this genre (debatable) with its popularity. But, there are so many things that are wrong with it, especially the school part that overstayed its welcome (like a deadbeat one-eyed uncle during the holidays) too much for the WN's own good. Since the MC didn't even go to school for most of the time, it felt like a cheap/lazy gimmick to gather all the characters in one place. The LN did better by not attacking the school arc directly especially after the time skip, but it is also doomed since the school arc is there to stay to the bitter end. Another thing to point out is that there are too many time skips, it isn't good character development if the development is made in the dark, it feels forced. Finally, there are several other quirks, here and there but since most of them would be nitpicking for the most part I won't mention them (this is pretty long already), and the some other problems I forgot about them.

As a time-waster this a good novel series (not that much worst than the Potter series, actually better in some areas), there lots of things wrong, especially Deus EX Machina writting (ex: when the MC is saved because of a doll huh such nonsense), cheap frills, plot threads that go nowhere etc... but it was enjoyable. Except the school arc, I consider all of that nonsense non-canon and so should you, living in denial is the only way to die happy.

1.) The plot is not bad: it's lacking a main antagonist so far, but it's ok, each character still has his motives to go on with his/her life, and most of them seem pretty realistic (what with saving your family, improving yourself because you feel you're below the one you love, stuff like that).

2.) The setting: the world could be better structured, but it's still a good, fairly standard fantasy setting, with the different races, it's history with its wars connected to the problems between said races, the different cultures (though only very slightly touched upon).

3.) I like the fighting system/rankings, with how decently structured magic is, with almost limitless potential, but hard to reach (since it's connected to how natural events actually can be manifested, like gathering clouds for a storm is not just "your mana turns into clouds"), and the sword part which has it's schools with different focuses, without one being absolutely better than the other.

4.) Characters (in general) : I like the different variety, which feels refreshing from the usual "arrogant noble with great backing who feels the world is beneath him because he's got a great father/sect" that I got used to seeing in chinese novels. Also as I said above they actually have they're own objectives, mostly coherent with their lives and experiences.

Now on to the bad part: the main character. I find it really really hard to stand Rudeus. On one side I can sympathize with him, I know how it feels to be a shut in, and also how it is to be bullied (though not as bad), so I understand his lack of confidence in himself. What I don't understand is how he doesn't seem to get any better in this regard while piling up accomplishments. I'm not saying he should become arrogant, that wouldn't work well, it would be out of character, but he still goes around with the attitude that almost anyone could be stronger/better than him, while he has actual proof from first hand experience that it is not so. Sure the encounter with the Dragon God has been traumatizing in this aspect, and Eris leaving him with no explanation even more so (as a blow to his self confidence), but after these events what does he do? Basically nothing. It doesn't make sense: he goes on living as an adventurer, almost mindlessly (with the excuse of searching for the missing mother), without trying in any way to improve himself; he got so scared from the Dragon God, but he still doesn't think of improving his ability as a mage to avoid becoming so defenseless again. Even when he gets to the academy he barely bothers to look for more powerful spells and stuff like that, to the point that he got there with the only objective of curing his impotency, caring for almost nothing else.

In short, he doesn't feel like a driven character, someone that strives to improve himself. In the beginning this aspect was present: how he earnestly learned magic, how he struggled and fought to get some decent skill with the sword despite not having as good a talent as with magic and not having a suitable teacher, how he bothered to learn various languages... Then this suddenly disappears. During his journey maybe it was normal, he had to survive first, but after things calmed down, and after seeing how he could not deal with certain situations (hello again Dragon God!) it just didn't come back. The single redeeming feature he had...

And here we come to what was, to me, the worst part: the ever present sexual urges. The only moment in which he doesn't think about that is when he's dying (and maybe it's not even completely true). It's just too much, to the point that it seems that the female main characters to him matter only as potential lovers, to the point that when he was an infant (even with the mental age of a neet in his 30s) his mother breastfeeding him was something erotic. To the point where while Eris was weak due to seasickness he had to restrain himself from raping her. To the point that he got aroused seeing the naked, vexed and wounded bodies of the kidnapped beast race children. Aroused by wounded, ens*aved children. That was an all time low so far, the most disgusting moment of the main character. That's not simply a hikikomori otaku who lived for years immersed in erot*c novels (he had also spent more than 10 years in this new world, plenty of time to understand that life is different from certain fantasies and that some things are just not right, and plenty of time to understand there's more to life than sex, like relationships with other people...).