TRIGGER WARNING: The following article about Mushoku Tensei discusses grooming, sexual harassment, and sexual assault
2021 proved to be a great year for anime. The Demon Slayer movie was finally released in the west and even got its Entertainment District arc animated. Not to mention Attack on Titan's final season was released by Mappa that was also responsible for the incredible Jujutsu Kaisen series that also aired that year. Even Boruto, a series many fans have been somewhat negative towards became popular in the mainstream and featured one of the best fights in anime. Even with all those big-name shows around, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation managed to stand out among the crowd.
Featuring an interesting premise, a great cast of characters, and truly magnificent animation, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation was an anime that truly had it all and more. With all these things going for it, it's no wonder why it is considered by many to be the best anime to have come out of 2021. Unfortunately, it has one real problem and it is one that could potentially ruin the series: its protagonist.
Rudeus Greyrat is the man who was reborn into this new world as an infant. Having been reborn with all his memories and even his personality from his previous life, this reincarnation is basically a second chance for him. He has all the knowledge and experience that he gained over the course of 34 years in his previous life, but it also gives him a more "adult" perspective.
In his previous life, Rudeus was a shut-in since high school. After being bullied mercilessly by his peers, he essentially gave up on life and refused to ever leave his house in fear of further torment. This led to him becoming a literal recluse and hermit that survived off the kindness and understanding of his parents. What happened to him makes it easy to sympathize with him, but the person he ended up becoming or maybe always was truly is a creepy pervert, and that's putting it mildly.
Since his resurrection, Rudeus has been obsessed with sex to the point where calling it perverse would be an understatement. As a newborn, he enjoyed the act of breastfeeding for less than pure reasons. Before he could even speak he would venture out and try to steal the underwear of the women in his house, using his age as a way to get away with the obvious sexual harassment. He'd even listen in on his parents having sex as an act of pleasure!
Everything that's already been mentioned is bad enough, but the worst thing that Rudeus has done involves grooming. Without fail, every time Rudeus meets a girl around his new age ("new" as in the age he is in his new life), he immediately starts trying to formulate plans on getting them to want to have sex with him. He uses his knowledge of human behavior as well as his adult perspective from his old life to subtly manipulate girls that haven't even gone through puberty yet into finding him attractive and falling for him.
The whole situation is insanely perverted and morally reprehensible obviously. It is true that he is biologically the same age as the girls he's doing this with, but mentally he is more than 30 years older than them. It's like if a pedophile inhabited the body the same age as those they prey upon and used their knowledge and experience to succeed in their sick goals, but got away with it because they aren't actually older than those they've targeted.
Regardless of how old his body is, Rudeus is mentally old enough to understand the full weight of his actions and desires. He doesn't look at these girls like a child or preteen would, but rather as an adult that knows how to take advantage of children. Truthfully, his biological age does technically add a layer to the situation that makes it harder to say whether or not how wrong his attractions are, the fact he spends all of season 1 trying to groom two separate girls into sleeping with him makes it all feel much more sinister.
It's understandable that someone in his exact situation would be interested in taking advantage of his second chance. It makes sense that he would try to enjoy this life as much as possible and experience all the things he wanted to but never did including sex, but the way Rudeus goes about it crosses many different moral and ethical lines. Dying a virgin doesn't give anyone a pass to act the way he does.
The only thing that stops him from being a full-on sex predator is that he's a child and not violent, but how much does that matter when he's manipulating prepubescent girls into falling in love with him. Worse yet, the show doesn't really try to show how wrong any of these behaviors are. It clearly paints him as a deviant, but never one that is actually dangerous even though by all obvious standards he is. He's not a character that would ever violently assault a woman, but is tricking women into giving him what he's after all that much better? If anything it frames the moment he loses his virginity to a 15-year-old girl as something of a touching moment, rather than the product of years of manipulation and subtle manipulation.
With all that being said, it's shame that this is the protagonist of such a great show because it truly is incredible. Even Rudeus' journey and growth are interesting to watch unfold. Unfortunately, once his whole character is put into perspective it's hard to ignore the things that should never have been part of the show, to begin with. Is Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation worth watching? Definitely, but can it escape the dark shadow left by its protagonist forever? Who knows.
