Three-and-a-half stars.

I love me some isekai. If you pay any attention to my words, you know this already. It’s the quintessential boys’ fantasy: explore some fantastic places cut off from this repulsive Earth; exploit newly-gained, generally undeserved powers; meet cool people mostly of the attractive, female persuasion then have sex with them; possibly marry one or more of those gals before or after impregnating them; enjoy the fact that you will never, ever have to deal with Earth and its people again.

This time, our hero starts at the lowest point of his life: after two decades of parasitizing his parents as a hikikomori due to relentless bullying in high school, his parents died. Instead of attending the funeral, he spent that day jerking off to child porn (or loli hentai), a fact that bothered his siblings enough to beat him up and throw him into the streets. As he wandered in a daze, the mythical creature known as Truck-kun deigned to make a visit and transport the protagonist, along with a couple of people nearby, to death, and later on to a fantasy world.

Our protagonist gets reincarnated as a baby that retains the memories of his harrowing past life. In this new one he’s Rudeus Greyrat, son of a horny swordfighter and a lively mage, who had retired from adventuring to start a family together. Rudeus is overjoyed by the fact that he’s been given a second chance at life, but mainly that he’s able to suck on a hottie’s tits on a regular basis, and that the grown-ups around him forgive him for his relentless perversion. The anime adaptation did a good job rendering this, as seen below:

Anyway, lots of shit happens, as it tends to do. I read this volume of the light novel to catch up with the anime adaptation, that has just finished its second season. I’m discussing spoilers from now on, so read on only if you already know what happens, or you don’t care to find out this way.

<spoilers>That whole magic displacement incident that teleported Rudeus’ family, as well as the redheaded terror and his childhood elvish friend, to random corners of the world, has led him to organize a spelunking raid to a teleporter labyrinth where his mother is supposed to be trapped. We accompany Rudeus along with his scumbag father Paul, blue-haired loli and magician Roxy Migurdia, their monkey-man scout, a gay dwarf, and a promiscuous grandma as they bond with each other and fight monsters. First they rescue Roxy, who falls in love with adult Rudeus because he saved her from the brink of death. Finally they face a hydra, and although they defeat it, they suffer a devastating loss. Rudeus also ends up maimed.

The biggest difference from the anime adaptation happens when they’re nursing their wounds back at the inn. Rudeus is depressed in a similar way as he’s been in the past (for example during his episode of erectile dysfunction). This time, Rudeus’ grandma-in-law suggests Roxy that she should fuck Rudeus to get him out of his funk. In the anime, Roxy drags Rudeus to bed and mounts him. In the original, she’s about to stand up when Rudeus pulls her down and fucks her roughly. He barely considers the fact that he’s cheating on his pregnant wife. Later on, his grandma-in-law deceives our protagonist by stating that he’s impregnated the blue-haired magician, in order for him to take responsibility, as the Japanese love to say, and make Roxy his second wife. Other than those significant changes that made me lose some respect for both characters, the anime adaptation is faithful to the rest, even verbatim for plenty of the dialogue. The author is involved with the adaptation, so maybe those changes are a very late revision of the original work.</spoilers>

What else can I say? If you like Mushoku Tensei, you’ve likely watched the anime, so you knew what to expect from this volume. This is a story about the pains and struggles of growing up, rising from rock bottom to becoming a more or less respectable family man, processed through the Japanese charm you know and love (if you know and love it), and free from the politics that have corrupted every aspect of Western culture. This story also makes polygamy quite appetizing.