- Grimgar
- Mushoku Tensei
- Hunter x Hunter (2011)
- Frieren
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
- Dorohedoro
- Dungeon Meshi
- Made in Abyss
- Ascendance of a Bookworm
- One Piece
From the most recent discussion about the best anime worldbuiiding, my choices continue to be Made in Abyss—as in I agree with the article in this case—and Violet Evergarden, but Witch Hat Atelier is getting to be a contender.
More about the “Quotes of the prologue of the first LN, plus comments” spoiler:
spoiler
It’s not just uncensored loli porn. It got censored in the LN from spy cam footage of his niece in the shower (the main reason why his brother gets so violent). In the anime adaptation, you can actually see that they have gone back to that plot point.
The Redundancy Chaper 25 make this canon again in the LN run:
And here are some more choice quotes from the LN:
When talking about Sylphie:
Hikaru Genji fell in love with a 10-year-old, kidnapped her when her guardian died, raised her, and then married her.
About the mental age argument you sometimes hear people make to excuse his actions:
And in LN3 the Man God is directly addressing his mental image of himself:
Some more quotes from later on when he is supposedly be all changed:
That’s from volume 18.
Basically, there is a lot of mental gymnastics going on with a lot of people to paint Rudeus as anything other than a pedophile.
I believe in option 3.5: there are too many instances (even outside MC’s actions) in the series where terrible behaviour is normalised, hand-waved, or trivialised as funny, to be just there to build character. Look at Rudeus’ father as an example outside of MC. While MT might not necessarily be a work to defend neets, pedos, cheaters, etc., it is clearly written in a way so that it doesn’t step on those people’s toes. Are they the sole target audience? No, but they are a large part of it.
I’ve also seen an interesting discussion about how much of the author’s personality is reflected in their works.
The anime and WN are a bit more explicit on that, but even the LN is crystal clear on Rudeus being a paedophile. And I think the folks doing mental gymnastics to claim otherwise also lack basic media literacy, just like I criticised the “third way” ones.
In the meantime I find your “option 3.5” fairly reasonable. It’s completely fine to criticise the work for not doing a good job of calling out shitty behaviour, specially in the light of its theme.
Rudeus does mention once that Paul (isekai father) is scum, and that’s why they understand each other, but… that’s it. In the meantime Paul cheats on Zenith (who’s monogamous) with Lilia (who’s employed by Paul, so Paul is in a position of power over her), and gets away with it.
It’s somewhat clear for me that Magonote doesn’t really care too much about social causes, such as the role of women in society. And that he caves in to readers’ pressure a bit too easily. But past that, I don’t know, really.
That part also gets a bit deeper and more disturbing in the WN (I’m not sure if the LN has cut that part or not):
WN spoiler
In the WN Paul rapes Lilia, a fellow student, in the academy and gets kicked out as a consequence. He then starts a family with Zenith. Lilia, on the other hand, somehow did fall in love with her rapist and seeks him out to insert herself into his family, where she knowingly creates a situation where Paul would cheat with her (leaves the door a slit open while masturbating). Once Zenith finds out, they enter the harem route, with the consequences being that Paul has to sit on the floor in the hallway. I remember this written in a way that made it sound like it was slapstick (haha, look at that pitiful man that has to sit on the floor haha).
I’m not a prude. Rape happens. Cheating happens, and harem routes are an anime staple. The problem I have with Paul’s story is the message between the lines. If you rape a girl, she will fall in love with you. If you cheat on your wife or are a home wrecker, you will enter the harem route, where everyone is happy. And all that without any bad consequences for the bad behavior. And this was something I’ve seen in all aspects of the series throughout. Sure, bad things happen to people, but it’s as a consequence of unrelated factors instead of their shitty behavior (i.e. the displacement is bad for Paul, but it’s not happening because of his raping and cheating, etc.).
In earlier discussions about this, I’ve seen the argument that it is just realistic and that bad actions don’t necessarily come with bad consequences in reality. And while this is infuriatingly true and can’t really be argued against, it still rubs me the wrong way in entertainment, even more so than MC being MC.