Oshi no Ko and Mushoku Tensei question
Why is it that people get bothered by Rudeus dating kids his age, but Aqua, who also died when he was an adult, doesn’t get nearly as bad of a reputation when the show states it outright that he’s down bad for a minor?
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Also, sex is overtly shown with MT, and not in OnK.
You or anyone doesn't have to be personally in favor of it, anymore than being in favor of a 20 year-old sleeping with a 98 year-old, winter camping, or eating hamburgers for breakfast, but acting like it's some radical unfathomable thing in the phrasing of your question when it's neither any kind of biological/reproductive aberration nor even against the law in most places is absurd.
It's like you're conflating it with someone abusing a kindergartener. It doesn't have to be "justified" anymore than someone preferring fat or thin people, black or red or blonde hair.
That's an actual paraphilia and condition with genuine medical criteria the definition of which is certainly not "Attraction to or having sex with someone below the age which the individual Reddit user Nekoking98 personally believes should be the age of consent in his or her own opinion".
You have an opinion on what should be the age of consent, which is fine. It has nothing to do with pedophilia, nor its definition, nor my view on that age statute, nor the way it is set in the majority of either my country or most of the world. So stop acting like your opinion is some universal precept when it's obviously not the case.
How myopic can one person get to believe their own personal values and ideology speak for the rest of the world? It's unbelievable. You think you just know better than the way terms are actually defined, human health science, laws on the books in the majority of the Earth. Get real. Tired of people throwing out their own dogma on this topic on this sub as if it's fact.
Rudeus molested Eris, that's beyond any possible doubt, but he very much *never* tried to rape someone
It was true in the first version of the WN, but the author quickly changed that to "bog-standard" loli hentai
>The phrase "uncensored loli video" is used in both the web novel and light novel. The only difference is that the web novel clarifies that the uncensored loli video in question is the surreptitiously taken footage of his niece in the bath. This carries a strong implication that the content of the video is the same in both versions, just not explicitly spelled out in the LN.
>WN:
>親の葬式をブッチして無修正ロリ画像（兄の娘を風呂に入れた時にデジカメで撮りました）でオ○ってただけじゃないか……。
>All I did was blow off my parents' funeral to jack it to uncensored loli video (of my brother's daughter in the bath taken with a digital camera).
>LN:
>親の葬式をブッチして無修正ロリ画像でオ○ってただけじゃないか……。
>All I did was blow off my parents' funeral to jack it to uncensored loli video.
Regardless of that, getting a literal and metaphorical second chance at life is meaningless if you can't actually use it: Rudeus (as in, after reincarnating) isn't disgusting because he pursues minors (which are his age), he's disgusting because e sexually harasses them
>One day, they pulled out the kiddie pool, and the girls were playing. My big brother was a cameraman, so he took photos of them with the new digital camera he'd bought.
>I secretly pulled the memory card from his camera, copied the photos, and took them for myself. The photos showed my nieces in their bathing suits. It wasn't like I was particularly interested in the girls-I just stole the photos because I could.
>Then came the day when my parents died.
This definitely worsen the action (and in turn Rudeus original character), but imo does nothing to change how I see the rest of the series
2 We were directly told that the body and new brain affect Aqua's consciousness, even though he demonstrated abilities that a child cannot have. Rudeus also directly demonstrated mental abilities that a child's brain cannot have purely physically, and there was never any real indication that his consciousness was influenced by the body
Aqua is also in his 30’s but, he draws a line. He knows he’s dealing with kids/teens and tells them not to fall for him. Even when it does occur, its not a sexual connection. He isn’t fantasising and sexualising them or taking advantage of them
Its also why you will never see a monogatari fan say something like araragi is a ped0 or how the show would have been so much better without the ecchi involving lolis and middle schoolers.
Take the *Bakemonogatari* example. Arararararagi only started messing around with Mayoi after they became friends. And sure, taken out of context, it's not great. Hell, even taken *in* context, it's no bueno. But then again, Mayoi is a ghost AND she's perfectly capable of defending herself. Not to mention, Araragi's already got an actual partner (tho I've never bothered with the later seasons - don't they break up eventually?). It's just teasing.
*Oshi no ko*? Amamiya is reincarnated into a new body (Aqua), and growing up in that body, while (somehow) retaining his knowledge, even when he's a baby. But his body is still going through the chemical maelstrom which is puberty. And for someone in his position (Canonically a good looking kid, apparently smart and popular with his female classmates, friends and coworkers), he's shown remarkable restraint.
But hey, in the end, it's all a power-fantasy. These authors are all writing for a specific audience. As in, a mostly male audience who probably don't dislike the idea of being with a teen girl. It's like an isekai story, in which the protagonist is ridiculously overpowered, just to try and put the reader into that position of superiority.
Ultimately, if you don't like the story, just don't watch or read it. Like, I had to drop *Made in abyss*, as it just *felt* wrong (little kids getting mauled by natural flora and fauna, or even adults, plus the nudity... nope, I'll pass).
In Oshi no Ko, the main selling point is the revenge plot and seeing how the entertainment industry operates behind the scenes. So while Aqua does show loads of affection for Ai (a 16 year old) with his coworker even taking jabs and even calling him out for it, it never feels like *that* particular aspect of Aqua was prevalent in the story or a component we're supposed to linger on.
For Mushoku Tensei, the selling point of the story is a disgusting Otaku neet getting a 2nd shot at life. We're supposed to be invested in Rudeus' life. So when Rudeus shows attraction towards minors, in this case characters like Sylphie and Eris who were 6 and 8 respectively when he went all perverted on them, it comes off much more off-putting--also doesn't help that he does it repeatedly.
It doesn't help that Mushoku is a lot more blatant with its depictions of sexual and suggestive content comapred to Oshi no Ko.
So... yeah, mostly framing and that Rudeus has shown himself doing actively much worse than Aqua who was rather respectful towards Ai's boundaries during his time with her (like in Episode 1 where he really didn't want to be breastfed by Ai even though as a baby that needed it).
To be fair to MT though, \[Oshi no Ko Manga\] >!loads more people are judgemental towards the "incest" aspect of Oshi no Ko since the story puts more emphasis on that than Aqua's potential (but not really) romantic attraction for Ai!<.
In many reincarnation series I’ve read, the main character’s past form is rarely given any attention after they are reborn. As a random example: in this season’s Hell Mode, protagonist Allen (played by Mutsumi Tamura) starts out as 30-year-old Kenichi Yamada (played by Yasuyuki Kase). Kase only plays Yamada for the minute or so he lives in our world, though - the moment he’s reincarnated into his mother’s womb, his mental narration is played by Tamura. Even when he muses how he’s technically mentally 40 while surrounded by kids, he doesn’t really act like an adult, but more like a kid who just remembers his old life and the video game lingo that comes from that.
Oshi no Ko is similar. Even in-story, Aqua notes that he doesn’t feel like he’s Gori mentally - he feels like a weird mix between the two. This actually increases the shock value when, in season 2, the stress of remembering AI’s death causes the specter of Goro - still played by Kento Ito, as opposed to Takeo Ootsuka, to appear behind him. This is portrayed as an unnatural thing.
Mushoku Tensei portrays it differently. Even though Rudeus is voiced by Yumi Uchiyama, his past self’s VA Tomozaku Sugita still does his mental narration and still comments on things as if he was the 30-year-old pervert he was before - it still gives the sense that while Rudy says he’s his own person, his past self is still puppeteering him. Even in his dreams, when he’s visited by the Human God, Rudeus appears as his former incarnation (something he noticeably wants to distance himself from acknowledging, so that’s at least something?)
tl;dr in other reincarnation series, the protagonist’s mental age is glossed over, or only brought back for shock value to the viewer. For Mushoku Tensei, it’s put in as a constant reminder.
If you've written things before, you know that when writing something that might not be received well, writers make "excuses" why it is okay actually. A lot of ways Aqua is described gives him plausible deniability. On the other hand, Rudeus is written to be disgusting and to represent the Japanese NEET trope.
Audiences can often be unaware of these, and would like to believe that their response to the work is their own and is not completely by design.
The biggest issue here is that you read opinions of people who gets outraged because of some japanese cartoons. Fuck them and just enjoy Mushoku Tensei