So, its another isekai, woo... Anything special about this one? Well, there's sayings out there that its the 'grandfather of all isekai'... Which is COMPLETELY false, since, not only did the idea exist for a long time in the west (with the oldest example probably being The Blazing World (1666) and among the most widely known Alice in wonderland...), but even actual proper isekai ANIME aired long before Mushoku Tensei was even thought up, let alone written as a novel (digimon adventure (1999), zero no tsukaima (2006)), let alone aired.
A final argument is that it 'defined' the genre, but is there really that much to 'define' about 'transported to another world'? Especially with "Accidental travel" already being a known and well defined plot device, which basically means the same thing? And furthermore (as a special bonus of me being Russian), the "popadantsy" (Попаданцы) genre (basically the same - ending up either in the past, future, or another world/universe, either as yourself, or reincarnated) exploding in popularity since the 2000'ds, with crazy amounts of books published? I would say no.
So, that little tangent aside, how is the actual title at all special or outstanding? Well, at most, the world is pretty well developed, and the story is a long running epic, which IS actually kind of praiseworthy. Next would be our 'hero'... Which is probably one of the most flawed people you'll ever see on screen, but that's NOTHING next to how he was written out in the LN, let alone the web novel... Why was it done? Probably because the initial idea behind this novel was a long redemption arc (hence the name "if i get reincarnated into another world i'll try hard"), and that could actually be a positive, except it doesn't really ever fully work.
And finally, what good can i say about the actual ANIME in particular? Well... Surprisingly little - the most would be the GREAT art, not so much on the characters but the backgrounds being simply STUNNING, and good music... Decent story overall (its kind of weak in these starting chapters though, ESPECIALLY with how much stuff the anime cuts entirely, and how much is just isn't mentioned due to the nature of the medium). There's also the fact they trim a lot of the disturbing details from the LN, which overall makes it a BETTER adaptation, but mid way through, they stop it and instead start to ADD and EXTEND disturbing scenes instead, for a reason not clear to me (other than loli x fat bastard in shota body fanservice points i guess), cut more interesting stuff, and even change some stuff for no reason.
It goes as follows : the show starts, and until the first turning point (him being kind of thrown out of his home), which is about a third of the show, its as good an adaptation as i could have hoped for, well maybe except Roxy who was made overly plain and emotionless (but not as bad as the next example). But then comes Ghislaine, and a lot of the bad actually has to do with her. First of all her outfit. It was kind of changed for the anime, and while the overall APPEARANCE remained true to itself, instead of making it look even more practical than the LN and manga, they made it LESS, getting rid of the two vertical straps holding her tiny top in place, and THINNING the strap holding the two pieces of cloth between her massive breasts together... Now don't get me wrong, not that i'm against fanservice or anything, but the woman's a SWORDSMAN, and if in the manga and LN that thing looked somewhat flimsy and prone to popping off, uncomfortable to fight in, here in the anime it looks just looks RIDICULOUS, like it wouldn't hold if she just raised her hands, let alone swung her sword around.
Next is her attitude... Its not really similar to what you'd get from the LN, and with most of the scenes depicting her character getting COMPLETELY CUT, and the voice actress pretty much always staying emotionless, in the anime she comes off as a rather boring hardass, as opposed to the LN or manga... To prove my point that its not just me, i'll bring the manga as an example, because it kept some more scenes with her (although it also dropped some others that do appear in the anime), and made her properly expressive in the comedic and other bits, more closer to what i'd imagine her as from the LN. From all that, the basically dies as a character, shown far less, and with far less emotion and expression than she should have, almost becoming a background character.
Example scenes of important bits and character expressiveness cut from the anime from the LN would be - her getting pissed off at Paul on the ride, which where way more verbal and expressive than the manga and anime showed (manga skipped it), from the manga - her drooling at the food in Erise's 10yo party (from the LN too), her being super interested in MC's statue of her because "she wants to leave something behind when she's gone" (also cut from the manga). Basically, she's supposed to be a somewhat goofy musclehead that's still kind of cute, with a more serious side that you rarely see (and i'm not talking fights here), instead in the anime she's an emotionless, expressionless hardass.
They also altered and boosted her fighting ability which was simply described as 'air blades' that could cut enemies remotely, one at a time (at least in the alley scene), to a weird sonic-boom slash and dash/teleport, also gave her the ability to run on all fours, and made her run on the town's roofs, all of which was completely made up in the anime, and looked far more impressive than it technically should have been, taking the show's power levels far from where they're supposed to be for no apparent reason otehr than looking good... Which might look off if the show gets more seasons and you get to see more impressive fights that won't LOOK as impressive in contrast.
Lastly the disturbing bits and changes, this will mostly deal with Eris. Let's start with the disturbing, or what most people will call so and usually complain about (i'm only partially in agreement with this, because i still find it (though not all) disturbing, but not as bad as other people because its only as bad to the worst cases of 'first world syndrome' people, but its not THAT horrible when taken in the contrast of the REAL world, let alone historic retrospective, nor the stuff going on in that world in general (say slavery, servitude, the Grayrat household noble's power games where they forcefully take all male babies to the main household). Now, they cut most of the worse stuff prior to that, but as i mentioned, with Eris, they brought it back and extended it for no reason.
Starting off with the barn scene - Eris is sleeping, and he sneaks up on her and tells her to wake up, or else he'd do something pervy. In the LN and manga, he 'threatens' a bit more, then when he gets close, she kicks him. Scene over. Can't even tell if he'd follow up on what he said. In the anime though... He gropes her. Then puts his hands under her skirt, and tries stealing her panties, partially starting to drag them down, as the panty enthusiast he is (never got this thing with Japs...)... Why was this extended and made in this way? I have no idea, some kind of weird fanservice i guess... I'll remind you she's 10 and he's 8 (his mental age about 43~ i guess). So again, why?
Next is his birthday party, now he's 10, and she's 12 or 13. In the manga and LN, she came to his room, scantily dressed. Told him he can do 'a little dirty stuff'. And so he touches her a little, then when he gets close to 'touching her down there', she shoves him aside, beats him up a bit and leaves. In the anime though? He gropes her, kisses her, touches her in more places, kisses her again, and only then reaches down at which point she shoves him off and beats him. Why was it extended? Again, no idea.
Just as hard to explain why was their dancing lesson where he taught her how to dance cut, only to later return on her birthday party instead, after making people badmouth her for failing in her first attempt to dance, and showing she feels bad and nervous about it... Which is COMPLETELY out of character for her, as she doesn't care about ANYONE AT ALL, other than MC, Ghislaine, her grandpa, and probably her mom and dad, she's the type of person to either say 'fuck it' or go beat up ANYONE talking bad of her or those she cares about, not get nervous and fell bad... Her fighting ability is also rather boosted from what i can tell, at the start of ep10 she's shown fighting a pack of huge wolf-thingies alone, barely breaking a sweat, yet in the LN she's described as getting hurt (unmentioned minor injury), and it being her first real fight, so it shouldn't look as impressive, and she should be more shaken, plus she's supposed to be at Paul's level of mastery, yet far lower and unexperienced, but Paul is shown as less impressive, not that he's shown fighting much, nor being serious...
Finally there's the turning point with the mana teleportation incident, after which both the manga and anime cut an INSANE amounts of content, and if before chapters where progressing pretty fast due to the cuts, but it didn't lose a lot of content, here a lot of stuff was lost so far and will be in the future, a lot of it rather interesting too, if not too important... For example the realities and survival strategies of the demon lands, of which the most Anime viewers get of is the campfire Rujerd makes out of wood that looks like hands... Which they'd probably just raise a brow at and not get (the only way to get firewood in this wasteland is to hunt ents), there's also far less lore and history mentioned, less detail, and the map of the world isn't really shown either.
And so, that's pretty much it for s1. My main problem with the series (the protagonist) barely comes into play so far, aside the mentioned scenes, also the scene in the last episode where him being too greedy leads to a teen adventurer dying, though the anime didn't make a big deal of it unlike the LN, hiding his guilt and inner monologues about it... So what's the final verdict? Nothing special, about 7.3, but still would recommend watching, except for the people who really can't take the stuff like in the two dirty scenes mentioned above, which i'm also not really a fan of, but still am aware that far worse things happen in our REAL world as we speak, both in Hollywood, among some politicians and famous people, and in other countries (heck there's still slavery), let alone how our world was 100~ years ago and back (and hey, this being fantasy, it IS set around the dark ages...), which actually make these scenes look really tame.
