I don't want to have an overly negative tone because for what it's worth Mushoku Tensei is fine. Like a lot of series that I would give a strong 6 to a light 7. Mushoku Tensei has some great moments, some pretty terrible moments and some ok moments. The premise is here is the protagonist is reincarnated in another world as an heir to a noble aristocrat and his wife in a small village. The protagonist retains memories of his previous life and uses this opportunity to start anew and have a "good" life.
In my humble opinion. This is almost the perfect example of an overrated show. Mushoku Tensei is a very smart series. It's entertaining and it throws you curveballs by subverting viewer expectations and by having genuinely shocking plot-twists. It is not the typical campy, gorey, self-serious narrative that tends to catch on here in the west. Which is something that I really like about it. Even though I didn't care for the characters or the plot or anything like that I really did find it entertaining from a episode by episode standpoint.
Now why do I call it overrated? Well, to an extent it's because it can't overcome the trappings of it's genre. I am not only the only one who has become sick of Isekai series. For the past five years at least, Isekai series have become more and more abundant and have taken up more and more attention and dialouge in the general milieu.
Does Isekai as a genre suck? Honestly, I would have to say yes for several reasons. Isekai, outside of the trapped in another world angle, are nothing more than action adventures. The cast travels around a fictional world and fight monsters and meet new friends and enemies. So a great deal of time from a narrative standpoint involves nothing more than worldbuilding, foreshadowing or setup for future seasons or future light novel chapters. On top of that it has an ongoing plot, characters and backstories that it needs to establish. So just by the genre conventions alone, most isekai don't get the benefit of the doubt from me because they are juggling so much in 24 episodes that what chance do they have at being good?
Due to this huge amount of juggling and transitioning between different plot points, genre tropes, all the while trying to execute upon said things. Even when we get good characters. What screen time do they have to be fleshed out and fully realized? With the exception of the main cast the side characters don't get character arcs. What they get is half-baked backstories that are supposed to serve as character arcs. Almost every isekai that I have watched is flawed from this perspective as well.
I have heard several reviewers/commenters/anitubers say that this show has good, unique, original characters. After watching both seasons. I have to question were we even watching the same series? Theses characters are cut and paste archetypes from other fantasy/action-adventure isekai to their core. Every. single. one. With the exception of the man-god there is not one original character here in the slightest. Which accentuates with my biggest gripe. The characters aren't interesting. At all. They don't have interesting motivations, interesting emotions, neuroses, situations. Nothing.
If I can be bold here. Another huge problem with the isekai genre is that I feel that most of the authors are vastly confused about what genre they are. The way this series is constructed feels like a shounen action adventure. In a show like YuYu Hakusho, MHA, Black Clover. You don't necessarily need to have mature, interesting characters because that isn't the selling point of the genre. Nobody is watching HunterxHunter because they think Gon is a deep, thoughtful, interesting and relatable character. They are watching because all of the surrounding elements. The crazy, wacky villains, the characters designs, the visuals and action and powerups. That's the huge selling point for something like that and the isekai authors approach is very similar. However, for me that's just not enough to keep me involved or engaged. It's basic and not really enjoyable or thought provoking. Especially when it isn't executed with the same flair as the aforementioned series above.
The last 4 episodes of the second season were some of the best of the series. Which is something that I really appreciated about Mushoku Tensei is that the pacing works here/ The beginning of season 1 and the end of season 2 are good-great episodes of anime. Which is why I didn't want to be too negative and rip this show to shreds. My conclusion is that Mushoku Tensei is not disappointing. I started to watch this series expecting it to be one of the best anime of last year(2021). I was met with something that was entertaining for large swaths of it and is one of the best isekai I have seen a while. Albeit extraordinarily familiar and flawed in several areas that I care about
