- 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.
Watched Frieren last month and it is just so good. I have recommended it to several people now and cannot wait for the next season. I just watched Blue Eyed Samurai and it was good as well, not Frieren level good, but a good story nonetheless.
Frieren is great fun, but I actually think worldbuilding is a major weakness for the series. It’s all very surface-level and leaves the impression that the author hasn’t really thought things through.
It’s a slice of life series. For what its main focus is, it’s decent enough. It’s the “two-layer rule.” Why don’t vampires travel in the sewers? Sewer alligators. Why are there sewer alligators? Sewer alligator-taming vampire-hunting nuns. Why are the nuns there? To keep vampires from using the sewers. You answer two questions, and then loop it back into the main idea. It reinforces the main theme, and deters all but the most pedantic fans from pushing further.
God the world building in FMA:BH is elite.
I also hate that the world building in Made In Abyss is so good, because its a show I can’t in good conscience watch.
FMA2003 as well. I love that we got two very different worlds from that manga.
Brotherhood had a better ending, but the original did more interesting things with the homunculi.
Why can’t you watch it ? (Honest question, I don’t know it)
The manga author has included quite a bit of thinly veiled child fetishes in the manga - they’re sommmmeewhat less blatant in the anime but its still just gross
I see. Thanks
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Honestly I get that people are turned off by Mushoku Tensei. I think being an isekai is the least of its problems.
I personally really like it but you have to be able to deal with how uncomfortable the MC is.
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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:
I had brothers and sisters. Brother was married already. And had kids. Two of them. Both girls. They look different from Norm and Asia. They’re Japanese after all, but they shared in their innocence. Brother’s house and my house (that is, our parents) are close by, so they’ll stay over often. Along with his wife and kids. I took advantage of that. Set up a hidden camera in the bath for my niece. In other words, I took voyeur shots.
And here are some more choice quotes from the LN:
Underage. Scornful eyes. Socially awkward. That right there was the trifecta. She was perfect. I wanted her to be my bride.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that my teacher was a junior-high-aged girl at the budding edge of sexual maturity. That was kind of an awesome situation. In my old life, I could have gotten off to that mental image in three pumps.
When talking about Sylphie:
So why couldn’t I just stay here with Sylphie until we were old enough to get by on our own? Sounded pretty good to me. We’d grow up together…and she’d grow up into my perfect woman. Hikaru Genji style, baby! Gweheheh.
Hikaru Genji fell in love with a 10-year-old, kidnapped her when her guardian died, raised her, and then married her.
…Crap! No. No. Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. What happened to the whole ‘oblivious’ thing, buddy? You’re getting way too far ahead of yourself. Hm. Well, that said… there’s nothing in the rulebook that says an oblivious protagonist can’t brainwash their childhood friend, right? Gah! What am I thinking?! But… ugggh. The girl was only six years old. She was clearly very fond of me, but she wasn’t capable of feeling romantic love yet. So, uh… yeah. Let’s put all that on hold. For how long, though? Now that was the question. Did I need to wait until she turned ten? Fifteen? Even older…? What if she ended up hating me for wasting her time? Her affection meter was at max for now, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way forever. Could I live with myself if it dropped to zero? No. Hell no!!! I’m a man who knows my limits, damn it! Seriously, she’s so soft and warm and fluffy! And she smells so freakin’ good! She’s baring her soul to me right now, and I’m supposed to just sit here slack-jawed?! That’s so messed up! We both know how we feel, so we should just take this to the next level! Why force myself to waste precious time? Why not just admit I made the wrong call?! That does it. I’ve decided! I’ll make her into my perfect girl! I’m…I’m oblivious no more, Sylphieeee!
About the mental age argument you sometimes hear people make to excuse his actions:
I had to keep in mind that, while I might have been a jobless high-school dropout, I also had the mental age of a person in his midthirties. I could do this!
But now I knew all of my missteps. With all the knowledge and experience from my past life, I could finally do it. I could finally live life right.
A man more than a decade my junior had gotten married, had a kid, and was now struggling with how to raise him. Given my thirty-four-year-history of indolent joblessness, you wouldn’t think I’d be able to outdo him at much of anything.
And in LN3 the Man God is directly addressing his mental image of himself:
Well it’s not just a dream. I’m speaking directly into your mind right now. Hard to believe your mental image of yourself is so different from your body…
Some more quotes from later on when he is supposedly be all changed:
Don’t tell me this guy is a true-born lolicon who somehow witnessed Julie doing something perverted. I mean, the two of us might have something in common then, but I definitely don’t want him coming anywhere near my daughters in that case.
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.
Additionally there’s a third way: some people instead lie / bullshit / assume that the work defends NEET-dom, or paedophilia, or not caring about your parents. I think it’s lack of basic media literacy.
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.
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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.
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.
A little addition:
- Attack on Titan
- Re:Zero
- Gachiakuta
- Sentenced To Be A Hero
- Berserk
I don’t get why people are still hyping Mushoku Tensei, not a fan of media that glorifies or supports pedophilia
It doesn’t? Even if you want to equivocate loli and pedophilia, it’s still portrayed as bad at every turn from what i remember.
Ah yes, so bad that the bad character marries someone he groomed, someone he raped, and someone who is described to look like a child.
The show has been written to glorify Rudeus’ negative behaviour. In the beginning he’s already a repulsive person, but there was potential for a growth arc. And yet, he doesn’t. Sure, the show addresses some topics like ED for him to deal with and learn from, but it feels quite limp-wristed - he grows and learns from things that negatively affect himself, not from things that negatively affect others. For example, when finally Rudeus is poised to understand the implications of his actions and the impact he has on other people, he’s suddenly just groping the redheaded kid. Rudeus dealing with depression could have been poignant, yet again - panties.
Loli in and of itself is kinda grey area, and as such is tolerable in media. But the combination of Loli with other factors pushes it into the negative. Add on Rudeus being depicted as a good guy during all of this, and it’s clear that it’s a power fantasy isekai where the repulsive MC might struggle, but gets a happy ending nevertheless. Rudeus might be depicted as feeling bad/apologetic for being creepy, yet he doesn’t change. What do you mean he gets to walk free by perving over a figurine with the guard. Or that Eris’ father wanted to tie her up with Rudy’s bed to gain political standing.
So in short, it was depicted bad in the same way that someone play fighting might go “staahp, noooo”.
Grimgar is quite an intersting choice—older, obscure, downbeat single-cours isekai. Maybe the listmaker read the LNs?
I’d add The Twelve Kingdoms, and possibly The Slayers and Kyo Kara Maoh! to this (there’s plenty in both to explore, but both sometimes drop something silly for purely comedic purposes, like the vegetarian sharks).
I’d say The Twelve Kingdoms blows basically everything else on this list out of the water in terms of world building.
Maoyu Mao Yusha
AKA Worldbuilding: The Anime.
