I don't see no heat in me pointing out the obvious here. Don't get me wrong, I like the story, but the intellectual wanking around this childish plot just makes it all cringe AF. It screams "I'm 13 and that's deep", writing entire philosophy essays about some stoopid drawings. Part of enjoying a manga is discussing it, but dayum I'd rather pretend I don't even read manga at all than speaking with mushoku fans.
For all intents and purposes, I shouldn't even have posted anything here. Based on how you explained everything without getting how it's all the same as the ED subplot, there's just no way we'll agree on anything. Pointless interaction. Like the "hypersexualised kid" gimmick, it's even worse considering how big a cliché this one is. It's so common a character trait, authors should rather do an asexual character if they truly wanted to be original. But that wouldn't gather the interest of overgrown teenagers and actual teenagers now, would it? Even the dense characters get their own totally degenerate perv scenes. Common now. You're just getting played here.
Ok? Still don't understand why you're so upset about this? You claim to hate the ED subplot... but you're the one who brought it up in the first place. My original post was just about how sorry I was feeling for Norn. I get that due to the oversaturation of Isekai in both manga and anime that the tropes here feel gimmicky, but this work predates all those other isekai works. I've been reading this manga for a few years (I started on a different site), way before Isekai blew up as it had... still can't compare to the LN readers. You feel that it is not original, but this was the work that set those trends to begin with. It was all those other works that were copying off this.
i get that Mushoku is not everyone's cup of tea, but if it's not, you don't have to shoot down the people that DO like it. I mostly read Mushoku for the worldbuilding... and the fact that this is one of the most immersive tensei shittara works I have ever seen. As someone with an interest, and slight background, in psychiatry, I appreciate the continuity in this field and the balance between realism and over-the-top-ridiculousness. But most of all, I like how it doesn't take itself too seriously.
I don't appreciate how you diminished the fact that he was a "hypersexualized kid" as a gimmick. I have seen the effect of abuse on real life children and how sometimes that manifests itself as hypersexualization. The abuse doesn't have to be sexual in nature... but the consequences of that severely impacts their development and they develop fixations. S
