This spoiler free review sprouted out of my disappointment due to all the hype it gets and the title of “Godfather of Isekai”

Lets start of with the visuals. There isn’t much negative to say about that. The art/animation itself is great and there are plenty of dynamically well animated scenes. Which in my opinion is also the saviour of this show, without it’s visuals my score would be even lower. Also very little to say about the OP, ED, OST, voice acting. And thats where it kind of stops. The story and characters, and because of that my personal enjoyment, all have several negative things going for it.

Starting with the characters, where most of its unnecessary levels of shock factor can be found. Pretty much all men are scum, most girls are slavely to the men or have little to no backbone and are very much just empty husks in the end. Characters can be scummy, but you have to ask yourself what does it add to the story, in this case little. Comparing it to scummy characters in other series like Vinland Saga, the characters in this show are just scummy for the shock value without it truly creating more depth to the character and even the story.

Which leads to the following, with all characters but especially scummy characters and even more so if one of the scummy characters is your main character, you want some sort of character growth going on or a sort of depth that adds to the story. The only character that went through some character growth is not even the main character Rudeus. Eris is the only female character that isn’t essentially an empty husk and on top of that also the only character with some real character development. There are times where you think Rudeus might be having some sort of character development, at least that is what they’re trying to make you feel and think. But any tiny bit of potential character development just get reversed or scrapped the following seconds. He just stays exactly the same, he doesn’t become worse he doesn’t become better, just stays the exact same scummy character. This resulting in barely any likeable characters (unless you’re a horny listening to podcast alpha’s boy who looks up to these scummy men somehow getting the girls despite them being scum).

There is a lot of potential in the story and some innovation (possible) but instead of building on that, more often than not the plot line deviates to your average isekai plotline, gets overrun with the scummy character shock value or just ruined. Which is quite sad to see.

All of this leading to the final point, my disappointment and lack of true enjoyment. It being called “Godfather of Isekai” had put my expectations of this show pretty high. I love my isekai trash I wont lie about that, so I was hyped up to start this, only to be disappointed after a couple episodes. It honestly isnt deserving of the title Godfather. Some say its gotten that title because it made the isekai genre more popular, but did it truly ? Sword Art Online is as well loved, if not more in Japan and has been released well before the novel of Mushoku Tensei was even released. Other might say its gotten that title for its ingenuity, but we can see the same kind of shock factor and done as well or better in titles released around the same time like Shield Hero and Re:Zero. I will give the season following up on this one a chance, but unless the characters improve and/or the story does stray away from average isekai its a bit of a failure for me sadly.

Story: 65/100
Characters: 40/100
Visuals: 90/100
Audio: 75/100
Enjoyment: 50/100