For the amount of the story I read I thought it was pretty enjoyable and I will attempt to keep spoilers out of the review. With that being said there are some things about this story that ultimately led me to drop it entirely. Firstly, I would like to talk about what I actually enjoyed from Mushoku Tensei.

Worldbuilding:
I thought that the worldbuilding for the story was pretty fantastic. It was a world with moving parts and didn't revolve around the main protagonist as all the side characters had their own trials and tribulations that were struggling with. It was expansive and also full of unknowns that were perfectly assembled to be revealed or of importance later in the story. Now, I'm not some literary scholar so when it comes to writing and things like this I am speaking purely from how I felt reading it, and it really was entertaining to see how the world moved and interacted with the characters. Moving onto the next section that I liked.

Pacing:
Generally I thought the pacing of the story was very good. It didn't feel like the characters were standing around in one place doing fuck all for too long of the story. Where ever the characters were there was always some sort of purpose to it. Even in the slower arcs of the story I found them very enjoyable to read purely because the characters always felt as if they were pursuing a larger goal while also not remaining in the same place for too long. The characters also were paced pretty well in terms of power progression, just when you feel as if a character is unlikely to be beaten by anyone, another powerful character pulls up to put them in their place. There is always someone out there humbling our lovely cast.

Side Characters:
This was quite a polarizing thing for me because for the most part I love all the characters. Keyword being most. Though, all the characters serve a purpose for the story and I think despite not liking a few of them they still served a very important purpose to the story. Some characters I will mention that I really liked were Sylphy. In the beginning of the story she was very...annoying? At the start I really disliked how she was written, though she quickly grew on me because at first I thought she would be the character who was always reliant on the mc to help her out of trouble, but as soon as she was alone she had some great growth. Sylphy at the moment and for the foreseeable future is my current favorite character. Next is Eris, she is a very prominent character and is extremely important for the story. I liked Eris's character because as she has a motivation to not be reliant. She wants to become as strong as she possibly can and I can respect that. I don't really know what else to say other than she is a pretty badass character. Lastly I want to talk about my boy Ruijerd. Ruijerd is simply that guy. I liked him because despite not being the most talkative characters he gave me a sort of General Iroh from Avatar The Last Airbender type feeling. He gave Rudeus quite a lot of adivce during their travels and was a stand up guy.

You must be curious by now about the summary and why I actually dropped Mushoku Tensei, well our next topic is something that killed the story for me.

Main Character:
Don't be hatin on me for this, but I can't stand Rudeus. Rudeus is such a polarizing character for me because at some points in the story I think that he can be a great mc but at other times, damn he is a fucking wimp. Now for this section I will be doing some spoiling for some semi early story content just because I want to fully explain why I don't like his character. (I have read up to chapter 89 in the manga, which isn't a lot but it was enough for me)

Spoiler, click to view

First things first, at the beginning of the story I could get over the fact that everything he was doing was to semi-children. If it is part of the characters progression sure, I can get over it ignoring the fact his ass is pretty much a grown ass man in a child's body it was different "times" apparently so I will let it slide. What really made me drop the story was his personality. He constantly is acting all self righteous even though we all know how he feels about himself but he essentially always gets what he wants whenever he wants because all the amazing side characters are all pushovers when its about him. My favorite arc in the story is the arc with Rudeus overcoming his "illness" but it is also the arc that made me drop the story. Why? Well, as mentioned before my favorite character is Sylphy. During this arc they get some wonderful interaction and eventually are married, during this entire time I couldn't shake the feeling that Rudeus wasn't as happy with it as he kept saying he was. He constantly talked about how he will be completely loyal to Sylphy and whatnot but whenever he is with her it feels like he can do nothing but remember Eris, or constantly worship Roxy. Going into this I expected it to be a Harem, which typically I dislike but I kept seeing such great things about this story that I continued anyway. Though, a connection I made is what really made me dislike the harem in this story. 1. When Rudeus meets his father, they have an argument. One of the first things Rudeus does is insult and attack his father for being unfaithful and how he has fallen so low to surround himself with younger women to sleep with. Which, fair point, I wasn't a fan of Paul either at the time and now he is one of my favorite characters. Though Rudeus, despite this, still eventually cheated on Sylphy. What are the consequences? What development is shown for this action? Apparently...nothing. Again when it comes to Rudeus Sylphy is a pushover and pretty much immediately forgives and accepts it. Which is honest to god bullshit. I get that there may be different reasons to why he did what he did but I'll be so for real when I say it just sounds like Rudeus is being a childish asshole. He may have been depressed and he may have been broken but instead of working through it and becoming stronger with the person with Sylphy it feels like he threw her away to use someone else as a coping mechanism. Which is truly ironic consdiering what he did to Paul.

I know for all you non-spoiler people you won't understand why I dislike him as it is very much considering the story. But to summarize it without spoiling...I'm not a fan of harems and I think this story would be better without it. Rudeus makes all the other semi-main characters feel like pushovers because they all seem to swoon around him and it feels he has no consequences for his actions. Now you can tell me I'm wrong and maybe you're right because I didn't finish the story but to me, I don't see a point in continuing it with a main character I just hate. Overall it's a 50 for me, looking at what I have read so far, it's a great story but personally looking at where it could be heading...I don't want to put more time into it.