This Review Contains Spoilers

The first season pushed Mushoku Tensei into my top 10 anime of all time, the second season however pulled the series out and left me with a sour taste in my mouth.
All of the negative traits you can attribute to Rudy in the first season, most notably his perversion, became less overriding aspects of his character as he grew and experienced more of his second life. When he was reborn into this world, he was the same timid pervert that he was in the previous. As the season went on, you saw Rudy shed more and more of that person he once was as he became more confident and respectful. At the end of the first season when Eris approached Rudy in his tent to sleep with him, Rudy did not jump at the opportunity as the Rudy of a couple years earlier surely would have. Actually, Rudy thought that he would be taking advantage of her in that moment and practically said no despite wanting to just go along with it. Rudy progressed as a person along his journey, culminating in this moment. Rudy changed. Seemingly.

I do not know what happened with Season 2. The core motivating factor in the first half was curing Rudy's erectile dysfunction. Not only was this the inciting incident that got Rudy to the university in the first place, but it really was the most important thing to Rudy for this whole half of the season. The audience had just seen Rudy turn down the chance to have sex for the first time in his life during the climax of Season 1. Now the entirety of Rudy's being is based around getting a boner again? This absurd premise was not even explored in an interesting way. I would be more open to it if the season had Rudy exploring what it meant to be a man, perhaps learning you don't need to perform sexually to be a confident and upstanding man in this world. However every single guy that he spoke to about his erectile dysfunction reaffirmed how important it was to solve the issue. I don't understand how this could make for a compelling story or character arc. Rudy has regressed, now sex is the most important thing in his life even more so than it was in the past. This regression and emphasis on sex would be less of a betrayal of season 1 if the story did not reward Rudy for his perversion, yet it does every step of the way this season. But I would not have such a strong dislike for this season if it was only the immature erectile dysfunction part.

By far the biggest issue I have with season 2 came more notably in the second half. The female characters are written as if they're practically groveling at the feet of Rudy and men in general, it's honestly weird as fuck.

• Rudy's half sister was seemingly born to be his maid. She does not attend school alongside her sister, she just does chores around the house in her maid outfit. She even felt like she needed permission to speak or show emotion when she was reunited with her mom.
• Roxy explained that she had sex with Rudy to make HIM feel better, stating she couldn't stand by while he was depressed. I understand that she wanted to just have sex with him as well but Roxy explained her reasoning being since Sylphie wasn't there to make him feel better herself, someone else had to, so she performed that job. Is the logic that when men are depressed, women who care about them should sleep with them to make them feel better? It would honestly be better if she just took advantage of his depressive state simply for herself and they both had to face the consequences. However there are none and this is just very weird reasoning to sleep with someone let alone someone who's married.
• Sylphie does not care in the slightest that Rudy just cheated on her while she was pregnant, in fact she appeared overjoyed. Sylphie thought it was great cause Roxie did it to "help" Rudy. I have nothing against polyamorous relationships but it seems pretty clear the Sylphie did not give Rudy the green light to just sleep with other women, Sylphie just figured he would on his own cause he's such a perv. How does that make this better? Sylphie lets Rudy do whatever he wants because she thinks he's amazing.
• The little slave girl Julie that Rudy still owns, who he didn't just free and hire. Rudy first heard about the slave market from Sylphie who was noticeably uncomfortable telling him about it but Rudy's reaction was just "ahh I haven't thought about getting a slave, I'll visit as soon as I can!". Then we see Rudy just jolly as can be browsing for slaves. Rudy is not just someone who is a product of their time, he is someone from our modern world happily looking around the slave market. I don't want Rudy to come up with a plan to heroically free all the slaves but like at least think the slave market is fucked up? Everyone watching this should view his behavior as actually disgusting, and we're supposed to feel empathy for him at any point after this? Finally when Rudy spoke to the girl and we heard his inner monologue, which seems like Rudy comes off as a good guy and he's empathetic for her but if you think about it he's still a deplorable person. Rudy could have told the girl he will treat her well, that he understands while she's been through incredible pain that he will free her and do what he can to make her see the value in life but if she chooses to he can end it for her as well. But no, Rudy just tells her he has something for her to do then when she doesn't respond he asks if she wants to die. The way its depicted makes you believe if she answered yes he would kill her on the spot.
• The two beast girls tend to Rudy's perverted nature while serving him and calling him master. I don't need to explain this point further it's the most blatant example and on its own sure it's not even that bad, we see anime throw in unnecessary stuff like this all the time. I have more of an issue with the other examples because they are not treated as simple fan service moments but rather actual parts of the narrative.

None of the examples I listed seem like nitpicks to me, these are fundamental parts of the story that come off as super weird because they are. I don't need Rudy to be a morally incorruptible character, it can be very interesting to have your protagonist be a shitty person. But the world around Rudy also caters to his shitty nature and THAT is what makes it gross. I can definitely say I'm not into the whole "harem" genre but if it's for stupid fun then sure do whatever. To sum it up, what makes Mushoku Tensei worse to me is it masquerades as something deeper while containing the same weird sexual fantasy stuff.
Also there was a big step back from the world building and magic in general that I thought made season 1 pretty cool.

If you agree, disagree, let me hear! Please write a post on my profile right under "activity", I wish reviews had a comment section but that's as good as it gets right now.
Thanks for reading.