"Mushoku Tensei: Redundancy" Volume 3
Even though since this volume got announced as a part of the canon I have been making jokes about Aisha but I never had any negative feelings towards her character. Thus going into this I was of open mind, I knew what it was about but part of me I wanted it to be a big psyop made by her haters. Unfortunately it wasn't...
Let me get one thing straight before people start writing whole essays how am wrong and what not. I don't care for anyone to give me "context" and justify any action of the characters and how it is build towards that, I genuinely don't care what any of you have to say. This is tweet expressing my opinion on the work through my lenses and my prior experience of Magonote's work.
Now let me get started then!
Getting thrown into the future where Rudeus has already past away and the power struggle on Central continent changed drastically is our first glimpse of what might be the "sequel" novel. That was great to see, can't wait to learn more!
Now I won't be talking much about the plot itself since everyone already knows more than enough about it but I will express my criticisms of it and the core characters surrounding it.
First of all, it was really abysmal story. Over time I got kinda mellow on the whole drama and did slightly change my opinion on Eris and Aisha but at the end of the day both of them did something very wrong and dare I say unforgivable to an extent.
My main criticism is that the characters where going around expressing their opinions how love between Aisha and Arus isn't as bad as Rudeus believes it to be and I would have wholeheartedly agreed if not for the fact that she act the way she never would have prior and being intimate with underage boy (even for the standards of Six Sided World) without consulting ANYONE. Novel wouldn't have changed that much if he was an adult (15yo) and dare I say story would have felt more of a "Romeo and Juliette" adjacent and carry very strong romantic theme of forbidden love. Hell, I think it would have made Eris's action much more justifiable and a sign for Arus that he needs to grow up while not trampling on Eris's own character. That would also gave much more weight to Roxy's action of helping them escape and her giving them example from her past would hit that much stronger. And I think the most interesting thing would be is to have a Rudeus, protagonist we followed for over 26 volumes take a role of an antagonist. Alas author threw the immense potential this story could have for the sake of writing story with little to no substance and controversial for the sake of controversiality. There is also that confession of Arus to Aisha that was very sweet and was supposed to be an ultimate payoff of their love but how badly it was handled until then it felt somewhat undeserved to me.
What is the most damaging to me is making Rudeus a pedophile in his previous life... What I mean is that having a retcon isn't always a bad thing, look at Tolkien's work but when a writer is competent in his world and characters he can make a magic. That's where the core lies of how bad this novel is, if you have to make drastic change that will damage the growth of the character (specifically Rudeus/Nanahoshi conversation in vol23) you should stop and recuperate before sitting down to write again.
Few positives to this novel are:
1) Aisha taking accountability is great and I gained some respect back for her character, dare I say she went back into being one of likeable characters.
2) That Arus is quiet an interesting character, both his mental growth as well as physical where he creates totally new and unique style of swordsmanship is so cool. I cannot wait to see more of him in the future one day!
What am I going to do from now on? That's easy.
I am going to treat it as a fanfiction and not a canon story, why?
Because it was obviously one of worst novels from both plot and writing standpoints. I don't really understand what went through Magonote's head when he wrote it but going forwards "Aisha story doesn't exist" is going to be one of my life mottos.
I stopped rating books but this is first Mushoku one that went below 8/10, I won't say score I gave it. That's left to your imagination.