A quick introduction
“Mushoku Tensei” or “Jobless Reincarnation” is a light novel hailing from Japan, written by Rifujin na Magonote (his screen name). For those who don't know what “light novel” means, its basically what we would refer to as “Young Adult” over here. It was originally written as a webnovel in 2013, and then officially published January 24th, 2014. It would run for 26 volumes, officially ending November 25th, 2022.
It was localized by Seven Seas Entertainment, which has toned down a lot of the pedophilia and rapist tendencies displayed by the protagonist, Rudeus Greyrat.
It is undeniable that the studio behind the animation did a superb job of making the series look good. If not appealing at a glance. Unfortunately, it's like a rotting avocado at a market; it may look good on the outside, but you have no idea how bad it is inside.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that the version we are reading is the localized one. The
toned down version. Keep that in mind as we trudge through this series.
Now, with all formalities and context out of the way, let’s get into this light novel.
Prologue
I was a thirty-four-year-old man with no job and nowhere to live. I was a nice guy, but I was on the heavy side, didn’t have good looks going for me, and was in the midst of regretting my entire life. I’d only been homeless for about three hours. Before that, I’d been the classic, stereotypical, long-time shut-in who wasn’t doing anything with his life. And then, all of a sudden, my parents died. Being the shut-in that I was, I obviously didn’t attend the funeral, or the family gathering thereafter. It was quite the scene when they kicked me out of the house afterward.
This reads like the first paragraph to an r/AITA post. I'm sure you're all just as charmed by the protagonist as I am. I wonder what would possess his siblings to kick out his freeloading ass from the house.
My brash behavior around the house hadn’t won anyone over. I was the sort of guy who’d bang on the walls and floors to get people’s attention without leaving my room.
Fuck kicking him out, I would have murdered his ass for being a freeloading nuisance. Imagine the smell emitting from that room.
On the day of the funeral, I was halfway through jerking off, my body arched in the air, when my brothers and sisters barged into my room in their mourning garb and delivered their letter formally disowning me.
I still don't blame the siblings for kicking him out.
When I ignored it, my younger brother smashed my computer—which I valued more than myself—with a wooden bat. Meanwhile, my older brother, the one with a black belt in karate, stormed over in a blind rage and beat the crap out of me. I just let it happen, sobbing uselessly all the while, hoping that would be the end of it. But my siblings forced me out of the house with nothing but the clothes on my back. I had no choice but to wander around town, nursing the throbbing pain in my side. It felt like I had a broken rib. The biting words they hurled at me as I left our house would ring in my ears for the rest of my life. The things they said cut me to my very core. I was completely, totally heartbroken.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for this degenerate? Because I'm still on team siblings. Their wrath was well deserved.
What the hell had I even done wrong? All I did was skip out on our parents’ funeral so I could spank it to uncensored loli porn.
Disgusting.
Fun fact: In the original web novel version, he was kicked out of the house because he was jerking off to a video he took with a hidden camera in the bathroom. The person he was jerking off to in said video was his preteen niece.
He is a pedophile either way.
So, what in the world was I supposed to do now? I knew the answer: look for a part- or full-time job, find myself a place to live, and buy some food. The question was how? I had no idea how to even begin looking for a job.
You're in your mid 30s and have never held down a job in your entire life. Sounds like a lot of Lolcows on this very site.
Well, okay, I knew the basics. The first place I should check out was an employment agency—except I seriously had been a complete shut-in for over ten years, so I had no idea where any of those were. Also, I remembered hearing that those agencies only handled the introductions to job opportunities. You’d then have to take your résumé to the place with the job on offer and sit for an interview. And here I was, wearing a sweatshirt caked in a mixture of sweat, grime, and my own blood. I was in no state for an interview. No one was going to hire some weirdo who showed up looking like I
did. Oh, I’d make an impression, for sure, but I’d never land the job. Moreover, I didn’t know where they even sold résumé paper. At a stationery shop? The convenience store? There were convenience stores within walking distance, but I didn’t have any money. But what if I could take care of all that? With some luck, I could borrow some money from a loan company or something, buy myself some new clothes, and then purchase some résumé paper and something to write with.
Then I remembered: You can’t fill out a résumé if you don’t have an address or anywhere to live. I was hosed. I finally realized that, despite having come this far, my life was completely ruined.
Imagine not knowing what a public library is for. Or what a homeless shelter is. Yes, Japan has both I looked it up. If you ever feel bad for yourself, just remember that you're not as big of a failure as this guy.
It started to rain. “Ugh,” I grumbled. Summer was over, bringing with it the autumn chill. My worn-out, years-old sweatshirt soaked up the cold rain, mercilessly robbing my body of precious heat.“If only I could go back and do it all over again,” I muttered, the words slipping unbidden from my mouth.
In case you didn't know, this is the series which started the “My life is fucked, time to die to start over again in a fantasy world” trope that is still going strong to this day.
Illustration is nice, I guess. Even if its obvious that the background was photo bashed in.
I hadn’t always been a garbage excuse for a human being. I was born to a well-off family, the fourth of five children, with two older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother. Back in elementary school, everyone always praised me for being smart for my age. I didn’t have a knack for academics, but I was good at video games and had an athletic bent. I got along with folks. I was the heart of my class. In junior high, I joined the computer club, pored over magazines,
and saved up my allowance to build my very own PC. My family, who didn’t know the first thing about computers, barely gave it a second thought.It wasn’t until high school—well, the last year of junior high, I suppose—that my life got all messed up. I spent so much time fixated on my computer that I neglected my studies. In hindsight, that was probably what led to everything else.
Imagine squandering opportunities to succeed, and then never trying to make anything of yourself to make up for said squandering.
I didn’t think I needed to study in order to have a future. I thought it was pointless. As a result, I wound up going to what was widely considered the worst high school in the prefecture, where the lowest of the delinquents went.
“It was those DANG, DIRTY, DELINQUENTS that ruined my life.”
But even then, I figured I’d be fine. I could do anything I set my mind to, after all. I wasn’t in the same league as the rest of these idiots. Or so I thought.There was an incident from back then that I still remembered. I was in line to buy lunch from the school store when someone cut in front of me. Being the morally upstanding young man I was, I gave him a piece of my mind, getting all up in his face, striking an awkward, humorless, and self-conscious pose.
So you watch child porn, but you draw the line at someone cutting in line at lunch.
But as my luck would have it, this guy wasn’t just an upperclassman, but one of the real nasty ones, vying to be the
school’s top dog. He and his buddies pounded my face swollen and puffy, then hung me from the school gate, buck naked, practically crucified for all to see.
They took a ton of pictures, which they circulated throughout
the school like it was some simple prank. My social standing among my classmates plummeted to rock bottom overnight, leaving me with the nickname Pencil Dick.
Where are the Jerkops when you need them most, eh?
Anyways, for the next several paragraphs he goes on and on about how the incident traumatized him so badly that he locked himself up in his room for a month, and how his mother would pay for him to engage in his hobbies instead of signing him up for therapy. Or whatever they have in the land of the rising sun.
I probably would have been better off deciding I wanted to be a manga artist and posting a silly little web comic online, or deciding I wanted to be a light novel author and serializing stories, or something like that.
There were plenty of people in circumstances like mine who did that sort of thing. Those were the people I made fun of.“This stuff is crap,” I’d snort derisively upon viewing their creations, acting like it was my place to be a critic when I hadn’t done anything myself
I don't like how much of a TGWTG member I can see this guy being. Its extremely uncanny to tell you the truth.
By the way we are six pages into this story and its been mostly lore dump about this guy, paired with enough self pity that you'd think you were reading some Twitter thread written by a disowned Discord moderator.
The narrator is 100% Lolcow material and I will be treating him as such.
Moving right along, amid his self-pitying, he notices a bunch of students arguing about something.
Suddenly, amidst the downpour, I heard people arguing. “Hm?” I muttered. Was someone having a fight? That wasn’t good. I didn’t want to get involved with that sort of thing. Even as I was thinking that, however, my feet kept carrying me in that direction.
Spoiler: he noticed that three junior high students are having a fight and for some reason writes this:
This sight brought back older memories. Back in junior high, I had one childhood friend who was real cute. And when I say cute, I mean like fourth- or fifth-cutest in the class. She wore her hair very short, since she was on the track team. Of every ten people she passed by on the street, at least two or three would turn to look back at her. Also, there was this one anime I was super into at the time, so I thought the track team and short hair thing was cute. Even her less- attractive attributes were fine by me.
WHO FUCKING ASKED YOU FAILMALE?
Anyway, we’d get into fights on the way home, just like these three kids here. Or, if things went well, we’d hook up and do naughty things in some abandoned classroom after school.
(Shit, this sounds like the plot of some adult game I must’ve
played.)
Gross.
And then, I noticed something: There was a truck speeding right toward the group of three students. The driver was slumped over, asleep at the wheel.
About time the truck of justice shows up.
Anyways, he pushes the kids out of the way.
At that very instant, I saw the truck right before me. I’d simply tried to pull the first boy to safety, but instead, I’d bodily switched places with him, putting me in harm’s way. But that was unavoidable, and had nothing to do with the fact that I weighed over a hundred kilos; running at full speed, I’d simply stumbled a bit too far.
Man, that truck is sure slow as shit.
The instant before the truck made contact, a light blossomed behind me. Was I about to see my life flash before my eyes, like people said? It only lasted a moment, so I couldn’t tell. It was all so fast.Maybe that’s what happens when your life is hollow and half-lived.
ABOUT TIME!
I was struck by a truck more than fifty times my weight and thrown against a concrete wall. “Hurgh!” The air was forced from my lungs, which were still spasming for oxygen in the wake of running flat out.
I couldn’t speak, but I wasn’t dead. My ample fat must have saved me.
Goddammit. I want to see more gore!
Except the truck was still moving. It pinned me against the concrete, crushing me like a tomato, and then I was dead.
And there we have it, a wholesome story about a pedophile getting hit by a truck. The mental image of his blood and entrails on the pavement warms my icy heart.
Unfortunately, the bad news is that he doesn't burn in hell after this.
Until next time~
Later this week I'll post the first chapter spork.
Credit to
@Inside your walls for this wonderful edit.
