Parents' Guide to Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation

This fantasy isekai anime sends mixed messages and seems to reward bad behavior. Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation follows the standard isekai setup -- a character is reincarnated into a new fantasy world and given a second chance to live a better life. Rudeus wasted his previous life, essentially just giving up on life after being bullied in school. These experiences supposedly lead him to improve and become a better person. There are some elements of this -- Rudeus faces his past traumas and becomes less cowardly, less arrogant, and more humble, polite, and protective of his friends and family. That said, in a story that's supposed to be about improvement and redemption, he's just as bad of a bully as the ones that hurt him in his previous life. This is because in the new world he is using his adult mind to take advantage of unsuspecting people who think he is just a child. And a lot of the time this is done in a sexual context, with creepy and negative behaviors that seem to go unpunished throughout the series.

The saving grave of this anime is its art and animation, which can be very beautiful. The scenes involving characters casting cool magical spells in awesome looking medieval fantasy environments are fluid and fun to watch. Unfortunately, the gratuitous sexual content and humor that trivialize the negative behaviors in this series really hold it back.