Forum - View topicIsekai / Reincarnation and character ages.
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freebird1994
Posts: 73 |
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I decided to start this thread because with Mushoku Tensei underway, this topic gets brought up in the show's episode discussion thread. However, it tends to break down into slinging about if Rudy is a pedo or not and if people are defending his actions or not, etc, etc.
LET ME BE CLEAR, THIS IS NOT MENT TO BE A THREAD DISCUSSING THAT QUESTION. If you want to discuss that, go somewhere else. It will not be tolerated on this thread if I can help it. Rather, what I want this thread to discuss is how some isekai/reincarnations series feature characters (most of the time the protagonist) whose age changes before and after their reincarnation. Typically this is done backwards, i.e. a character dies as a young adult or older and are reincarnated as a newborn. Specifically what I would like to see discussed is how relationships should be handled in these kinds of situation: - How is a character who is in a situation of "mind of a adult, body of a child" meant to respond to situations with his/her peers? - How is a character like Rudy from Mushoku Tensei meant to engage in this kind of relationship? Is he, a character with the "mind of an adult, body of a child" even allowed to engage with feelings (romantic or otherwise) with those of a similar age? If so, what "age" are we talking about, his mental or physical? If not, why? - Speaking of that, which age do we base a character on in these situations, mental or physical? Why is one more important than the other? - What happens in a situation that is the opposite of Rudy's? A situation where someone who is a child (say 10) is isekai'd into the body of an adult. How are relationships (romantic or otherwise) meant to be handled there? - If you are of the viewpoint that relationships should never be brought up in these kinds of situations period, why? Why should characters put into this situation basically be denied to engage in any such relationships until a "set approved age"? I'm interested in seeing various peoples opinions with these kinds of stories, so please feel free to bring in other examples of this kind of reincarnation from different stories you have read or watched and how that series handled these questions or others I didn't bring up. Please try to keep the thread respectful. This is an aspect of some isekai stories that (at least in my experience) is either never brought up or just never engages in these kinds of situations. [EDIT: Renamed your thread to be less long-winded, and cleaned up your formatting to for easier readability. -TK] |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3457 Location: Finland |
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I'm of the firm mind that a reincarnated character should primarily be judged by their new life.
And by that I mean, a character who was 60, and was born and is now 10 in this another world, I will treat see them mostly as 10 year old barring exceptional circumstances, and that includes their relationships with other people. On that argument I won't personally budge, even if I'm argued against to the world's end.
That I would leave up to the character themselves. Their new life is what defines them, but ultimately it's up to them how they want to interact.
Of course he's allowed to engage with those of similar age, as said above their new life is what defines them while they may have memories from the old world(not necessarily Earth), it would simply be cruel to deny him that. And, at what age? That depends on the norms of that world, and not his old, just in case it needs to be said. His physical age is obviously from when he was born in that other world. And, I mostly see his mental age the same as I don't think they automatically stack, more like if you imagine his old life as a backup of memories would be a good description.
I don't see any reason why they should be treated differently than their peers in that new world. Ultimately, as long as they adhere to norms, the relationships are up to the person themselves.
Honestly, I don't think I remember ever reading or watching a story where that happens. Young characters may sometimes transform into adults in fiction(like in Magical Princess Minky Momo), but I don't think that counts...
I certainly am not. They don't deserve to be discriminated like that. And what is 'set age'? Do you mean by what the old world would deem appropriate, what the norms in that new world are for his peers, or, what the character themselves decides on? For the first it's a strike those norms don't apply, they have the right to be treated as their peers in this new world(two), or of course what they themselves are comfortable with(three, provided it doesn't clash against option two).
It hasn't been brought up in the discussion much if at all, but there's many of these stories where gender also changes when reincarnated. That should make it bloody obvious you can't automatically apply the old rules in these kind of situations in my mind at least... |
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InfiniteJest
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Anime and Isekai in particular has issues with age. Both physically and mental/emotionally.
Ages in medieval society were treated a bit different and I see them frequently reference 15 as an age of majority so fine. Establish that as adult. It’s not necessary. They could age up the characters 1-3 more years without damaging storylines but I honestly think it’s being set there to edge toward lolicon appeal more than out of desire for some meaningful historic accuracy. It’s Isekai not high art if we are being honest. The creators know who the otaku are and what they will pay for. The reason MT gets a lot of crap is they have not just shown Rudeus has flashes of memory or vague recall. His full 30 year old brain is 30 year old. They just make it so he’s a navel gazing man hold with an implied history of viewing underage porn in his prior life. Initially he is pervy about his mom (maybe for laughs) and extends that to mature women around him. But then they don’t let him grow to 15-18 and start dating, instead they start inserting him into relationships with pre-teens and try and treat it as normal. But that only works if it isn’t a 30 year old mind checking out the 12 year old. Admittedly Rudeus is a man child who is emotionally stunted from the beginning so being “reborn” is a way of letting him experience reparenting and re-grow on a more normal development curve. Again it might work if they’d capped some of his previous life memory. But it seems like they want to keep all of his experience while using the infantilization excuse it all. Can you imagine the utter insanity inducing boredom of having to relive the first 5-8 years of your life knowing everything you know now? That’s mostly skipped. Teen years starts to make a bit more sense. Especially if we use the cheap gimmick of 15=adult. What 30 year old would tolerate a 12 year old tsundere for 5 minutes? Honestly the show just skims passed this question. The result is that it looks like the creator is trying to create an excuse for Rudeus to hook up with Eris and nudge nudge wink wink make it okay rather than just write the characters or their ages in a way that makes it more natural. It’s not that rudeus says “wow my biological feelings and development are oddly skewed and out of alignment with each other or “hey I was attracted to fully formed women 25 minutes ago why am I staring at that elf child?” Instead he just has one scene where he’s a 30 year old in a 12yr old body then a different scene where he’s a 12yr old in a 22yr old body. This could have been handled in a number of ways but it tries to have it all ways at once without a coherent explanation. And now in season 2 Rudeus has a whole new issue that makes even less sense… Anyway the point is that adult brains in children’s bodies either need to be understood as someone who would have adult motivations and treated accordingly or they need to write in some memory caps or something to explain why the childhood experience would be accepted and the normal child and adolescent growth process would work the second time around. The reborn angle to Isekai complicates the story arc but it doesn’t need to become absurd. Just make it so each chronological year they regrow they get a fraction of their memory back until they are 15-20…it would fix emotional and power growth arcs. |
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freebird1994
Posts: 73 |
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I work under this mindset as well when it comes to isekais that actually bother to acknowledge the "adult in a newborn" situation. In these kinds of series, the world usually sees this Isekai Protag A as just an unusually gifted child and nothing more. NOTE: (I'm going to use this title for a generic character who is in this kind of isekai situation rudy is in. So just think rudy but without the massive perversions.) Even when its your typical harem genre series and Isekai protag A is already building his harem at age 10 by rescuing the princess or winning a tourney or whatever other trope is in play, the series barely even references the fact protag A is an adult in a childs body, and even less so brings attention to it in favor of your standard harem flare.
We both agree that a character in Rudys situation should be allowed to form these relationships with characters matching their age but from here I guess the question should be how far should such a relationship such as this go and should it at any point be stopped or at least paused until a "more appropriate age" is reached by either Isekai protag A or the other party(whatever age this may be in that world)? Obviously young teens and even children can experience romantic relations with others (someone has a crush on someone else) but there is going to be that question of how well do they understand those feelings. After all, "Like" =/= "love". For Isekai Protag A, they would have a better understand(at least in theory) of the feelings of like, love, and even lust. This was an issue discussed(poorly I might add) in the forum for MT season 1 on here regarding the relationship between rudy and sylphy. I saw comments labeling rudy as manipulative(among other descriptors). So I guess the question here is can a relationship(romantic or potentially more) be formed at that "young" age with Isekai Protag A without it seeming disturbing or manipulative in some way?
I kinda wanted to get other examples of this since the usual one is "adult into a newborn". Obviously the reverse of that probably wouldn't work as a concept so I scaled up the age a little. Male to female is probably another type of this but that genre has examples of this being handled well. Off the top of my head, Tanya from "saga of tanya the evil" is an interesting example of this. Tanya was a horrible person in their previous life(similar to rudy, though tanya was more business evil than rudy's....... hedonistic lifestyle one could call it) and once reincarnated didn't ever really change and we didn't see her grow up. Though I guess the spectacle of that series was more in watching this cute little girl run around as a psychopathic nazi.
Well essentially "set age" is just meant to mean whatever age range is customary for the world or society of the series to consider someone as an "adult". MT is very fluid when it comes to how it wants to describe someone as an "adult" and it seems to vary person to person, culture to culture. Like Ruijard was all about "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!!" so it was very interesting to see him be rebuked sometime when he tried to help some adventures and they would get upset he was treating them like kids. It was a nice moment to watch when he straight up acknowledged Eris as a warrior(adult) and it showed that this world doesn't work under strict rules of adulthood, like how in many places in the real world you are treated as an adult when you turn a certain age. |
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freebird1994
Posts: 73 |
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But that wouldn't exactly be a good story to tell would it? If we are working under this idea of a reworked MT, introducing rudy as you described him in the "real" world, then having some scenes of him as a baby in the new world(crawling around with panties on his head and a perverted look included, unfortunately), then the series just hard cuts to him being 15-18 trying to interact with woman "his age" would just feel massively unfinished and have a severe lack in understanding of how this character matured enough in that timeframe to the point he could have meaningful interactions with the opposite sex. I have read some isekai/reincarnation series that do this though. They will start with the Protags death, they get reborn in the fantasy world, then the series just hard cuts to them being in the equivalent of middle/highschool and ready to "live their new life to the fullest" and then the story actually starts. But why did the protag need to be reincarnated? Unless it is of plot importance(which is usually isnt really), they could have just been a regular character and the series would just change from isekai to fantasy. Why skip them learning about this new world as they grew up and forming relations with others as they did so, both young and old? In a series that is ment to be about a persons new life, you are going to have to acknowledge that they will be in situations where they are an "adult in a childs body" interacting and forming bonds with people of a similar age, that includes children during the time when this character is a child. So essentially what I am positing is how should that protage react to the various situation seen in these kinds of series? And when relationships come up(i.e. someone has a crush on the protag when they are children) should the protag just not acknowledge it? Reject it?
But at this point aren't you making essentially a completely different circumstance that doesn't even need to be reincarnation in the first place? You talk correctly about him being nothing but a man child in his previous world where his emotional development was stunted due to the bullying and isolation. But if he is put into a situation where he no longer remembers all of that, then the reparenting and regrowing just doesn't feel....... real I guess. It feels artificial cause he just becomes a generic nobody. Someone who didn't have a worldview established before being reborn and will grow up essentially like a normal child. Then what, the memories come back but how would they affect him? The way I see it there's only 2 answers to this. 1 is he rejects who he was, essentially saying "that was me then, this is me now" and the issue is basically done. Or 2 is he accepts them but they don't fundamentally change him as a person since he has since live a completely different life
I mean if I have been reborn into a completely new world, in a new lifestyle setting(he went from a small apartment in the city to farmland) and this world has magic and mythical creatures in it then no, i don't think it would exactly be boring to relive the early years. And it's not like MT is all perversions. Ok yes it's rudy so it's seen as a rare episode in season 1 when he didn't do something perverted, but the moments in between that is his learning and understanding of this new world. I mean he's got nothing to do as a child so he spends all his time learning magic. Not to mention the early years of any childs life(yes even in rudys case) is when they can build bonds and relationships that will last for decades. Which he does since this is when he meets roxy, sylphy, and eris. AKA 3 very important people for him in the future. Also "what 30 year old would tolerate a 12 year old tsundere?"....... uhhhh a lot since this is anime, not real life, and tsunderes aren't like age specific. Yes, it's a very common trope in anime with young people/school age characters but its not like it's an exclusive this or anything. I have read and seen a few series with people working in business offices where there were female characters who were complete tsundere's. Yes, its treated completely different by other characters in these situations but there does exist tsunderes beyond the schoolyard in anime.
what? I mean i get that rudy doesn't immediately conform to the fact he is now in a differently aged body and therefor his attractions should not be the same as he was when he was in his previous life but what do you mean with the constant body and age swapping?
Honestly this point is more suited for the MT episode discussion forum. And the reviewer for that episode actually does address it so I will just say that it does actually make sense. But I won't be continuing this point cause it is more for the episode discussion forum.
So from what I've read it seems like you moreso just don't want this kind of trope to be a part of isekai series, is that correct? This is not to say you are wrong to feel this way, I will not lie that there were a number of scenes in MT season 1 that were very uncomfortable because of the dialogue in rudys head. However I will say that this concept, the idea of an adult mind in a childs body, should not be just disregarded until such time that it is "socially applicable" for relationships to form. Isekai stories like this ask a question that is almost never brought up in reincarnation stories: how should Isekai protagonists who were adults in their previous life reborn into a new one form relationships with those who, at least in their mind and from our(the audience) perspective, are in a much different age group than themselves? I don't have a very good answer to this but that's why I wanted to start this forum. To discuss how such topics should be engaged with. |
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killjoy_the
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I feel like being too specific about Rudy/MT isn't helping here, so let's put it in the vaguer terms possible. What we have is:
An adult, in a child's/teen's body, falling in love/having a sexual relationship with a 'real' child/teen Simply given that, most people would take the very reasonable stance of it being icky at the least. There have been several anime that have added further context to stuff like this 1 - The way the adult gets a child/teen's body can be: 1.1 - Ressurection (Mushoku Tensei, Ascendance of a Bookworm, Faraway Paladin, Hamefura, If My Wife Became an Elementary School Student.). Though the majority of those presented are fantasy and add other elements to the discussion, I feel like just this isn't enough to make the situation not icky anymore, as you can certainly imagine it happening in a modern society and still feeling the same as if there was no reincarnation involved (as is the case in the last example, as far as I know) 1.2 - Time travel (Erased, Paradise of Innocence). I believe most people would agree that this one is also icky, because you're 'going back' in your own life and it makes it seem like you're especially taking advantage of the children/teenagers, having context of what the future holds 1.3 - Body modification (Relife). This is the only example I have and it deals with the situation with the adult in a teen's body spoiler[recognizing that he 'shouldn't' have a romantic/sexual relationship with a teen, even though the feelings are there] spoiler[though it circumvents that eventually given the teen he has feelings for was actually an adult all along as well, but anyway]. I feel like this one is trickier to think about though because the body modification might be permanent or not, and that would change things So, to me, in all of these situations I was able to gather where an adult can get into a child's/teen body, it'd be icky to have a relationship with a 'real' child/teen. But your thread is a bit more specific about it being isekai, which does have added elements, like 2 - This is a fantasy, magical world 3 - The age of 'adulthood' is lower than in modern society Would those elements by themselves be enough to have an adult falling in love/having a sexual relationship with a child/teen be enough to not make it icky? 2 - Would a story about an adult in a fantasy, magical world dating a teenager (as per that world's standards of adulthood) feel icky? I'd say yes, so just the fantasy of the world wouldn't be enough, to me 3 - Would a story about an adult in a society with a lower age of adulthood dating an adult (teenager to our modern society) feel icky? This one I feel like it really depends on the framing. We've had stories about medieval/feudal times all over, and this ends up being a subject in some of them, though often it's through arranged marriages and such, which end up muddling it all with the added effect of removing choice, usually from the side of the woman (which would, in my opinion, make it irrevocably icky). I don't particularly remember a story set in a society with lower age of adulthood where there is a teenager character and an adult character in a relationship where it's all fully consensual, to be honest, so I can't bring up an example, but if there was one I don't think I would feel it's icky by default - like I said, it'd depend on framing What do you think is the main element that makes you not feel icky about some specific stories? One thing that ended up coming to me as I was making this post was the knowledge of things and if that would change the perspective of the 'real' children/teens. Do you think them not knowing that the character they're in love with/have a relationship with was isekai'd/ressurected/is really an adult changes things? Is it only okay as long as they know? |
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Blanchimont
Posts: 3457 Location: Finland |
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Not automatically, depends on framing. If the character feels the new life they were born and raised in defines them, can't see why it would be or feel icky, personally.
If it's an adult of that world dating an underage person of that world(as per that world's standards) then yes I would see that as questionable. But I would still read or watch the heck out of such a story as a fan of age gap romances. Doesn't have to be isekai, I don't discriminate based on settings in fiction...
Not automatically at least, because that world's norms apply. That is my personal opinion. Depends somewhat on framing, whether it's consensual or not(forced relationship/marriage), etc.
If the character thinks their new life is what ultimately defines them, I see no reason why to feel icky.
Isekai has a lot of examples where the main character does reveal to their closest that they're an otherworlder, at one point or other, and I don't remember any obvious change in dynamics of the cast in such situations. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
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I believe much of the conversation/disagreement hinges on assumptions of the state of maturity of the isekai-ee versus that of the people around them and whether they can or should experience biologically based attraction. Unfortunately, I can't avoid bringing Rudeus up as an example but I will contrast with Aqua of Oshi no Ko and Satoru of Erased. I would point out as one person has that Rudeus's life experience before reincarnation left him with the developmental status of a freshman high-schooler (at latest?) and his social withdrawal and immersion in eroge aimed at that demographic left him in a state of arrested development.
As such, he is a "special case" and to insist he is a 30+ year old ignores this and erroneously posits his maturity is consistent with that much "life experience". In a medieval society, I believe there is evidence that life experience and maturity was gained faster than in many modern societies with the result that a 14-16 year old would be equivalently mature to a modern 20-something. Thus, there is relationship interaction between two nearly equally mature people and I wouldn't think anything "icky" about attraction, etc. The first counterpoint is Aqua, shown to be a fully mature 40-something reincarnated into a baby's body. In this case, his interaction with the young women in his new life would indeed be incredibly "icky" if he behaved as Rudeus does because of the vast difference in life experience. And there we see he treats them as friends and there is no romantic attraction until Akane successfully imitates the more mature Ai Hoshino. And then there is the very mature-for-her-age Kana. So is he a pervert for finding them emotionally or intellectually attractive and having those relationships? If someone says he should only find 40-something women in his new life attractive, consider how "icky" it would be for 5 year old Aqua to be trying to hit on the manager's wife! I propose relationships have a component of perception relative to the partner's perspective in addition to relative maturity and life experience and that despite inward feelings, they should not be expressed because of the perception and impact that would have on the relationship. Aqua knows better because of his maturity whereas Rudeus didn't because of his immaturity and failure to consider them as people. Then there is Satoru, a 20-someting among 8-10 years old modern children. He develops an emotional relationship with Kaya that seems consistent with her age and nothing inherently "wrong" with that. Also referring to the following, he experiences no sexual attraction as appropriate to his new body's state of maturity. A third leg that I had to explicitly enumerate to negate a falsehood being fabricated in the other thread is that there is a biological component to attraction and especially the sexual type. Emotions are driven by hormones as well as intellectual interaction and emotional reaction predispositions and as such, a pre-teen reincarnated person should not find a teen or older sexually attractive, but could find them emotionally or intellectually attractive (Roxy). I believe child Rudeus' inappropriate attraction was due to his intellectual fixation on what elements of a woman should be attractive and what emotional needs those eroge "programmed" him to believe would be met if he did certain things. He should have known better at that point, but at the present stage of the story I argue he is being motivated by hormonal action as much as others and he biologically can't help feeling sexual attraction. Whether he should act on that as in the case with the much less emotionally and intellectually mature Sara, again I believe he should have known better than allowing himself to take advantage of the situation because of how it could change or damage the relationship. Allowing the situation with Eris to become physical at her insistence is more grey due to their well-developed emotional relationship and her growing maturity. As a precocious 10 year old that found a 14 year old neighbor attractive, I think he should have stayed with the "no" option as neither of them were really fully emotionally ready for sex as evidenced by the fallout. Thus, I do not think there is a blanket answer to the question posed for this thread but "it depends".... |
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