Jobless Reincarnation
A while back, I watched this anime called ‘Jobless Reincarnation’. I’d seen people mention it online and it seemed to have a following. Sounded like a standard Isekai (person transported to another dimension) and I didn’t dig deep enough to found out that it was controversial. That happened after I watched the first few episodes . . . Then, I got really confused.
Now, the story is about a jobless asshole who dies in our world and is reborn in a fantasy world. Even as a baby, his 40-year-old past life mind is inside his brain, so you get to hear his thoughts. They sure are some thoughts. He’s a pervert and not the kind that gets his comeuppance because nobody can hear his thoughts. The few times he seems to get caught spying on bathing women, stealing panties, and being a horrible letch come with no consequences. I can see why people hated this series and that was before I got to the grooming part. Keep in mind that this show only comes newborn until eleven or something. Some other characters are just as bad as him too like his adulterous father, who has a baby with their maid. There’s no consequence for that either. It truly was a mesmerizingly horrific display of characters with maybe the murder who goes after anyone who even threatens a child as the most moral of the group.
Yet, I watched it all because I just couldn’t look away. Why?
First, the characters weren’t terribly written. They were just horrible people and written well enough to make me despise many of them. This was included with a story that was fairly interesting. This newborn grows up with great magical power and is learning about this world. He goes to school and gets stronger, but not enough to be unbeatable since he screws up and gets pummeled a lot. A disaster happens and throws the entire world into chaos, so now he has to survive alongside one of the girls he was with. They want to return home with the help of an infamous killer who is trying to soften his reputation since he is not really evil. They also try to find out if their loved ones survived the disaster and how they can find them. So, there is a lot of heart in the story, but it battles the despicable personalities of the characters.
As someone who loves to connect to characters and enjoys good stories, I found myself in conflict. I couldn’t connect to anyone and sometimes hoped for a few characters to die, which never happened. The story and world kept me going along with a desire to see consequences. Maybe that kind of happened at the end, but not enough for me to think the scales have been balanced. There really wasn’t a sense of redemption even if some characters took a first step. Not that I trusted the step because I can’t remember if any of them actually accepted their past mistakes and apologized.
I can totally see why so many people on forums said ‘It is a great anime/manga with a great story, but I really can’t recommend it.’ This thing can be fairly triggering to certain people. Some of the manipulations done gave me shivers because I remember being on the receiving end of that kind of bullshit. Really made me question why such a story existed.
My curiosity did lead me to look up why this thing was written and if there was a point to the despicable characters. Supposedly, the author wanted to have these characters be terrible and heavily flawed. He wanted to see if they could eventually be redeemed after their actions. So, the perverted main hero would probably reach a point where he saw women as humans instead of options to lose his virginity. At least, that’s what it sounded like and many people don’t seem to have the patience or desire to redeem. After all, these are sexual transgressions and not violent ones. The former tends to be harder for people to forgive than the latter.
That brings me to the big question: Can a despicable character gain redemption in the eyes of readers? Is it possible after they’ve been terrible for so long? I can’t figure out an answer for myself. Not enough happened in the series to earn forgiveness and I’m aware that the story keeps going. So, I can’t take a stance since I haven’t, and probably won’t, get back into it. Doesn’t give me the urge to try the experiment either because I’d hate the backlash. What does everyone else think?
Legends of Windemere 