Comment on [Discussion] 10 Fantasy Anime With Better Worldbuilding Than Most Movies

lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

People look down on the idea Mushoku Tensei and Ascendance of a Bookworm would have good worldbuilding, because both are isekais, but unlike a lot of later series they aren’t simply copypasting stuff from earlier series, and they got a lot of original ideas.

::: spoilers Take MT for example. (warning: actual spoilers, some heavy ones) A creator god made six worlds, all of them unstable, and patched them together into a die-shaped one. Then split his soul into six, each becoming a god.

Orsted’s father was the original Dragon God. As he died, the title went to his child. He’s also the grandson of the Human God. The series has a literal god as a villain-then-ally. (told ya I’d mention spoilers!)

You know who is not a god, though? Hitogami! Born in the seventh world, the void formed within the “die”. He killed and usurped the role of the actual Human God (Orsted’s maternal grandpa, BTW). He’s also responsible for the death of the first Dragon God, and the Demon God’s soul splitting into two (one half being murderous). No wonders Orsted hates him so much.

Hitogami always does his shit indirectly, through three or four “apostles” — people whom he shows visions, and automatically trust him. He tried to do it with Rudeus but it backfired, since Rudeus’ soul is not from the six-sided world the “you’ll automatically trust me” gimmick didn’t work.

For example, his intervention against Laplace was to make the Fighting God an apostle and have both fight. You’ve seen that Fighting God; he’s that huge four-arms “WAHAHAHAHA!!!” guy, Badigadi.

The evil half of Laplace fooled the Superd into madness, creating their bad reputation… and the discrimination against people with green hair, like Sylphy. Additionally, people who have green hair are likely to have the Laplace Factor, it’s like the other half of Laplace is slowly tweaking with the inheritance of multiple people, to create a perfect vessel for his reincarnation over the course of millenniums.

There’s at least one religion in the world, the Milis faith, but it’s clear not everyone follows it. It preaches monogamy, while apparently most people are fine with polygamy. The difference in mindset becomes clear near the end of the second season, look at who gets pissed at Rudeus for bringing a second wife home — not his first wife Sylphy, but his sister Norn! Guess who follows the Milis faith? It went worse for Zenith, though, since the guy violating her religious principle was her husband Paul. (And then her son. Poor Zenith. Nobody cares about your faith.)

Time loops are an actual thing in MT, and the reason Orsted has such an odd reaction towards Eris when they just met. Or he says Paul Greyrat was supposed to have two daughters, not a son. There’s also a second “loop chain” where Rudeus visits his past self, to tell him to not trust Hitogami; in that timeline Roxy died, Sylphy left Rudeus, and he never married Eris. He did this because Rudeus and Roxy’s daughter Lara has a pivotal role on defeating Hitogami.

Orsted’s curse doesn’t apply to Rudeus descendants, by the way. Now imagine all three of Rudeus’ wives terrified of Orsted… while their children are like, “dad’s boss! He’s a cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything”. :::

I didn’t even scratch the surface of MT’s worldbuilding with the spoilers above, by the way. I could’ve talked about politics of the kingdom of Asura; or what exactly was the Mana Calamity; or the role of Nanahoshi into the story. The more you dig, the more you find, it’s frankly addictive.

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