Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Episode 7) – What Lies Beyond Effort

Another tutor approaches Rudeus to ask if she can take some of his lesson time as Eris is falling behind in her dance and elocution. Her tenth birthday is approaching and it would be a disaster if it went poorly!
Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Episode 7) – What Lies Beyond Effort
What happened?
With all this newfound free time, Rudeus decides to learn some new languages and asks Philip if he can borrow some books. Well, it turns out Philip is a massive furry too and is happy to help. As such, he recommends the Beast-God language which is the common tongue among beast-people. Rudeus also adds Battle-God and Demon-God. However, Demon-God is frustrating him so he writes to Roxy for some advice.
Amazingly, Roxy replies and sends a textbook that she wrote by hand to aid him in his studies. She also revealed that a statuette that looks just like her has made its way to her student. It’s quite disturbing. Of course, that’s not all, Rudeus has been pressured into helping with Eris’ dance lessons. She’s not interested, but he sees her running away as he did in his past life, and it troubles him.
At Eris’ tenth birthday party, she tried to dance with a noble, but it goes horribly wrong. Rudeus steps up to save the day and tells her to imagine she’s facing a feint in sword fighting and that seems to do the trick. The next morning, Rudeus stumbles upon Lord Sauros with one of the beast-girls. Then, Sauros shows Rudeus a strange object in the sky.

What did you think?
This was yet another slow episode, which makes three so far, however, it was still good and showed a lot of growth within the characters. Rudeus had a chance to do something perverted and decided against it. Even Eris showed how she has grown up a little and even thanked Rudeus for giving her a wand. The best thing about these changes is that they have been gradual and still have a long way to go. It’s crazy to expect someone to suddenly change overnight.
The dance was fun and strangely awkward, but it gave Rudeus a chance to show how he can take a lesson from one subject and use it to enrich another. It proves that he is quite intelligent, even if he was unable to get past the bullying in his past life. Not only that, but he expressed his regrets for how he behaved and wanted to pass that on to Eris. They are fascinating characters, even with their flaws.

What have you learnt?
It’s all too easy to see a character doing something that you don’t approve of and labelling them a bad character. However, that’s not always the case. Lots of memorable characters from fiction are horribly flawed people. If you met them in real life, you probably wouldn’t want to hang with them. On the flip side, I don’t think anyone would want to hang around with someone that is perfect.
I guess the point I’m coming to is that it’s the flaws in the characters that we see in ourselves that make a story resonate. Most people have lost their temper at some point or gotten frustrated because something wasn’t working out the way they thought. It’s these tiny connections that draw us closer to the characters and the story. Without these elements to latch on to, it would be incredibly boring. Give me brilliantly flawed characters every time. Other than Ghislaine, of course. She’s perfect!

Other posts in the series
- Season One
- Part 1
- Episode 1 – Jobless Reincarnation
- Episode 2 – Master
- Episode 3 – A Friend
- Episode 4 – Emergency Family Meeting
- Episode 5 – A Young Lady and Violence
- Episode 6 – A Day Off in Roa
- Episode 7 – What Lies Beyond Effort
- Episode 8 – Turning Point 1
- Episode 9 – A Chance Encounter
- Episode 10 – The Value of a Life and the First Job
- Episode 11 – Children and Warriors
- Part 2
- Episode 12 – The Woman with the Demon Eyes
- Episode 13 – Missed Connections
- Episode 14 – No Such Thing As a Free Lunch
- Episode 15 – Slow Life in the Doldia Village
- Episode 16 – Family Squabble
- Episode 17 – Reunion
- Episode 18 – Separate Journeys
- Episode 19 – Route Selection
- Episode 20 – The Birth of My Little Sister, the Maid
- Episode 21 – Turning Point 2
- Episode 22 – Dreams and Reality
- Episode 23 – Wake Up and Take a Step
- OVA
- Part 1
- Season Two
- Part 1
- Episode 0 – Guardian Fitz
- Episode 1 – The Brokenhearted Mage
- Episode 2 – The Forest in the Dead of Night
- Episode 3 – Abrupt Approach
- Episode 4 – Letter of Invitation
- Episode 5 – Ranoa University of Magic
- Episode 6 – I Don’t Want to Die
- Episode 7 – The Kidnapping and Confinement of Beast Girls
- Episode 8 – The Fiancé of Despair
- Episode 9 – The White Mask
- Episode 10 – These Feelings
- Episode 11 – To You
- Part 1
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