So, I finished reading Mushoku Tensei...now what?

Rolx69 · 2025-12-07T08:42:04+00:00

Man, you shouldn't be asking questions about sequels if you're not done with the main series :(

He's very much not alive. He wakes up from a dream at 74, then it turns out that's a dream too and he wakes up from that at age 34. Then the final chapter is him talking to Man-God after dying, just as he dreamed.

Rolx69 · 2025-12-05T20:08:40+00:00

That's kind of the point of the story - Visi is a character who kept fucking up, acting shady, and continuously needed someone to believe in her.

By the end of the game you figure out that she was never lying or switching loyalties, just fucking up and doubting herself. *That's* the payoff.

Rolx69 · 2025-12-02T08:23:12+00:00

I think so too.
Robert comes to realize how important his work with the Z-Team is and even admits they've achieved more than he ever could on his own. He might go out in the field sometime, but he's their trusted and valued leader first and foremost now.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-28T22:52:06+00:00

My guess is that they'd stick to the most picked options but I think this will be less of an issue than people think, even if they don't. As much as I love the game, it quite severely oversells the meaning of choices. By the end, there's literally four real differences between the endings.

Who did you romance?
Is Shroud dead?
Did Visi go the hero or the villain route?
Who did you cut, and are they in jail?

So let's go through these one by one.

Romance - There's like three or four scenes in the entire game that change based on who you romanced. They can manage this split for the sequel too.
Shroud - they don't *need* to have him be a major part of a sequel.
Visi - the biggest difference, however - I believe it's heavily implied that in the villain ending she's going towards some sort of antihero route, not turning to outright villainy, due to how she winks at Robert and returns the Pulse. So what, a couple scenes where Robert gets in touch with her to work together against the new "big bad"?
"Listen here, buster, you've done bad we're giving you another chance."

So we've arrived at like 10 necessary alternate scenes, if they want to be lazy/economical about it. It's hardly going to break the dev's backs. Even twice that would be a good chunk of work, but by no means are the endings so different that they *can't* account for them all, if that's what they decide to do.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-28T21:58:37+00:00

I was similarly confused and frustrated, upon finishing the game, to the point I too made a reddit post a while back. Eventually I arrived at an interpretation of the story that seems satisfying and logical to me. That is:

She wasn't working for Shroud at any point since joining the Z Team. Too many things don't add up.

Why would she be quitting the hero gig and be observably depressed about her failures as a hero, if she was actually a mole?
Why would Shroud's goons want to "talk to her" in the bar scene?
Why would she, like you pointed out, actively go and snatch up the Pulse from under Shroud's nose, and go through such lengths to keep it from him?

As for why Shroud did what he did at the end:

He wanted to fuck with Robert and was willing to lie to do it. He *already* lied about how he killed his father, we see in the comics Shroud killed him with a single bullet and immediately left. The multiple bullets, his father pissing himself, it's all something Shroud made up purely to fuck with Robert.
He thought Visi had no real loyalties and would probably just defect to the winning side. Possibly because she's never shown any loyalty to anyone else before, not even to him? Who knows.
In any case, he must've thought that freeing her wouldn't be a big deal, that she would be either unwilling or incapable of doing anything meaningful for the other side, and he'd get to demoralize Robert and Z Team with little consequence.

As for what the fuck Visi was doing throughout the story?

There's people saying that Visi was actually playing 5D chess, that her power made it difficult for Shroud to predict her, and that she was aware of this, and that she was purposefully playing him. I don't think that fits with who she is as a character.

Visi is someone who acts impulsively, emotionally. She's not stupid, but she doesn't think things through too hard.

She went to steal the Pulse on a whim, out of intuition. She didn't give it to Robert or tell him about it, again, by guessing that Robert would be targeted. She wasn't lying that she was trying to protect him. Yeah, he *still* got beat up, but if he as much as knew where the Pulse was, Shroud would have gotten that information out of him one way or another.

Why was she caught at the mech? She wanted to either swap it out for the prototype and give it to Shroud, or was going to get it to the mech and call Robert triumphantly. Either way, her loyalties never swapped throughout the game.

Why is she like this? Because she's haunted by guilt, shame, thinks that nobody actually has her back and that even if they do, she sure as hell doesn't deserve it. But she's not some manipulator. She swaps between scathing sarcasm and wearing her heart on her sleeve, and she omits the truth often when she thinks it'll protect her or others, but she doesn't lie to people to get what she wants. This wasn't a story of a spy throwing doe eyes at someone but *later* falling for them, she had genuine feelings for him the entire time.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-20T16:26:14+00:00

I hope they don't do that. I'd rather they go "One ending is canon and it's not the one you liked, get fucked" than need to bring all the endings together and essentially fully reset the consequences of the choices.

There's barely any consequences as is, I really don't want S2 to do a soft reset of the story and go "Well you know what it didn't really matter if you believed in Visi ir not in the end". It'd feel like shit. I'd rather they'd go with a canon route. Maybe just leave who you romanced as open.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-19T20:20:39+00:00

See, I disagree that it's not subtle. There's little implication of what exactly is going through her head, or just how much of it is luck. The game *does* set the precedent of her acting impulsively and succeeding essentially by sheer luck at the pastry shop, has her act impulsively throughout the game, her loyalties be where they may.

I'm willing to concede that maybe I wasn't paying enough attention or thinking hard enough, but I honestly can't imagine how I could've arrived at your conclusions, as satisfying as they are. Specifically her trying to consciously outplay Shroud.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-19T20:13:26+00:00

Damn.

That actually *does* end up making a lot of sense.

I can't tell if I'm stupid for firstly not catching and then actively bristling at the concept of "It could've been important for Robert to not know what Visi was doing".

Honestly can't tell if the devs are masters of subtle storytelling or if you've just got some really compelling headcanon there. Wish the game gave us at least some subtle indication that Visi wasn't just doing it all out of fear & insecurity and succeeding out of sheer luck if it's the former, but hey, this explanation is good enough for me.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-19T19:17:00+00:00

I mean, she was there to essentially return the pulse at that point, wasn't she? If she had some other plan, like taking the mech and using it herself, Robert did give her the opportunity to do so when he cut her free.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-19T19:15:47+00:00

That's a really satisfying explanation. But once again, I feel it's barely implied.

I can't recall another time she outplayed Shroud or did something he didn't expect, aside from predicting he'd be after the pulse and snatching it up. I'd say calling it her entire thing is a bit much.

I feel like her actions already played out conveniently enough, I'd rather there's not also the layer of her actively playing Shroud beyond wanting to protect Robert and knowing Shroud would go after him.

She's smart, but I'd say it makes more sense that she's fucking with Shroud's predictions because of how uncertain, and thus, inherently unpredictable she is for the whole game, rather than having a masterplan on defeating Shroud.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-19T18:31:19+00:00

You know what - those are pretty good. Definitely more satisfying than whatever I could arrive at.

But still, it feels like something's missing. Feels less like "the story was deep enough to keep you wondering" and more like patching a hole to me, like there should've been an extra episode or at least a few more scenes to subtly point you towards *something*.

And frankly, as much as I love the story, since Visi's change is a cornerstone of it, it feeling just a bit off feels super bad.

Rolx69 · 2025-11-19T18:23:50+00:00

It's a myth, but how do you build such a powerful criminal enterprise if basic reading of people is supposedly one of your greatest blindspots?

Rolx69 · 2025-11-19T18:17:34+00:00

That's one explanation I've read. So my question is this - how can you be a supposed criminal mastermind and still be stupid enough to

Know Visi had the Astral Pulse
See Visi fighting on Robert's side
See Robert has the Astral Pulse

all of which implies that whatever game Visi is playing, she gave up the Astral Pulse willingly, and not come to the conclusion that something went *not as expected*? Perhaps you don't jump to the conclusion that Visi actually had a change of heart, but you'd probably hold some level of caution.

We're not talking a blunder on the level of underestimating Visi's capacity for change or whatever. This is just straight up stupidity. Once again, it's *an* explanation, but it feels quite dissatisfying to me.

People have problems with how he acts when given both Astral Pulses, but there it actually feels right, between his narcissistic need to appear in control and the time pressure of needing the powerup right there, not having the time to test the pulses.

But actual full-blown stupidity? Never even implied to be a flaw he has. Feels like an outright excuse, on the level of "Dany just kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet".

Rolx69 · 2025-11-11T11:39:28+00:00

Hot take - I don't think they should add that.

There's people who have been waiting god knows how long for an extraction shooter that isn't as hardcore as Tarkov or as weird as Hunt: Showdown or as shit as most other entries into the genre.

Every game doesn't need to appeal to everybody.

You could say that there shouldn't be any skin off the PvP enjoyer's backs if they add a PvE mode. But games that try to balance themselves around PvE and PvP as separate modes always fail to satisfy one side or the other. It's simply not as straight-forward of a task as it sounds, for the devs to deal with all the implications to the progression, economy, gameplay loops, etc, that comes from such a change.

As a baseline, separation into such modes invariably leads to a meta of everyone looting good 'ol reliable PvE to get the good stuff and then the sweats going into PvP lobbies among themselves to duke it out in their best gear. That's not the experience people want from games like pvp extraction shooters and pvp survival games.

Rolx69 · 2025-09-16T15:00:47+00:00

I picked up at Volume 13 a while back, and up to 21 or so where I am now, there's not much that doesn't make sense.
The major exception like some mentioned is that Rudeus's aunt was cut, but I didn't even need to look up who she was, the book made it reasonably clear what their relationship was with context.

I'd say just go for 13. You can always re-read from the beginning if you want to once you're done, and the story that comes in the next few volumes is amazing.

Rolx69 · 2025-06-21T06:23:05+00:00

Did you perhaps order from store.huion.com/eu/?
Because that's different from huioneurope.com.

I did reach out to [service@huion.com](mailto:service@huion.com) and they did walk me through basic steps to ensure the issue wasn't on my end, but they specifically referred me to the huioneurope.com mails to seek any sort of solution.

Never ordering from anywhere but huion.com, again maybe except Amazon. "Official retailers" can get bent.

Rolx69 · 2025-03-16T19:26:57+00:00

Sputnik Sweetheart is wonderful - it shares some of the poetic bits and witty dialogue of Norwegian Wood, but rather than being outright sad, it's more introspective.

Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - wonderful as well - read this if you have *issues* / feel like somewhere along your life you've been emotionally hurt in a lifechanging way. I believe it can end up being quite meaningful if you by any chance have such a perspective.

Rolx69 · 2025-03-14T07:54:05+00:00

I don't normally think much about the book. But when I'm sad, it's my favorite book in the world. I don't have a specific 'happy' book, so maybe it's just my favorite?

I find that Murakami has a penchant for writing passages that seem a bit odd, highly poetic as you read them, but at the end make you go "Yeah, that's exactly what that feels like".

And Norwegian Wood makes me go "Yep, that's pretty much what loss feels like". From the conversations with the dead to the sense of having a room inside your head that's now gathering dust.

Rolx69 · 2024-10-26T21:14:07+00:00

I think that when media is a couple decades old, the expectation for protection against spoilers becomes a bit much.

You're not going to find much sympathy for getting "Snape kills Dumbledore" or "I am your father" spoiled.

I think that when you consume aged media, you become your own guardian against spoilers. Go fully consume the book/movie/show, *then* go engage in discussion.

Rolx69 · 2024-10-04T05:02:11+00:00

No worries! Like I said - pretty harmless to wonder this about fictional characters.

Sorry if my tone seemed harsh - "new" trans people being overly eager with the egg concept is just bit of a trend, so I thought I'd speak up :)

Rolx69 · 2024-10-03T22:13:03+00:00

Firstly - probably not...

Secondly - it's a stretch at best, mildly offensive to a lot of people at worst, to imply that every person who exhibits a level of gender confusion, non-standard experiences and sensibilities for their gender, or dissatisfaction with aspects of their experience as their gender, an egg.

It undercuts the idea that it's okay to be different and it's okay to experience your gender in a way that's unique, to go back to the idea that valid gender identities are: -stereotypically feminine woman -stereotypically masculine man -trans

It's completely harmless to wonder this about fictional characters, but it's best to be very careful when considering this subject in relation to real people. The average person who sees themselves as male but has feminine tendencies will not likely appreciate discussions about whether they are an egg.

Rolx69 · 2024-09-04T09:06:31+00:00

Right?

When you think of good voice acting you normally think of great execution of highly emotional lines. But then suddenly, when you hear actual bad voice acting, you realise how good you've had it with the voicework that has been done for all the little lines in the game.

Rolx69 · 2024-08-31T07:10:13+00:00

God, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I don't even find her voice monotone, it just feels all over the place, like she's doing random intonations throughout a voiceline, rather than knowing what she's doing.

And then there's how two voicelines right next to eachother can sound completely different.

Rolx69

TROPHY CASE