REVIEW: ‘Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation’ Season 3 Episode 12 — “An End And A Beginning”

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3 Episode 12, “An End and a Beginning,” sees the future Rudeus lay out what will happen if he follows the Man-God’s (Kujira, Love through a Prism) instructions and gives his past self some advice. But how much can be trusted, and how will things change now that Rudeus (Yumi Uchiyama, Rising Impact) knows? 

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3 Episode 12 spends the vast majority of its time laying out the future of what will be if Rudeus goes down into the basement as he’s been instructed. The path laid out by his future self is one of grimness and death. If the future plays out as he has seen it, only loneliness and pain will await Rudeus, and it will all be the Man-God’s doing. This vision of what’s to come is hard to swallow. 

The problem with the warning that Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3 Episode 12 builds itself around is how incredibly dark it is compared to the series as a whole. Not just some things will go wrong; everything goes wrong. Practically everything Rudeus cares about will be lost if he follows the instructions laid out for him. How could the guy who can succeed so much suddenly become so incapable of success?

The sudden shift in tone makes the introduction of Rudeus’s future incredibly out of character.

Beyond the clash with the series’ general tone, the warning’s presentation also feels underwhelming. The viewer sees no flashes of future events. Nothing to emphasize or pull you into the moment. Just old-man Rudeus chronicling what will happen. He coughs and hacks, stresses how there is no time for more details, even as he continues to go on about vague dangers and possibilities. The conflicting claims of urgency, even as the moment drags on, bring all the usual frustrations that such cryptic warnings bring.

Serving to augment the aggravation in the scene is the fact that, despite having been thoroughly beaten, future Rudeus hasn’t lost any of his present self’s sense of self-importance. As he lays out the history of what will be, and the acts others take that lead to tragedy, it inevitably comes back to Rudeus. It’s all his fault. The choices others make aren’t of their doing; it’s because of him. Nothing can occur without Rudeus at the center of it.

This complete inability to acknowledge the agency of others within their own lives is par for the course where the protagonist is concerned, but feels insufferable here. The woe-is-me performance of Rudeus’ future self becomes so overbearing that it drowns out the pain and danger it tries to convey. Even when the tale is about someone else’s sorrow, it’s really about how their pain made Rudeus suffer.

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3 Episode 12 makes clear that Rudeus will always be self-involved.

Despite how overwrought much of the delivery is, the presentation does have moments that craft a sense of true pain. As the emaciated future self struggles to say what he can, moments break down where his anger comes through at his past shortcomings. Lightning crackles across his skin, and his face contorts into deeply powerful emotions that manage to break through the scene’s many shortcomings. 

The aftermath builds on the friction of the core moment. Once the message is delivered and the messenger has departed, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3 Episode 12 sees Rudeus proceed to hide all that has happened from Roxy (Konomi Kohara, Witch Watch) and Sylphie (Ai Kayano, Platinum End), who arrive moments after the warning’s conclusion upon hearing voices downstairs. 

Ultimately, this is a step backwards in plot development.

Rather than fill the two people he trusts most in the world (supposedly) with the truth, he proceeds to hide everything from them. He gives them a weak explanation clearly neither of them believes, and sends them back to their rooms. As he has firm evidence of all that has transpired, why hide it? Why make things massively more difficult for himself? If he just tells them, half of what could go wrong wouldn’t, because the pair simply wouldn’t do the things that would lead to bad endings. 

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3 Episode 12 spends its time laying out the future for Rudeus in the most annoying ways possible. It leans on old cliches and combines them with the protagonist’s insufferable self-importance to make it a revealing, but obnoxious, entry that is nothing but exposition and frustration. 

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3 Episode 12 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.

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