How Time Works in Mushoku Tensei... I Think (SPOILERS) 

Orsted did not meet Rudeus in his 100th loop, He stopped counting after 100 and did not meet Rudeus until much much later.

I literally just want to thank you; I didn't get into anime until just like 2 years ago after my divorce and everything... After making fun of my little brother's for years for liking anime and then one popped up on my autoplay called Goblin Slayer and my entire perspective was changed and now I have consumed so much anime lol And isekai has become my favorite when it's done right. But Mushoku Tensei has really been the first show that I was into so much I just had to find more information about it after the show ended recently. So I came across your channel and have been literally binge watching/listening to everything related to the show. I've already started taking your recommended steps for the light novel / web novel... And just genuinely want to tell you I appreciate all that you're doing. I am essentially a hermit, only leaving to work, get groceries, or anything pertaining to my teenage daughter so it's not often I moved by something lol I just wanted to send you praise and honest appreciation. You explain things perfectly and clearly, and you have a voice that is easy to listen too and I hope you continue this work.

I think oldeus rewind time by traveling to the past because he said he use the diary as a medium. He appear when the diary is created. Meaning that the oldeus rewind time based on the creation of the diary and teleport in it. The diary is the core of his time traveling magic. Is like a more advanced reincarnation technique and the future change again because rudeus and oldeus who has the strongest fate made it happen. Only them can change the future and having both of them disturb the world future even more. I think this type of magic is only usable for rudeus and oldeus. The diary is like checkpoint. This is my theory.

I actually wanna watch a movie with Oldeus' story.

I actually think that Occam's razor applies here. There's no reason to postulate a multiverse from the source material. A single time line is easier to explain and requires fewer assumptions, and should therefore be accepted unless the author or future novels say otherwise.

This is my logic as well when I think about it. The fact that Playback Miko has both the power to alter time and summon people from another dimension is proof that space and time are connected. Ergo what Oldeus did was a form of teleportation. This is also the reason why there is no paradox attached to this type of time travel. Oldeus can exist outside his original timeline because he wasn't inside said timeline when it ceased to exist. What happens to Orsted and Miko are obviously different phenomenon. If we imagine the flow of time like a river, then what Oldeus did was to get out of the river, walk back up hill and dive back in. While the Dragon God made it so that if Orsted arrived at a dead end the whole river and everyone in it would back up to a set point, and this would continue until Orsted would manage to divert it in the direction of Hitogami's defeat. Just for the sake of the analogy you can imagine Orsted and Miko have their head outside the water and thus are aware of time being reset. What's interesting is that Miko lost her power. In this last loop she is born without her blessing. Isn't that weird? One of the benefits of Dragon God's magic to reset time was that Orsted's mana would be back to full and if he died he would be revived. Miko losing her power cannot be reset and I think I know the reason why. It's because it's an ongoing effect. The remnants of Miko's power is what's keeping Nanahoshi young and trapping her in this world. When the final teleportation experiment failed, Rudeus said that he felt that his mana was still being absorbed and used somewhere else. So I don't think it's a time paradox that is keeping Nanahoshi here, it's just magic that is countering the teleportation circle. Like a treadmill, it doesn't matter how fast you run you aren't going anywhere. Last thing to clarify is how fate works. Going back to the river of time analogy, fate is the stream bed. In some sections of the river it is shallow and easily diverted onto new paths while in others fate is strong and very difficult to change the course of events. Hitogami probably can see this river bed and can make a good guess where the river will flow. Then Rudeus came along and the landscape totally changed.

First! I am having a great Christmas. Heading my way to do some winter camping. Weather seems not to hot and not too cold, wish me luck on the weather!

No one can ever escape truck-Kun. He will always send you to another world whether or not he manages to kill you.

This clears up some. After finishing the WN I was kinda confused with the playback miko. I thought it was just a sweet story to tag on to the end answering some questions but it fits to the overall story. Also, kinda hilarious that the generic isekai protoganist died so fast. He’s basically an uncursed Subaru.

Hmmm maybe since what that miko wished for is the BIG change, like rewriting fate as it goes which is why there was an interruption on loop 4 and mainly wy Rudeius existed. He is the ultimate do-over by the twisting of fates and adding rudes to the quation makes a different outcome, a person who loves this world

A small correction, Orsted actually gets reincarnated 2000 years before he has to fight with Hitogami, he just repeats the last 200 years instead of the whole, probably because there's no need to change events so far behind in time to affect the future. It's also worth noting that the second Demon-Human war ends not much before Orsted is born, with Laplace being split into Technique God and Demon God because of the influence of Hitogami. Given that Laplace's duty was to teach Orsted, it seems like the timing is not a coincidence and this was Hitogami's way of hindering him, though I still haven't read Old Dragon's Tale so idk if it's explained there. I agree that multiple timelines aren't required and that they would only detract from the story; another important aspect is how "hard to replicate" Oldeus's time travel magic actually is, because if he had managed to understand it fully before using it, then there would be less narrative tension overall: if something bad happens in the story, what prevents him from learning the same magic again and returning back? If there's always a failsafe it's hard to take seriously potential tragic events, but, since he himself doesn't know that well how it works (he doesn't even know if he'll physically travel back in time or if his consciousness will slip into his younger mind), it's presented as more of a miracle than an achievement, and therefore he might fail to develop it under different circumstance, keeping the stakes high. Great video overall.

I actually think there's two other options to explain oldius 1. the mikos wish could being playing a part as just as it's preventing nanhoshi from returning to her reality, if hetigamis loss is required for it's fulfillment it could vary well cause oldius, especially if the knowledge from that timeline is needed 2. causality is more fluid, thus can shift without forking, and even should it fork it can also merge, with both the diffrent miko, and oldius forks merging with the current flow Both of which wouldfit the idea that some fates are stronger then others: in 1. Miko's wish is the stronger fate, thus takes precedence, in 2. fate would be a kin to terrain features causality flows though, with different ones being less hindering then others

Have you ever set a hot wheels track in a circle with 1 of those car pushers and then place a hot wheel and let go, going around the track infinitely? This time line reminds me of that. Events will repeat until there are enough powerful and significant changes and killing gods to break the cycle where its no longer needed to keep up with the anaolgy this timeline will reset until the "hot wheels car is fast enough to break out of the track"

I think the most simplest way to explain it is that Orsted is able to save scum like in video games. Like in visual novels of wanting the best route, Orsted makes different choices to get the best outcome. There are others such as Rudeus and the Miku whos power is similar, they are still within the realm of Orsted's save point. There is no alternative universe because it ceases to exist once Orsted retries again, like loading up your save point

It turns into what happens in an abandoned save game safer to thin of that 'reality' collapsing instead of parallel multiverse

Natalie, you should make a video about Laplace. I really want to know about the dragon old take but i don't where to read it. It's the only novel I haven't read for mushoku tensei as well with light novel version of mushoku tensei.

I showed a mate of mine the first 2 episodes of the anime today and i tried to explain why i like the show so much but there's boatloads of context needed so I just said it had fantastic world building and is a epic saga in the making.

Its terrifying to think the Miko was considered a game changer, but the dragon world managed to make a spell rewinding an interval 73 000 times greater and self sustaining, which is as much a testament to their skill as it is to Orsted's mana capacity. Lets also not forget that Orsted probably has to redo his physical training from zero to multiple martial god levels each time, regaining his conditioning and reflexes. His stoic determination is incredible.

While answering readers' questions online, the author implied that Orsted's loop ability might have been taken over by the playback blessed child, made his memory reset same as others when the playback blessed child died. The playback blessed child's default ability is "to change something's past within 24h", so she can heal or revive others by cancelling the fact that person been wounded or died in the past, but she can't rejuvenate others because people age anyways. The way her power works isn't by resetting that day, it's just magically repair the thing in front of her, so everyone aware what happens.

1. I actually think this view works, and resolves the issues in the story. Good job. 2. The multiverse for the setting still is a thing for another reason. The very fact that Akihito was summoned from a 'completely separate world' from the universe that MT exists, ya know, the former 6 faced world. It's a world that objectively exists regardless of whatever the hell happens to MT's world. That said. The logic of time and there being many different realities are pretty much mutually exclusive for the purposes of the plot. That basically means universes are pretty much self enclosed instances that don't normally interfere with each other... unless you brute force things... like with Akihito being summoned in the first place, or Nanahoshi being violently rejected by MT's world bc of the Rewind Miko. 3. Steins;Gate is another example where no 2 worlds are interchangeable... and oh boy does it it acrew with Okabe... especially with how it treats Mayuri and Kurisu's deaths. 4. Branching universes aren't always obvious and not everybody assumes that they're a thing. Ppl are more apt to assume that time travel is the more 'logical' end... gods are equally biased here in that they aren't omnipotent. Plus, like I said, the setting already precludes the existence of a multiverse by default by virtue of Rudeus and any other isekai'd characters very existance. The very fact that Akihito was summoned from another world entirely is self evident to that point. Nah, the mistake was to assume that they weren't mutually exclusive mechanics here. As in: time and time travel can operate under rules and logic that have nothing to do with with whether or not it interferes with other universes or creates alternate timelines. That being said, what the Rewind Miko did didn't just interfere with time, but space-time. She actually 'did' mess with another universe by forcibly bringing Nanahoshi like she did. The fact that the veryogic of the world rejects her builds a strong case for the argument that time and universal logic are separate mechanics in MT, which builds a stronger case for your explanation too. It's wrong to assume multiverses have no bearing on this setting. That's just objectively not true. What is true is that time is handled separately. Also, in a closed loop scenario, not everything in every loop needs to play out the same. All that really matters here is that Oldeus' world never got to be a loop because it was the first genuine instance of an alternate timeline in the setting whose circumstances you've already explained well enough. Then again, I'm of the view that nobody is interchangeable, even if they're just alternative versions from a multiverse. Assuming that they are is just dumb since everybody has their own point of view. I can't exactly assert mine but deny another just because they're me. Plus, I don't think ppl get that multiverses don't need to be copies of eachother, or that they have to be acknowledged. Take Higurashi. Every Rika bad end there continued on regardless. And trust me, a lot of them sucked.... Especially worlds where Keichi never moved to Hinamizawa. Rant aside yes. You did a great job explaining time here in MT. Multiverses are still relevant though, just not with respect to time's logic. They're apparently separate mechanisms here.

fun fact: on the end of ep 23 when Ariel & co. are talking, it shows an artifact that resembles the solar system. And at the center of it is a cube, which has six sides (the six sided world). it shows the sun and 5 other celestial bodies (probably satellites like our moon) revolving around the cube, which is similar on how people in the past (1500 something) thought that the stars and sun, just like the moon, revolves around the center of the universe which is, by then, believed to be the earth.

Happy Belated Christmas. Great vid! Thanks for answering some questions for me

Happy holidays. Thanks for this video. You make it so easy to wrap my head around this.

Amazing video Nat!!! Really interesting as a storyteller myself who acts as the permanent dm for my gaming group. I might try to do something similar with my homebrew setting. Thanks for such an amazing reference for me to find inspiration to make my world and writing even stronger!!! Genuinely you have made an amazing channel and I am so glad that I have been able to become part of your community!! Thanks for all of your hard work, and I can’t wait to see what else you can do!!!

The enemy attacking the Kingdom is Laplace right?

Yay a new Natalie video, I hope your Christmas and new years are great!

You did a great job explaining all this and putting the pieces and clues together. Nanahoshi's theories on why her teleport project failed also confirm what you said. The "playback" miko is still a big ??? for me though and I'm not sure anyone can answer my question about her. It's all about the summoning circle she was used to power. From ODT we know that the dragon race made the core of magic circles and carefully baked into their design that no people could be summoned. Those efforts have held up to Rudeus's lifetime. So how the hell did that kingdom manage to do it and how did they know that specific miko could make it work??? I don't see how her ability ties into summoning across worlds. I get that Orsted could have done something that triggered a kingdom to reinvent summoning circles, therefore no longer having the anti people summoning limit anymore but how is the playback miko come into play? She summoned one Isekai via circle without knowing she could but then did it again through willpower and using up all her power but it seems like that should be beyond her ability seeing as it's only supposed to rewind time for one specific thing at a time and that has nothing to do with summoning. I can think of two things that together should allow for it. First if the girls miko ability comes from outside the time loop and has been growing as a result of her regressing after every death meaning she has way more power than anyone could possible have in several lifetimes. Second, if the place she died that last time was at the summon circle that was used to summon the isekai. Those two things are plausible and specific to that character at that time, so I think that would make sense. There's one more problem though. This problem doesn't relate to my theory. At the very end, in the "final world" nearly all of the miko's power was gone. So how is she supposed to summon the isekai? If that's the case maybe he's in a rift like nanhoshi was and there will be another teleportation incident when he's meant to arrive.

Time to put on our Steinz;Gate hats. Great video as usual. I always like these thought experiments.

Just as always your videos are satisfying and your content is amazing. Thank you Natalie hope your Christmas and new year goes well for you

Season greetings to you as well and thank you for your extremely wonderful content that keeps on giving.

Damn, this series is just so cool! And your videos really motivate me into wanting to read it more, cuz I’m slowly reading through the first Light Novel and I might want to speed up the pace now

20:00 I feel like it’s pretty clear with how the story is written that it is not multiverse and is something else like time being manipulated. but idk, it feels like the story shows there’s only one universe/timeline

Happy late Christmas and early new years to you too!!♥️ Also WOW!! This anime just got better for me! Can’t even imagine how many seasons or even animes can be made by Mushoku tenseis world!!

Nice content! First anituber to tackle MT comprehensively

Just started watching your videos and they're both facinating and entertaining to watch.

*Is it just me or is it the most sensical time travel theory of all time? it's so meta it can even apply to the MCU time travel thingy... it can apply to everything actually.*

Interesting theory! Hope your Christmas week is going well!

Marry Christmas to you too Natalie

Timey Whimey stuff analyzed.

this video and the comments are a treasure trove of lore explanations especially since it's connected to my husbando orsted qwq) thank you for making this wonderful video and i'm grateful that the MT community loves the media to want to discuss it deeply

Everytime time is manipulated, the future of that loop ceases to exist. The only person aware about it is the person changing it, i.e. Orsted as he loops and Oldeus as he returns to warn Rudeus. Imagine a string that can't be flayed, and time is linear without awkward breaks, as the representation of time. That means time moves yet is being looped to a specific point in time, yet it couldn't be like the very exact same point because there is a slight change that new knowledge from previous timelines were obtained. Loops were based on saddles, in this case Orsted through his many loops and Oldeus when he meets his younger self. The multiverse here would then be the different universes with different laws of physics with the difference between the one only humans live in and the six faced universe is the existence of mana and it's manipulation.

i hate to throw a wrench at your vid because ive been enjoying the content and this probably took a while to make, but unless there was an interview ive missed(completely possible) playback miko power was to 'rewind time for an object(including people) up to 24 hours' i believe it also required physical contact and was not a world wide AOE. if she was capable of using it in that manner she would have an easier time escaping her current loop captures. "she embraced his corpse and tried to revive him" if she didn't need physical contact im sure she would have tried to revive him the second she heard about his defeat or saw his body.

time theory in mushoku tensei, is like a loop , but instead of a closed loop , its more like an open loop combination of linear time ., its loops but the end of the loop or after that loop continues after and branches out creating another seperate time line time in mushoku tensie is a not linear , such example is that point when oldeus meets rudeus and warns him of the future in that diary ., in that situation , when oldeus should stop existing and never actually died, as if like the future never happened if the time was linear ., instead oldeus still died and was creamated , implying that the time loop oldeus came from would still exist even if he has successfully changed the future . what happened is that oldeus simply created another “reality” in time you see in the series ., while the time oldeus came from will still continue in the sense that every major character is dead. it could simply state that the past 200 loops (maybe more) of orstead finished could have branches out to at the very least 200 versions of reality after the end of those loops in time 🤔 to simply put time structure and theory on mushoku tensei work similar to the terminator francises in explanation 🤔🤔🤔

Honestly, this is the sort of twist you expect from Re:Zero. The current present being the result of someone (Flugel) going back in time and changing the past.

As for the miko, i'll just say the timeline where she meets akihito seems to be kains "coin landing on its edge" moment.

Great explanation! From this only 3 characters has space time awareness which is Orsted (the main character of the loop), the Miko (who can reset time for 24 hours but only at the last part of Orsted loop, and Oldeus who was able back to the past).

great video

Think of the universe more like a bubble. You can blow new bubbles inside of an already existing large bubble. Imagine you can rewind time of the entire bubble To a earlier point. That's what I think is happening in this series. I don't think anyone except Rudious actually time traveled. I think the dragon magic is generally rewinding time itself, not actually time traveling. It's similar to what the girl did but on a much larger scale. Which would be in keeping with their conceived level of power in the setting. They're basically rewinding their universe. While they're doing that anybody else who can time travel or do personal rewindings of time, go ahead and do it within the bubble that they're manipulating. Rudious, as far as I can tell, is the only one who actually time travels. When he does, it's very much like a back to the future thing. He's still in the bubble, not out of it.

i hope you had nice holidays and thanks for the nice video, when i read my comment in the last video i hoped you would make a video about your thoughts on the matter. i wonder if you had read my comment?

Muiltverses are messy but they can enhance storying to showing was can happen if something just went different, Why they can work well superhero shows showing changes that happened with or hero enough to create a who new path/cast, Also good for reviving Shows into a new universe. They may also end up as on off episodes in Sci-fi shows but not normally deeply explored. Of course a few shows make it there whole concept. But time travel is much simpler however very easy to mess up. Two main ways time travel is used one is very basic travel back or forward that it whatever changes happen happen(this is the kind I like). But then there the time loop (not like Orsted loop) it a loop that has to happen to create the ideal time line it is annoying the issue with them is that they have to start but that doesn't normally get explained because the story is about the loop in progress, these stories show the end result but not how they got there in most cases.

Your time theory and the Multiverse/Branching Timeline theory can be largely integrated into one. It just has to take a sort of weird way of looking at things. I'm taking into account some pretty complicated things that physists have theorised with String Theory and how this would likely work logically in the real world. This largely dissregards what the author likely intended, but I feel that it still doesn't retract from the meaning of the story. Timelines are like trees, or I guess more like a bush. ("Wibbly wobbly timey wimey") There's one core root which is the creation of the universe, but there extend out an infinite amount of branches caused by every random variation caused within it. There are constantly new branches being made as the natural flow of time passes. Now our world and the world of Moshoku Tensei are completely different Trees with completly different branches. So in my theory multiverses exist and do affect what happens in the story, but most of the time loop/travel stuff happens within the same universe/tree. Why does this matter? Well it's pretty important, each Universe has it's own set of rules and origins. Largley the existence of magic, curses, certain gods, etc.. Time in one universe doesn't match at all with another, and neither does the rules of physics. The people from our universe, (Rudy, Nanahoshi, etc) appear at different times and at different locations because those varibles are largely irrelevent when dealing with interuniversal travel. Also because the rules of physics themselves are different, the ones who were teleported have bodies that still largely follow the rules of their original universe. This explains the lack of magic and how certain curses has zero effect on them. The thing that explains Orsted's fathers motives is that he wanted to alter his current timeline branch and take revenge on the exact itagami that destroyed his world. So instead of traveling do a different time branch, he made a spell that destroys the current branch if orsted is unable to kill Itagami. This spell also transfers Itagami's memories back in time to the point where the spell was created. This causes a new branching timeline from the start of the loop where the only thing that's different is Orsted's memories. The other branches still exist, but they end (are destroyed) when the loop resets. This way Itagami can never escape his fated death, and his son can still have a chance of surviving in whatever new branch is created. Since orsted is the only varible (or at least he should be), every branching timeline is from him and will garuntee that it will end with that loop. Your theory on the time traveling miko is probably correct, but I'd theorise that somehow her ability is some sort of echo of the original time loop spell. Her power was likely simular enough that it caused some sort of quantum entanglement effect that resonates between the two sets of loops. Accedentally causing it so that she can see the memories from the other loops that orsted has created. The Miko's 24hr loops however, bypass the original 200yr timeloop spell and cause it's own additional branches. These likely continue on, but only up to the end of the 200 yr cycle where Orsted's fathers spell destroys that timeline. But since these branches are outside of the standard loop, Orsted's memories fail to transfer over and create it's pwm new branch. Those branches just end. Oldeus doesn't transfer his memories, he actually does something much harder. Instead of just data, he's transfering over his entire being (or at least the top bit) to a previous point in his own timeline. This causes a single branching timeline where Roxy lives. The oldeus timeline would continue much in the same way as the miko's branches did, just ending at the 200yr point with no additional memories being transfered to Orsted, because the Miko and Rudeus' actions could never have been taken into effect durring the creation of the original loop spell that Orsted's father created. I know using Orsted's father's spell kind of feels like a cheap way of using a magical mcguffin to explain away why the rules explained in string theory's multiverses can still be applied to this story. But it also demonstrates the desperation and anguish required to cast such a crazy thing. Not only is it garunteeing that Itagami will be forced to face his fate for destorying those worlds, regardless of what timeline is created, it also shows that Orsted's father is willing to kill countless people and countless entire realities (timeline branch) just to do it. Now one flaw with my explination is that the Miko's final wish that causes a branch with Nanahoshi and Rudeus in it technically also falls outside of the scope of the original loop so technically there's a different set of branches that are still looping even after the end of the timeline that's in the books, but w/e that's just the multiverse being the multiverse. Maybe Orsted does get his memories transfered over, but he's been through so many that he didn't notice that a few timelines were sort of out of order. The main thing though is that the characters in Moshoku Tensei don't really have the ability to travel to alternte timeline branches (rick and morty style) or entirely different universe trees (like Nanahoshi is trying to do). This is what illustrates the seriousness of a character death because they can't just undo it, or find a replacement. At least not with serious risks. Like you mentioned at the end of your video, it doesn't really matter if these branching realities exist or not, because this doesn't really effect the charactes in the story. They can't just use a portal gun and travel to alternate branches they're stuck with the timeline they're currently on. Also what little jumping arround they do is still on a timeline that they were already in. I don't know why I typed all of this, I guess it's because timetravel/multiversal logic is a bit of a hobby of mine. I'm kind of writing a book where multiverses and timetravel play an important part of the plot and how it effects the sanity of the main character. I doubt the book will ever come out, but it's still something I like to work on from time to time.

Wow, how long did this video take to consider/plan/script!! But a very interesting take. Having read it but never thought that much into the time line aspect it was really interesting to her your thoughts around the Miko’s timeline being reset every time orsted has his reset. It’s not some thing I thought I needed to know but now that I think about it it makes a lot of sense and it feels like everything just clicks together a lot better rather than vague explainations and justifications in my head. I agree with your thoughts about oldeus not creating parallel time lines by going back in time as it feels cleaner and more impactful, though if he changes his past how would he ever exist to inform rudeus not to make his past mistakes. It works in back to the future due to the rules they set but of course time travel doesn’t actually work in real life due to grandfather paradoxes etc but of course this is a story so it is a readily used and accepted trope that people can generally accept. In all, great video! Just deepens my appreciation for the awesome world and story so thanks!!

Oldeus used the exact same technique as Dragon God, but it was incomplete due to a lack of maina and technique. Hence he could only go back once and also lost his organs in the lower half of his body. Something like, he didn't slow down the mana regeneration, just enough to always keep a mana reserve in case he dies or the loop is completed without him killing Hitogami. 🤣

I'm late but I think 🤔 that this is what is happening In the current loop, Miko dies and Orsted fails as usual. Everytime orsted fails the world he is in stops existing and another world is created due to the dragon gods wish in which all the people are teleported and hitogami included. However, orsted and playback miko only retain memories. So I think, that Miko keeps dying early in each orsted loop and gets reborn again in the next loop thinking that she reset the world every time and she doesn't know Orsted is in a loop. So miko is not in a loop where she dies everytime and resets the world, and she doesn't know about the different worlds created and stopped. She retains the memories of her life in every orsted loop that ever existed and small changes are there because of Orsted planning slightly different in each world. Thinking she reset the world every time she died but actually just retaining the memories of each orsted world and her life in it and due to always being born and dying in usual times makes her think she's in a loop set by her?

Thank fuck you covered this, my first read through I thought it was simple enough then I went on reddit and saw some questions and answers on this topic that raised more questions than answers. I'm glad my initial thoughts weren't entirely off.

I think the idea of Steins Gate's World Lines workes here. Oldeus just caused them to jump to a new World Line and everyone changed with it.

♥️

I like this explanation! Great job. I always thought that Orsted is the one that is looping to different world lines while the miko and Oldeus only changed this timeline/loop. But your explanation is better imo.However, I would like to add to the Oldeus part. As you mentioned his time travel is probably similar to BTTF, but this also means that Oldeus and his diary should have disappeared since they are not supposed to exist now. There was no tragic event that caused a future Rudeus to record it in the diary so the diary should either be gone or be empty of future events. This is not what happens since we see Rudeus showing the diary to multiple people and the contents are still there. My explanation to this is the playback miko: I like to imagine the clash between the Miko's wish and the "World's resistance to paradoxes" as a castle siege in which the Miko is doing the sieging and she is successful eventually thanks to Rudeus slipping through the cracks of the walls causing instabilities which leads to Turning point 1. After that, as mentioned in Prolouge zero, the world has changed. Instead of going into another timeline, the later half of Orsted's "loop x" is rewritten. So when Oldeus arrives to "sieg the castle" he "found the walls already broken" and had no problem existing in the past with his diary. After all, if Nanahoshi can exist in a timeline where the Miko will not have powers to summon her in the past then Oldeus and his diary are also fair game.

I think the best explanation for any time travel is the divergence/convergence of world lines as depicted in stiens;gate. And from your explanation of mushoku tensei's time loops I feel it fits here as well.

thanks for your content because of your inspiration i binged the whole light novel audio books it was a task but i did it. also 2 things. 1. how dare you spoil back to the future 2. Please make a discord server would love to hear your thoughts/recommendations on other animes/light novels cheers

Hmm, there is something I feel is important to the overall plot though we're given very little information about it and that is the dragon race sacred treasures, do you happen to know about those? Maybe it could be an interesting video topic to do? :)

its all fun and games until the miko busts out an ocarina lol

8:32 Loopception

17:00 I only recenlty realized how important the birthday acting has been. As explained by Ed, this changed his own position in the power dynamic of the family. So in the end, Rudeus really was responsible for the Mana disaster and Arimanfi was right to kill him.

Though the idea of multi-verses is always wonderful to conjure, I think they are not necessary to explain the time travel and time reversals in the show. I will use a simple in story example to explain what I think happens with time travel and time reversal. We recall that Rudeus' eyes can see glimpses into the future. When we first saw this we didn't jump straight to thinking Rudeus dies in other universes and he is being tranferred. We (at least I) saw it as information about the future being transferred into Rudeus so he knows which is the best evasive action to avoid being killed in battle. So I'd like to extend this to time travel as follows: The moment Oldeus travelled back in time, the original timeline collapsed and return to being pure information (probability function). Instead of the new timeline branching out, only the information from the previous timeline prevails in the form of information. The only anomaly in this new timeline being that Oldeus' body exists. Likewise we can extend this to the time reversal of Orstad the same way. He resets everything and only pure information is preserved. There is no real difference between what Rudeus does with his eyes and the later concepts of time travel and time reversal. The people not affected by these are also by default granted information about the original or previous loops. So even though a multi-verse clearly exists in MushokuTensei, it isn't necessary for time-travel to be happening. The idea of everything going back to just being information also explains the existence of magic. A spell simply converts information into a physical manifestation. Thus foresight and all time related events are merely just information transferals. LOL sorry for the long paragraphs. Hope everything is clear.

This makes sense and the issue with a multiverse is that it would assume that there’s already a world where Hitogami lost. Also I find it interesting how we would think that there’s always Rudy but before that he was a different person and not with the isekai personality but that’s not the case. With the new summoned individual, I’m curious if he will have some sort of time power too since I think the new protagonist in the sequel will still die quite easily otherwise. Unless his companion spams god healing or something. Also it would be interesting if Satella is the original looper and the witch’s scent relates to her negative emotions with each Subaru death. Also FYI in regards to the series world trigger, it’s currently on the third season which has 14 episodes. Interesting arc about Chika currently in this season

22:15 say this to Roswaal L Mathers and you'll destroy him

So basically, time went new and got old like history? The stuff from the past went into a mystery?

Sorry to everybody who loves Back to the Future, i still love it too, but ... I wouldn't refer to it for inspiration on how to construct a sound space time with time travel.. even as a kid i had huge issues with Back to the Future in that regard and the fading image is just the most obvious plot device they used.. That explanation for why Oldeus would work in a loop would be a big plothole for me as it makes no sense logic wise. Oldeus must have come from somewhere to warn himself in the past. If that is not the case then it can not happen which creates a grandfather paradox. Unless there is a logical sound explanation (for Oldeus in particular) that i missed I still think a "forking" / "merging" spacetime with a so to say 'prime universe' approach makes more sense for me for Mushoku Tensei. (Especially since it wouldn't mean that there are endless open time lines at the end of the last Orsted loop but only until then.. ) It might be the easy way out since you can literally construct any kind of constellation with that kind of 'construct' but i just don't see how Oldeus could've worked out as it did when the timeline he came from vanishes the moment he leaves it.. it has to exist within that one Orsted loop to make sense to me and then merge back into the 'prime' if the preconditions for Orsteds loop are satisfied and the loop is exited. Still a good video!

I dont like the idea of Orsted committing universal (or even multiversal) genocide every time he resets by wiping out a timeline. I’d much rather go with the multiverse theory and every loop creates a parallel timeline. You can just add something to the technique to seal Hitogami that makes it so every other version that was left behind in the failed timelines also gets sealed simultaneously. Ig this would be a pretty cheap solution but i still prefer it over the deleting timelines one. Oldeus actions would just double the timelines and leave another Orsted in the other one who has to keep looping for a few thousand times before he can win.

Well, Mushoku definetely DOES have a multiverse, just not one based on time travel, but on places of reality organized in the equivalent of some sort of multidimencional cube.

the thing about the oldeus timeline, wouldn't it be assumed that it ended the second he teleported back in time? I imagine it more like a string where you make a loop in it. The looped part of that string is the oldeus timeline, and it essentially ends where the loop connects (when oldeus meets rudeus) and the part of the string that comes after that is the timeline that has rudeus aware of oldeus. Oldeus's timeline is forever gone the second he meets Rudeus, but it did exist.

The Miko can rewind time and manipulate outcomes. This happens within an Orstred loop. Oldeus time travel sounds like it works in very much the same way, but instead of 24 hours it's whatever amount of time that he traveled. Like it affects time in the same way the Miko does but a longer distance and he doesn't overwrite his conciousness. So from the readers perspective it could be thought of as watching re-zeros Subaru overcome some obstacle but skipping over his multiple deaths. In this case, we didn't get to see the "try" that Oldeus had. We didn't get to see a run he had and that run doesn't exsist anymore, along with those memories. I wonder if Orsteds memory is affected by Oldeus's and the Miko's time reversals?? The Miko keeps hers after an Orsted loop so I would assume Orsted would keep his after a Miko or Oldeus Loop. Maybe not though.

Merry crammsis

I feel like dragon god time loop of 200 year is too strong to break so no one can change the time before or after the loop but you can change what happens in that loop so it’s just one time line but both the miko and old Rudy affect this time loop as the miko die in the last loop but not this one but it’s time travel it’s like magic the less you know the better it works

There is explanation why would Orsted father and king used time loops even when paralel universes are involved. They simply might not be aware they are. That said that theory doesn't hold water when it come to Hitogami. He can see his own future and change it in real time (well, have people change it) and if he can there is no reason everyone else cannot.

which of your videos has the diary rudeus? i'd like to watch it,but I cant seem to find it

Okay, so I will start by saying that I have only read into a bit of turning point 4. But this video did end up making me think of a theory. It is a but of divergent timeline theory, but the first thing I thought of was the fact that Orsted never met Rudeus but Oldeus met Orsted, but thinking it through I think this can explain that as well, cause even though Orsted only met that Rudeus once he would have still remembered someone with as much power as Laplas, and he still would have traveled with Nanahoshi that he seems to have only met in this timeline due to Rudeus having come through a summoning for either Akihito or Nanahoshi. most likely her, but they have seemed to have happened almost simultaneously due to the summoning and the wish, and since Rudeus was in close proxity to Nanahoshi due to the truck, he was probably touching her the moment she was summoned taking the full brunt of the truck and his soul being pulled through as he died. Now also there is the fact that the Dragon God sent Orsted to kill Hitogami and Divergent timelines would kill off the entire idea of the Dragon God sending him to kill off Hitogami for one timeline, and I have a bit of an idea for that as well. You see, the idea that I have is that while the Dragon God sent Orsted with the ability to travel through the causality of a 200 year time loop, it is not that he is in control of the loops. Say, if he were to die from somebody like Rudeus having caught him off guard and surprising him, he would die and restart the loop; but that loop would not end. So if that was the case, why could Oldeus not have come to the past and meet this Rudeus From an entirely differing timeline that this Ordeus had not been through? And if that is the case, then how could this be the final loop? Right? But divergent does not mean linear. And then there is one other thing that I had thought of, which goes into this. Hitogami is the Man-God, and it is quite specified in a conversation with him and Rudeus that he thinks that people just misinterpret his name when they call him the God of Man. Right? Well, I am all sure we know that he is lying, but I think that the Man-God and the God of Man are two separate identities with differing names. Maybe brothers. So maybe Hitogami the Man-God is somehow sealed off the God of Man and he is somewhere; but probably killed him. So if this is all the case, then wouldn't defeating Hitogami be pointless? That is where in my theory the Barren World comes into play. We are under the assumption that killing him in one timelime means he is still in another; but this is the six faced world right, so wouldn't the Barren World be a seventh face? I don't think so. Hitogami is afraid of dying in any of the loops or divergent paths, he wants to stop it all together. So what if the Barren World is outside of time. And while Orsted is playing with time over and over again, and the original Dragon God sent Orsted knowing this and Hitogami is playing with Orsted in a single path as Orsted does it over and over again. This itself would explain why the Barren World itself is so hard to get to, as it is a place where everything including time is barren.

It will take a lot of work to properly write a sequel, yeah. I hope author will be successful :3 but what's more important! who inherits Rudeus's shrine ? And about Oldeus. He changes the past of his timeline, so he ceases to exist. Cuz he can't exist if Roxy is alive (and everyone else). But if author comes up with parallel universes and an interesting story based on them, I think it'll be alright. A story about a lifetime of one man ended. Time to find something else to write about right? (And pardon my barbarian kind of speech if you find any mistakes) Have a fun new year ! :D

Don't know why I expected the video to be like 5 seconds were it's like" it works like normal " But then again I haven't read past the part where he got the demon eye. It's, it's been awhile ok

Does it explicitly say (in WN or LN) that Orsted actually resets the entire world every 200 years, and not just going back in time?

Subaru=Orstead? lol nah... Very well explained btw.

So we're all pretty sure that the playback Miko is just Rintaro Okabe who was reborn into this world at the end of his natural life, right? Because this Miko clearly uses the time leap machine in conjunction with reading Steiner... The constant rebirth and shit life is prob the cost of all the time travel being repaid.

i fuckin love this series!much love

Mmm, Rudy McFly. Oh no, Zenith.

Didn’t realize that there are already images of the design for the new protagonist for the sequel. He really looks like his name lol

This anime is 3 isekai's and a groundhog day combined

I think the second timeline with the future rudeus comes to an end . When future rudeus tells past rudeus about the future he basically changes the timeline and the events of future rudeus’s timeline never occur as past rudeus follows a different path.

If in the original timeline he was meant to be stillborn, Who does Roxy and the other two marry if he isn’t in that timeline?

Time hu thanks for the tip.

I believe the time loops were simply too many to be remembered and it was 100 years through the current 200 year time loop as the death of Hitogami is likely to be another 100 years in the future. Pretty much all of these multiple timelines are consistent with the Many Worlds theory of Quantum Mechanics. The amount of actual physics in this show is astounding, even the names of LaPlace and Maxwell are clearly references to physics. Note with the multiple world's concept, it's about which world you experience not about all the alternate branches for it existing, the existence of non-favourable outcomes does not mean the favourable outcomes ceases to exist, and the Quantum Erasure experiment is about convergences of multiple outcomes so the time loop could still have a purpose over just the Quantum Suicide experiment of there will always be some outcomes that are favourable.

i was wondering, is it possible that because ornsted was looping, if someone else tries to rewrite portion of the past 3 things goes in contrast? like the world will, the miko will and ornsted time magic? perhaps if ornsted wasnt looping the miko wish would have worked perfectly fine. i wonder..

I like the overall ideas you convey. But I still find it a bit lacking if you don't mention how Hitogami plays into the time loops as he can kinda foresee many futures. I, for one, think that Hitogami and the eye of foresight, for that matter, are only skimming the possible outcomes of events and their probability of actually happening. As such the timeline might be linear in direction but easily veered off track by those who can defy fate, such as Rudeus.

Wait wait wait wait, what rezero arc are we talking about where we can figure out if he's back to the future or multiverse stuff???

Astid is Subaru Theory confirmed

Re:zero Spoilers I cant think of anything that happened in the web novel so far that would indicate wether rezero is parallel universes or world resets… the only thing i can think of is the most recent events were subaru turned into a kid but we have no way of knowing if that and what satella does are related

I think time in Mushoku works like time did in the movie Loopers. There's one future BUT any changes to the past will get updated to future. So Orsted gets sent back in time at the end of his Loop, but time continues without him. The Miko also exist in a similar time loop within that timeline. Old Rudy simply travel back, and this will change the future, so OG Old Rudy will no longer exist, just a new and different version of old rudy.

It is a horrible idea to have the loop in multiverses and I agree with that premise. We continuously look at it from our perspective of science only (IRL). We need to consider that magic and science can be used in compound to create a single forced loop more like back to the Future or the time machine. The multiverse could make sense if you accounted for compounding universes otherwise it would be fallible to the story until it comes to rudi

wibbly wobly timey wimey

I think captain Janeway says it best in regards to time travel in this clip.. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TZQk8Buamak.html But it seems like the mushoku tensei author is employing a sort of multiverse existence and back to the future style time travel mixed with marvels TVA pruning timelines that are not supposed to exists. A bit of everything. I guess the question will be if Orsted fails on this loop, will rudy still be reincarnated in future loops, if so does that mean orsted will seek out Rudy and Nanohoshi earlier and get them trained up earlier and become a more dangerous force in the fight against hitogami. Or would orstead find out he has to kill rudy to then inspire eris and rudy to grow so that they can be helpful in the future fight.... Anyways i think if i keep thinking too much about this i will get a headache too.. Then again i feel like i read somewhere that this was supposed to be orsted's final loop...