Is a salaryman or NEET worse as an MC?

[YuriDoggo]

Which one tends to be more beta or degenerate in the media you've seen?

Edit:

Salarymen: Tanya, Rimuru, Ainz
NEET: Subaru

Pretty clear that in fact, salarymen are much greater than NEETs simply because they were functioning members of society before they got isekai'd.

 

[Silver_Sky]

I generally don't care a lot for neets, mostly because they are justice fools or have some kind of delusion.

 

[Tsuru]

The salary man can be a pain because he can a stuck to Earth's rules and cock block himself, trying to not have sex with legal-soon-to-Japan-but-legal-in-isekai girls.
But salary man can be more smart maybe and also serious. He can be someone that want a relaxing life or an exciting life that is different then the boring or exhausting life on Earth (depends if company was black or not). Edit: Also he will maybe begin to miss his family he had one.

NEET is often someone that already knows most of the stuff of anime/manga and knows his stuff in isekai. He can also be expert in stuff depending on the back story, like he was a mechanic that was fired because he pissed off the mean boss. He will be fine with accepting harem unless it's a goal of his. NEETs are sometimes young so you can make the NEET do stuff young peoples would do (right now got no idea about exemples). You can choose to make the NEET miss his family or not.

 

[Macronomicon]

The character arc and context is the most important part. There is no inherently better or worse.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Beta and degenerate would have to go to the NEET. Reason being in the name NEET itself. They ARE literal degenerates and the first one up the sacrificial altar if there's ever a possibility.

However, the entire thing really depends on how you handle the character. Is the NEET an in-house worker? An expert stock trader earning millions by scrolling through e-toro, a talented author/mangaka who's known by netizens across the internet, some computer genius working for commissions, etc. I believe NEETs have the biggest potential, due the lack of a third-party perspective of their life caused by their shut-in attitude, which in turn can morph into some "unexpected surprise" scenarios.

Sadly, people tend to go for the degenerate, useless and jobless otaku route. Shame, really.

 

[Ninetailed_Furball]

Beta and degenerate would have to go to the NEET. Reason being in the name NEET itself. They ARE literal degenerates and the first one up the sacrificial altar if there's ever a possibility.

However, the entire thing really depends on how you handle the character. Is the NEET an in-house worker? An expert stock trader earning millions by scrolling through e-toro, a talented author/mangaka who's known by netizens across the internet, some computer genius working for commissions, etc. I believe NEETs have the biggest potential, due the lack of a third-party perspective of their life caused by their shut-in attitude, which in turn can morph into some "unexpected surprise" scenarios.

Sadly, people tend to go for the degenerate, useless and jobless otaku route. Shame, really.

I'd like to note that those aren't generally known as NEETs. If you have a job (whether it's common employment or freelance), you aren't a NEET. A NEET doesn't work for a living. Or to be specific, they don't do anything specific to earn their living.

Even a person who lives off of donations for doing some sort of work isn't a NEET, unless if the amount they make this way isn't nearly enough to cover their basic expenses.

Overall though, I don't like NEETs for these sort of things. You can do some very interesting things with NEETs (especially if there was a particular reason why they became a NEET and it plays a big part in the story), but it's rare for that to come into play. It's usually just an excuse to get a character that's fine to break normal social conventions at will.

 

[Llamadragon]

The neet.
Which is a shame, because the reason people become neets can be pretty heart-wrecking. Illness, trauma, growing up in broken households, or living in situations without any opportunities. In the fiction I read, unfortunately that's rarely explored in depth. There's a little bit of it but it's often just a plot device to make the jump even greater when they become a great hero in an isekai universe.

 

[Andro]

Both.