Yeah it was fun in the beginning, after all who never thought about being transported to another world where you ate a big hero with swords and magic?
But what the hell, I’m pretty sure there’s more isekai now than other genres/settings. It’s gotten to a point that if I see the tag I just move on.
I still like the idea but I’m tired of the power fantasy aspect. “Oh no! I’ve been killed/summoned/found a portal and now I’m in a fantasy world! At least I’m incredibly overpowered and/or my modern knowledge gives me god like status!”
The ones where the character still struggles to get by tend to be good still because they have to have some kind of story involved other than “average person conquers another world by being OP”
Edit: also characters whose only connection to their old life is a token scene in the first episode/issue where it shoes them get isakai’d and it’s never a bearing on the story again. It’s just shoehorned into a bad story because isekai is popular.
Reminds me of Shield Hero. Started off with an interesting concept of a hero with a tarnished reputation having to navigate an unknown world. Immediately turns into a Harem.
Absolutely. First few episodes, especially the first one, were actually really fun but I dropped it somewhere at the beginning of season 2 because it was just boring. It kinda felt like it just kept getting worse episode by episode.
Season 3 is an improvement but still not great. It didn’t really do anything other than set up the plot for the next season
Part of the reason why I was soooo disappointed that So I’m a Spider, So What? Got such a poor adaptation. She starts out very low level and has to grind, so all of the power she gets feels earned.
Minor spoiler
The whole class gets reincarnated into other roles and there is tension between those who adapted to their new roles and society and those that don’t. I really enjoyed their interactions because it’s a constant plot point and their past lives drive a lot of their choices.
dude I fucking love spider, read the light novels and everything, but man I fucking hate how it ended. ruined it for me
I really hated the ending too. I have just blocked out that memory and pretend it’s unfinished.
- Reincarnated: Living Life in Another World
- Reincarnated as a Slime
- Re:Zero (IIRC)
Yeah, I agree the genre has come down to a basic recipe.
There are some exceptions:
- Sword Art Online, technically an issekai, but only because they are trapped in the other world.
- The Devil is a Part-Timer, reverse issekai where something foreign and god-like comes to the real world and becomes mortal
I think the biggest reason I like Reincarnated as a Slime is he’s using his powers for everyone at a nation level. Any others with god-tier powers just feels like it’s only to benefit them or a small haram.
Overlord does that too, except the MC is remorseless and all his followers are evil. it’s not the best anime out there but it’s closest to my heart
This is why I liked the first part of Arifureta, dude got the shit beat out of him going through the first dungeon. Now the MC is just overpowered AF outside of a handful of fights.
I’m more sick of the harem trope than the isekai trope, between that and fan service beach days I don’t even feel like trying new shows sometimes
I stopped watching isekai BECAUSE it always ended up being creepy harem stuff with underage characters, I feel like the two are permanently fused
Why are all isekai protagonists white-adjacent guys who end up defending straight-up slavery and have sus relations with minors
I know what you mean, it’s weird to me too that often the protags are white or European coded, the whole thing is a weird mess and full of ick
You can also literally tell from the cover what kind of show it’s going to be 😭
My main critique of the genre is how lazy it’s done. There’s nothing wrong with having the MC reincarnated, transported, or made overpowered. One Punch Man has a massively overpowered MC but it’s still really good. The problem is that they’re all low effort cookie cutter stories that are just checking items off a list.
They’re also fairly unrealistic. “Gasp…is this that isekai thing I’ve been reading about? I guess I’ll go join the Adventurer Guild and get a super dangerous job killing monsters despite the fact that I’ve never been in a dangerous situation before.”
There’s no way all these random people will just calmly accept finding themselves in another world with no freaking out or depression setting in first.
I’ve actually been writing a story with a more realistic idea on this
Dude has the stamina to do all that walking? His mother made him do a sport and track is the only thing he could tolerate. Still ends up exhausted when he has to carry the stuff a normal adventurer has to deal with
When he first arrives, he is flipping between trying to find the cool side of it and freaking out because, “Oh fuck uh I actually was ripped from my home”
Lots of action happens within the first few days? Has a mental breakdown when his brain finally catches up and he can no longer distance himself by comparing it to isekai tropes
“My modern knowledge makes things easier”? “…We uh, have magic that does that, why the hell would being able to harness electricity to make light matter? Besides, another country figured that out ages ago thanks to magic, just many of us prefer to use magic for it because cultural momentum”
When I think about what I would do if I suddenly found myself transported to another world, the last thing I would be doing is looking for a job as a mercenary. As stupid as a lot of the plot is, I really like Striving for a Luxury Liner simply because the MC recognizes that he’s not cut out to be an adventurer and becomes a merchant instead.
The only isekai I’ve read that properly utilized the isekai genre was Release that Witch since the MC’s “cheat” is his knowledge of mechanical engineering. He kicks off his own little industrial revolution to defend his territory.
Yes, there’s a lot of very good stories that have that basic setup, I’m just tired of how lazy and unimaginative most of it is.
The thing I don’t like is how much of it is RPG themed but written by people who have never played any.
Or just boring ones they think will make sense to the broadest audience.
Where’s my Isekai where they have to guard break and air juggle enemies to do damage??!???
I still like the concept, it’s just that 90% of the stuff that uses said concept is terrible. I mean, Isekai is only an initial premise, you need A LOT more to make a good anime.
Or only use isekai as an arc rather than the general premise like hxh did
Oh yeah, i love greed island. It being an arc certainly keeps the novelty of the other world’s mechanics from getting old.
To make it work as a full series you gotta have a lot more substance though, because at some point that novelty will inevitably run out. And now instead of “exciting new world where everything is different”, it’s just a regular world we’re already used to. At that point you gotta have an actual compelling story to keep it going.
When I watched Frieren the best thing was that it was no fucking isekai. It’s still competence porn, but at least she is not a middle aged man who died lonely in his bedroom. Just a classic fantasy world. Loved it
I’m not sure if the competence porn is justified in this case. She’s clearly meant to be an RPG character at the end of their adventure (and consequently apex of their power), it makes sense to me she’s overpowered. There’s a reason most TTRPGs stop at a a certain level and sometimes even have rules and instructions for retiring.
I think it’s justified, but I don’t necessarily mean it in a negative way. Her competence is certainly an important part of exploring what the series is actually about, namely loss, regret, and what’s really important in life, etc. Which you can have even if you are very powerful.
Now that I think about it. Maybe that’s exactly the reason why it is not competence porn. Maybe her competence is analogous to a sex scene which enhances the actual topic and not the goal itself like how sex is in porn.
On the other hand I certainly watch it for the competency lol
Lots of lonely female dying isekai in the manga world too
Could you give some examples? Just curious. I want to see how they differ from male isekai in terms of escapsim. And I don’t mean multiple people like in Sao or Alice in wonderland. I just watched this “project Elise doctor” and what in the world was that? A double isekai? Or a isekaiception? But it definitely was different from when boys/men die.
Loads of villainness stuff is where a woman gets isekaied. For example:
- My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
- I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss
- Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I’m Not the Demon Lord
Aside from villainness stuff, there’s also:
- I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level
- Ascendance of a Bookworm (really recommended)
- The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady
- The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent
wait define “competence porn”; that’s a new one for me, and it feels faintly derogatory against people who find ‘humorous incompetence’ to be a black hole that sucks the amusement out of a setting.
Nope. I’m over it.
The market is oversaturated and it’s time to pivot to a new genre
I made this joke in another thread, but it’s relevant here too. Anime lately in a nutshell is basically:
“Problems of a Paladin: I became the strongest hero and broke the villainess heart for the 7th time with a cheat code to chill out and be the best protector in another world! Why am I a loser in this time loop???”
Perfect title, just need a poster with the generic protagonist surrounded by his harem
Oh believe I’m ahead of you. For the lulz,I tried to use an AI generator to see and it couldn’t produce it. Only was American animation art style
“Problems of a Paladin: I became the strongest hero and broke the villainess heart for the 7th time with a cheat code to chill out and be the best protector in another world! Why am I a loser in this time loop???”
IIRC, the reason titles are like that now, is that japanese people stopped reading light novel descriptions, so this is how the publishers made up for it.
Portal fantasy in general is fine( think like inuyasha or digimon as old version of isekai). The issue is the isekai that are just mindlessly cloning each other with some new way to be OP.
There are decades worth of good anime out there. If new stuff isn’t doin it for you, pick up a show from spring 2006 or something. A lot of trash comes out every season (and always has) but nobody is forcing you to watch it.
Isekai is more of a setup than an actual genre.
If they weren’t isekai, they’d just be shitty fantasy. Isekai allows writers to skip a bunch of steps and start with a fully-formed character the audience can relate to.
Dungeon Meshi is good, and not Isekai.
Are we talking about our favorite animes? I love One Punch Man. I love that one guy made a cool story and another guy said “let me redraw that but make all the characters sexy”
Probably not, but after something like 2 decade of zombie shit everywhere i will take ANYTHING over it. Also there are good isekai, bad isekai and chinese isekai where the only thing coming of it is the protagonist using modern Earth idioms and perfectly assimilating otherwise.
I’m sick of TRASH Isekai, not all Isekai. There’s still a good and original Isekai every now and then, but those are rare. Most of them are just fan service, harem bullshit.
The anime doesn’t have to be good, it just has to make you interested in the lightnovel, which is where the profits are. With that in mind, the cheaper the anime can be produced the better. This is probably why there are so many shitty isekai and they keep coming.
I’m willing to compromise with the isekai setup.
You’re in a new world. There’s magic and sword play and monsters to fight. You get some skills and abilities that give you a decent chance to survive. I’m perfectly fine with that setup.
But what I want once you have been given that setup is an interesting world to explore.
Interesting characters to meet.
Actual challenges and hardships that have to be overcome by the main character.
Real relationships with people that have their own goals in life.
And character growth that happens organically given the constraints of the system.
We have far too many Mary Sue protagonists who never failed anything and never do anything wrong and who have so much power and are just so kind and giving in every single way and everybody loves them and nobody could beat them even if they didn’t love them.
We have far too many villains whose entire character Arc is “hurr durr look at me I’m a villain”.
And for some reason when those villains get converted into sidekicks they always become comical parodies of their former selves.
And finally, even in a harem situation, the main character should neither be asexual or a man whore. Let him have some feelings about the person he’s with and not automatically fall into some unspoken love scenario with the women around him.
If you’re going to have romance at all in your isekai anime, let the guy actually have some preferences and pick one person and stick with them.
Like I get it you’ve got to give people a taste of the familiar but the taste of the familiar is only to lure us in. Once we are in, you need to give us something new and strange and stressful and worrisome and make us doubt the outcome of the next series of events that are going to happen.
