Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Old School Isekai
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ultimatehaki
Posts: 1090 |
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So Isekai is the reason we get sequels that didn't need to be done and probably shouldn't have been done? Got it
Seriously tho the best Isekai to me would be Log Horizon and No game No life. The former is expertly written and told and the latter took the inherent goofiness of the premise to 11 and did so masterfully. Always on the look out for new ones but I don't see it getting any better than those 2. |
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Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
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Isekai is as old as dirt. Or at least as old as Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland
Some people seem to think isekai is something new, or has to be based on a light-novel to be considered an isekai. Chances are a lot of haters love isekai stories, they just don't consider them isekai.
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2107 |
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I don't know if I'd classify Spirited Away as portal fantasy; it strikes me as more of a wainscot fantasy. Chihiro's on Earth the whole time, under the same sky, just stuck in one of the nooks and crannies most people don't know about. (Been like a decade and a half since I saw it, so I could be wrong.)
Good article; I've only seen Haruka Takachiho's novel mentioned in one blog post before this. One funny thing I'd never realized until now, though -- the modern ISO Standard Isekai Webnovel Setting draws so much from Dragon Quest, but even in anime, isekai is older than DQ (Dunbine and Leda). Would that such novels could be a little more inventive in character, setting, and theme; beyond the "cheat" powers they give their protagonists... then again, considering how much Shield Hero's attitudes stand out, perhaps I should be careful what I wish for. (Also, does Log Horizon really count as a timeslip story?) |
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Mune
Posts: 376 Location: Minnesota |
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I think the main issue that people have with the isekai genre isn't the whole going to another world aspect, but the other genres that usually come with it. In the far past, the characters, that go to the other world, are not all that relevant in the grand scheme of things. However, as time progressed, their involvement and relevancy became bigger. Add in the main antagonist formerly being female to male, and you get a mess of things that are expected. I could write a full essay on just the changes over the years.
I personally like isekai, but there are clearly good and bad ones. I personally didn't like Now and Then, Here and There because of the rather bleak world and treatment of the characters in the other world. Whereas I am in total support of That Time I Was Reincarnated as a Slime. Funny thing is that some anime, like Dragonball, have some episodes or full arc in another world, including the demon world, other planets, other dimensions, and other timelines (which are independent of the "main" timeline). The isekai genre runs deep in anime depending on how you look at it. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3442 Location: Finland |
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It's heavily implied the story is set in the far future of Earth, so perhaps that should fall under the time-slip category... |
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belvadeer
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Which anime is the one with all those characters under the Leda screenshot?
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Triltaison
 Posts: 720 |
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It always amuses me when I own all the stuff talked about. Rayearth, Fushigi Yuugi, Escaflowne, and El-Hazard were all early favorites for me that I watched multiple times. I also owned the manga for all of those except Escaflowne (whose two different series confused me at the time and I didn't know which to get). Dunbine is also a treat, though I wish we'd get Leda on DVD.
The isekai I prefer is where the world is fleshed out and keeps on rolling whether or not the protagonist drops in. If the whole world suddenly revolves around the new person, it gets dull without other characters spreading around the plot. With Rayearth, the world is clearly falling apart and would continue to do so without the knights. Fushigi Yuugi and Escaflowne have their worlds on the brink of war (and share the dynamic of what's going on back home), but the course of the war gets severely altered with the arrival of their protagonists. El-Hazard had a lovely place to live UNTIL the protagonists arrive and goof it all up. I haven't much cared about the world of a lot of newer isekai series since a video game can be programmed to be whatever at any time, and NPCs aren't usually dynamic people. If the game people have actual personalities and the plot isn't trying to force harem tropes down my throat, it's fine. For instance, I liked No Game No Life and Overlord but strongly disliked SAO. They all have their problems, but I just liked the casts of NGNL and Overlord better. To each their own, though. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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Does anyone else consider Digimon to be an isekai? Not every season, but season 1 is a pretty strong contender for being considered one, I think. Group of 7 kids, go to a new world, get awesome monsters, are kind of stuck there? Of course, the series does eventually decide to shunt them back to the real world for the finale, but the first 2/3rds or so are pretty strongly isekai, in my opinion.
This is yet another time where only looking at the anime side of things gets a really good quality manga-only series overlooked with From Far Away (which Viz did put out in its entirety! But is now OOP  ) The amount of time Noriko spends in the real world before going off to the fantasy world is approximately as long as we see Subaru spend in the real world before he gets moved to the fantasy world (it's like, 3 pages, maybe less). But From Far Away also addresses something that I feel like a lot of other isekai gloss over: Noriko, our magic heroine from our world, literally cannot speak the language. Viz's translation did a great job showing this as her speech gradually gets better over the course of the series, which I think is pretty awesome. Noriko also has zero super powers. She's prophesized to bring about the downfall of the entire world, but she doesn't want to and has no idea how to stop it either. What she DOES have is a genuinely nice attitude and personality that is infectious. She's a genuinely likable character that you want to root for, and damn, if that doesn't feel rare enough sometimes! And she has good chemistry with Izark, the main guy (who is also a sky demon, prophesized to end the entire world), who starts out cold (though not a jerk, a distinction that I feel like a lot of series fail at), but you know they're going to be the main couple in the end anyway. But fortunately, they progress slowly and organically. It's just a really good isekai series with two really good main leads that deserves to be read more!
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4074 |
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My main complaint against isekai is the modern Light Novel isekai where the isekai is used as an expositional short cut in lieu of building a fantasy world from the ground up. Here's an experiment, take a basic isekai story and remove the part where it's detailed such and such character goes to another world; if what you have left still works as a straight genre story then it's just a form of lazy writing.
Another aspect I don't like about them is the ones where the misplaced character wishes to return to drab old home instead of the wonderful new world, the "Oz" conundrum. Tenchi Muyo's War On Genimar has the perfect solution to this by taking a character from a fantastic setting and bring theming to a LESS fantastic setting so the desire to go home makes sense.... even when in that world, he literally just a demigod among goddesses. In the new world, he's God among lots and lots of willing women and some men... I had a point when I started, I swear... |
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SonicFanA
 Posts: 159 |
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My favorite would have to be Kyo Kara Maoh! I think it has a good balance of comedy and serious content (mostly comedy though).
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Kimiko_0
 Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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It's time for reverse isekai. Where a nobody from a fantasy setting is dropped in this world and turns out to be the only one who can save it.
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Great Rumbler
 Posts: 327 Location: Oklahoma |
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Isn't that pretty much what Re:CREATORS is? |
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2335 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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Well we got The Devil Is A Part-Timer thus far...and that's pretty much it. |
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Shar Aznabull
 Posts: 236 |
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Slap that on the back of the SAO box set and watch it fly off the shelves. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1422 |
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I think the first isekai anime I watched was 1988's Tenku Senki Shurato. That show lifted a lot from Saint Seiya, but the fact that the main character and his rival/best friend were transported to a heavenly parallel world gave it enough of a different flavor.
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