Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Are This Season's Isekai Anime Any Good?
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
Author | Message | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a_Bear_in_Bearcave
Posts: 514 Location: Poland |
|
|||||
I disagree. I suffered through Bakemonogatari incest scenes like infamous toothbrush and still think it's great series due to character writing, Fruits Basker movie despite some criticism of the age gap relationship was still received positively. No one says that older isekai were perfect, or that they couldn't be criticized, that's not the point at all. Like Yuvelir wrote, the problem with Narou isekai and frankly similar Narou genres is that they're basically like fanfiction stories but for generic medieval fantasy, with all the problems typical fanfiction site would have with inexperienced writers who only know one kind of story they really like and want to write something similar, or more experienced writers regurgitating same content over and over. Shinen manga in Weekly Shonen Jump and similar magazines can often feel same-y, has fanservice etc., but doesn't have the same problems majority of Narou fantasy has. The problems with Narou isekai come horrible writing that makes other common anime problems or controversies like fanservice or age-gaps tenfold worse, not from not being perfect in the eyes of Western viewers. Even Gushing over Magical Girls, despite its very controversial themes, wasn't received as badly and in fact got quite popular over times, in contrast to most isekai, mostly because Gushing has better writing and some thought put into it.
Isekai doesn't mean something different in English because that supposed "new meaning" doesn't mean anything at all. The fact that people who use it that way who encounter not-isekai Narou RPG fantasy tend to coin some horrible nonsense like "native isekai" which in turn doesn't mean anything at all except "fantasy I dislike", shows that this use is wrong and should be treated as erroneous. |
||||||
Satonamba
Posts: 13 |
|
|||||
I think it's true, they don't talk a lot about "Strange Dawn" for example which was, in my opinion, pretty bad. And "Now and Then, Here and There" would probably offend a lot more people than current isekai series. Too much production is the problem in the isekai genre, so low tier stories get adapted. Only 10% to 20% of animes are LN adaptations, there are a lot of other things to watch. Some isekai are also manga original stories so they could be better than LN adaptations. |
||||||
Terraziel
Posts: 60 |
|
|||||
The "low tier stories" is important here, Strange Dawn was "fine" at best, but it was distinctive enough that I remember it a good decade after watching it. There is essentially zero chance of me remembering the low tier shows airing this season in 10 years. And it hasn't been mentioned much but I'd suggest part of the issue people have with the low tier LN getting made in to low tier anime is that there are better stories even within the LN space. Why scrape the bottom of this barrel when there are bunch of other barrels sitting untouched? For Now and Then, Here and There, though yes it would certainly get more push back the key is that it is about the... uncomfortable topics rather than them just being world building tick boxes. |
||||||
NeverConvex
Subscriber
Posts: 2341 |
|
|||||
Yeah -- from what I recall, NTHT never tried to make the viewer enjoy its worst depictions, nor to frame them positively, which would put it firmly in a different space than isekai that are criticized for (among other things, of course) optimizing how many T&A shots they can fit into an ostensibly tragic scene. |
||||||
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11430 |
|
|||||
Yeah, just like Moyashimon was a refreshing take on kaiju anime because it doesn't involve any giant monsters. |
||||||
Eilavel
Posts: 48 |
|
|||||
Absolutely. Theres no problem with including any kind of topic, its the thoughless and shallow usage(and more particularly, the denial from enthusiasts that this is the case) which undermines many narou derived works- though this is far from a unique trait; Dragonball is pretty awful, for example. More generally, I am sure there are old shows with isekai in them that are terrible. Fantastic adventure Yohko, say. My point is that for those shows, "isekai" still isn't their genre, its a plot point, regardless of the resulting quality. The NarouRPG shows we are currently getting in a large volume all cluster much more tightly around a style, set of tropes and worldbuilding than most genres do, and thats the case whether they are specifically isekai or not. Slow life from last season is not isekai, but it is much more similar to Slime/Shield hero/ect than older works which are technically Isekai. The comparison of old works vs new non-isekai works demonstrate that its not "Isekai" that defines the current sub-genre but the shared Narou writing traits. You would also expect the average quality for any genre thats churning out 40+ shows a year to be low. The volume necessitates a low standard for material. |
||||||
Yuvelir
Posts: 1594 |
|
|||||
Oh, that is the key point in all this. "Isekai" as a plot point, as a trope, is completely harmless, just a thing that happens. The problem is when that simple trope became a genre, because it means enough different tropes were attached to that one over and over to be identified as a whole package. |
||||||
Satonamba
Posts: 13 |
|
|||||
@Terraziel: I agree with all your points. I was just trying to bring a bit of nuance versus this topic expectation.
@Eilavel
You should have stopped at "There's no problem with including any kind of topic". It's fiction, the audience will make its judgement. Trash anime is nothing new.
I agree with that also. The quality of stories or the usage of trope from Narou is not the real problem here and Isekai are the target of criticism because it's a trend which has run for a decade. Some viewers are exhausted by it. The real problem is in this part of the column:
The animation studios have a shaky economic model and they have to provide the customers what they want. The otaku is quite specific with his escapism but also quite generous when satisfied so that's why these kind of show keep getting done. And the salary of the producer is justified because, at least, he knows these basic truths. I'm quite fond of DanMachi for example and I have the impression that the season 4 and 5 have been financed in part thanks to the Japanese whales that play Memoria Freese. I'm grateful and won't look down on them. You just have to compare the evaluations on amazon for the Blu-ray of Sonny Boys, an isekai critically acclaimed, and Jobless or DanMachi. People who ask for more high quality product often don't care about them the moment they finished watching. The animation studio need more than that to survive. |
||||||
Eilavel
Posts: 48 |
|
|||||
I largely agree; I guess what I'm expressing is that on occasion the fanbase ties itself in knots with apologia for slavery/ sex stuff/ whatever, which I dislike. "I doesn't bother me" or such is fine, like I said I'm not seeking to ban anything but I think theres some pretty awful discourse about it- though thats also, I suppose, far from entirely new. I'm, you know, making my own judgement.
Absolutely, I don't doubt the economics drivers and I don't blame the studios for following demand, but it doesn't change the quality of the content. I can't pretend I'd welcome an industry revolving around gacha, even if the alternative was a smaller industry, but such matters are out of my hands of course.. We are where we are, but the why doesn't really impact on an review of what we are getting- although yes, since good anime is still made and I've no intention of watching hundreds of shows a year, what form the bottom 50% of anime take isn't of great relevance to the individual viewer. |
||||||
pip25
Posts: 158 |
|
|||||
That's a really great observation. We probably have a problem seeing shows like Inuyasha as isekai because, while Kagome does get transported somewhere else (the past in this case), the usual trappings of isekai series are largely missing. While she does have special powers, her story is certainly no power fantasy by any stretch of the imagination. Isekai as a trope is present, but what we typically see in the "isekai genre" is not there. |
||||||
ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 2959 Location: Email for assistance only |
|
|||||
Please ask in the Feedback forum. I don't monitor the forums super closely outside of editorial content. |
||||||
Satonamba
Posts: 13 |
|
|||||
@Linzee:
No problem, I was afraid that talking about MT was forbidden for new posters after having all my post deleted but a member of the forum told me in pm to wait until the reviews started again on the site. So it's probably an error or maybe i said something in that topic that was inappropriate but i have no idea what it was.
I would totally agree (because I do the same) except for "such matters are out of my hands of course", we vote with our money. If you have money, you can support the good animes. I won't deny most of the criticism of Isekai in this column (except for MT but ) but you are also right, in the sense that western audience have little leverage. For Juuni Kokuki, i tried to support the serie (I brought DVD, collector edition, Novels). In the end, it doesn't even matter (Linkin Park vibes). I never got a sequel, NHK, studio Pierrot and Fuyumi Ono let me down I think western audience have a bit more leverage nowadays through Netflix but with the success of Nanatsu no Taizai or Shuumatsu no Walkure, I doubt it will change the anime landscape. |
||||||
a_Bear_in_Bearcave
Posts: 514 Location: Poland |
|
|||||
I have several heavy criticisms to the last few episodes of NTHT and how author decided to deal with certain themes in the end, and really dislike the framing of certain decisions just to what is IMHO push by author of his moral narrative, but the hate I have for those last episodes is in large part fueled by the fact that I consider much of it as great, and it's because show caused me to care for its characters that their spoiler[her] designed story end feels that awful to me (my biggest but not only critique). I'd still take another story like it over 10 Narou isekai. |
||||||
NeverConvex
Subscriber
Posts: 2341 |
|
|||||
I'm pretty curious to know more about this, but I haven't watched NTHT in so long that I wouldn't really be able to keep up the other end of the conversation at all. Maybe it's time to become one of those folks who re-watches all the shows they remember fondly... |
||||||
overlordrae
Posts: 90 |
|
|||||
I have a hard time calling older anime where they go to other worlds isekai because I think Portal Fantasy fits them better due to the types of tropes they tend to cover(for those who don't know, that's the subgenre for books like Narnia and such).
I get that they're all isekai and won't deny that, but there are connotations for modern isekai these days. |
||||||
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
||
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group