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The List - 8 Anime That Were Isekai Before It Was Cool

Crossing the poll and article : I'd love to learn how Ima soku ni iru boku/Now&then is in need of a contemporary remake. The competent direction, the way the director and scenarist went beyond the premise ordered to them by exploiting it to make this "happy adventure of a young boy sent to another world" their own work, may I say the subversion (?) and the "passe-partout" visual style of this work are sufficient as they are.

I 'm not sure of wich cinema work to use as an example... Does "Apocalypse Now" needs a remake because it was made with technology now obsolete? I do not think so. (not saying Ima... is its equal of course)

Just Passing Through wrote:

Surprised at the absence of Escaflowne on the list. That would have been my number one pick.

Same here, although I definitely have no complaints about the choices that were made! This list really goes back to my formative years as a fan. I'd be curious to know when "isekai" became the blanket term to describe these types of shows, though. I don't remember hearing the term until after SAO became a breakout hit, and yet they've obviously been around for a long time, from the 90's shows on this list through the next generation of shows like .hack and into the present.

Inuyasha is more arguable as not being an Isekai as it's suppose to take place in Historical Japan, however it's unlikely that Demons and such existed.

Another one, the manhwa-only series Threads of Time. This one involves a modern (late 1999/early 2000) high schooler suddenly transported to ancient Korea. He determines this time it's definitely not a dream and he's really there as he's on his last pack of smokes. In particular, he's stranded at a time when ancient Korea is about to fight against the Mongolians and is now the son of a prominent warrior. He also sees a dark skinned girl that he's desperate to find out more about. Fortunately, even though this series is historical isekai, it really reads more like fantasy isekai and doesn't expect me to know a lot of history (anything actually important in this regard is told pretty clearly, I don't recall having any troubles reading the series). One side is warring another, it keeps that part of the plot pretty basic and is all the better for it.

On a tonally opposite note, honorable mention has to go to Samurai Champloo's gloriously insane baseball episode.

I'm very happy to see Abenobashi on this list! Everyone should watch Abenobashi. I wish the Blu-ray release would come over here. (Japan and Germany are the only ones who have it.)

Would Hunter X Hunter's Greed Island arc count? That was a really neat, well-written example of this genre before it really even became a genre. Leave it to this series to make even a collection-fest look very interesting (as the goal, as stated at the start, is to collect every card of a particular set).

Ah, old-school isekai... I've only seen two of the shows on this list, El Hazard and Abenobashi, but I've read several of the Familiar of Zero novels.

This blog post goes into more detail on some of these, with an emphasis on the shoujo side of things in the '90s, while this page digs a little deeper, finding roots as far back as a novel by the guy who did Dirty Pair. Of course, as xkcd reminds us, it's hardly confined to Japanese works, and for my own part, I have a pretty broad definition of the genre, including not just the obvious candidates like Alice in Wonderland or Narnia or The Neverending Story, but even some works theoretically set in our own universe like Gulliver's Travels or A Princess of Mars.

Come to think of it, that'd make Monster Rancher one too, isn't it? Even if it was not nearly as fun as Digimon.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

Come to think of it, that'd make Monster Rancher one too, isn't it? Even if it was not nearly as fun as Digimon.

What? Genki kicking the crap out of monsters with his roller blades wasn't entertaining to you?

Personally, I loved the idea of him actually taking part in battles since typical "kids and their monsters" shows usually have the humans doing virtually nothing beyond shouting orders out. I thought it was a nice touch, and made Monster Rancher a bit of a genre bender there. Even Holly took part in a few battles eventually to show she wasn't just the helpless damsel.

Hey, I didn't say it wasn't fun, just that I found Digimon a lot better. But yeah, it would've been neat to have the kids partaking in battles more often...though it may be hard to write without giving them powers too, and then it can make the mons somewhat redundant.

I read "genre bender" as "gender bender," and that reminds me: Was Holly supposed to be the protagonist? I vaguely remember in the first episode (but please correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not at all certain of it) when the boy landed in the game world, he was intended to land where Holly was but narrowly missed, which is why they're two separate characters. That suggests the intent was for the boy to become Holly and traverse the game world as her. I'm guessing I have this completely wrong though.

Rather than isekai, I would say that stories like InuYasha, Threads of Time, and Nobunaga Concerto are time travel stories. But I guess if people are classifying time travel as a sub-genre of isekai, nothing I can do about it.

Side note, Hotohori was always the better choice.