Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Has the Isekai Genre Given Up?
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smurky turkey
Posts: 1907 |
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Given that many people will gladly eat every Iskai burger that is put in front of them (me included), is there even a need to produce better shows? Sure, there is a difference between a good isekai with a unique twist that works and the 100th generic one, but the genre (it is a genre now) has plenty of fans who will tune in no matter what.
Oh btw, next season has that vending machine isekai. |
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Cho_Desu
 Posts: 193 |
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We reached the bottom of the barrel years ago, so I have no idea what to call where we're at now. The fact this stuff is still going strong is one of those things I just will never get. It's like if suddenly there were over ten lacrosse-themed anime every single season -- and that kept going for years, and years, and years. Not sports anime. Specifically lacrosse. Sure, you can have all sorts of silly variations to your lacrosse-themed story. But it's still just everyone playing lacrosse in the end. Even if the vast majority of these hundreds of lacrosse anime were good -- or even outright amazing -- wouldn't everyone get tired of it after a while? It's been the biggest anime mystery for me this past, what, decade now? Every now and then I see people say "it was exactly the same for all those dumb harem VN anime adaptations back in the day," but I'm pretty sure these generic narou-kei stories outnumber those like twenty to one, at least.
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2862 |
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two points.
1) interesting concept,.fall to blandness. this is the isekai curse,.lot of isekai stories have that problem, the concept sounds really good, like it could be explored for great fun, but we get a generic plot after the first few chapters, my first time with that was gunota. 2) the acceptance of shoujo Isekai, as said , how samey Isekai shows is their biggest problem , so i wonder if/when we get a bunch of shoujo Isekai (reincarnated as a villainess,.as the villainess friend,.etc...) all the good will the subgenre is getting will be lost. |
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Toyokaaaa
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I still it's less of an Isekai problem and more of a saturation problem.
I'd like to watch more isekai sometimes, but so many of them feel like they're stealing from older works in the genre or straight up copypasta of it. I used to like Villainess isekai subgenre, but it feels like it's stagnating those days. I'm sure there are many interesting isekai tales out there, but those aren't likely to get recognition or anime adaptations because they don't appeal lowest common denominator. For example I'm sure Isekai no Sata wa Shachiku Shidai won't get TV anime adaptation because it's BL and your average isekai consumer will avoid it. Maybe it'll manage to get a short series. Last edited by Toyokaaaa on Tue Apr 18, 2023 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Megumi Chisato
 Posts: 38 |
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@Cho_Desu
We all joke about how all isekai anime are the same, but I honestly think that its lasting power is directly related to just how varied, versatile, and stretched the whole isekai label has become. I've always said that isekai is more of a premise than a genre, and many of these so-called "isekai" series wouldn't be any different if the protagonists were straight-up born in the fantasy world to begin with. Like, both Tanya and KonoSuba are both "isekai," but they couldn't be more different. |
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smurky turkey
Posts: 1907 |
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@Cho_Desu
Part of it has to do with isekai being a coping/escape mechanism for many people. Life can suck at times or a lot of the time for a lot of people and some of them use Isekai to cope. Most isekai shows/manga/novels are basically pure wish fulfillment. Hell, the amount of overworked characters dying due to working too much and going to a different world to have an amazing life there should tell you enough. |
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Toyokaaaa
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I mean, you can say the same about different genres. Some lonely people cope via watching romance. Some bullied teens watch revenge stories because it's wish fulfillment. You get my point.
So isekai is not special, at least not anymore. The genre's novelty has worn off for many. Remember how shocked people were about Raise of the Shield Hero? Yet nowadays its plot and twist is "just average" and "typical of the genre". Not to say isekai can't be creative, but its big series lose relevance fast due to how replaceable they become. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 11178 |
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I actually enjoy how utterly insane Kamikatsu is, especially in episode 2.
Cheat Skill is just a show that knows what it wants to be and is delivering on that... |
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smurky turkey
Posts: 1907 |
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@Toyokaaaa
Agreed in regards to different genres working for different people based on what they crave to cope. I do feel like isekai are a bit different from that though in that many are pure wish fulfillment. Or maybe I would say that anime can be used to cope with while many isekai feel like they were made just for that very purpose. Something like cheat skill is all too clear in what it offers. As to isekai no longer being special. I agree that we have seen many former interesting gimmicks and set ups story wise go from special to being run of the mill. That said, Isekai as a genre feels as popular as it has ever been, so apparently it still has enough appeal to many people out there. People love to bitch about all the isekai and many of them being bland or bad, but it does not seem like the popularity of them is waning. Or maybe it is that new anime watchers constantly arrive to make up for the former isekai viewers who grew tired of them? |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2301 |
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I feel like isekai gave up half a decade ago. By the time we get to today, isekai's well beyond that -- the trash is no longer somberly pushed to the corner of the room, out of sight and out of mind; it now actively fills every inch of the isekai house, and, to find a well done isekai, you must first prepare for a bit of vigorous intra-household dumpster diving.
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Aster97
Posts: 159 |
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for so many years the biggest trend of light novel anime were the stories of a special boy in a magical world going a magical(mecha, swordsman, rich elite...etc) and/or all girls school as a special transfer student while adding the most popular girls to his harem. now isekais are the trend, the problem is that we see it so much i miss the old trends. but alas, sooner or later i think it will come to end. we just have to be patient until an author set a new standard.
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AQuin1904
Posts: 264 |
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Raeliana gets some interest from me for harkening back to some older portal fantasy ideas that narou-kei isekai doesn't generally play with, although I've heard that's less remarkable in the Korean fantasy scene.
Dead Mount Death Play is probably my standout pick, though. The manga is a blast, and Narita's unwillingness to let anyone be what they seem carries it a long way. That said, after more than four decades of Japanese portal fantasy (the 1979 novel Isekai no Yuushi is often cited as the first example), it's still hard to claim that any of them have gone harder than the opening of The Wings of Rean (1982, iirc; the ONA doesn't have the same opening). |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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The good one were adapted first, now they have to reach for less and less popular work to adapt. I think part of the difference with isekai compare to other genre is that it's more a group of trope and lazy writting shortcut rather than an actual genre. Like we rarely get amnesiac protagonist anymore because instead they just isekai'd the protagonist and then use that as the device to dump exposition on audience. Similarly they don't have to invent a power system, they just say its like a video game and the audience gets it. For fun I wanted to ask chatgpt to write an isekai premise to see what it would make, but you need to give them your phone number and that's not happening. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 493 |
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The worst part isn't that Aristocrat stole its "your death was pointless" joke from Konosuba, it's that even then Yu Yu Hakusho used it to much better effect. In 1990
Yusuke dying when the kid was set to get one scrape less than if he hadn't interfered was at least played for SOME sympathy (as well as humor). People can talk about how isekai is so versatile until they're blue in the face, the reliance on status boxes and Dragon Quest mechanics as your magic system are way too prevalent. |
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zztop
Posts: 645 |
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Granted there are some authors that can elevate isekai stories into amazing masterpieces/putting in a quirky twist that works; but the challenge is whether the readers will buy into said unique works or if they'll forsake it for the generic one that hits all the sweet spots they expect to see. Like that vending machine one; I recall reviews for the LNs were quite favourable but that didn't stop Kadokawa from quietly discontinuing the novels after 3 books (word is the novels only covered like 1/4ths of the complete webnovel story). Or titles like Deathbound Duke's Daughter and the 7 Nobles; amazing story that used the otome villainess genre as a springboard into writing a dark action-mystery-fantasy series with rich detailed worldbuilding; only for the publisher to axe it after 2 volumes. Meanwhile you get stuff like Cheat Skill in Another World which is now on its 13th volume in Japan.
Until you realize that nearly all Korean-written isekai romance fantasies involve its protagonist reincarnating/transmigrating into novels. It's always a written work whether it's a webnovel, published novel, or even fanfiction. Which also informs how the meta-narrative used by Koreans can be different from the Japanese.
Kamikatsu also has a recently started manga spinoff which continues the madness; which turns out the MC has a super-buff, super-strong, and super-brocon older sister who also isekais herself so she can reunite and sex up MC. And of course, Murata Shinya of Killing Bites is doing the art. https://viewer.heros-web.com/episode/316190246980569863 |
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