This Week in Anime

The End of Isekai as We Know It?

Coop
That bubble's finally deflating, eh? Despite my rather strong opinions on these works as a viewer, my thoughts as a professional on the light novel localization end of things are complicated, Lucas.

For another take on this story, I'd recommend listening to last week's ANN Aftershow. Throughout the course of Lynzee and James's conversation, there was one factoid that remained lodged in my brain: Kadokawa and other companies might've seen major drops in their profits, but they're still making money hand over fist. They're just not making ALL the money now.

And as pointed out by White Box Entertainment's Miles Atherton in his 2025 data-driven look into the genre's dominance, adaptations of these works tend to be low-cost, high-return productions. This ensures that the companies have a solid baseline of money coming in, which hopefully can be tossed toward other projects. For example, I'd imagine that Shield Hero's animation studio, Kinema Citrus, has probably reinvested the money they made from that series into the upcoming Goodbye, Lara.

Well, if the studio has a contract situation or is on the production committee, that is. Given the current "guns for hire" ethos behind many animation studios these days, any guarantee of the sort isn't a sure thing. Not to mention the countless animators and staffers on the ground burning themselves out to meet that overwhelming demand—a churn that threatens the industry's longevity as well. For a little more insight on the human part of this equation, I'd recommend checking out my interview with Animator Supporters from last year. Again, these works might be a cheap money maker, but that's not the case if there's no one around to work on them for a living wage.

What's going on in Hollywood at the moment is visibly evident, but that's not the case with anime. To reference Miles's findings again, most studios are booked for the foreseeable future. Unless there's an immediate seismic shift, it's going to be a few years at the very least before there's a noticeable shift away from light novel adaptations. The situation could very well flip back the other way. It's hard to say because the audience for these works often refrains from engaging with the wider anime community.

But regardless of the potentially slow shift away from light novel adaptations, I have a feeling that any pre-Narou material will likely be insulated from any rough weather. Shoujo titles like Red River, From Far Away, and Magic Knight Rayearth generally appeal to a wider demographic of viewers, especially when compared to the overwhelmingly male audience of the current isekai crop. Additionally, these are all pre-established properties, so there's already a bit of staying power behind these titles. The best comparison to a Red River would be david production's adaptation of JoJo's. They're both titles with a strong cult following that got the TV anime treatment many years after their initial publications. And finally, shoujo is a rather mature slice of the literature pie these days—filled with decades of history that Narou works simply don't have yet.

After all, Narou as we know it today had only really started to properly materialize in the early 2010s. The same goes for the site's contemporaries. A few years back, Kim Morrissy penned a rock-solid exploration into the origins of isekai and narou-type titles through the lens of Mushoku Tensei's popularity. Specifically, she dove into how the title calcified much of the genre's trappings.

Since you mentioned pedantry, I'm really not a fan of all these specific genre cutouts. Be they designated a "LitRPG", "VRMMORPG", or a standard "Isekai", these stories tend to emerge from the same pot of influences. Stats? Conditions? Dragon Quest references? They almost always deal in these trappings, often like a game of madlibs. As someone who's professionally edited and proofread their fair share of these titles, these distinctions rarely mean anything tangible.

But on the topic of "what are next?!", there's already a strong argument for remakes and new adaptations of older material. Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, and The Ghost in the Shell are a few good examples of this thought process in action. However, I think the teams behind these works should tread lightly, because Western audiences are thoroughly nostalgia poisoned...and I bet it'll be the same for international audiences too. For instance, I only know like one person who went to see that new Star Wars flick, and the press seems deeply bored by it. I wouldn't say it's a stretch to say that many hits have already been regurgitated to an exhausting degree.

There's also talk of webtoon adaptations sliding right into the isekai seat, but I feel that those works are already seated firmly in the world of live-action drama. Within the pre-established K-Drama machinery, these adaptations are penned, shot, and edited rather quickly—much faster than the multiple years it can take a single anime production to hit the small screen. Perhaps there's there room for further experimentation in animation, but why spin up another bet when you've already got one that's working just fine?

If you're interested in learning more about these live-action adaptations and who this certified baddie™ is, Sylvia and I ate our way through a Webtoon K-Drama buffet a while back.

Doesn't help that the acronym on that one is "TBATE". Though who knows? Could be a big hit on OceanVeil with a name like that.

I'd say so as well, but it also depends on how exhausted audiences are of Western IP, as this ties back into the whole pre-established properties issue. While it could lead to some heavy hitters and safe bets, going toward these properties could also be akin to swapping out one content hose for another. And then we'll be having this conversation again once that hose is out of content. I'm not sure; it just feels like a sidestep rather than a step forward.

However, my biggest concern with an isekai deflation is how that would loop back around to the original works themselves—the localizations of said works in particular. The viewership and readership of these titles probably isn't a 1:1, but I'd bet there's just enough crossover between the audiences to make a few projections here and there. If there are diminishing returns on sale for these books, we're looking down the barrel of a contraction on the labor side. Say a publisher becomes more choosy with the works they're planning to localize. Now, while that's probably great for readers since they're likely getting the cream of the crop, that means less work to go around for the translators, editors, and folks on the ground who make these localizations happen. Given the localization industry's own alleged issues with pay and the like, it becomes another potential wrinkle for professionals trying to line up enough jobs to make ends meet. And I swear, if some ignoramus pops in with "AI will just take care of it all," they simply do not know what the hell they are talking about. Getting more choosy might be the best choice for all involved, but I'm not sure what can be done to keep contraction from kicking a whole generation of localization talent out of the business. It hurts because I'm right in the trenches alongside these folks.

That's true, and the best any of us can do, whether we are localization professionals, PR reps, animators, or authors, is to roll with the punches as they come. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on how these light novel adaptations eventually morph to fit the market. From downplaying traditional isekai elements (like in Fated Magical Princess) or breaking past the point of parody, there are options, but again, it'll be a good while before viewers see any of that.