A Crap Review of Isekai Anime as a Genre
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- Опубліковано 3 лип 2024
- I talk A Bit About Isekai Anime as a Genre and Its Potential Problems.
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#IsekaiAnime #ReZero #Overlord - Комедії
You know who was a proper isekai protagonist? Dorthy Gale. Girl brutally murdered the first person she encountered, looted the corpse, got the locals to worshiping her, acquired a male harem, and proceeded to slaughter her way into success.
Where is she from?
@@themandals7273 The Wizard of Oz
Bruh. I’m listening to this video, and I gotta say, you sound exasperated and exhausted like, the entire way through. And really, when it comes to the genre, I’m right with you. Everything feels so freaking lazy, even with the wider magical fantasy world genre.
Konosuba still gives me hope for the Isekai genre
One particular problem I have with isekai as a genre is the inclusion of character levels in a setting that isn't a video game. It feels like the writer(s) want to pull an SAO and include some abstract way to show character progression but it doesn't work in non-video game settings.
Yeah random video game mechanics make the world feel arbitrary and as a general rule don’t add anything beyond “MC’s numbers are bigger than yours” to the plot. Admittedly a video game isekai where the entire point is that the system is jank as hell and the entire cast are all exploiting it to its absolute limits could be amusing
@@kaimagnus5760 I remember that one. Found it on a h-site.
@@kaimagnus5760 What was its name again?
A world with video game mechanics like classes and levels could work, it just requires some forethought and planning. My favorite example of this is in a fanfic of all things called A Forged Destiny. It has a brutal class based caste system where failed "heroes" (combat based classes) are put into armies cause they're perceived to be only useful in combat and NPC's or "Needs protection caste" (bakers, blacksmiths, fsrmers, etc) are kept in general labor and low levels, a currency that requires hunting monsters, mageocracies, your stats being a hard limit to your capabilities that require rarer and harder achievements to level up, and a whole bunch of other video game tropes and mechanics treated in a very serious manner.
I like Kumo desuga, nani ka from the newer shows, no harem for the protag, the Worl is Videogamelike because some Godess was bored and the world on it´s last Leg and the Protag is also the Villain. Well it still has a lot of problems it shares with other shows but for now it´s my favourite LN Series that i wouldn´t know without the Anime adaptation.
I liked when it was just “My Last 4 Brain Cells Stuck in the Final Dungeon”, but honestly it went to shit around the Earth Dragon fight. Over reliance on cheat skills, absurd power scaling, and the blatant misanthropy were all serious turn offs. It feels almost tacked on to be honest. Like the author just wanted to make a fun comedy about a spider panic flailing their way to victory but Overlord was popular at the time so the MC had to be an overpowered genocidal lunatic because that’s what the kids are into
@@PikachuLittle it gets even better later, she turns into a Godess herself but since she drops out of the System by becoming one she losses all her cheat skills and is basicly weaker than she was in the beginning, but yeah even then she gets cheat equipment that she sometimes forgets.
@@thanathyael yes but I don’t care. I don’t care about how the world works, or the grand metaplot, or any of the cast that isn’t Spooder. I want exactly one thing from the series, Silly Spooder doing Silly Spooder things. Because that’s entertaining. Because the author is good at comedy and mediocre at just about everything else.
@@PikachuLittle well that´s true, the silly spider moments and the comedy are getting fewer by the volume, lately it´s more action and tying together story threads. I still like the foreshadowing and the plot twists that sometimes happen in just one sentence.
There is 1 unforgivable sin of Isekais that all of the worst Isekais (and some very good ones) commit: When being in another world doesn't drive the plot.
In Overlord, finding other people from his world is Ainz's main goal and everything he does to spread his reputation is to further that goal.
Reincarnated as a slime doesn't do much with it, but other world summons aren't uncommon in this world and there are other characters that Rimuru can relate to and shapes their relationships.
In Cellphone, the freaking cellphone itself is barely used.
Max level 300 years killing slimes doesn't use it at all (except maybe to make food).
Dude, while I agree with most of your review/rant, your comment on "how easy it can be to write a [fantasy]". This is literally part of the problem, Isekai authors THINK it is easy to write a fantasy world becuase they don't do their research into the broader genre of fantasy, only taking their ideas from fantasy games they have played or DnD, or they don't even play the games themselves and just look at the vague impressions of the system, not understanding the underlying ideas that, especially DnD, their are A LOT of loopholes in the system to create world breaking tier spells for example.
Not only this, but creating a fantasy world means you have to LITERALLY create another world. You have to think about things like landscapes, cultures, and the races/species that inhabite the world that create histories, conflicts, and superstition to name a few out of THOUSANDS of things you have to consider.
But this doesn't mean the creation isn't worth the effort. Look at ASoIaF AKA Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, and of course, the GRAND FATHER OF FANTASY who made his life work a "single" fantasy world which he set his story in: Tolkein and Lord of the Rings.
Fantasy is one of the hardest genres to write, because you have to think about more then just characters, plot, and themes that make up your story, but also world building, especially in excess compared to fairy tales which are set in our world.
To me, Isekai doesn't work because most Isekai authors do not create a story around characters, plot, world building, and/or themes, they create stories around a singular idea: "Isekai but with a phone", "Isekai but I'm a slime", "Isekai but the main character is an author insert". Not a single one of these are the four pillars of story, and with the fact that these stories all come from the same place which is a website where people come to write basically fanfictions, it leads to almost all isekai feeling like they just had one idea for one "volume" be it light novel, manga, or anime, and after that they have no where to go because they have not planned that far ahead. My perfect example of this is "Isekai but I'm a slime" where it is so obvious that after season 1 the author literally had nothing to do as all the threads had been tied up with nothing else going on.
TL;DR - Fantasy is one of the hardest genre to write, just from world building alone and making sure your magic system is not broken. Also, don't you going disrespecting ma man Tolkein.
Thanks for your comment man, honestly I am writing an isekai light novel and I am telling you is not easy. I have to think of an Unique world buildings such as; history, cultures, different kinds of Species, religions, holidays, magic systems etc.
What I hate about isekai in general is that the world buildings are always had to be in the European Middle Ages style whether is a fantasy world or an RPG and for some reason the main casts of the show wears modern clothing.
The thing to remember about Isekai is that its not a Eastern invention; the most famous 'In Another World' story we know is Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass.
Thanks dude, great work
Loved this video and review I completely agree
I'd have to say the king of Isekai is still Log Horizon, great characters, losing memories on death for greater conflict, and everyone just trying to get home.
Re:Zero stands alone as the king of isekai, it's truly a masterpiece
Profile pic checks out
I have to say this was one of the most amusing things I have seen today. regardless if someone was to agree with your perspective or not, I think that the content alone was well made and entertaining.
And I hate giving compliments.
So thank you for making me smile.
(Warning, long comment, my bad)
There's soo much copy paste bullshit in the isekai genre that it's fucking tiring. I usually like an isekai if the main character is likeable to me and the plot is interesting, but I draw a line at the annoying perverted harem antics because I don't fucking care about that.
I do think one aspect was a little unfair. Both (they're the same thing) the example of time loops and just skipping/ignoring the loop that leads to a bad end because who cares it didn't happen and got reset, along with deleting the first part of an isekai because it would make the story better, I kinda disagree. I'm someone who likes knowing what the main protag is thinking, or where they came form and where they are now.
If you delete the beginning you would have never seen how much of a piece of shit Rudeus was and now much he's slowly(so slowly- god damn fuck this kid) improving and changing now that he's been given a second life. You would have never known the life they came from which has affected them since they lived it first and how that shapes them as a person in their next one. You would never understand/empathise why Cayna finds freedom so freeing, acts like a child sometimes, and does whatever she wants without consequence unless you knew she'd been in a hospital almost her entire life and never _had_ a childhood. Rimuru's death showed you what kind of person he was. You would never understand or even *_have_* a huge part the plot of The Saga of Tanya the Evil, if you didn't see how she was in her previous life, was murdered because of her actions, met being X, and got thrown into this kind of life and how much she resent it for this.
It's the same with the time loops. You could never know Subaru's pain of the resets if you skipped everything he experienced in them. He made friends, connections, he did so many things and overcame new obstacles, and they were all ripped away, never to be seen or felt in the same way ever again, shit I'd be crying too, that's entire days, weeks, of the life you just lived fucking gone over and over. Those bad ends with you watching them for like 3 episodes and everything resetting? It's not meant to waste you time, it's meant to show you how Subaru feels by literally making you experience it. Or it's meant to show you different paths that people may want to see, and show how Subaru learns from his mistakes.
I know the whole point of the "just delete the beginning of the isekai" was to argue the point that the anime didn't have to be an isekai, it could have been just a normal fantasy anime with compelling protags, worldbuilding, and story, but that's the issue. There are so many fantasy anime out there that it'd never get a lot of recognition, even if it is good. Sometimes people want to write about an out of place character trying to navigate a new world they know nothing about without making them grow up in said world. Sometimes people want to write characters we can relate to in the sense of "they lived in our world and now they're out and all this shit is crazy". Sometimes people want to write about characters getting a second life and the way they change due to it. There's a lot of benefits to the isekai genre in a fantasy settings. But I do know and completely understand as I share the same feelings that the isekai market is fucking same-y same trash most of the time.
I don't have a good way to end this but congrats on making it through all this, I know it's an essay, my mind just went brrrrrr and I didn't realise until the end how long this was.
13:02
Ehhhhhhhhh, really?
"Danmachi", "Overlord", "Torture Princess" or "Re:Zero"; sure, I can see those series are being written by people who actually care about telling a story and want to tell that story through literature.
"Smart Phone", Generic story of Medicine/Food/Sports in new world, or typical harem in new world story? Nah, no way in hell. Those stories are being written by people who give zero fucks about writing, and are only doing it for the paycheck.
Hell, even parodies of the genre like "Konosuba", "Eminence in Shadow", or "Yuusha ga Shinda" have more thought put into their stories than some of the crap being pumped out nowadays. It really is a sad scenario to have.
Isekai is basically junk food of anime and sometimes thats what you want
i dont watch as much anime as i used to but sometimes one will catch my eye, the skeleton anime that airing right now is one of them, partly because the person doing the OP is a man from YT and another is Reincarnated as a Sword thats going to come out some time, i found out about that one through fanfiction and then i started reading the manga
Steins;Gate
did a wonderful version of conflict with time travel being in the show, and knowing there was a hard limit to attempts to fix things before it was all over.
5th generation* but okay Yaro XD
Nothing beats a team plasma castle bursting out of the ground behind the elite four and having a legendary dragon battle for the climax
I mean when you think about it Pokémon isekais have been around since at least the first Mystery Dungeon
I love overlord. But most otherworld storylines make me grown
I don’t care what anyone says overlord is completely bad ass it’s the only other World Series I still actually care about because it’s just gotten too saturated at this point
Though I do love how not to summon a demon lord XD
And konosuba…..
Also yaro gen 5 of pokemon was the most epic, and found gen 4 kinda boring, sorry not sorry
I like reading manga but theres nothing but isekai now to the point theres a manhwa about a guy being reincarnated as a fish. I want an actual story these days
We’re currently stuck in the “boom” stage of the market. It’s sort of like what happened to American comics in the 90’s. A couple of works that were fairly new at the time achieved impressive market success and suddenly everyone and their grandmother is jumping on the bandwagon to cash in. So now we’ve got a glutted market of mediocrity because that’s what’s perceived as selling. Shit sucks but there’s not much you can do about it beyond voting with your dollar
If anyone wants to read a story that perfectly plays with the tropes of Isekai, playing many straight while subverting the ones that really matter to make a great story, check out Worth the Candle. It's about a guy who gets transported to a fantasy world mashup of all the tabletop campaigns he ever ran for his friends, so many things are familiar while others take him by surprise, and he gets a character sheet but it's not one from any system he recognizes, so he can't minmax. And yet it has OVER A DOZEN unique magic systems that are all really well thought out, and all reflected back by the world itself; the inhabitants of this world use magic intelligently and thoughtfully, and the protagonist has to contend with that even given his unfair advantages. Brandon Sanderson eat your heart out.
On top of all that, it goes deep into themes like psychology and grief and meta-narrative issues that would come up if you knew you were in a world "designed" for you, and have read plenty of fiction and even isekai stories, and knew how these sorts of things tend to go. It's really, honestly one of the best stories I've ever read, made me laugh and cry multiple times, and it's all free online. It kind of ruined the genre for me, and I'm not even mad.
Watch jobless reincarnation and summer time rendering
Why do people keep calling magus bride an Isekai? Girl with magic on earth finds out about more magic on earth. Did I forget the part where she died and reincarnated into that version of earth?
Same with picking up girls in a dungeon. Every character in that anime is from that world...
1. I never said AMB was an Isekai. I just pointed out that it has good story writing and pacing that even a modern world setting with magic and mystery is possible.
2. I never said DanMachi was an isekai, I used it and an example that the world is an established one and that it cares about its characters and plot, not needing an isekai to set it up.
Both points I made were based on how you can write an fantasy setting without needing someone from out world to tell the story in another.
@@YaroShien maybe I misunderstood because of a distraction. But I do keep seeing these anime mentioned in talks about Isekais. My friend even thought DanMachi was an isekai because of it (they never watched it).
Granted Isekai is more of a content tag than a genre and AMB and DanMachi do go in the same genre's as most isekai. Which is a problem I have with people who complain about isekai. It is an over used narrative element (that really needs to get used less) but not a content defining one. It is like hating when characters have dead parents, it doesn't make sense to define a whole narrative based on that small element.
I enjoy a lot of Isekai anime, but im not gonna say more then a handful of them are good. The Saga of Tanya the Evil, That time I got reincarnated as a slime, The Devil is a Part Timer, The Ascendance of a Bookworm, and Realist Hero are all pretty great, but I wouldnt call any of them as good as something like Assassination Classroom or the first half of Death Note.
we have so many isekai animes that I’m pretty sure would be better if it WERENT an isekai. The same way AC Valhalla would be better if it just want connected to Assassins Creed
after whatching your video I must say I agree with your points. However I believe that you can do the protaginist from another world. the conflict would arise from the fact the protaginist is basicly a foriner in a land not there own. but yes most of the writers of this genre currently are very lazy and basicly rip off one another.
I really think "isekai" isnt a real genre. It is just fantasy, but with someone come in from another world. Everyone should just view it like this. If you compare a lot of fantasy shows to isekai, you can compare the stories together, and you can tell the difference of quality. For example, if you compare re:zero to a different fantasy, you will see that it is a story that does have its issues, but is still good. If you compare something like smartphone... well you know. I think the problem is just writers not using an "isekai" as a backdrop instead of just being the same story repeated 20000 times.
Honestly dude love you, but I hate the tone. Which actually does match the narrative you were going for with the video overall.
A good isekai does not need to be an isekai to be good. If it has a good plot the isekai part is just a gimmick
I kind of have to disagree with you there. Consider HameFura. The story is great, but the plot and comedy ultimately hinge on the fact that the MC is bringing in meta knowledge from her previous life. Without that she’s still a charming and lovable protagonist, but the story loses pretty much the entire point
@@PikachuLittle counter point. Instead of the character being isekaied into it they could have simply had a vision showing the consequences of their actions. It is a fantasy series after all.
That eliminates all meta knowledge limitations and it allows for character growth within the universe. Which in a lot of these isekais where the main character remembers their past life tend to basically be, but with the added flavor of "I come from a world where all of this is a game."
@@miroslavradev9006 counter counter point, it’s not just a matter of the MC having meta knowledge, it’s a matter of the main character being a completely different person than their original “canon” self. The story is her desperately trying to avert a fate that she had already averted in the first episode without even realizing because she’s the kind of lovable dumbass who wouldn’t even consider doing the things her “canon” self does. It’s pretty damn hard to explain the massive personality shift without the isekai part without it somehow sounding vastly more contrived.
@@PikachuLittle once again that was just the gimmick used so that the character could take the actions needed by the writer. You can use any reason from memory wipe to foresight to justify her behavior. It's not that the isekai can't enrich the story set, but 9 times out of 10 the fact that the character was from another world does not matter, or at the very least it does not have any long term impact. Mushoku Tensei was probably the best example of an isekai done right where the MC benefits from failing at his previous life to live a better one in the second chance he was given. A lot of the others just don't give a fuck about the Mc background after it was established, baring occasional tragic background to justify some actions
@@miroslavradev9006 by that logic literally any literary trope is just a “gimmick used so that the character could take the actions needed by the writer”. Village wiped out by goblins? Just an excuse so the author can have the MC want to kill goblins. The world arbitrarily declares everything should be resolved by card games/Beyblades/rock paper scissors? Well the show has to advertise the merchandise somehow. It’s not like the Death Note HAD to land right next to the one guy who was both crazy and intelligent enough to use it to become god. Maybe Aslan should’ve just eaten those kids, he is a lion after all. Everyone knows that those dead parents were just an excuse for JK Rowling to force a confrontation with the Big Bad. Heck Mushoku Tensei doesn’t need to be an isekai, he could just be a child prodigy and you get basically the same story.
Modern isekai are all a shallow power fantasy in which the protagonist is unstoppable and has a harem of girls that are all head-over-heels for them. The only good ones are Konosuba (which is a parody) and classic isekais like digimon and inyuyasha.
For those who are about to reply “what about re:zero/overlord?”
Re: zero admittedly avoids these pitfalls for the most part, but has its own slew of problems (Subaru’s fixation over Emilia makes no sense and is frustrating at times, Emilia herself is not a Great character and is overly dependent on Subaru).
Overlord is every bit as guilty of these failings as any other isekai, the only difference is that the protagonist is evil. That said, I’ll admit I loved the lizard men arc, and the one with Sebas. It was at that point that I realized I enjoyed overlord the most when Ainz was less involved, or at least not the main character.
:)
Even that I like Overlord, it was first real anime that I seen, I must admit that it's sucks. There are so many good characters, yea, but the whole story is completly broken by fact, that we already know what will happen and how it will end, even if Franchise is still not over - we will again again see new characters that we maybe will like, just to watch them be massacred by Ainz and company, no matter how hard they train or preparing themselves. And that's all. Really, why I should give a fuck bout something like that? Idk maybe because nostalgia...
Honestly, I hate that power leveling in fantasy and mainly isekai anime with all of my being, mainly because it always work for MCs.
The most pure sucking of it is shown in Tensei Shitara something with Slime(absolutly hate it) and Kumo desu ga Nani ka(okay, that have at least a extremelly cool and funny MC).
And as cherry on the cake there is that completly retarded japanese style of story telling, if I honestly don't like something on anime, it is this.
In the end, only good isekais that I've seen are according to me Konosuba and Drifters.
All others are lame bullshits(And no, I didn’t seen Re:Zero and little except have Overlord because of what I wrote)
One of the big problems with the power fantasy isekai is that the MC refuses to specialize. Not only do they wield Phenomenal Cosmic Power (tm) in whatever magic system the world uses, they also have unparalleled martial ability, enough passive resistances and defenses to make them effectively invincible, godly charisma, impressive crafting skills, the ability to keikaku with the best of them, people management skills, and a smattering of random miscellaneous skills and hobbies that can overall cover most any situation. In short, there’s nothing they can’t do, thus the rest of the cast is superfluous.
Like “Wait for Goku memes aside, the guy was useless for anything that didn’t involve fighting, training, or radish farming