Am I the only one who's sick of the isekai?
Yeah it was fun in the beginning, after all who never thought about being transported to another world where you ate a big hero with swords and magic?
But what the hell, I'm pretty sure there's more isekai now than other genres/settings. It's gotten to a point that if I see the tag I just move on.
I'm more sick of the harem trope than the isekai trope, between that and fan service beach days I don't even feel like trying new shows sometimes
You can also literally tell from the cover what kind of show it's going to be 😭
The thing I don't like is how much of it is RPG themed but written by people who have never played any.
Or just boring ones they think will make sense to the broadest audience.
Where's my Isekai where they have to guard break and air juggle enemies to do damage??!???
My main critique of the genre is how lazy it's done. There's nothing wrong with having the MC reincarnated, transported, or made overpowered. One Punch Man has a massively overpowered MC but it's still really good. The problem is that they're all low effort cookie cutter stories that are just checking items off a list.
They're also fairly unrealistic. "Gasp...is this that isekai thing I've been reading about? I guess I'll go join the Adventurer Guild and get a super dangerous job killing monsters despite the fact that I've never been in a dangerous situation before."
There's no way all these random people will just calmly accept finding themselves in another world with no freaking out or depression setting in first.
I've actually been writing a story with a more realistic idea on this
Dude has the stamina to do all that walking? His mother made him do a sport and track is the only thing he could tolerate. Still ends up exhausted when he has to carry the stuff a normal adventurer has to deal with
When he first arrives, he is flipping between trying to find the cool side of it and freaking out because, "Oh fuck uh I actually was ripped from my home"
Lots of action happens within the first few days? Has a mental breakdown when his brain finally catches up and he can no longer distance himself by comparing it to isekai tropes
"My modern knowledge makes things easier"? "...We uh, have magic that does that, why the hell would being able to harness electricity to make light matter? Besides, another country figured that out ages ago thanks to magic, just many of us prefer to use magic for it because cultural momentum"
Yes, there's a lot of very good stories that have that basic setup, I'm just tired of how lazy and unimaginative most of it is.
When I watched Frieren the best thing was that it was no fucking isekai. It's still competence porn, but at least she is not a middle aged man who died lonely in his bedroom. Just a classic fantasy world. Loved it
Lots of lonely female dying isekai in the manga world too
Could you give some examples? Just curious. I want to see how they differ from male isekai in terms of escapsim. And I don't mean multiple people like in Sao or Alice in wonderland. I just watched this "project Elise doctor" and what in the world was that? A double isekai? Or a isekaiception? But it definitely was different from when boys/men die.
I'm not sure if the competence porn is justified in this case. She's clearly meant to be an RPG character at the end of their adventure (and consequently apex of their power), it makes sense to me she's overpowered. There's a reason most TTRPGs stop at a a certain level and sometimes even have rules and instructions for retiring.
I think it's justified, but I don't necessarily mean it in a negative way. Her competence is certainly an important part of exploring what the series is actually about, namely loss, regret, and what's really important in life, etc. Which you can have even if you are very powerful.
Now that I think about it. Maybe that's exactly the reason why it is not competence porn. Maybe her competence is analogous to a sex scene which enhances the actual topic and not the goal itself like how sex is in porn.
On the other hand I certainly watch it for the competency lol
I'm sick of TRASH Isekai, not all Isekai. There's still a good and original Isekai every now and then, but those are rare. Most of them are just fan service, harem bullshit.
There are decades worth of good anime out there. If new stuff isn't doin it for you, pick up a show from spring 2006 or something. A lot of trash comes out every season (and always has) but nobody is forcing you to watch it.
I really like the genre, I am mostly sad it's mainly very short ones with a single season. Would love something longer again like SAO. But I also don't watch a lot to begin with
Nope. I'm over it.
The market is oversaturated and it's time to pivot to a new genre
I made this joke in another thread, but it's relevant here too. Anime lately in a nutshell is basically:
"Problems of a Paladin: I became the strongest hero and broke the villainess heart for the 7th time with a cheat code to chill out and be the best protector in another world! Why am I a loser in this time loop????"
Perfect title, just need a poster with the generic protagonist surrounded by his harem
You very much are not. However, that's how things always work out, a new theme appears and fascinates people, then everybody and their mom start using it for many years until it gets strip mined. Another comment mentioned zombies as an example, you can hardly see new zombie apocalypse stories these days because it's been overused already, before that i believe it was vampires, and other prominent themes have preceded those and passed. Isekai as a trope is still extremely popular to the point that stories that don't even need it get it tacked in as a prop to help it get popular. It's the way these things happen, and will continue until the next fun thing appears. Then it becomes just another trope to be used at the right time.
It too will pass.
The anime doesn't have to be good, it just has to make you interested in the lightnovel, which is where the profits are. With that in mind, the cheaper the anime can be produced the better. This is probably why there are so many shitty isekai and they keep coming.
I think that has been a pretty common opinion for the past 4 years lol
My problem isn't isekai as a concept, it's the fact that all of them are pretty much the exact same. I enjoyed Sasaki and Peeps last season precisely because it deviated from most isekai
Maybe we are, but someone has to be watching this trash right? Like why do they enjoy having so much of it?
Dungeon Meshi is good, and not Isekai.
Are we talking about our favorite animes? I love One Punch Man. I love that one guy made a cool story and another guy said "let me redraw that but make all the characters sexy"
Portal fantasy in general is fine( think like inuyasha or digimon as old version of isekai). The issue is the isekai that are just mindlessly cloning each other with some new way to be OP.
I still like the concept, it's just that 90% of the stuff that uses said concept is terrible. I mean, Isekai is only an initial premise, you need A LOT more to make a good anime.
Or only use isekai as an arc rather than the general premise like hxh did
Probably not, but after something like 2 decade of zombie shit everywhere i will take ANYTHING over it. Also there are good isekai, bad isekai and chinese isekai where the only thing coming of it is the protagonist using modern Earth idioms and perfectly assimilating otherwise.
Harry Potter is isekai. The Wings of Merlin by TA Baron is an isekai. Percy Jackson is an isekai.
The problem isn't the genre. The problem is that the metric became a target for cheapasses with no imagination who want that trend money.
This is the same shit that happens in every form of media when production becomes more accessible. Idiots pick up the fire and run with it.
Isekai is just Fish Out of Water on steroids which itself is just a variant on the Hero's Journey monomyth.
Isekai are popular because people like to explore what if scenarios just in general. The Isekai setup is just a convenient plot device, that's all.
Alice in Wonderland is an isekai.
I still like the idea but I’m tired of the power fantasy aspect. “Oh no! I’ve been killed/summoned/found a portal and now I’m in a fantasy world! At least I’m incredibly overpowered and/or my modern knowledge gives me god like status!”
The ones where the character still struggles to get by tend to be good still because they have to have some kind of story involved other than “average person conquers another world by being OP”
Part of the reason why I was soooo disappointed that So I’m a Spider, So What? Got such a poor adaptation. She starts out very low level and has to grind, so all of the power she gets feels earned.
dude I fucking love spider, read the light novels and everything, but man I fucking hate how it ended. ruined it for me
Yeah, I agree the genre has come down to a basic recipe.
There are some exceptions:
I think the biggest reason I like Reincarnated as a Slime is he’s using his powers for everyone at a nation level. Any others with god-tier powers just feels like it’s only to benefit them or a small haram.
Reminds me of Shield Hero. Started off with an interesting concept of a hero with a tarnished reputation having to navigate an unknown world. Immediately turns into a Harem.
Absolutely. First few episodes, especially the first one, were actually really fun but I dropped it somewhere at the beginning of season 2 because it was just boring. It kinda felt like it just kept getting worse episode by episode.