LogFAQs > #971969164

Isekai is a pretty straight forward wish fulfillment fantasy of going from the boring world to a more interesting world. OR at least going to a world where you (projecting on to the protagonist) can be a more interesting person.

Since 99.9999% of isekai is boring person with boring life goes to fantasy world and becomes Awesome McAwesomeson... isekai is the most wish fulfillment of all wish fulfillment.

If the desire with isekai was a death fantasy, then conservatively the focus would be less on how awesome the person becomes in their new life and more how important it was to let go of their old life.

the focus would either be on how they were weak or sick or incredibly sad or lonely, or specifically ready to "move on".

Isekai can have those things but it is not a common enough theme to say 'that's' what the whole genre is about.

Many (if not most) Isekai barely address the old life, usually just a few random references (usually just to establish how ordinary the protagonist was).

I think you have to dig really really deep into subtext and metaphors to read a death analogy into isekai as a whole, and if you're going that deep down the rabbit hole, you've passed the "reason something is popular"