Current Events > "Oh this Anime looks interesting!"

(+) Yeah! (+)

"... and is suddenly transported to another world."

"... must level up their skills!"

*closes page*

Woman: *gets angry*

Konosuba is the only one that does it right

Did it have a sentence-length title like most of the stuff in that genre?

s0nicfan posted...

Did it have a sentence-length title like most of the stuff in that genre?

See that one would fail at the "This anime looks interesting" step.

I feel like plenty of isekai could be decent, but they just feel pointless to read/watch when so many follow similar story beats. Like, maybe Id love Shield Hero or something if it was the only one of its kind. I read some of the manga ages ago, and sorta enjoyed it, but I have 0 interest in continuing.

That time I was reincarnated into the water that shoots out of my crush's bidet

Fable posted...

"... and is suddenly transported to another world."

"... must level up their skills!"

*closes page*

Must level up their skills? That's rare for an iseki. Most of the time the person transported to the other world is overpowered from the start. Since the genre is a power fantasy.

I got a cheat skill, so I leveled up to 999 and did a bunch of dumb pointless bullshit for 24-48 episodes and then my anime got cancelled because it was yet another bait-and-switch that pretended to be an interesting world with rich lore but quickly just devolved into a weak harem anime with bad/minimal fanservice and boatloads of cringe using the same anime jokes we've had since the 80s

Isekai and Power Fantasy are instant turn offs for me when I'm looking at new manga to read... Also tired of seeing stats and menus too...

If the title is a whole sentence, I've looked away before reading the whole title...

I admit some of those shows are my guilty pleasures. Their predictability makes for easy, relaxing watches (which could understandably be considered boring for some).

Fable posted...

"... and is suddenly transported to another world."

"... must level up their skills!"

*closes page*

Now you've sold me on it. I'm in.

There should be one where the main villain is a guy who's speed running and keeps using glitches to break the world.

I was a GameFAQs moderator but now I'm killing Orcs in another world!

pegusus123456 posted...

There should be one where the main villain is a guy who's speed running and keeps using glitches to break the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La_Frontier

The series follows Rakuro Hizutome, a teenager who enjoys playing "trash games"old-fashioned and faulty video games that only appeal to a certain audience. After having mastered these games, despite their difficulty due to their glitches, Rakuro decides to change things up and play the acclaimed best-selling virtual reality game "Shangri-La Frontier"a full-dive VR game with 30 million registered players. Rakuro enters the game as Sunraku, his bird-masked player character, and all the skills and experience that he acquired playing trash games will serve him in this new game.

Although its not an isekai because the dude can log off. He's just a turbonerd with a personal goal. However, they DO have to keep patching the game because of his exploits so it mostly hits what you're looking for.

pegusus123456 posted...

There should be one where the main villain is a guy who's speed running and keeps using glitches to break the world.

There's a Batman villain who straight-up save scums.

https://youtu.be/_HMHiuyzvGY?si=66HSZ6l85K_lFcB7

Underrated show tbh.

Fable posted...

"... and is suddenly transported to another world."

"... must level up their skills!"

*closes page*

I'm a spider and legend of a shield hero?

"Is it wrong to write Isekai animes?"

amen to that brudda

"I am the hero from another world and I have been transported to this world because this is an isekai and I'm a healer and warrior combo, isn't that cool, and I've got a puppy and a spear and a staff, and I'm also level 9999 because I've trained for 100 years doing nothing but killing slimes and other shit that can't fight back cause I'm secretly a pussy but don't tell the ten girls I'm traveling with cause this is also a harem, so anyways, we're off to kill some tyrant or whatever. And Knuckles. The movie. The anime."

Seriously, look at some of these titles on crunchyroll. It's like they feel the need to explain every little facet of the story in the title.

Well your first mistake was watching something with a novel for a title

Fable posted...

"... must level up their skills!"

To be fair this automatically makes it better than the ones where the MC is nigh invincible from the start.

SecretBase posted...

To be fair this automatically makes it better than the ones where the MC is nigh invincible from the start.

MC's that are OP from the start can be fun though. Like season 1 of the Misfit of Demon King Academy

Check out this Isekai!

*checks Isekai*

It's an RPG fantasy.

s0nicfan posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La_Frontier

Although its not an isekai because the dude can log off. He's just a turbonerd with a personal goal. However, they DO have to keep patching the game because of his exploits so it mostly hits what you're looking for.

That's just boring though. You want the villain to be the overpowered one, not the protagonist.

I'm well past the point where I skip basically everything isekai or "isekai-adjacent". Reincarnations, banished from the party, all that bullshit that isn't technically isekai but follows most of the same tropes to become a very generic power fantasy story. It takes a very interesting hook to get me to watch one of those now, like that one Red Ranger isekai from earlier this year.

s0nicfan posted...

Did it have a sentence-length title like most of the stuff in that genre?

random_man9119 posted...

If the title is a whole sentence, I've looked away before reading the whole title...

Xatrion posted...

Seriously, look at some of these titles on crunchyroll. It's like they feel the need to explain every little facet of the story in the title.

Ivynn posted...

Well your first mistake was watching something with a novel for a title

Blame the Japanese light novel and web novel industry for that. Japanese LN/WN readers had so much shit to wade through that they would just look at the title and not even read the synopsis, so authors started putting the whole synopsis in the (very long) title to combat this. Then the "good" ones out of that large pool of slop would get adapted to anime and keep those long-ass titles. Think about that for a second. For every shitty generic isekai with a paragraph for a title that we see adapted into an anime, there are a dozen more that either haven't been adapted yet or are so much worse that they (thankfully) don't get an adaptation.

That's not just a problem with isekai either, it applies to a lot of anime that are adapted from LN/WN source material. Meanwhile, anime that are adapted from manga or are original anime rather than adaptations don't have to do that, so they often have shorter titles. Last season's ZENSHU is an example of an isekai anime that didn't have to resort to a super long title since it was a rare anime original isekai, and it was actually one of the more interesting isekai stories that I've watched.

Yeah, anything with a sentence as the title is an auto nope from me.

pegusus123456 posted...

That's just boring though. You want the villain to be the overpowered one, not the protagonist.

Oh, he's not overpowered. He gets cocky from playing trash games and tries to fight a super high level world boss in like episode 1 and gets beat so bad his character gets a permanent stat debuff. It becomes his initial motivation for playing the game more, so he can beat the boss he couldn't originally.

LitRPGs are the "new" cancer.

s0nicfan posted...

Oh, he's not overpowered. He gets cocky from playing trash games and tries to fight a super high level world boss in like episode 1 and gets beat so bad his character gets a permanent stat debuff. It becomes his initial motivation for playing the game more, so he can beat the boss he couldn't originally.

That doesn't even sound like my premise then lol

Even crunchyroll knows it's ridiculous with some of the titles.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b8b4a88e.jpg

"Well, at least this one is reincarnated as a slime. That is so wacky and hilarious, he is a slime! This one will be different for sure!"

*In like a episode or 3, a light novel volume, a few manga characters or wherever this slop was adapted from has the slime creature transform into a beautiful girl or a guy based off beautiful girl features. Has every single demon/adventurer/whatever fawn over new beautiful slime person. They are now a pretty person so long that the original slime gimmick has now been forgotten about....up until the slime's godlike abilities is needed again anyway.*

*Gets 10 new seasons and 20 new novels because japanese readers fucking love this.*

Konosuba (the best easily) and overlord is the only ones that really clicked with me. Jobless reincarnation is........ok. The setting is fine enough, but the MC is definitely a like him or hate him kind of thing.

pegusus123456 posted...

That doesn't even sound like my premise then lol

I went back and realized you wanted the antagonist to be glitching, so I misread your premise.

I kinda wanna write an isekai parody where the title is an absurdly long run-on sentence that describes the premise in excruciating detail. If you take the first letter of each word in order, it spells out a new, shorter sentence that describes the premise more broadly. And if you take the first letter of each of *those* words in order, it spells "ISEKAI".

SydnieStarlight posted...

If you take the first letter of each word in order, it spells out a new, shorter sentence that describes the premise more broadly. And if you take the first letter of each of *those* words in order, it spells "ISEKAI".

I don't understand the logistics here.

creativerealms posted...

Must level up their skills? That's rare for an iseki. Most of the time the person transported to the other world is overpowered from the start. Since the genre is a power fantasy.

Does Solo Leveling count as an isekai?

bloodyarts posted...

Does Solo Leveling count as an isekai?

Not technically, but "gate to another world" is basically a subgenre.

Mad-Dogg posted...

Konosuba (the best easily)

Nah, when it stopped being a parody of anything but itself it flagrantly dropped out of that competition.

bloodyarts posted...

Does Solo Leveling count as an isekai?

No. It is a LitRPG Gate comic series.

Mad-Dogg posted...

"Well, at least this one is reincarnated as a slime. That is so wacky and hilarious, he is a slime! This one will be different for sure!"

*In like a episode or 3, a light novel volume, a few manga characters or wherever this slop was adapted from has the slime creature transform into a beautiful girl or a guy based off beautiful girl features. Has every single demon/adventurer/whatever fawn over new beautiful slime person. They are now a pretty person so long that the original slime gimmick has now been forgotten about....up until the slime's godlike abilities is needed again anyway.*

*Gets 10 new seasons and 20 new novels because japanese readers fucking love this.*

Konosuba (the best easily) and overlord is the only ones that really clicked with me. Jobless reincarnation is........ok. The setting is fine enough, but the MC is definitely a like him or hate him kind of thing.

Re:Zero is another amazing one.

PurestProdigy posted...

Re:Zero is another amazing one.

For me the only ones that clicked were Re:Zero and Dead Mount Death Play. The latter I only gave a shot because of the writer.

The actual best isekai is Now and Then, Here and There but it predates the modern resurgence of the genre by like... 15 years.

The best isekai of the 21st century is .hack//sign, but it is a slow burn character drama so everyone will hate it.

It's crazy to think that Sword Art Online was the very anime to kickstart the whole "Harem Isekai Power fantasy" genre trend we're seeing today. Where the first 3 episodes start out fairly interesting premise.... and then it just devolves into the usual crap. I remember at one point Battle Shonen's (the ones with a tournament arc) and Slice of Life Highschool anime's were considered the lazy slops, but I don't think they even come close to being as lazy as Harem Isekai's.

NeonPhoenix posted...

Konosuba is the only one that does it right

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/430c4d4c.jpg

Escaflowne and Digimon are probably the most I've enjoyed of the "normal people go to another world" concept.

Not gonna say they are the best, just the most I've enjoyed.

Sayoria posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/430c4d4c.jpg

The fact that that show didn't even try to be funny was lame.

Oh, I got one!

"Oh, this anime looks interesting! Wow, that elf chick is surrounded by orcs, what she gonna do?"

"Oh....oh no...."

Prestoff posted...

It's crazy to think that Sword Art Online was the very anime to kickstart the whole "Harem Isekai Power fantasy" genre trend we're seeing today. Where the first 3 episodes start out fairly interesting premise.... and then it just devolves into the usual crap. I remember at one point Battle Shonen's (the ones with a tournament arc) and Slice of Life Highschool anime's were considered the lazy slops, but I don't think they even come close to being as lazy as Harem Isekai's.

I remember in the mid 2010's there was a boom of "battle school harem" anime. The Irregular at Magic High School, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, Absolute Duo, The Asterisk War, Blade Dance of the Elementalers, shit like that. There were a bunch of these in a relatively short period, and all of them were mediocre at best and awful at worst. But then people started to ask: Why would anyone watch or read one of these when you can get a harem power fantasy that's also escapism via an isekai premise? And why would anyone bother writing one of these when you can use a generic Dragon-Quest-inspired fantasy world and video game stat screens as a writing shortcut instead of needing to actually build a world with deep lore and a logical power system? The answer to these questions was of course "they wouldn't", so battle school harems vanished off the face of the earth and the whole genre was absorbed by isekai.

As with any genre there's never any reason to write it off as a concept just because there's millions of copycats. The fact that there are so many copycats should tell you that there's something truly resonate in a few of the good ones that made this genre take off the way it did.

But yes most of them are trash. If a show is an Isekai there's usually a few tells with synopsis or character design that will tell you all you need to know about whether it'll be worth your time. There's usually at least one Isekai a year that's worth watching on some level.

*shrugs*

The flood of isekai power-fantasies is far preferable to the flood of cute girls doing cute things shows and idol shows that preceded it.

That said, it does seem like its gone on way too long. Most of these genre fads wear out their welcome and are replaced with the next thing within a few years.

McmadnessV3 posted...

Escaflowne

I had no idea that was an isekai.

But I also have exactly one vague impression of that show and it's "Renaissance/Romantic era Gundam," which I doubt is even accurate in the first place.