I could see isekai protagonists being alright with not returning home if the world they're in is better than the one they left, or depending on their situations in the original world. Salaried office worker being worked to death or free adventurer with magic powers and recognition isn't a tough decision.
That's also assuming they even can return. More than a few isekai protagonists are in the other world because they died in the original and got reincarnated, hence the meme of Truck-kun being so widespread. Those people often are born and grow up in the isekai world and regardless of how much you remember of the original you're going to have attachments in a place where you've spent such a long time.
The latest manga chapter of My Hero Academia talk. Spoilers.
This arc has been up and down but this chapter was great.
Back in the Midoriya/Gentle fight, it was implied that Gentle would be a genuinely dangerous threat if he decided to be serious in a fight, and that it was a good thing he just wanted to be noticed.
This week, we saw two instances of what Serious Gentle is capable of - he subdued an entire fucking prison of quirk wielding criminals singlehandedly, and then stopped a floating island from crashing.
The latest manga chapter of My Hero Academia talk. Spoilers.
This arc has been up and down but this chapter was great.
Back in the Midoriya/Gentle fight, it was implied that Gentle would be a genuinely dangerous threat if he decided to be serious in a fight, and that it was a good thing he just wanted to be noticed.
This week, we saw two instances of what Serious Gentle is capable of - he subdued an entire fucking prison of quirk wielding criminals singlehandedly, and then stopped a floating island from crashing.
Yeah, Gentle is not to be fucked with.
Ever since La Brava appeared I knew Gentle will have his time to shine very soon, but having half a chapter dedicated to him is so great. Lady Nagant waking up and choosing violence was a great cherry on top as well on the chapter.
I feel like, if you're physically transported into the game/computer, such as in Tron, it's isekai, but if you're just stuck in a VR headset, as in Sword Art Online, it's not.
I have bad news about how genre naming conventions have panned out in practice then
I think family and such is rarely brought up because the audience doesn't care.
Maybe MC is weeping into his pillow nightly about missing his mom's basement but that matters absolutely 0 to me so I'm glad it's never brought up.
A few series, like Mushoku Tensei, do have the MC reflect about having left family behind and having things they want to say. On the other hand the entire point of that story is basically just character growth so it's at least relevant.
But also if I suddenly woke up in a world with gods damn dragons and such where I could make enough money to live by picking herbs for a few hours and turn into a super human by stabbing some slimes I'd be all in. Earth kinda sucks shit.
For a while in my childhood the entry point was a book.
Neverending Story, for example. Pretty classic example.
Honestly the most interesting thing is why they've suddenly become so popular. I'm seeing a fair few of them that are basically office workers that get moved from their old life somehow and the fact that they straight up don't give a shit about their previous life doesn't seem to be considered a problem. Considering how popular those are that seems to indicate a lot of their readers wish they could do that too. And they really don't give a damn if its not mentioned, because they don't even wanna think about it. If you think about that too hard it's kinda a downer.
The theory I've seen that makes the most sense to me is that they're an outgrowth of the chuunibyou fad combined with the explosion of pulp LNs/mobile games and the total crash of the VN industry, cannibalizing that whole audience. Publishers do all these "Be a writer!" contests to pick up new authors, and since it's just about first impression, they dump out the gimmick right away, or even in the title. But that's a horrible way to find/train actually good writers instead of just chasing whatever is popular at the moment (and there are nightmare stories from editors who get handed these people and told to turn them into a respectable product). It also doesn't give the space for anything else to get picked up, so everybody HAS to start doing that, because that's the only thing getting published. Tyranny of the majority, or plurality at least. Which is driving out the smaller trends too (eg edgelord magical girls, Squid Game-likes, etc) as they all get subsumed. Covid has likely also had a major effect on cementing it and making publishers even more risk averse.
Also, if you want to be pedantic, "narou-kei" is the Japanese term for the specific reincarnation cheat power portal fantasies (and what's banned by a bunch of those contests at this point, because they're tired of 99% of the entries being that). SUPPOSEDLY, the popularity has started declining in late 2021, but they're still top of the heap. I think it was women's romance stories that showed the most growth lately, but still dwarfed by this yuck. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/なろう系
Yet another place ORV shines is the extended family stuff (yes, it's not an Isekai, but the whole "video game interface" shibboleth is a thing)
Spoilers to where the webtoon is (not major spoilers, all things considered, but is a bit of a background revelation if you plan on reading it.)
his mom is alive too, and survived because her son's obsession with the story led to be the only thing he talked about when he visited her....in prison. For killing his dad.
Actual plot spoilers beyond it, but not super major ones.
he resents her over it, and got so into reading escapist fantasy, because she published a book about the murder, to pay for his education on the royalties, and he got bullied as the murderer's kid
Actual meta commentary spoilers which makes for a good example of why I like ORV so much, and why I recommend it so highly, but actual spoilers for the truth of the above, which matters but it's small potatoes in there big scheme of things
ORV is a story about the stories we tell ourselves and how they shape the world around us. Dokja's mother didn't kill his father. He did. As a child he came home to his mother being beaten by his father, so he tried to protect his mother and accidentally killed his father. He was young so he didn't really remember everything, but his mother told the police she did it so her son wouldn't have the label murder applied to him, and then wrote the book intentionally to both pay for his survival and to crystalize that "story" - the FAKE one - as the truth.
ORV is about how authors, readers, and characters all influence one another in the stories we read, and it's a lovely smaller example of that in the course of the novel.
From a literary stance I have no problem with modern Isekai stories. They are using fantastical shorthand the audience knows. That is, to say, a lot of it plays off common Dragon Quest, Wizardry and Final Fantasy tropes because it's the fantasy they grew up with.
It's really no different than all the stories after LotR using a lot of the stuff it popularized. Orcs are the western fantasy version of a status screen.
They rarely focus on the Isekai aspect unless it's central, which it is in a lot of them, because the concept is pretty codified at this point and it's more beating a dead horse than the wall of stats people here have complained about. Which exist because it's explaining the parts that aren't just standardized.
And let's be real, most people like the numbers going up. That's why every game since the early aughts decided everything needed rpg mechanics.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited January 2023
The problem with isekai isn't that it's an isekai.
It's that a vast number of them are shit. Not because of "insert stats/harem/whatever" but because they are just overal shit stories.
If it's done well the genre really doesn't really matter.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
If they are popular then it isn't shit. Simple as that. Popularity is a large enough group of people agreeing something is good enough to support.
The shit stuff you never hear about. The roughly 2000 murim and historical romance stories I've gone through that have not a redeeming quality and which quietly die a couple dozen chapters in because no one likes them.
Isekai is easy, because the foundation of the stories are easily relatable and use a language the audience instantly understands. But I'll say overall they are better stories than you'll find in the majority...of say... Shoujo romance. Which you'll never even hear about without digging real deep.
I could see isekai protagonists being alright with not returning home if the world they're in is better than the one they left, or depending on their situations in the original world. Salaried office worker being worked to death or free adventurer with magic powers and recognition isn't a tough decision.
That's also assuming they even can return. More than a few isekai protagonists are in the other world because they died in the original and got reincarnated, hence the meme of Truck-kun being so widespread. Those people often are born and grow up in the isekai world and regardless of how much you remember of the original you're going to have attachments in a place where you've spent such a long time.
Konosuba did a nice bait and switch with that
Kazuma dies and Eris offers to reincarnate back on our earth with perks because he died heroically and he seriously considers it then Aqua casts revive
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
If they are popular then it isn't shit. Simple as that. Popularity is a large enough group of people agreeing something is good enough to support.
The shit stuff you never hear about. The roughly 2000 murim and historical romance stories I've gone through that have not a redeeming quality and which quietly die a couple dozen chapters in because no one likes them.
Isekai is easy, because the foundation of the stories are easily relatable and use a language the audience instantly understands. But I'll say overall they are better stories than you'll find in the majority...of say... Shoujo romance. Which you'll never even hear about without digging real deep.
I'd argue that the sieve of time disproves your argument of popularity as a measure of quality. The graveyard of history is filled with works that were popular at their creation, and yet were so weak that some of them we only know of because of their echoes in more durable mediums.
The latest manga chapter of My Hero Academia talk. Spoilers.
This arc has been up and down but this chapter was great.
Back in the Midoriya/Gentle fight, it was implied that Gentle would be a genuinely dangerous threat if he decided to be serious in a fight, and that it was a good thing he just wanted to be noticed.
This week, we saw two instances of what Serious Gentle is capable of - he subdued an entire fucking prison of quirk wielding criminals singlehandedly, and then stopped a floating island from crashing.
Yeah, Gentle is not to be fucked with.
Ever since La Brava appeared I knew Gentle will have his time to shine very soon, but having half a chapter dedicated to him is so great. Lady Nagant waking up and choosing violence was a great cherry on top as well on the chapter.
I also enjoyed the difference between Gentle's original appearance and his latest one. His original design was a bit goofy because he was a goofy character as a villain. As a hero, though - his design is simple and powerful - he is ironclad will, finally given the ability to be a boon to others.
I could see isekai protagonists being alright with not returning home if the world they're in is better than the one they left, or depending on their situations in the original world. Salaried office worker being worked to death or free adventurer with magic powers and recognition isn't a tough decision.
That's also assuming they even can return. More than a few isekai protagonists are in the other world because they died in the original and got reincarnated, hence the meme of Truck-kun being so widespread. Those people often are born and grow up in the isekai world and regardless of how much you remember of the original you're going to have attachments in a place where you've spent such a long time.
Konosuba did a nice bait and switch with that
Kazuma dies and Eris offers to reincarnate back on our earth with perks because he died heroically and he seriously considers it then Aqua casts revive
I wish Konosuba didn't have so much uncomfortable shit in it because a lot of the show was genuinely great.
If they are popular then it isn't shit. Simple as that. Popularity is a large enough group of people agreeing something is good enough to support.
The shit stuff you never hear about. The roughly 2000 murim and historical romance stories I've gone through that have not a redeeming quality and which quietly die a couple dozen chapters in because no one likes them.
Isekai is easy, because the foundation of the stories are easily relatable and use a language the audience instantly understands. But I'll say overall they are better stories than you'll find in the majority...of say... Shoujo romance. Which you'll never even hear about without digging real deep.
I'd argue that the sieve of time disproves your argument of popularity as a measure of quality. The graveyard of history is filled with works that were popular at their creation, and yet were so weak that some of them we only know of because of their echoes in more durable mediums.
Yet for all those there is roughly 90% you never even hear of because no one likes it enough for it to endure past the 5 chapter survival game.
The bar of quality rises over time. Some people used to think Saber Marionette J was peak anime. It's on dozens of magazine covers, had concerts and merch, spinoffs and prequels, etc. Most people don't even remember it anymore and a rewatch is... Pretty rough! That doesn't mean it wasn't good in the 90s.
Be that as it may, I'm not an idiot and at no point would I say it wasn't a good thing when it was happening. Judging things by only current standards is absolutely silly and pretty much everything pre-1901 is dogwater and should just be torn down. The build quality of ancient ruins are absolutely atrocious compared to modern architecture!
The same holds for media where most of it is pretty bad and held up by nostalgia both for the content itself and the techniques used. Vampire Hunter D for example is incredibly poorly written. The camera work and scene composition is messy and full of poor angles. The art itself is good but full of flaws in line work and off model often. From a purely technical standpoint it's just not very good by modern standards. But it's quite excellent because some people enjoy the flaws and ignore the less than stellar parts because it's old. Honestly it wouldn't even get greenlit today.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited January 2023
I was rewatching the Ranma 1/2 movies and was disappointed to learn they haven't aged well... then I rewatched the OVAs and they're still amazing.
And boy do they actually have a budget, some of the scenes' shading have money flying off the screen.
Ukyo's fashion game still on point, too.
cj iwakura on
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Episode 250.
I'm now just a little under a quarter through One Piece and these last three episodes have been a goddamn flashback about Franky.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Oh, you need to seriously consider skipping the filler mid arc. It murders the momentum.
Oh, you need to seriously consider skipping the filler mid arc. It murders the momentum.
Franky flashbacks are not filler
in fact the flashbacks in the middle of the high tension parts of the One Piece arcs serve to deepen the emotional impact of the story by giving you more context than simply "man bad"
Mysst on
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Oh, you need to seriously consider skipping the filler mid arc. It murders the momentum.
Franky flashbacks are not filler
in fact the flashbacks in the middle of the high tension parts of the One Piece arcs serve to deepen the emotional impact of the story by giving you more context than simply "man bad"
Not that, I was referring to:
When they jump off the courthouse to land on the flying sea train to enter the tower of justice. It's like 8 episodes in a row going over the straw hats original backstories again. It murders the tension from I want to live.
If they are popular then it isn't shit. Simple as that. Popularity is a large enough group of people agreeing something is good enough to support.
The shit stuff you never hear about. The roughly 2000 murim and historical romance stories I've gone through that have not a redeeming quality and which quietly die a couple dozen chapters in because no one likes them.
Isekai is easy, because the foundation of the stories are easily relatable and use a language the audience instantly understands. But I'll say overall they are better stories than you'll find in the majority...of say... Shoujo romance. Which you'll never even hear about without digging real deep.
I'd argue that the sieve of time disproves your argument of popularity as a measure of quality. The graveyard of history is filled with works that were popular at their creation, and yet were so weak that some of them we only know of because of their echoes in more durable mediums.
Yet for all those there is roughly 90% you never even hear of because no one likes it enough for it to endure past the 5 chapter survival game.
The bar of quality rises over time. Some people used to think Saber Marionette J was peak anime. It's on dozens of magazine covers, had concerts and merch, spinoffs and prequels, etc. Most people don't even remember it anymore and a rewatch is... Pretty rough! That doesn't mean it wasn't good in the 90s.
Be that as it may, I'm not an idiot and at no point would I say it wasn't a good thing when it was happening. Judging things by only current standards is absolutely silly and pretty much everything pre-1901 is dogwater and should just be torn down. The build quality of ancient ruins are absolutely atrocious compared to modern architecture!
The same holds for media where most of it is pretty bad and held up by nostalgia both for the content itself and the techniques used. Vampire Hunter D for example is incredibly poorly written. The camera work and scene composition is messy and full of poor angles. The art itself is good but full of flaws in line work and off model often. From a purely technical standpoint it's just not very good by modern standards. But it's quite excellent because some people enjoy the flaws and ignore the less than stellar parts because it's old. Honestly it wouldn't even get greenlit today.
I think you missed my point, which is that popularity is a poor definition of what will actually endure. In one of his videos, music theory YouTuber 12tone talked about how the early 90s was important with the rise of hip-hop and grunge changing the landscape of popular music - but you'd never see that looking at the awards and charts of the time, being dominated by 80s style rock and such. It's only in hindsight that we can actually see the fundamental shifts. It's not about measuring with modern standards, but that popularity is never a good measuring stick.
Also, your choice of Vampire Hunter D made me chuckle, as a well regarded sequel did get get greenlit in the 90s - a lot of the original's flaws can be attributed to the industry during the bubble and how less care was taken then because the consumer appetite was there.
Since I've been caught up on Dandadan, I decided to look at what else was available to read for free on Manga Plus and ended up starting Marriagetoxin.
It's crazier than I expected, as I realized it's basically set in a modern day equivalent to Naruto in terms of the bloodline powers and everything.
I've made it through the first two arcs so far (Phantom Thief Shark Girl and Party Tricks Megumin--also she was totally supposed to shout "Explosion!" at one point but the translator didn't translate it that way for some reason).
Sadly it's less than a year old, so I'll be all caught up soon.
So far my favorite joke was probably the "You know what? I'm going to take over that dry cleaning business" bit in the second chapter.
Also with popularity, it's a bad measure because what's popular changes for one reason or another. Anime and manga are intended as mass media, all the companies involve with them don't care if the final product is enduring. What they care about, is if they'll make a reasonable profit. This quality is also applicable to even some of the writers. Sure they want to make something good, but many use the lens of "will this do well now and help me make a living?" and not "will this be lauded as a massive success decades from now?"
I'll point out that Outlaw Star was pretty popular when it came out, but you don't see much interest in making a remake of it. There are also a few spots that just didn't age well at all. Hell, I'm even willing to bet that there are people on this very board that have likely seen it when it first released or on Toonami, enjoyed it, but have completely forgotten about it. On the other end of the spectrum of Space Westerns made at the same time, we have Trigun and Cowboy Bepop, both of which have now gotten remakes and both of which are franchises that more people tended to remember before someone decided to make a remake of them.
Again, most isekai is weakly written and intended to be a wish fulfillment cash grab at best and some of it is pretty fucking vile with shit like slave harems and slave apologia. Most companies run with them because they can make big bucks; especially, if they market to teens that might be feeling angsty about their lot in life, but haven't had enough experience to have seen a solid list of strongly written stories. Hell, it's one reason why media tends to get more patronizing as the intended audience gets youngers, the people making it know that they'll be able to get away with it because the intended audience hasn't been exposed to a large library of better written content and less likely to say "well fuck you too, shitty patronizing media!" They know they can get away with the weakly written material and still make a tidy profit.
I mean I would say part it is because Outlaw Star was aired a lot less than Cowboy Bebop and part of it is because Outlaw Star is a lot more inconsistent with quality.
Like 60-70% of Outlaw Star is great, and the rest is not so great.
Posts
That's also assuming they even can return. More than a few isekai protagonists are in the other world because they died in the original and got reincarnated, hence the meme of Truck-kun being so widespread. Those people often are born and grow up in the isekai world and regardless of how much you remember of the original you're going to have attachments in a place where you've spent such a long time.
This week, we saw two instances of what Serious Gentle is capable of - he subdued an entire fucking prison of quirk wielding criminals singlehandedly, and then stopped a floating island from crashing.
Yeah, Gentle is not to be fucked with.
That life was real and Picard would call you a monster for saying otherwise goddamit.
I have bad news about how genre naming conventions have panned out in practice then
Maybe MC is weeping into his pillow nightly about missing his mom's basement but that matters absolutely 0 to me so I'm glad it's never brought up.
A few series, like Mushoku Tensei, do have the MC reflect about having left family behind and having things they want to say. On the other hand the entire point of that story is basically just character growth so it's at least relevant.
But also if I suddenly woke up in a world with gods damn dragons and such where I could make enough money to live by picking herbs for a few hours and turn into a super human by stabbing some slimes I'd be all in. Earth kinda sucks shit.
The theory I've seen that makes the most sense to me is that they're an outgrowth of the chuunibyou fad combined with the explosion of pulp LNs/mobile games and the total crash of the VN industry, cannibalizing that whole audience. Publishers do all these "Be a writer!" contests to pick up new authors, and since it's just about first impression, they dump out the gimmick right away, or even in the title. But that's a horrible way to find/train actually good writers instead of just chasing whatever is popular at the moment (and there are nightmare stories from editors who get handed these people and told to turn them into a respectable product). It also doesn't give the space for anything else to get picked up, so everybody HAS to start doing that, because that's the only thing getting published. Tyranny of the majority, or plurality at least. Which is driving out the smaller trends too (eg edgelord magical girls, Squid Game-likes, etc) as they all get subsumed. Covid has likely also had a major effect on cementing it and making publishers even more risk averse.
Also, if you want to be pedantic, "narou-kei" is the Japanese term for the specific reincarnation cheat power portal fantasies (and what's banned by a bunch of those contests at this point, because they're tired of 99% of the entries being that). SUPPOSEDLY, the popularity has started declining in late 2021, but they're still top of the heap. I think it was women's romance stories that showed the most growth lately, but still dwarfed by this yuck.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/なろう系
Spoilers to where the webtoon is (not major spoilers, all things considered, but is a bit of a background revelation if you plan on reading it.)
Actual plot spoilers beyond it, but not super major ones.
Actual meta commentary spoilers which makes for a good example of why I like ORV so much, and why I recommend it so highly, but actual spoilers for the truth of the above, which matters but it's small potatoes in there big scheme of things
ORV is about how authors, readers, and characters all influence one another in the stories we read, and it's a lovely smaller example of that in the course of the novel.
It's really no different than all the stories after LotR using a lot of the stuff it popularized. Orcs are the western fantasy version of a status screen.
They rarely focus on the Isekai aspect unless it's central, which it is in a lot of them, because the concept is pretty codified at this point and it's more beating a dead horse than the wall of stats people here have complained about. Which exist because it's explaining the parts that aren't just standardized.
And let's be real, most people like the numbers going up. That's why every game since the early aughts decided everything needed rpg mechanics.
It's that a vast number of them are shit. Not because of "insert stats/harem/whatever" but because they are just overal shit stories.
If it's done well the genre really doesn't really matter.
If they are popular then it isn't shit. Simple as that. Popularity is a large enough group of people agreeing something is good enough to support.
The shit stuff you never hear about. The roughly 2000 murim and historical romance stories I've gone through that have not a redeeming quality and which quietly die a couple dozen chapters in because no one likes them.
Isekai is easy, because the foundation of the stories are easily relatable and use a language the audience instantly understands. But I'll say overall they are better stories than you'll find in the majority...of say... Shoujo romance. Which you'll never even hear about without digging real deep.
Konosuba did a nice bait and switch with that
Here to report that Cardcaptor Sakura still fucking rips in 2023. Holy shit, the animation is way better than I remembered or expected.
Oh, and apparently the lady who sings the ED did this and then no anime ever again until reappearing for Venus Line from Birdie Wing.
And she did Get Down too, which I haven't thought of in fucking years.
I'd argue that the sieve of time disproves your argument of popularity as a measure of quality. The graveyard of history is filled with works that were popular at their creation, and yet were so weak that some of them we only know of because of their echoes in more durable mediums.
I wish Konosuba didn't have so much uncomfortable shit in it because a lot of the show was genuinely great.
Yet for all those there is roughly 90% you never even hear of because no one likes it enough for it to endure past the 5 chapter survival game.
The bar of quality rises over time. Some people used to think Saber Marionette J was peak anime. It's on dozens of magazine covers, had concerts and merch, spinoffs and prequels, etc. Most people don't even remember it anymore and a rewatch is... Pretty rough! That doesn't mean it wasn't good in the 90s.
Be that as it may, I'm not an idiot and at no point would I say it wasn't a good thing when it was happening. Judging things by only current standards is absolutely silly and pretty much everything pre-1901 is dogwater and should just be torn down. The build quality of ancient ruins are absolutely atrocious compared to modern architecture!
The same holds for media where most of it is pretty bad and held up by nostalgia both for the content itself and the techniques used. Vampire Hunter D for example is incredibly poorly written. The camera work and scene composition is messy and full of poor angles. The art itself is good but full of flaws in line work and off model often. From a purely technical standpoint it's just not very good by modern standards. But it's quite excellent because some people enjoy the flaws and ignore the less than stellar parts because it's old. Honestly it wouldn't even get greenlit today.
And boy do they actually have a budget, some of the scenes' shading have money flying off the screen.
Ukyo's fashion game still on point, too.
I'm now just a little under a quarter through One Piece and these last three episodes have been a goddamn flashback about Franky.
Bring back get down
Franky flashbacks are not filler
in fact the flashbacks in the middle of the high tension parts of the One Piece arcs serve to deepen the emotional impact of the story by giving you more context than simply "man bad"
Not that, I was referring to:
I think you missed my point, which is that popularity is a poor definition of what will actually endure. In one of his videos, music theory YouTuber 12tone talked about how the early 90s was important with the rise of hip-hop and grunge changing the landscape of popular music - but you'd never see that looking at the awards and charts of the time, being dominated by 80s style rock and such. It's only in hindsight that we can actually see the fundamental shifts. It's not about measuring with modern standards, but that popularity is never a good measuring stick.
Also, your choice of Vampire Hunter D made me chuckle, as a well regarded sequel did get get greenlit in the 90s - a lot of the original's flaws can be attributed to the industry during the bubble and how less care was taken then because the consumer appetite was there.
Sadly, it is also 10,000 years too early
It's crazier than I expected, as I realized it's basically set in a modern day equivalent to Naruto in terms of the bloodline powers and everything.
I've made it through the first two arcs so far (Phantom Thief Shark Girl and Party Tricks Megumin--also she was totally supposed to shout "Explosion!" at one point but the translator didn't translate it that way for some reason).
Sadly it's less than a year old, so I'll be all caught up soon.
So far my favorite joke was probably the "You know what? I'm going to take over that dry cleaning business" bit in the second chapter.
I'll point out that Outlaw Star was pretty popular when it came out, but you don't see much interest in making a remake of it. There are also a few spots that just didn't age well at all. Hell, I'm even willing to bet that there are people on this very board that have likely seen it when it first released or on Toonami, enjoyed it, but have completely forgotten about it. On the other end of the spectrum of Space Westerns made at the same time, we have Trigun and Cowboy Bepop, both of which have now gotten remakes and both of which are franchises that more people tended to remember before someone decided to make a remake of them.
Again, most isekai is weakly written and intended to be a wish fulfillment cash grab at best and some of it is pretty fucking vile with shit like slave harems and slave apologia. Most companies run with them because they can make big bucks; especially, if they market to teens that might be feeling angsty about their lot in life, but haven't had enough experience to have seen a solid list of strongly written stories. Hell, it's one reason why media tends to get more patronizing as the intended audience gets youngers, the people making it know that they'll be able to get away with it because the intended audience hasn't been exposed to a large library of better written content and less likely to say "well fuck you too, shitty patronizing media!" They know they can get away with the weakly written material and still make a tidy profit.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
So my blind spot was probably 2002 to 2020?
I say all of this because it was wild to me (and still is) that Outlaw Star hasn't had the same cultural penetration as something like Cowboy Bebop.
Because everyone I knew growing up who watched anime absolutely loved Outlaw Star.
Like 60-70% of Outlaw Star is great, and the rest is not so great.
I've never heard of the former
I'm aware of Lost Universe but never seen it.
What are your thoughts/feelings on magic spells being shot from a gun?