I know we use isekai for every fish out of water/stranger in a strange land story but like...really we should only use it for the "ten thousandth show where a potato goes to generic JRPG fantasy europe and is overpowered and teaches them how to make mayo or some shit."
When they go to fantasy europe and teach them how to make western food and they're all like "OH MY GOD ALL WE ATE WAS DIRT THANK YOUFOR TEACHING ME HOW TO MAKE A FUCKIN CROISSANT."
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+10
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Isekai is a kinda genius idea really. Take a person from our world, put it in a strange one. The reader doesn't have to struggle with figuring out how to relate to the characters in the other world because the main character does it for them. Done well it really works. Done badly, it's as bad as anything else done badly.
That's actually a bad thing. Isekai's use it as a lazy way for exposition instead of making it natural, and the "Oh it's like a video game!" is so fuckin lazy
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Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Considering Escaflowne came out over twenty years ago, I'm surprised there aren't other isekai that explore what happens if a historical figure got isekai'd before you, and you having to deal with the shit they started over there.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Isekai is a kinda genius idea really. Take a person from our world, put it in a strange one. The reader doesn't have to struggle with figuring out how to relate to the characters in the other world because the main character does it for them. Done well it really works. Done badly, it's as bad as anything else done badly.
That's actually a bad thing. Isekai's use it as a lazy way for exposition instead of making it natural, and the "Oh it's like a video game!" is so fuckin lazy
Depends on the story and how quickly you want to get to the good stuff. Which if its a manga you want to already be there, with the readers on board, and knowing whats happening.
You say lazy, I say its just a form of in media res.
Not bad, just preferences.
My favourite science fiction story starts with about ten pages of explicit "this is not how it should be done" from the author exposition, to set up everything before it all gets fucking burnt to the ground over the course of the plot and it is glorious. He got it out of the way so you could get to the good stuff. It's very much of the old man around the campfire style, where the old man tells you what the story setup is and then he launches into the story.
Of course not all of them are like that. Yes a lot of them are lazy cash grabs. But not all of them. The idea is sound and is not even new, its just that most are doing it badly so that's all people see.
When they go to fantasy europe and teach them how to make western food and they're all like "OH MY GOD ALL WE ATE WAS DIRT THANK YOUFOR TEACHING ME HOW TO MAKE A FUCKIN CROISSANT."
AS A BAKING ENTHUSIAST, poor example. Croissants are a relatively recent invention and complicated as shit to make. You literally have to laminate bread with butter. No sane person would think to or want to do that on their own. They are a ridiculous pastry. Even croquembouches (towers of cream puffs held together with sugar) are less complicated to make and deal with. And were invented like a solid half century earlier than croissants.
Considering Escaflowne came out over twenty years ago, I'm surprised there aren't other isekai that explore what happens if a historical figure got isekai'd before you, and you having to deal with the shit they started over there.
Besides Fullmetal Alchemist? And Drifters.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Considering Escaflowne came out over twenty years ago, I'm surprised there aren't other isekai that explore what happens if a historical figure got isekai'd before you, and you having to deal with the shit they started over there.
Besides Fullmetal Alchemist? And Drifters.
I don’t think you watch the same FMA as me.
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Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
The world of Drifters is a typical high fantasy setting, that gets completely dunked on when some of the most dangerous humans in history start showing up to fight a magical proxy war.
"Oh dragons and monsters huh? Cute. Let's introduce to y'all some concepts of total war and really get cracking shall we?"
Drifters also has probably some of the more honest reactions to suddenly appearing in another world. NSFW audio.
Iruma-kun is very good. I would definitely put his character as cinnamon roll, not blank slate audience insert.
I'd say it barely qualifies as Isekai. It has none of the dragon quest trappings or similar hallmarks of a power fantasy.
The world is interesting and unique, as are the characters.
If anything it's about found family, rather than harem nonsense.
Also Iruma rarely solves a problem with magic super powers. He is just such a genuinely nice person that he wins over all but the most stubbron people he encounters and has only ever used big dawg magic to stop people from dying.
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+1
Kevin CristI make the devil hit his kneesand say the 'our father'Registered Userregular
Considering Escaflowne came out over twenty years ago, I'm surprised there aren't other isekai that explore what happens if a historical figure got isekai'd before you, and you having to deal with the shit they started over there.
Not quite the same thing, but you reminded me of Trusty Bell/Eternal Sonata. Which had Fredrick Chopin get isekai'd
Considering Escaflowne came out over twenty years ago, I'm surprised there aren't other isekai that explore what happens if a historical figure got isekai'd before you, and you having to deal with the shit they started over there.
Doesn't Overlord do this?
Well Mmo players not Historical figures
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited April 24
Skimming the novel section of RightStuf just gives me a headache. They probably had to extend the coding for their line breaks, good lord.
Considering Escaflowne came out over twenty years ago, I'm surprised there aren't other isekai that explore what happens if a historical figure got isekai'd before you, and you having to deal with the shit they started over there.
Doesn't Overlord do this?
It pretends like it's going to and then it never comes up again as the plot goes up its own ass
And yeah rando mmo players, not real life historical figures
Just finished Mob Pyscho 100 II (yeah, it took me a bit to get around to it):
As always, the more simplistic art style allows for more creative and impressive animation. I wish more anime would follow its lead, honestly.
The two episodes featuring Reigen trying to go on without Mob and the episode focusing on Mob’s trying to place high in a race without using his powers show how much range and heart this show has.
The final episodes definitely went to the action side of the spectrum, but still had a lot of heart with Mob being able to win over one former villain by relating to him and being willing to sacrifice himself so that another villain he thought he couldn’t save wouldn’t die alone. The idea of being controlled by one’s own powers is a very interesting, more sympathetic take on the classic “power corrupts” adage. The final villain of the season was alienated from the rest of the world by the “realization” that his power made him the most “free” person in the world, which Mob argued against by saying that people need bonds with one another to grow (though even he couldn’t help but momentarily be overtaken by the thrill of fighting someone on his level, which he soon felt ashamed of).
I’m honestly a little bit envious of how many kind and supportive people Mob has in his life who aren’t much like him, like the very supportive and kind members of the Body Improvement Club, though even he attributes his situation to luck and feels empathy for his opponents who weren’t as lucky as he was. This was alluded to earlier in the season with the spirit Mogami temporarily trapping Mob in a mindscape where he had none of his friends and was surrounded by cruel people before finally losing control, using his powers against them.
A recent YouTube video I watched did ask a good question:
How many contemporary isekai actually have proper endings? Like, I honestly can't think of any that fully resolve even if the anime itself only got one season
A recent YouTube video I watched did ask a good question:
How many contemporary isekai actually have proper endings? Like, I honestly can't think of any that fully resolve even if the anime itself only got one season
None- they’re all overlong commercials to sell 40 volume light novels.
Surprisingly few light novels or manga actually have endings at all, feels like the majority are written to trundle on indefinitely until the author starts to run out of ideas and it gets unpopular and dropped, maybe with a perfunctory concluding chapter if lucky.
Surprisingly few light novels or manga actually have endings at all, feels like the majority are written to trundle on indefinitely until the author starts to run out of ideas and it gets unpopular and dropped, maybe with a perfunctory concluding chapter if lucky.
Surprisingly few light novels or manga actually have endings at all, feels like the majority are written to trundle on indefinitely until the author starts to run out of ideas and it gets unpopular and dropped, maybe with a perfunctory concluding chapter if lucky.
Or the author dies.
See: Zero no Tsukaima.
or berserk
I didn't know the zero author had passed away, actually.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Surprisingly few light novels or manga actually have endings at all, feels like the majority are written to trundle on indefinitely until the author starts to run out of ideas and it gets unpopular and dropped, maybe with a perfunctory concluding chapter if lucky.
Or the author dies.
See: Zero no Tsukaima.
I thought that got finished with the author's notes.
It’s part of why I tend to cut most of the original anime I watch a little slack - since they’re not pulling from an established property and know they’re getting one season they tend to at least finish even if the endings don’t always work.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
edited April 24
The lack of any concrete endings definitely feels like a glaring weakness of the current trend of adapting light novels
Incidentally some of my favorite non-isekai LN series do either have concrete endings (and an anime adaptation that captured those endings) or at least thoroughly resolved arcs at the point of their hiatus
Katanagatari and Durarara!! especially come to mind
No, manga is very similar in that. They're both often serial stories meant to be ongoing as long as their popularity lasts, made with no complete story in mind.
And of course there are exceptions in both mediums, but they are exceptions.
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+1
LasbrookIt takes a lot to make a stewWhen it comes to me and youRegistered Userregular
edited April 24
Watching the G Reco movies before gundaminfo takes them down and I get why this would be a handy function to have for like long deployments or whatever but I am NOT a fan of having the cockpit double as a toilet. Ain’t no way that entire thing isn’t just filthy.
I don't think it's necessarily even a bad thing. Lord knows no horror movie literally ever ends with "And the serial axe murderer was defeated forever and that's the end of that." No, it's always... "OR WAS IT!? DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUH!" But Japanese media tends a lot more towards bloat and not wanting to actually finish arcs. Light novels especially more than manga tend to introduce these grandiose quests or big bads but not actually want to ever kill them off or the like in the way even Dragonball, Bleach, or whatnot might, and then they have to be incorporated into every story, making the bloat problem worse and worse as they go on. Once a character is introduced, the only way they'll be shelved is if they're wildly unpopular. But you gotta maintain the status quo too, so nobody can really develop, grow, or change either or you might ruin what got you your popularity.
I'm rambling now though. I do think it's a major weakness of Japanese approach to writing that they're not willing to reinterpret or reinvent stories on existing material for shorter, compact, and punchy one-off stories in the way Western media is more geared towards. I assume it's the undue reverence given to the source, but then I remember that there's an official One Piece spinoff about a version of Luffy with a rubber dick he uses to whip people with, so... no. Probably not.
I think those are largely just problems with long-term serial storytelling, rather than anything unique to the "Japanese approach"
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+21
J-bobJ-bob in gamesDeath MountainRegistered Userregular
edited April 24
I'm sure The Winds of Winter will get an announcement any day now.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
edited April 24
There's generally three ways for a Jump series to go
It's unpopular and gets axed
It goes for a long time until fatigue sets in and then they finish it out
It has a set story structure and only goes long enough to tell it's story (Exceedingly rare but it does happen, like with Demon Slayer)
With light novels, I feel like what ends up happening more often than not is that anime adaptations never even bother to try and adapt it until the end
Often the manga adaptations never even bother to keep going for the whole duration
I dunno if it's just easier to keep a light novel going or something
There's generally three ways for a Jump series to go
It's unpopular and gets axed
It goes for a long time until fatigue sets in and then they finish it out
It has a set story structure and only goes long enough to tell it's story (Exceedingly rare but it does happen, like with Demon Slayer)
With light novels, I feel like what ends up happening more often than not is that anime adaptations never even bother to try and adapt it until the end
Often the manga adaptations never even bother to keep going for the whole duration
I dunno if it's just easier to keep a light novel going or something
releasing novels (especially online) is just a bigger space than individual weekly/monthly print magazines or the animation industry, in terms of how many different series are going at once.
if a floundering novel series is struggling along but still generally profitable? There's not much downside to letting it keep going, it's probably not interfering with the publisher's capacity as a whole. If a series in jump is just doing okay? That series could be replaced by a younger, hungrier, more merchandise-moving series next week. It's a liability to keep letting it take up valuable pages.
Posts
I'd say it barely qualifies as Isekai. It has none of the dragon quest trappings or similar hallmarks of a power fantasy.
The world is interesting and unique, as are the characters.
If anything it's about found family, rather than harem nonsense.
When they go to fantasy europe and teach them how to make western food and they're all like "OH MY GOD ALL WE ATE WAS DIRT THANK YOUFOR TEACHING ME HOW TO MAKE A FUCKIN CROISSANT."
That's actually a bad thing. Isekai's use it as a lazy way for exposition instead of making it natural, and the "Oh it's like a video game!" is so fuckin lazy
Depends on the story and how quickly you want to get to the good stuff. Which if its a manga you want to already be there, with the readers on board, and knowing whats happening.
You say lazy, I say its just a form of in media res.
Not bad, just preferences.
My favourite science fiction story starts with about ten pages of explicit "this is not how it should be done" from the author exposition, to set up everything before it all gets fucking burnt to the ground over the course of the plot and it is glorious. He got it out of the way so you could get to the good stuff. It's very much of the old man around the campfire style, where the old man tells you what the story setup is and then he launches into the story.
Of course not all of them are like that. Yes a lot of them are lazy cash grabs. But not all of them. The idea is sound and is not even new, its just that most are doing it badly so that's all people see.
AS A BAKING ENTHUSIAST, poor example. Croissants are a relatively recent invention and complicated as shit to make. You literally have to laminate bread with butter. No sane person would think to or want to do that on their own. They are a ridiculous pastry. Even croquembouches (towers of cream puffs held together with sugar) are less complicated to make and deal with. And were invented like a solid half century earlier than croissants.
"OH MY GOD THANKYOU ALL WE ATE WAS DIRT" would have worked just as well I think.
Besides Fullmetal Alchemist? And Drifters.
I don’t think you watch the same FMA as me.
"Oh dragons and monsters huh? Cute. Let's introduce to y'all some concepts of total war and really get cracking shall we?"
Drifters also has probably some of the more honest reactions to suddenly appearing in another world. NSFW audio.
Also Iruma rarely solves a problem with magic super powers. He is just such a genuinely nice person that he wins over all but the most stubbron people he encounters and has only ever used big dawg magic to stop people from dying.
Not quite the same thing, but you reminded me of Trusty Bell/Eternal Sonata. Which had Fredrick Chopin get isekai'd
Steam: YOU FACE JARAXXUS| Twitch.tv: CainLoveless
Well Mmo players not Historical figures
That said, this looks gorgeous, and I had no idea it got rereleased:
https://www.rightstufanime.com/El-Hazard-The-Magnificent-World-OVA-12-Collection-Blu-ray
It pretends like it's going to and then it never comes up again as the plot goes up its own ass
And yeah rando mmo players, not real life historical figures
The two episodes featuring Reigen trying to go on without Mob and the episode focusing on Mob’s trying to place high in a race without using his powers show how much range and heart this show has.
The final episodes definitely went to the action side of the spectrum, but still had a lot of heart with Mob being able to win over one former villain by relating to him and being willing to sacrifice himself so that another villain he thought he couldn’t save wouldn’t die alone. The idea of being controlled by one’s own powers is a very interesting, more sympathetic take on the classic “power corrupts” adage. The final villain of the season was alienated from the rest of the world by the “realization” that his power made him the most “free” person in the world, which Mob argued against by saying that people need bonds with one another to grow (though even he couldn’t help but momentarily be overtaken by the thrill of fighting someone on his level, which he soon felt ashamed of).
I’m honestly a little bit envious of how many kind and supportive people Mob has in his life who aren’t much like him, like the very supportive and kind members of the Body Improvement Club, though even he attributes his situation to luck and feels empathy for his opponents who weren’t as lucky as he was. This was alluded to earlier in the season with the spirit Mogami temporarily trapping Mob in a mindscape where he had none of his friends and was surrounded by cruel people before finally losing control, using his powers against them.
How many contemporary isekai actually have proper endings? Like, I honestly can't think of any that fully resolve even if the anime itself only got one season
None- they’re all overlong commercials to sell 40 volume light novels.
Or the author dies.
See: Zero no Tsukaima.
or berserk
I didn't know the zero author had passed away, actually.
I thought that got finished with the author's notes.
Katanagatari and Durarara!! especially come to mind
I mean, is it any different for most manga? Particularly of the Jump variety?
And of course there are exceptions in both mediums, but they are exceptions.
Steam
I'm rambling now though. I do think it's a major weakness of Japanese approach to writing that they're not willing to reinterpret or reinvent stories on existing material for shorter, compact, and punchy one-off stories in the way Western media is more geared towards. I assume it's the undue reverence given to the source, but then I remember that there's an official One Piece spinoff about a version of Luffy with a rubber dick he uses to whip people with, so... no. Probably not.
It's unpopular and gets axed
It goes for a long time until fatigue sets in and then they finish it out
It has a set story structure and only goes long enough to tell it's story (Exceedingly rare but it does happen, like with Demon Slayer)
With light novels, I feel like what ends up happening more often than not is that anime adaptations never even bother to try and adapt it until the end
Often the manga adaptations never even bother to keep going for the whole duration
I dunno if it's just easier to keep a light novel going or something
if a floundering novel series is struggling along but still generally profitable? There's not much downside to letting it keep going, it's probably not interfering with the publisher's capacity as a whole. If a series in jump is just doing okay? That series could be replaced by a younger, hungrier, more merchandise-moving series next week. It's a liability to keep letting it take up valuable pages.