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”
Edit: also characters whose only connection to their old life is a token scene in the first episode/issue where it shoes them get isakai’d and it’s never a bearing on the story again. It’s just shoehorned into a bad story because isekai is popular.
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.
Minor spoilerThe whole class gets reincarnated into other roles and there is tension between those who adapted to their new roles and society and those that don’t. I really enjoyed their interactions because it’s a constant plot point and their past lives drive a lot of their choices.
This is why I liked the first part of Arifureta, dude got the shit beat out of him going through the first dungeon. Now the MC is just overpowered AF outside of a handful of fights.
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.
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.
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
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
wait define “competence porn”; that’s a new one for me, and it feels faintly derogatory against people who find ‘humorous incompetence’ to be a black hole that sucks the amusement out of a setting.
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.
You're in a new world. There's magic and sword play and monsters to fight. You get some skills and abilities that give you a decent chance to survive. I'm perfectly fine with that setup.
But what I want once you have been given that setup is an interesting world to explore.
Interesting characters to meet.
Actual challenges and hardships that have to be overcome by the main character.
Real relationships with people that have their own goals in life.
And character growth that happens organically given the constraints of the system.
We have far too many Mary Sue protagonists who never failed anything and never do anything wrong and who have so much power and are just so kind and giving in every single way and everybody loves them and nobody could beat them even if they didn't love them.
We have far too many villains whose entire character Arc is "hurr durr look at me I'm a villain".
And for some reason when those villains get converted into sidekicks they always become comical parodies of their former selves.
And finally, even in a harem situation, the main character should neither be asexual or a man whore. Let him have some feelings about the person he's with and not automatically fall into some unspoken love scenario with the women around him.
If you're going to have romance at all in your isekai anime, let the guy actually have some preferences and pick one person and stick with them.
Like I get it you've got to give people a taste of the familiar but the taste of the familiar is only to lure us in. Once we are in, you need to give us something new and strange and stressful and worrisome and make us doubt the outcome of the next series of events that are going to happen.
I agree with most of your comment, but first off, polyamoury is a valid relationship structure. Now, I agree that isekai harems are boring and unhealthy, but you don’t need monoamoury to fix the problems with them. You could have a compelling and healthy polyamorous relationship with basically the same amount of writing effort as a compelling and healthy mono relationship.
Second, I fucking love asexual protagonists and Dr Stone fits all the bills in your comment except for the fact that Senku’s only love is science. Dr Stone is also cool because while a couple of characters get ideas about pursuing a relationship with Senku, they are all immediately disabused of these notions when Senku does something callous and unromantic. For example Senku wins the village’s tournament to marry the priestess, and the priestess thinks she’s going to have to get used to being Senku’s wife, and then he uses antibiotics to cure her pneumonia and unceremoniously asks for a divorce. The anime is 100% aware of harem tropes and entirely subverts them. Nobody gets led on, there are no awkward romantic moments. It’s not perfect, but it’s really good.
I have nothing against the harem situation, it's fantasy, and since magical fantasy women never have issues other than the "I'm not good enough for MC" arc and are literally just there to provide some function in the main character's life then it's fine.
I just would like people to have opinions about what they want.
Re zero did a pretty good job of that. Obviously the main character is head over heels for the main female protagonist, but he also stated that if he were to run away from everything, which is valid because he's only advancing the plot by dying horrifically over and over again that he would gladly take rem with him and be perfectly content with her.
The last memories I still liked are Psychopass, Tokyo Goul (till season 2) and Elfen Lied.
Maybe there are more anime that I remember as good but I miss the gore and sadness of anime which those 3 share.
I did watch some isekais and I hated all except one where a lil boy learned magic without splling it, meanwhile his dad wanted him to learn sword fights.
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.
Also wrong, you are more valuable than you are giving yourself credit for! You have lots of people you can choose to mentor by having a conversation with them or at least in front of them. Thats incredibly relevant to understanding your opinion that HP is Isekai.
I never expected to see T.A. Barron uplifted here and that’s practically made my morning. The entire series of the Lost Years of Merlin deserved so much more adulation than it got.
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
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.
I watched the one isekai with the vending machine. I have keep watching if it goes anywhere. Its 6/10, its interesting but not impactful in its storyline. Information was spitting out similar to doctor stone on the type of machines that exist in the world.
A good one that has some good storytelling was Grimgar, Aahes & Illusion. Talk about more realistic approach and pace for just 12 episodes.
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”
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.
Oh yeah, i love greed island. It being an arc certainly keeps the novelty of the other world’s mechanics from getting old.
To make it work as a full series you gotta have a lot more substance though, because at some point that novelty will inevitably run out. And now instead of “exciting new world where everything is different”, it’s just a regular world we’re already used to. At that point you gotta have an actual compelling story to keep it going.
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