| I agree, someone should make Witcher or Lord of the Rings style anime , I consider Isekai as the most wasted potential in anime history, every world in Isekai is the same and usually its based on MMO games ( but these poor one ). |
| To be somewhat fair, it's kind of hard to do a completely original fantasy setting when pretty much everything has already been done. Story telling has been around literally forever, so it's much easier to just use what's already been established. |
| Just go read a Fantasy Novel. If you want deep fantasy Anime isn't the place to look tbh. Yeah there are some gems like Berserk, Slayers, etc but most fantasy of the generic Isekai Type just suck. |
| Another anime fantasy with pretty good world building is Slayers. |
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| "creativity isn't as common as generic shit" yeah makes sense its not gonna be as common when you can cash on a generic trend, but it happens in every other media as well and anime is not different And we get interesting worlds every other season anyway in winter we had promised neverland which is about [redacted] In spring we got Carole and Tuesday, where you have a society that formed on a terraformed mars and how the colony living there works In fall we had beastars, this super unique world about anthropomorphic animals and how their society works, the only other place I've ever seen this is is zootopia where it was different enough anyway so I don't mind and now we got Somali and the forest spirit and eizouken and you could even argue fire force has a unique world and setting Good world building is far from dead, and fantasy isn't only fairy tale or medieval stuff, its a very vague term (Also you could very much make an isekai in a unique world) |
yotiFeb 21, 2020 12:35 PM
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| Why single out anime tho? Unique fantasy settings that don't just re-use established tropes and fantasy races are a rarity in every medium. The reason is probably that it's hard to create an entire world from scratch without taking inspiration from pre-existing fantasy works. And also because a lot of fantasy doesn't try to create a completely original world - a lot of fantasy stories are more focused on characters, politics, drama and all that good stuff, just in a fantasy setting rather than a realistic one. Originality in terms of worldbuilding is not necessary to write a immersive and enjoyable fantasy story. It's just one facet of fantasy to create intricate and completely original worlds. I mean I love those kind of fantasy anime, but I find it pretty 'special snowflaky' to refuse to acknowledge any fantasy anime that emphasizes different aspects as even belonging to the genre. Luckily genres don't have to adhere to such narrow and borderline elitist definitions and provide us with a much larger range of shows and subgenres than OP seems to want them to. So yeah, fantasy can be a generic setting with shows focusing on other aspects and that's totally fine - there's a lot of shows like that that I still love. But with the narrow definition of having to be original and unique in terms of its world, yes, there are not a whole lot of shows who fit that definition. Or books. Or movies. The ones OP listed are more or less the first ones that come to my mind as well when I think of that specific subtype of fantasy. Especially Kemono no Souja Erin, Juuni Kokuki and Made in Abyss are alltime favorites of mine for that reason. But beyond that you have to start to compromise or go for weird, obscure stuff. Imo OP is already compromising when he is including stuff like Harry Potter (some edits to our world, definitely not completely original), Magi (relatively generic usage of middle eastern mythology and setting) or AoT (not sure I even see this as fantasy, as far as I can tell technology explains everything and the setting is just a random world with random humans, nothing really unique about it) on the list. Those are worlds apart from the shows I mentioned in terms of originality of the setting/world imo. And something like Mushishi is basically just set in medieval japan, it has almost zero worldbuilding as most episodes are self-contained and gains it's fantastic atmosphere and uniqueness not so much from the world it is set in than from one element (the mushi) that is just added to our existing world. Not really a masterpiece of worldbuilding as far as I'm concerned. The strengths of the show lie elsewhere. So yeah, based on what OP said I would disqualify half the shows they mentioned as examples for really fitting the bill. That's not to say they aren't great shows, but OP describes what he means one way and then uses examples that don't really fit the bill that well either. Some of my ideas of 'compromising' and appreciating the uniqueness of fantasy shows even though they don't invent an entire world from scratch or are kinda genre hybrids would include Shinsekai Yori (sci-fi/fantasy hybrid) or Uchouten Kazoku (set in Kyoto, but the world of the series feels very creative and unique) or Kyousougiga as well as something like El Hazard (a relatively generic old school isekai in terms of characters and plot but with a really beautiful fantasy world that's just gorgeous in 1080p). And some of the weird, obscure stuff with great fantasy worlds would include A Piece of Phantasmagoria or Iblard Jikan. Alternatively we can just admit that fantasy shows can belong to the genre and even be great for other reasons than purely how original and creative the worldbuilding is and call it a day :>. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
Pullman said: Unique fantasy settings that don't just re-use established tropes and fantasy races are a rarity in every medium. Frankly, it's not even as rare as people tend to believe. There's plenty of very imaginative and unique fantasy settings out there across every medium, and it would be hard to run out of it anytime soon. It's just that the opposite is more abundant and easier to attract attention since it's so ingrained into popular culture. People forget to go deeper into obscure stuff as you say and then complain about how derivative the genre is because they rarely venture outside the mainstream stuff. OP's post itself more or less shows that. |
Bunille said: I'll list a few that I like, then: ACCA; Houseki no Kuni; Made in Abyss; Now and Then, Here and There Most of my favourites have worldbuilding; did you even look at my profile? Then why say "basically none" when you know it isn't true? |
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Chiibi said: I already said: the amount of cliche isekai there is compared to good ones make them feel undernoticed, and it therefore feels like they barely exist.Bunille said: I'll list a few that I like, then: ACCA; Houseki no Kuni; Made in Abyss; Now and Then, Here and There Most of my favourites have worldbuilding; did you even look at my profile? Then why say "basically none" when you know it isn't true? |
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