Why has the (MMO)RPG Isekai genre become so popular?

ResKori said:

Can call it pseudo isekai. <hello world>

ResKori said:

Can call it pseudo isekai. <hello world>

fancyjasper said:


Whether or not SAO is an isekai is just a semantic debate. Personally, i'd class it as one since the characters are trapped in another world. In their case it's a gaming world they're trapped in.

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The MMORPG Isekai genre is popular because the teenagers need their escapism/wish fulfilment.

Grey-Zone said:

Those who read various Web Novels like me are actually used to VRMMORPG novels. And I am just stating a fact here, but compared to Weed from LMS, Kirito is trash, relatively speaking. Both Weed and Kirito are the so-called "OP MCs" but Kirito is just OP because "he is naturally good at it", while Weed is a putting his blood and sweat into it to improve himself.

Well I am probably doing an unfair comparison since I compare Anime!Kirito with Novel!Weed, since I am not reading the SAO novels.



It's not a semantics debate. One has AI-controlled fake people called "NPCs" while the other has ACTUAL people living in the world, it's an immense difference. If the events of Overlord were changed to a setting where everything is still inside an actual game, then we would never had any controversy of the protagonist killing "innocent people", because... well, they are "mere NPCs" with faked sentience in that scenario. It's completely different.

Individual, isolated sentient AIs like Kirito's and Asuna's "adopted daughter" are probably an exception to the rule though.

Grey-Zone said:
The only three "MMORPG isekai" I can recall are Overlord, Log Horizon and Isekai Maou, where someone got transfered into another world based on their MMO game characters. Two of them aren't even VR. And one of them has aired quite a while ago.

And for the Xth time, SAO IS NOT ISEKAI. PERIOD.

Once you read a little bit of the isekai WN/LN/manga called "The New Gate", you will never be able to call SAO an isekai again. Reading a few Chinese and Korean VRMMORPG novels, also helps in understanding that it's non-sense to call SAO an isekai.

fancyjasper said:


It is semantic though. Everyone seems to have their own idea of what the definition of isekai is. Take it literally, meaning "different world". Whether it's a game world or not, it's a different world, so it counts as one to me. Then some people define isekai from the tropes they've seen of an otaku guy being literally transported to another world like in re:zero or that new slime anime. Some people think that's what it's about.

Overlord would still count as one too, according to Wikipedia's definition of isekai anyway~ "It may also be one where a formerly virtual world turns into a real one, such as in Log Horizon and Overlord."

Fenrinn said:



For some current examples we have: Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria, Shichisei no Subaru, Overlord, Isekai Maou, Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken, Goblin Slayer

For some in the past: Log Horizon, No Game no life, Konosuba, Accel world

I never made the claim that SAO was an Isekai in my initial statement, nor did I imply it specifically.

BurningSpirit said:
MMORPG isekai are actually few and far between. Most of them are merely transported or reincarnated into MMO-like world.

Not that any of these matter, isekai anime are essentially fantasy anime. There's really not much of a difference. Functionally it's the same, they still need to build a world and develop the characters the same way. The only difference in the background story of the main character tends to be dealt with pretty lazily.

Kerylon said:
Wow it's as if this question hasn't been asked already

Swagernator said:

It's a weekly cycle of MAL forums what do you expect ? Its like ecchi threads.

Grey-Zone said:

A game, not a different world. They are literally still "playing a game" just it has no longer the option to log out.
You need to set a clear border between the genres, otherwise you could stretch it so far that even the Chinese series "The King's Avatar" (Quan Zhi Gao Shou) could be considered an isekai, although it's technically just the protagonist literally playing the game on a PC with the events in the game shown to us, the audience, in a more "presentable" way.

And slime doesn't have an Otaku protagonist, btw. Actually many don't have one. Satou from Death March was just a normal video game developer, Youjo Senki's protagonist was a selfish middle-management Salaryman, Overlord had an overworked Salaryman (though loooking at Pandora's Actor, Ainz might have been Otaku-ish at some point) and Slime's protagonist was also a normal senior Salaryman.

fancyjasper said:



A game is a virtual world. A "different world" if you will. It's a bit different than just sitting and playing a game with a controller. Their entire mental state is there. An isekai can be "where a formerly virtual world turns into a real one" I think you're just missing the point i was making as well. Telling me about all these protagonists is irrelevant to my generalization to explain how some people define isekai by it's trends, rather than by the definition of the word. We're already arguing over it, so doesn't that prove my point that people have their own ideas of the definition?

Anyways i have nothing else to say, so i'll stop derailing this thread now ( ･ω･)ﾉ

hazecloud said:


You're not derailing anything. You're properly now and then, here and there with your statements.

Grey-Zone said:
The only three "MMORPG isekai" I can recall are Overlord, Log Horizon and Isekai Maou, where someone got transfered into another world based on their MMO game characters. Two of them aren't even VR. And one of them has aired quite a while ago.

And for the Xth time, SAO IS NOT ISEKAI. PERIOD.

Once you read a little bit of the isekai WN/LN/manga called "The New Gate", you will never be able to call SAO an isekai again. Reading a few Chinese and Korean VRMMORPG novels, also helps in understanding that it's non-sense to call SAO an isekai.

cipheron said:
It's not necessarily MMO players specifically, just gamers / RPGers in general. The MMO concept is just convenient if you want to whisk more than one character from the real world. A series like Konosuba where only one character is whisked away doesn't necessarily need to follow any specific MMO conventions, just RPG-world conventions.

Really, all that happened was someone worked out how to merge gamer culture into a fantasy action series in a particular way, and then everyone else realized they could write that too, so the floodgates opened. SAO was just the template, and people realized they could overtly use gaming ideas for their setting as a shorthand and not have to really come up with a unique setting for their series.

Fenrinn said:
For some current examples we have: Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria, Shichisei no Subaru, Overlord, Isekai Maou, Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken, Goblin Slayer

For some in the past: Log Horizon, No Game no life, Konosuba, Accel world

I never made the claim that SAO was an Isekai in my initial statement, nor did I imply it specifically.

hazecloud said:
@Eanki If not mistaken, you can basically play a game with anyone and there's something to gain or lose in a game. Basically everyone is a player in that world instead of solely regarded as npc. NGNL definitely has that mmo setting.

hazecloud said:
@Eanki If not mistaken, you can basically play a game with anyone and there's something to gain or lose in a game. Basically everyone is a player in that world instead of solely regarded as npc. NGNL definitely has that mmo setting.

Lisbon said:

I mean, then it can be applied to a lot of things - then we'd have to consider the first arc of Kaiji would pretty much be considered an MMO setting because there's a ton of people on that boat and everybody is playing somewhat, forming teams and enemies and such, and everybody has something they're trying to win and you can play it with basically anybody except the people staffing the boat, which could be considered GMs in a sense. That kind of feels like not much more than a technicality and a vague one at that, so I'm kind of iffy on the assertion, honestly.

I kind of feel like the only reason NGNL is getting asserted as an MMO type setting is because the setting is somewhat fantastical, which again, is kind of vague but that's the setting most commonly associated with MMOs (albeit not inherent to them mind you), on top of being an ecchi with an OP protag and the association of tandems like that with MMORPG style anime to begin with. Because I do kind of feel when it's really being whittled down, these assertions feel...kind of rooted in being purely in a technical sense with no other variables being taken into consideration, and in technicalities that aren't even necessarily inherently going to turn a setting into an MMO-type one at that.

hazecloud said:


I think it has something to do with the scene where he talks to god. I think of him as a server owner, or game administrator. Of course it's more exciting if there's a life or death situation to get the otherworldly experience more exciting. More explanations are available in NGNL movie if not mistaken but my memory is quite vague and jumbled up with mondaiji-tachi anime setting.

hazecloud said:
@Lisbon the only reason why it won't be counted as that might be because it's not a fantasy genre or that other world that he's in is just a saying of how he lives his life differently as opposed to a normal productive citizen if there was a narrative saying that.

Fenrinn said:



For some current examples we have: Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria, Shichisei no Subaru, Overlord, Isekai Maou, Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken, Goblin Slayer

For some in the past: Log Horizon, No Game no life, Konosuba, Accel world

I never made the claim that SAO was an Isekai in my initial statement, nor did I imply it specifically.

Lisbon said:

Also anybody saying Goblin Slayer is an isekai should probably look up what an isekai actually is, because that it most definitely is not. Like, there is no room for interpretation or debate, that is just an objectively incorrect claim.

Are we really reaching the point where we're going to consider non-isekai whatsoever series to be isekai just because they have RPG style elements to their fantasy setting? Is that all it takes for you people to get up an arms about the perceived oversaturation of isekai anime? Series that aren't even isekai to begin with?

Jesus, just wrap my balls around a tree trunk and pin them there with a staple gun. That'd probably give me more joy than the sort of reaching complaints about oversaturation of a certain type of anime, that can't even stay consistent about what's oversaturating the medium for a few fucking months. Never forget magical school harems and not so long ago, when those were basically the thing isekai is right now, and now nobody even fucking talks about them. Let alone that most of these types of series - isekai or magic school harems and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case with whatever had come before those two - have only ever constituted a very, very small percentage of the anime releases in a given timespan to the point where their relative prominence isn't even all that noteworthy, but hard numbers don't seem to work with people and they try to do some self-convincing workaround to continue fueling the narrative, as I've learned in the past, so fuck it all I guess >_>

Just let me drop that same 'ol "is all about the money hurr durr" response that everybody defaults to without a second thought, because I'm just not even wanting to try anymore at this point. Stupid, edgy teenage ascriptions of selfish creative intent because everybody follows Machevellian bullshit because you have tunnel vision or something.