| I don’t get this post. I could name numerous anime with fantastic world building. Also using examples like konosuba is kind of dumb. A comedy anime doesn’t need world building. And as for most of your other examples, the world building is never the main focus. The setting and plot is layer out at the beginning, but they focus more on action and important events, not developing the world in which is revolves around. |
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| Hey, One Piece has fantastic worldbuilding. I will agree that Goblin Slayer, Shield Hero, and practically every other current fantasy isekai have some of the most generic, cookie-cutter fantasy settiings. |
| My signature got deleted and I can't be bothered to make a new one. |
| A lot of anime have great world building. Some anime don't. I think that's mostly because some series, are too short to fully adapt and develop the world, characters and story. |
| Kind of ignored the whole thread so I have no idea if this has been recommended yet but The Ancient Magus Bride has pretty good world building I would say. And it isn't a generic isekai show. Just a pure fantasy slice of life magic show. |
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| I think that the majority of anime series that I've watched have built credible worlds-some that really standout would be Escaflowne, El Hazard-The Magnificent World, Ghost In The Shell and many others. You're not always going to get the world building like you have in Game Of Thrones. |
| Life Is Short But Intense. |
| Long running manga generally have good world building, since that is one of the main focuses of those shows. Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, Toriko, Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, Shingeki no Kyojin, Until Death Do Us Part, etc.. All these have good-incredible world building. A lot of anime, however, are relatively short. With their limited time, they can't focus on world building and character development. So they sacrifice the lesser needed area to focus on the more important area. Alternatively, there are those that don't sacrifice world building and still manage to not fuck it up. Then there are anime that don't need world building, like many SoLs, where the world building simply isn't important whatsoever. Then there are cash-grabs, which simply don't care what they're putting out because they're following a successful template, i.e. an incredible number of isekai shows that came out after SAO. And finally, we have those shows that try to build the world, but simply fail to do so because the writer doesn't know how to. |
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| @yhunata I'm not sure about the long running manga bit. It seems to me that a lot of people equate quantity with quality in that department. Dragon Ball for example threw its whole world building and atmosphere when they brought up Sangoku's extraterrestrial origins, and while the universe of DBZ is biiiiiiiig, I'm not sure of it's good in the sens that it's not particularly well though-out, or supporting the manga's... themes and stuff (my face when DBZ actually has no themes anyway). It's just a bunch of planets and people, and every generic space opera/heroic fantasy shlock can do (and does) the same thing. |
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| Because there are cannot carry the whole story/arc just with a fucking 12 episodes or 24 episodes. A long eps will mostly always have good worldbuilding in my opinion |
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arielikesall said: All isekai anime post Sword Art Online, would focus on the hero's journey and so the world-building becomes like an afterthought. The writers of these new isekai stories just want to focus on the heroes and what can they do so the world building in these sort of stories aren't that important and that's why they appear to be lackluster. +1 to this. This is the most accurate answer I saw for a while. |
| Good ideas don't necessarily translate into good mediums and vice versa. |
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Maneki-Mew said: DrakoWiz said: All you mentioned are retro, so my point stands. Anime had better worldbuilding in the past compared to today's isekais/shonens. People just love to lump things together. What's the problem with al of them? Last time I checked they all were different and had their own setting. Today there are also original Urban Fantasy settings. So I guess you just want to wear the nostalgic glasses. Like, many of mine were new and there is sure a lot of settings today that are very different to the typical High Fantasy settings. I did say "and many others"-just because my examples are older series doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of series today that do really good world building. Please don't put words into my mouth that I didn't say. |
| Life Is Short But Intense. |
DrakoWiz said: zrdb said: I think that the majority of anime series that I've watched have built credible worlds-some that really standout would be Escaflowne, El Hazard-The Magnificent World, Ghost In The Shell and many others. You're not always going to get the world building like you have in Game Of Thrones. All you mentioned are retro, so my point stands. Anime had better worldbuilding in the past compared to today's isekais/shonens. Nah Record of the Lodoss War is probably the most generic fantasy story I have seen and that came out in the early 90's. Also you can find modern equivalents like Psycho Pass with Ghost in the Shell. Golden Kamuy is based off history but it does a good job going very into Ainu culture so there is another recent title that had good world building (well researched apparently too). Made in Abyss is probably one of the better cases of world building i have seen in anime period and that came out in 2017. You also got an upcoming series in Vinland Saga that goes pretty in-depth about medieval Scandinavian culture and Early medieval Europe. Carol and Tuesday also has promise considering who is directing it. |
BilboBaggins365Mar 3, 2019 1:15 AM
Deathko said: @yhunata I'm not sure about the long running manga bit. It seems to me that a lot of people equate quantity with quality in that department. Dragon Ball for example threw its whole world building and atmosphere when they brought up Sangoku's extraterrestrial origins, and while the universe of DBZ is biiiiiiiig, I'm not sure of it's good in the sens that it's not particularly well though-out, or supporting the manga's... themes and stuff (my face when DBZ actually has no themes anyway). It's just a bunch of planets and people, and every generic space opera/heroic fantasy shlock can do (and does) the same thing. Except it does support it relatively well. Goku's the only person in the entire pre-Z DragonBall with a tail and Were-Ape thing. It's also stated that Gohan found him in the forest, so his origins being something mysterious was already foreshadowed. Signs pointing to him not being Terran were there from the bery start. The rest is subjective. I'd say that Dragon Ball does a decent job of building the world and lore, though there are much better shounen that came after it that did it much better: see One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, FMA, etc. And I'm not saying long running manga because of quantity or anything. It's kind of like how most shounen are actually better harem manga than actual harem manga. The focus of the series is different, which necessitates building the world along with the characters and of course there are long-runners with shitty world building. |
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| One Piece, Juuni Kokuki and Made in Abyss stand out for having really great world building. It's true that there's a lot of anime that just doesn't go into detail about its world, but there's a lot that do it really well. |
| Complaining about worldbuilding in Konosuba? What drugs are you on? |
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mohrip said: Watch Pause and Effect's videos on isekai. Worldbuilding in fantasy isekai tends to be entirely dependent on the audience's familiarity with JRPG worlds and mechanics. IMO, they cannot make sense outside of pre-informed perspective. Edit : I agree with your comment saying that isekai anime is a poor world building. For me, beside for Konoshuba, they are just a cash grab with waifu and got sent into another world. It has no direction as well, so of course the world building will be just a copy-paste from another isekai anime, what did you expect? |
| Wow "if I have to suffer through another..." Jesus, how hard is it to understand no ones forcing people to watch things they don't like. If those kind of shows make someone "suffer", here's a thought, watch a different genre. Seriously, it amazes me the things people will bitch about. |
| I dunno about some of the examples I've read. I don't think that the worldbuilding of Kemono no Souja Erin is that outstanding for instance. It may be the worst part of the show actually. The strongest aspect about this series is the personal development of the MC, but several surrounding elements and factors appear underdeveloped and sketchy in comparison. I would second Made in Abyss though. It has just so much potential. One Piece is another example yet inevitably rough in some edges after expanding it so much. |
jal90Aug 24, 2019 1:18 AM
| If we count Sci-fi and Fantasy we have a few shows with decent worldbuilding but the ones with truly great,epic and complex worlds can be counted on one hand. We have FEW more good worlds that are not "epic" in the sense of scale, but they are still only FEW of them. rohan121 said: I think the setting is not as prioritized as the actual story and characters for many anime which results in a lack of world building. Shorter series do not have as much time to do this also which may also contribute to it. I think most authors don't have the time to build a big ass world, the anime and manga industrie is competative as fuck. In the west we have much more series that get Story,Characters and Worldbuilding right, but the authors of those books release a book in 4 years (unless you are named Brando Sando, a book a year is not even a Challenge), in Japan they are under much more pressure and don't have the time and money to study geography only for the sake of good Worldbuilding. |
-Mullerio-Aug 24, 2019 2:13 AM
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| World building is not rewarded by the main anime demographic and so it has lousy payback in terms of quick cash return vs. effort and time invested. Think of it like the 80:20 rule, aka Pareto Principle. You get a generic yet marketable world/story/cast/show with 80% of the effort, and a great show by adding the extra 20%. But that 20% (for world building and deep characterization) take the same amount of writing time than the first 80%. World building from a writer’s point of view requires to flesh out details you never directly use in the show. You pretty much write background stories for the chars but never actually tell them, you "just" end up with a rounded character with in-world consistent behavior. Similar for the world itself, you need some history, economy, politics, "rules" for magic if you use it etc. pp. And again you never directly use them, and if you do so in the form of voice-over or inner monologue, you usually become boring and pretentious. You can use all this effort only in the form of small details many viewers will not even notice. Then, there is pacing and buildup. Many people have the attention span of a slightly retarded fruit fly. The time used to build the world and chars is perceived as “filler”, “slow show”, “boring” too often. There is a reason why many of the shows listed in this thread are considered "elitist crap", think about it ... And it is hard to do world building well, look at the millions of bad fantasy novels out there (a super-set of bad isekai light novels). Talented writers and good ideas for a consistent world do not grow on trees, a single person may be able to give birth to one or two really good worlds in his/her life. Tolkien built one, GRRM built several, Lovecraft pretty much only built one. So in the end it is not a limit of anime, it is a limit of human creativity made worse by the requirement to earn money with it. |
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| Why do western TV shows and films have little to no world building sans a few film series is the real question. :P |
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removed-user said: Slayer is closer to a battle shounen than a comedy, and it has a "serious" plot. Konosuba is almost pure comedy. For all of you that say Konosuba is comedy so there should not be wordbuilding, remember Slayers? It is the same thing, but older and better. Maneki-Mew said: You are only speaking about some Isekais, but that copy-paste fantasy world is not a "problem" of anime alone. There are tons of copy-paste Tolkien rip-off novels in the west too. Okay, I only can name high fantasy-like settings and others except science fiction and urban fantasy etc., I personally found interesting and appealing to me, so of course I'm kinda biased for them (no order): Fullmetal Alchemist - A steampunk world with alchemy powers. There are a lot, a lot of details to them and it's a great worldbuilding. Attack on Titan - A special setting between high fantasy and steampunk, it's imo pretty original and the author seemed to overthink a lot of details, also from the daily life in the world. Houseki no Kuni - Never have seen something like that. It's about gems, who look like people, in a future world without humans. Shinsekai Yori - Also a very special setting in an utopian future and people have powers and live in small villages in a seemingly peaceful world. Made in Abyss - Very special setting with an abyss people want to explore. There are a lot of interesting creatures and plants and the author put a lot of details into it. Children of the Whales - An utopian island with people, who have magic powers, but in exchange to that, they will die early. I think their society is very interesting too. D.Gray-man - Pretty dark steampunk world with demons and teenager from an order fighting against these demons, which are reincarnated souls. The Promised Neverland - A seemingly peaceful orphanage, but the kids find out they are demon food and try to escape and survive. 12 Kingdoms - It's on first glance a normal isekai fantasy world with mythological creatures etc., but their designs are really creative and you see creatures you normally wouldn't see in such a world. Also it's a lot about politics there. Inuyasha - Also an Isekai, but the female protagonists lands in a Japanese medieval age with a lot of demons and Japanese mythology. Dororo - Same, Japanese medieval age with mythological creatures. Mo Dao Zu Shi - Chinese medieval story with dark fantasy. Magi - It's an arabic-esque adventure with magic and all. Arslan Senki - A "normal" historical war story, but it's not european Shoukoku no Altair - Same, it's a turkish-esque setting Akatsuki no Yona - Same, it's Korean and has also fantasy in it I bet I forgot a lot. xD There are a bunch of interesting scifi and urban fantasy settings too imo. And some great dystopia. I never said that only anime suffers from that. I've read plenty of high fantasy novel series, and at worst they are still better at it than anime at average. Most you mentioned I've seen, or are based on older shows. I guess I should have specified, I mean modern stuff, I know most of the old. Mo Dao Zu Shi seems interesting tho. PS: after season 2 Slayers isn't that great imo, it feels like there isn't any character development in the other and the plot becomes repetitive. So imo, konosuba is better... and I like old stuff, so I'm not an oldie hater. |
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| People are attracted to money so of course theyre gonna milk isekai tropes by making more and more power fantasies with the same world building, a lot of LN authors and studios are attracted to isekai because they see thats where the money is, madhouse tried it with ngnl, got successful, kinema tried it with shield hero, got successful, white fox tried it with re zero, you get the point. Other than that these are very much not most animes, not even that large of a chunk, most notable animes from recent seasons and years are not the same generic isekais and you should just not watch a generic isekai if you think they are poorly made, after all youre in mal where you can see exactly what people think about it Ps, there are so many fantasy animes out there, even from recent seasons that have unique and well thought out world building, if you look for those youre definitely gonna find them |
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thevagus said: LMAO so some people actually think you should watch over 40 episodes to know if it's worth dropping or not@DrakoWiz you shouldn't drop gintama just after 30 episodes. atleast give it a try until benizakura arc which is about episode 48 and the show after that is pure gold. |
| Because many don't need good worldbuilding to make them great. Isekai is just the same thing over and over again and it's really annoying. |
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| Rest in isekai. You shall be missed op. I think Sword Art Online Alice has that giga waifu material enough to build a world of your own. Sweet chin music! |
| mainly serves as an ad to the manga, if you want the complete thing then you gotta buy some reading glasses |
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| My first thought was 'this guy isn't talking about worldbuilding, as in the process and execution of how these worlds are introduced to us over time and organically grow'. He's just talking about the originality of the setting, which is a very different thing in more than one way. Worldbuilding is a dynamic, ongoing process, Setting is a static concept. And originality and quality are not always directly related in either of these areas. Then I scrolled down and realized I already made that exact argument whent he thread was first created, so I don't have to do it again. Yay. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
Zehennagel said: thevagus said: LMAO so some people actually think you should watch over 40 episodes to know if it's worth dropping or not@DrakoWiz you shouldn't drop gintama just after 30 episodes. atleast give it a try until benizakura arc which is about episode 48 and the show after that is pure gold. That anime has fucking 367 episodes. You can't really judge a book by it's cover. |
 "All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost." |
thevagus said: when I've read 20 pages of a book 367 pages long and I think it's shit I won't keep reading it. "by it's cover" haha what a stupid hyperball.Zehennagel said: LMAO so some people actually think you should watch over 40 episodes to know if it's worth dropping or not That anime has fucking 367 episodes. You can't really judge a book by it's cover. you actually think we have to watch 15 hours of content to know if we're gonna like the anime. anyway if you think like that you're gonna miss a lot of good animes/series. "wHaT iSN'T iT tHe OppOsIte??" no it's not, you waste your time watching mediocre content so you don't have any left for the good ones. but yes you'll avoid missing that 1 good anime out of the 200 that do in fact turn out shitty lmao. |
| Well anime has some low Fantasy shows with good worldbuilding but hardly any hard Fantasy with neat shit, the only ones that come to mind are Berserk and Made in Abyss. The reason is that anime is a very competitive medium and most dont take the time or have the money to build a world, you need to learn a whole bunch about history/geography and politics. I doubt Tolkin or Brandon were/are under social or economic pressure when building Middle earth or Roshar. |
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| Cool story. Op has already been banned lol |
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