| tldr, wake me up when people will stop complaing about isekai/fantasy every season. No one forced you to watch it btw |
MrSlamboni said: If you have an isekai you think is actually good and not formulaic, please tell me I'm interested to know. https://myanimelist.net/anime/48849/Sonny_Boy https://myanimelist.net/anime/28805/Bakemono_no_Ko |
DesuMaiden said: Nobody resembles me physically because I don't even physically exist. |
| Okay, I'll wake you up, buddy. :3 |
 |
| Keep sleeping dude, it ain't stopping and shouldn't stop. Good job writing a fun analogy. And I gotta admit this season has more trash isekai than good. Magic Maker didn't seem that bad to me but again if it sacrifices harem for superior incest feel free to clown on. Ojisan Villainess also had a hilarious start. Yeah rest seemed to garbage too waste my time. But again it will never stop rightfully |
| Today I learned that Frieren is an isekai |
Teach a man to cook, and he can’t fish. But teach a man to fish, and he feeds himself and cooks. -๐ง ( ° ω หฃ ) |
Reply to Serafos
Okay, I'll wake you up, buddy. :3
| @Serafos Ahahahaa! My mind went to the EXACT SAME PLACE |
MrSlamboni said: If you have an isekai you think is actually good and not formulaic, please tell me I'm interested to know. An oldie, The Vision of Escaflowne. It's a very old fashioned romantic fantasy adventure that also has mecha in because it's a Sunrise show from the 90s devised by Shoji Kawamori. |
| "Consumerism creates huge unconscious needs that only fascism can satisfy. If anything, fascism is the form that consumerism takes when it opts for elective madness." - JG Ballard, interview with The Independent (2006) |
| Reject Modern Isekai, embrace old non defined Isekai anime like Rayearth or Escaflowne. |
| "We could make the world better, but it's easier to just shut our eyes." ~Blackwall |
| Unfortunately, I think you are going to be getting more than sufficient beauty sleep waiting for isekai to become an insignificant speck on the seasonal releases. (Sorry, folks. The songs that popped into my head were Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends followed quickly by Evanescense's (sp?) Bring Me To Life/Wake Me Up Inside) |
 |
MrSlamboni said: What also baffles me is that the target audience of these stories seems to be teens. Do the younger demographics even play MMOs? I'm not so sure about isekai being intended for teens. A lot of them have adult protagonists, like salaryman, doctor, handyman (as you mentioned), or jobless (it's in the title of one of the biggest isekais). Which makes me think that the concept appeals to adults as much as teens, if not more, where they dream about escaping their unfulfilling, boring adult lives. The fact that the "game systems" are often based on MMO's could actually be evidence that many isekai shows are intended for 30-somethings. Or... maybe it's just that isekai writers themselves are 30-somethings that are incapable of coming up with anything else, regardless of their target demographic. And it's not like MMO game systems are hard to understand for teens either. They're easy to write and easy to understand. Many of them, like skills and levels, are shared by many different game genres, so it's unlikely that it's a foreign concept even for anyone who touched a mobile game once. |
| yeah Frieren isn't isekai ya noob, that's high fantasy with no menus. did you totally forget to mention Jobless Reincarnation? no stats, no STR DEX etc. DanMachi one of the most detailed DESCRIPTIONS of why Stats and Levels matter! they're not on menus; they're on peoples' backs! from somebody that LEARNED about RPG from the source materials by Gary Gygax... Dungeons & Dragons? ever heard of it? you're talkin out your ass. you want some HIGH FANTASY based on some Japanese Dudes playing D&D at home and ... 'hey, this would make for some kick-ass light novels!' Record of Lodoss War and the rest of the shows in that franchise. Dragon Quest, probably a game franchise older than you. Final Fantasy? heard the name? how about you just do your own research here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_role-playing_video_games considering the earliest ones were text based and had zero to little ART let alone animation? a knucklehead like you can ignore anything from when i was born in 1976 and start looking around the 1980's. fantasy and/or RP games existed WELL before the internet existed as you know it. so those MMORPGs are NOT the only thing kids can source stuff from. dig into the world's history and wow Beowulf... the oldest surviving written literature of Old English... it is pretty damn fantastical. everything about the Iliad, Odyssey, pretty fantastical, Heracles, all those old Greek stories... pretty damn fantastical... the revival of Celtic myths with the Romantic period of literature and art, good old King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table... even MODERN American literature has A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court published in 1889 by Mark Twain... isekai anybody? hmm? or time travel fantasy? hmm? Familiar of Zero Oh! My Goddess Ancient Magus' Bride urban fantasy is creeping up and taking over here and there, Harry Freaking Potter is urban fantasy... oh and another thing... D&D is taking over OTHER forms of media, YT vids... Critical Role has such a wide fanbase they've got a four season long animated series based on their tabletop adventures people watch live... i've personally gotten into another group only 5 years old Legends of Avantris. i'm watching one of their Playlists on YT... 56 fifty-six episodes long every. single. one. of. them. OVER TWO HOURS LONG! i'm personally TWO DAYS DEEP by video length into that series. 48 HOURS! you know how much anime that would take to make 48hours??? not hacking anything off an episode at 24minutes long??? 48h x 60m = 2,880m. 2,880m / 24m = 120EPISODES of anime. well of course anime has wide demographics... Japanese people aren't ALL dying off when they hit 40! as a matter of fact, their freaking country isn't screwing enough and having enough babies, so their demographics are getting OLDER AND OLDER EVERY YEAR! their 'entertainment consumer base' is aging along with the REST of their economy! so of COURSE! the numbers of teens isn't growing fast enough, their 5-18 year olds aren't increasing... so who will be spending more Yen on entertainment? THE ADULTS!!!! the older authors are writing FOR THEIR PEERS! instead of writing for the teens... oh and the idea you may be having that 'oh somebody at 10 years old won't worry about adult stuffs.' wow. ethnocentric, aren't you? how would you know what the 10–18-year-olds of Japan are worried about? i do hope i've given you several things to think about. have a pleasant rest of your day. |
just an ol school American otaku enjoyin the life. don't sass me kiddies, i've been otaku probably since before you were born. leave me in peace and i won't bother you either.  |
| I tend to avoid the isekai and fantasy genres entirely since I don't enjoy them all that much either, but I liked No Longer Allowed in Another World last year. It hits on some of the common tropes, such as the MC having an OP ability and both a catgirl and an elf falling for him, but for the most part it had some interesting ideas. Namely, the guy that gets sent to the other world wants nothing more than to kill himself since he has zero interest in being there. He mostly just tries to write interesting stories about the people he meets along the way, sometimes sending fellow "otherworlders" back to their own world as a result. Solo Leveling looked pretty dumb to me based on the description, however, so if you love that then maybe you should just ignore my recommendation. In the meantime, I'd just catch up on sleep while you wait for the isekai bubble to burst. |
| speak with your wallet as the saying goes so boycott isekai and fantasy anime |
Reply to MrSlamboni
@perseii The problem is that if they are intended for adults/young adults, why is the writing so juvenile and simplistic? The characters are usually very shallow and easy to digest while not having much depth. That's what made me think that the target audience is teens. But I guess they do market them for adults but they are bad at writing them.
| @MrSlamboni I don't think adults are that much more picky about tone and depth compared to teens. Maybe only by a tiny bit... Also, just because an adult recognizes something as "bad" doesn't mean they won't like it. It just becomes a matter of preference and taste. We all have our indulgences. And as you said yourself, I believe writing quality is a mostly unrelated topic from who the writing is aimed at. |
| I can only recommend Ascendance of a Bookworm: a little girl who's poor and always sick just wants to read books and make life better for her family. It's cute and kind of interesting how she uses her smarts to survive. I haven't finished it, but Youjo Senki is a popular one that's a little different from the rest. World War I with magic is definitely a different setting, and I appreciated that the main character is basically a psychopath. |
| hahaha! what is up with these stupidly cringe virtue signaling long-worded titles? "im the greatest mage but sit on the toilet all day & use my i-phone"...i would not be suprised if someone actually created that anime pure bottom of the barrel shovel-ware trash anime... have fun kidz |
| Wake me up when people realize they can just not watch isekai. Also, You can't seriously think fantasy in general will go away, right? Isekai will at the very least have fewer spots in the seasonal schedules when Japanese consumers stop consuming it. If you really want fantasy as a whole gone, you have a looooong sleep in your future. I recommend getting cryogenically frozen like in Futurama. Maybe in 1,000 years you'll get your wish. I doubt it though. Fantasy and mythology have been around forever. Worth a shot though. |
FanofActionJan 10, 7:38 PM
MrSlamboni said: If you have an isekai you think is actually good and not formulaic, please tell me I'm interested to know. So far I only know about Frieren, Solo Leveling and Eminence in Shadow.
I agree that the arbitrary RPG game mechanics in the bargain bin isekais are poorly explained, and can detract from the story. The big problem is that Frieren sets the bar so high. You will be hard pressed to find another fantasy anime that even gets close to the quality of Frieren. Even as an enjoyer of fantasy I haven't seen anything yet that has been better than Frieren in the fantasy genre. |
      |
| I agree that I wish there were less of them - I don't need another How I Became the Archduke's Kennel's Master's Fourth Cousin's Daughter's Favorite Reincarnated Magic Teacher. And while many as a "suggestion" repeat some variation of the refrain that one can simply elect not to watch them if they dislike and are disinterested in them, the reality is that this is kind of missing the point, since they don't exist in a vacuum and are taking up time, TV airing slots, energy/effort, financial resources, and otherwise talented creative work staff which could better be redirected to another purpose and make way for higher quality endeavors. So yeah, they can and should cut the percentage of it down relative to series of all other genres and setting types drastically. As for some a lot different than the bulk - especially recent (post-Sword Art Online/post-2012) bulk of them and actually worth watching compared to many, try any of the following: - Haibane Renmei - Sonny Boy - Urasekai Picnic - Juuni Kokuki - Cop Craft (reverse isekai) |
| I think you forgot this isekai title for the winter 2025 season: From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! https://myanimelist.net/anime/57719/Akuyaku_Reijou_Tensei_Ojisan?q=bureucrat&cat=anime |
W3TFTJan 10, 9:55 PM
ow + nw = 90-2000s |
| Didn't actually read all this yap, but the last line I read. And indeed, it's quite amazing how you rant so much about isekai, while not even knowing what it is. On another note, let's say, all the isekai you listed are all going to be formulaic trash, bottom of the barrel. Why does it matter? It's not like you like isekai and were planning to watch them; it's not like those 7 isekai are the only anime that this season has to offer. There are over 40 anime this season that aren't isekai, yet for some reason the existence of this 7 isekai bothers you so much. |
 You wouldn't be waking up until 10-20 years in the future in that case. Also you can simply just avoiding watching them, I don't know why you complain on something which you wouldn't watch. |
 (ใฃโโกโ)ใฃ ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ผ๐ฑ ๐๐ธ๐พ ๐ช๐ต๐ต ๐ฑ๐ช๐ฟ๐ฎ ๐ช ๐๐ธ๐ท๐ญ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฏ๐พ๐ต ๐ญ๐ช๐ ♥ |
| I only opened the thread to attack OP if he made fun of Beheneko, glad it's not the case but.......... bro thinks frieren is actually good, what the hell is wrong with you? |
    |
Catalano said: bro thinks frieren is actually good, what the hell is wrong with you? gr8 b8 m8 I r8 8/8 For OP's 'point' - 90% of anything is shite. Isekai is popular right now, so we get a lot of isekai shite. In the mid-2000s it was ecchi harem fantasy, and 90% of that was shite. After isekai, who knows - regression? But 90% of that will be shite as well. It's not specific to isekai. Maybe develop some taste and find things you like? |
| Braindead thread that talks about the same things for the 1000th time is it bait or just a cry for attention? |
| I think this guy's dead, he will never wake up ever again No but seriously, just skip those, no one forces you to watch them lol |
| No matter how many times I see people complain about trash Isekai and fantasy, I will always find it funny. I feel you. ๐ I see you've already watched the Eminence in Shadow. It's funny how my favourite anime is from the worst genre. Try watching Saga of Tanya the Evil and Overlord. I believe you'll love them. I can't vouch for any other Isekai, though. |
| I also love how zoomers act as if Isekai did not exist before SAO and they are completely unaware of the old isekai anime made in the 90s and early 2000. No wonder only one person in the thread has mentioned Juuni Kouki so far. |
| Insert Old Man yells at clouds meme. |
| I'm too weird to live but much too rare to die. |
Reply to cri_c
Will be sleeping for a long time, i'm afraid. Now Isekais have always been a big genre in japan, one that i never and probably never will care about (because most of them are pretty bad wish fulfillment shovel ware shows, with a few exceptions). But one can't deny how incredibly filled the modern anime world is with these shows. It's so over exposed at this point and i just can't see what people like about them so much. No hate to people who like them tho. Just not my thing.
| @cri_c Isekai was never a big anime/LN/manga genre before SAO in JAPAN, there were only a handful of them or so before. |
| As an isekai enjoyer, I personally like all these world-building ones, especially where the MC leads/creates some empire. (tensura, overlord, tsukimichi, etc) I sometimes watch the "bad" isekais as well, they aren't as trash as people pretend them to be. What did they expect? The new anime that will be a part of the Big 3? No, of course they won't be as good as those animes. The thing with isekais is that they are either very boring or they can be the kind of thing you always wanted to watch: for my part, I hate 'slice of life' animes so an isekai falling under the slice of life genre will always be very boring, but what I mentioned earlier is exactly the opposite, It is what I'm looking for. The problem with isekais is that most of them feel the same, they follow the same story with an OP dude, a bunch of women, and usually monsters... so when an isekai does something "original", I am definitely watching it through in one night, otherwise it usually takes me 1 week to eat that garbage entirely, I might be a masochist. |
 |
| Dude watched 200 shows, complains about Isekai. When it exist 35k other entries you could watch. Yeah boi, this is just sad. There are so much out there for you to watch, but here you're wasting you time on hating on one genre. That have one of the lowest combained Anime. Talk about sad, you could be out there exploring the Anime world, but here you're writting a 100 pages hate about a genre that you could simple ignore and start watching some good shoujo or josei. I truly do pity you Americans, this is just dumb at this poiint. There are so freaking much out there, you haven't even touched the top of the ice-berg. But you think you're some elite that know it all and seen it all. You have a so sad view on Anime as whole, as it come back to bite you in the ass. As you're sitting here wasting you own time, hating on a tiny, tiny genre. That have one of the fewest entries. Nice one dude, really nice one. I truly pity people like you. |
NillwasJan 11, 2:40 PM
 |
| I dislike isekai anime as well but you won't ever wake up at this point. |
"Nobody could laugh at someone who's trying their hardest" -Machio- |
| Very well, I'll wake you up in 2055 when some other genre will become the dominant trend in anime. |
 |
| no to worry, gen alpha wont be bunch of tasteless pussies like gen z..so sooner rather than later, heck.... with gen alpha.. mecha might even make a big comeback in the west |
| I was never a big fan of isekai, outside of Konosuba tbh. I enjoy magical girl anime the most. |
| Hear-hear so tired of Isekai and it's burnt out beyond belief plot tropes. When I was younger I liked the genre and consider one of it's early progenitors 'El Hazard' to be among my favourite animes. But these days the genre is so lazy with low-effort MMORPG worldbuilding framework used in a large majority of the titles and flat out ridiculous plot setups with the "Japanese salary person resurrected as -insert silly thing here-" being used ad naseaum. They feel like lazy cookie cutter titles cranked out more for consumption than any kind of real quality. |
 |
More topics from this board
» ๐ Anime of the Year (2024) & discussionnirererin - 3 hours ago |
25 |
by Neengen
»»
3 minutes ago |
|
» Have you ever contributed to MAL in any way?thewiru - 3 hours ago |
15 |
by Archolos
»»
5 minutes ago |
|
» Which male character in a shounen series do you think is the most attractive?bucciest - Jan 22 |
37 |
by Damichan
»»
5 minutes ago |
|
» Do you consider normal-but-cute-type-girls from romances possibly boring?fallout45 - 2 hours ago |
6 |
by BeastyAnimefan
»»
9 minutes ago |
|
» Anime for touriststhewiru - 3 hours ago |
6 |
by alshu
»»
20 minutes ago |