About the terminology of "Isekai" and its seemingly wrong use

[Asriel]

Today I did a check-up on the meaning of the Kanji featured in "Isekai"( 異世界) because I recently discovered the fact that the word "world" does not mean a place but a moment in time.
"World" stems from the combination of the two Old-Icelandic words "verr" (man) and "old" (time), together meaning something along the lines of "the age of mankind".

This made me think that it might be wrong to translate Isekai with "different world", so I looked up the meanings of the kanji.
異(i) means "different/other/foreign",
世(se) means "time,life,lifetime,present,generation,era,past,future,society,state[political],country[political],world[as proven above, this stands for the age of mankind]"
and 界(kai) means "place,border,field,end".

Given the fact that 世 majorly translates as an indicator for time, the meaning of Isekai would translate as "different time period/different age of mankind/different past,present or future" and thus only apply to stories that play in another time,
not on another planet[異惑星(iwakusei)] /in another dimension[異空間(ikuukan)].

Thus, Isekai applies to stories counted as historical, futuristic science fiction and post-apocalyptic, but not to stories where the character is sent to another planet,at least if we go by general meaning of the word.

Now I'm not saying this site has to change its terminology and rules for setting a tag, I just want to remind people that it's important to look at the real meaning of a word and its etymology, since that's no longer a given in post-modern society (just look at these people calling themselves "feminists" e.g., the word femina means "the one who suckles/lactates", i.e. the traditional role of the woman as mother who gives birth and suckles her children, which is exactly what these women fight against,
meaning they are anti-feminists in reality).

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

Yeah but etymology arguably doesn't matter as much, especially when the western definition butchers the Japanese etymology. Shoujou-ai literally translates to "little girl love" which is pretty pedophilic for westerners to use as GL.

On another note, this supports my argument that isekai can involve time travel

 

[Grog]

you had us in the first half, ngl

 

[Teddy]

I will push back that a better translation of 世 in my opinion would be "relating to life or human" rather than "time" based on its other word combination

世代 - generation
出世 - birth
身世 - condition/nobility
世人 - peasants
世俗 - trading


異世 sekai being "human place" or place where humans live extending further to the definition of "world" we now have that doesn't necessarily have to humans in it.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

That reminds be, have we ever had an isekai have no humans? That's basically the same like trapped in a post-apocalyptic world.

 

[schlo]

wasn't there one, not post-apolcalyptic, where the guy went into a world of all beast people Thought I remembered seeing one.

Historical is the one that bothers me. I've seen some fantasy labeled tagged as historical but as far as I can tell I see nothing historical. To me historical doesn't mean they use swords or wear old clothes seems it should have something to include some actual history. Kind of like the isekai, can't remember the name, where the woman goes into feudal Japan I think. She ends up in small village and starts teaching them to use tools that help with rice and other crops. The lord starts supplying her with equipment and then makes demands. At some point her teachings help them defeat an army. Art of war is also mentioned in it. The lord is someone she learned about in her history classes when she was in school.

 

[Teddy]

Komachi in the Sengoku era

Good manga, Fmc is cute in a personality way. But I think its gonna end up like other "chuck a modern man into a historical fiction"; good guys become too overpowered so instead of actual problems, drama, romance or backstabbing problems start to take Center stage.

 

[schlo]

that's the one. I've thinking you along the same lines as you as to where its going to end up going.

 

[Fari]

Isekai is definitely fine, like AbyssalMonkey said, words aren't always just their parts, and Isekai is an established Japanese word, it's not just something westerners came up or something, and as a japanese word established by the japanese, it means what it's established to mean, which is just 'another world'.

So no, not time travel to the same world (though I've seen this one incorrectly tagged on here a few times), not historical, not general scifi etc. Those have their own tags which are actually more informative, anyways. Isekai is a bad tag, all it really is is a warning, then paired with a tag like fantasy typically.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

@Fari In

Spoiler

Parallel Paradise

, a plot twist is that the other world isn't another world but rather Earth, an uncountable time into the future where magic is a thing and ancient technology is considered as some kind of ancient magic. Time travel can definitely count as isekai.

 

[Fari]

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN Not familiar (know a few series with a similar premise, future that looks like different world), but I will say, if something is PRESENTED as an isekai, then sure, it can have the tag, though the tag is strictly wrong, the tag showing close enough approximations is a fine use of it.

Time travel is by definition not isekai, but there can be so many thematic parallels depending on how it's used that it doesn't matter that much even though it's still technically wrong.

A time travel series that isn't actually an isekai is effectively the closest non-isekai thing to an isekai, closer than even non isekai typical fantasy series. But still not actually isekai itself.

 

[MavB_Ver]

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN then

Spoiler

Cage of Eden

with the plot twist should be isekai too