Is Isekai genre a low cost Shonen ?

[FireFish5000]

@Foxy As a direct response to your title:
Isekai from my shojou otome game series collection! No powers, just memories. Some of them focus on character development and (romantic) relationships (fwiw, if thats what you wanted, you were probably following the wrong demographic. But that's not really my genre, so the ones listed here mostly just touch the topic, and don't go too deep). All of these are comedy, most I think are romcom.

Koushaku Reijou no Tashinami -- Our Vileness MC has already been defeated by the time she gained her memories of the game. After being publicly humiliated, she tries put her failed romance behind her and focus on using her knowledge of our society to improve the quality of life in this world!


The Daughter of the Albert House Wishes for Ruin -- Our reincarnated Vileness MC decides to run straight towards her own demise so that the player can live a happy life! Laugh as she and her butler try to follow the plot and ruin their name in slightly unconventional ways!

Lady Rose Wants to be a Commoner -- Our MC has fallen into ruin, and is now a commoner... Mission complete! Now to just live a normal life without getting stuck with the horrible personalities/responsibilities that the capture targets had... or so she had hopped. For some reason the capture targets won't leave her alone, is the game bugging out?

Jishou Akuyaku Reijou na Konyakusha no Kansatsu Kiroku -- Our vileness has decided to run towards her ruin, and plots away at it with the prince/MC. However, the prince, though confused, finds her odd behavior interesting, and uses her knowledge of the future to divert the plot(against her will).


Reincarnated into a romance novel series:
The Reason Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke's Mansion


With Powers! (for everyone, not just the mc, and we are not OP):
Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shite shimatta... -- Our vileness has decided to run from her ruin, and decides to plot a path clear from all her death flags.... OMG, theirs a lot a of death flags.... the creator must really hate me!


Summoned into a random world series:
The Vengeful White Cat Lounging on the Dragon King's Lap

In Another World, I'm Called: the Black Healer -- Good story, focuses on feelings/relationships I think.....(sorry, I always draw a blank on this one. All I can remember is.... shiny guys. Lots and lots of shiny guys.....)

Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? -- Summoned/reincarnated as a spider monster

Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu -- Summoned saint pretends to be a normal person while living in the castle.



In response to the general statements others have made in this thread


Isekai is fantasy (bc of reincarnation/summoning/portals/god), with only the addition of "came from another world" thrown somewhere in it. No other requirements. The author gets to choose whether or not they capitalize on this statement, use it as an cop out excuse for having/not having knowledge of something, or do nothing at all with it. Very few successfully capitalize on the "isekai" component of their work in this recent hype. Some never even mention it again after ch1.

This is NOT Shonen specific at all. Some of you may think that because that's your preference (ie, you haven't read isekai without magic/fighting/farmers/god/whatever bc thats what you want to read. And have now mistaken your failure to read them as a sign they don't exist, rather than an outcome of your own preferences). If you were into Shojou, and hated Shonen, you would probably think "isekai" means reincarnated/sucked into a romance book/otome game/another world as the 2nd princess/etc.

Isekai is also not a new concept (in case anyone thinks it is), its just newly been categorized as a genre/subjenre of fantasy by our culture, and there is a new hype, for some reason, for isekai (despite being equivalent to fantasy in most works).

You can see an expansion of my arguments in the If Isekai included space travel. thread. Specifically, My last post roughly summarizes all the arguments I made thus far on most threads and discords I had them on. Though, I am still missing a few example links (mostly of the different tropes, like the vileness/otome game/farmer/memory erasel/memory merging/etc)

 

[goronyanpai]

@MoonlightFairy
I already said, no need to be Japanese stuffs lol
Let's look specifically at how the concept to another world in the story works. Back then and now.

Ah, Doraemon.. alright.
From the title you mentioned, they are much better. They are using a simple but fresh concept. Compared to showing something edgy, they use more unusual, fun, and creative ways. No need for trucks. At first it was funny tho, but it was like a stale meme which became boring for a long time.

@firefish5000
I forgot to mention that. Yes, Isekai is not bound by demographics. That is definitely a theme.

Isekai in Shoujo is simpler. It's fun, cute --- what do you expect from fantasizing about something. The Isekai packaging is more like a fairy tale.
There used to be a (90's) manga that told a girl to another world and met a handsome prince (forgot the title).
It used to be very rare that made it interesting. The more repetitive, the more boring it becomes.

There are many genres that have transitions now. The result is between good and bad. It encouraged the difficulty of finding a mangaka who wanted to make extraordinary stories. Finding good sensational readings is like getting a diamond in a pile of cow dung. Amazing and surprising.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

Hadn't argued in a debate for a while now... This might be a good return point.

@Foxy Everyone seems to agree with you so, for fun, I'll disagree. My personal opinion also disagrees with you anyway so let's begin.



1. Every genre has its own low points.

You'd be very silly to think that everything in romance is a classic or all of shounen to have AOT's quality of writing.

Isekai is the same. Which leads us to our second point:


2. You need to see more isekai.

I'll just mention some isekai classics right here.

Spoiler

Re: Zero (dark fantasy)
KonoSuba (comedy, fantasy, slice of life)
No Game No Life (psychological, fantasy)
Overlord (fantasy, action)
Saga of Tanya the Evil (dark fantasy, action)
Slime Tensei (action, fantasy)
Rising of the Shield Hero (fantasy, action)
(And here's reverse-isekai cause why not)
Re: Creators (fantasy, sci-fi, slice of life, action)

Opinions may differ but every one of the animes mentioned above are isekais that are highly reviewed.

As for manga isekai, I haven't read that much so I can't really give you a definite answer for that. But here's smut isekai if you want to see it.


That's it. There are some good isekai and some horrible, generic, boring isekai that you should never see.

I gave you recommendations. I rest my case.

 

[Hexxy]

I'm of a similar opinion in that I find the vast majority of isekai to be trashy, detestable garbage. I'd argue it's more of a theme than a genre, and I feel like it has a lot of potential that it's simply not utilising well at all. Especially considering the history of the genre before it became mostly SAO ripoffs.

Before the advent of your typical haremy wish fulfillment fantasy for older make nerds type of isekai, it was a genre that had mostly given some pretty great works, with some of the most well known literature falling under the isekai label (of course before such a label was created), including Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz. Then of course you have the .hack// series, and a few other anime/manga series that would probably count as isekai before the sudden shift up in popularity, including Inuyasha and the film Spirited Away. I don't often see people hate-talking these series (Inuyasha has its own problems I personally dislike but none of the ones plaguing modern isekai). A light novel competition in Japan even had to explicitly BAN isekai novels because of the prevalence and derivative natures.

It still has a lot of potential but it's fallen into this weird pit where it just copies other isekai and creates a chamber that just rebounds its own ideas into itself. And of course not all of them are like this, but the fact that a lot have started to simply copy the same tropes is pretty obvious, including tropes not limited to: Harems, OP Protagonist, "Cheat" Abilities, video gamey fantasy worlds, etc. Sometimes the fact that the main character came from another world is almost wholly inconsequential and I agree that it often acts as a really lazy, easy backstory, especially because the act of being reincarnated/spirited away/summoned/trapped in a game world can, itself, act as its own shortcut to a backstory. After all, a character's life pre-isekai doesn't really need to be expanded on since the main story won't be there and it's essentially a free blank slate.

In short, while I also hate your average shounen-demo, harem filled, cheat ability, game world-like, unimaginative and constantly recycled story isekai, I'd still give it a chance, and sometimes even those can be okay or even good if they're handled with more care. I absolutely hate Re:Zero, SAO, Death March, Smartphone, all that lot etc. But there's a lot of good isekai, without even really needing to stretch out the definition too much, including Youjo Senki, the Dot Hack series, MMO Junkie, Wakusei Closet (sorta?), and tbh it feels like most shoujo isekai in general end up better (isekai WAS a genre mostly featuring female protagonists, after all, before becoming the bastardisation it is now).

I can't believe I'm defending isekai considering how often I talk about my hatred of those specific ones, the ones being discussed in this topic. But here we are.