Good news: Bandai has an answer, it's Gundam N-Extreme
Bad(?) news: The manga is less about isekai or sci-fi, it's more about original units featured in arcade game, Gundam Extreme VS 2 XBoost which are called... you guessed it N-Extreme Gundams. And the plot itself is pretty much simple.
Good news: Bandai has an answer, it's Gundam N-Extreme
Bad(?) news: The manga is less about isekai or sci-fi, it's more about original units featured in arcade game, Gundam Extreme VS 2 XBoost which are called... you guessed it N-Extreme Gundams. And the plot itself is pretty much simple.
Isekai is a relatively new genre in the otaku community and, so far, we have only seen its fantasy interpretation. As a new genre, I'd argue that its definition has yet to be solid since we have not seen all of its potential. Anyone can just make a sci-fi story one day and call it isekai and only then will people start arguing of wether its genre placement is proper or not. I'm just ahead of the time and arguing about that now.
My first point as pro-scifi would be that @firefish5000 made a thread that shows sci-fi could arguably become isekai (I know that most of the voters disagree but notice that I italicize "arguably".) In that thread, instead of travelling to a parallel world using magic, MC travels to another planet in the same universe using technology and an apology gift from a butterfinger god.
And as @FlashGordan pointed out, time travel can be isekai as well since isekai translates to other world. I think the new definition of isekai should be "Anything that includes a character being suddenly transported into a foreign world, no matter the method, can be classified as isekai" since most stories of the genre possesses that as a key feature in its theme and worldbuilding.
As you can see, this new definition fit all isekai stories that has been made thus far. Killed by Truck-kun into a fantasy world? Isekai. Killed by knife-chan to be born as an OP slime? Isekai. Fictional characters suddenly got torn out of their worlds and into ours? Isekai- well technically reverse-isekai but whatever. Playing a VR game to suddenly get transported into a world with the same mechanics as the game? Isekai. Dying only to be reborn as a spider; a hot spring; a vending machine; a fricking pair of pantsu? Isekai. BUT... having your world accidentally destroyed by a god only to be brought to a different planet with all your futuristic technology still with you (forum thread I linked)? Also isekai.
(Steins;Gate is not an isekai)
And before any of you point it out, no Steins;Gate is not an isekai. As my definition states, traveling to another Worldline is not traveling to a foreign world considering only minute details, relative to the universe and not the plot, is changed - and as a result, it's not foreign so it's not isekai; just regular, old sci-fi.
(How sci-fi isekai includes time travel)
And if anyone doubts the time travel argument, consider the following synopsis:
George was just your ordinary high school student until one day he was killed in an accident while attempting to save his crush from crashing into a truck. His story, however, is still far from over. A millennium into the future, he, along with his classmates, were the first amongst the great number of people still in cryofreeze to be revived by the most advanced of technologies. But oh no - he is suddenly conscripted into the military?
Getting used to this strange new world, he learns that humans are now participating in an intergalactic war against the an alien race who call themselves primorians. This war is over a brand new material which potentially possesses the secret to infinite energy; and ultimately grand control over the universe. The reason George, along with his classmates, are needed in this war is because the primorians have developed a brand new bioweapon which will instantly kill any human it touches but people from his time are immune against it because the humans of the past have not evolved various weaknesses which this dreadful virus conquers so well.
Equipped with the Mecha-10, will he and his friends help bring fort humanity's victory against the primorians and achieve the holy grail of the universe as we know it?
Later in the story, there's some romance, some mecha fighting, some training arcs and eventually some spicy politics and betrayal. Basically your basic space opera stuffs but combined with cliches and themes from isekai because George finds that this technology is far too complicated for its own good and uses knowledge from his time to improve it by making things simpler and more effective. This happens at least twice in every story arc in order to one-up the primorians.
Wouldn't you classify this as isekai? For one, it contains common tropes of sci-fi while also the same cliches you would find in your normal generic isekai. It also drives away from the fact that MC is in a new world since he's so busy handling the problems now, like other fantasy isekais that now exist does.
I don't provide a poll here since I'm challenging all of you to change my mind. Until I surrender, I will assume victory on my part. Fight me using words and logic, I dare you.
(Rules for myself)
After thinking it over, here's a few rules that I set for myself:
1. Every reply that is directed to oppose my original idea must be replied with the intent of opposing that reply.
2. Any reply that is just meant as a comment or what I dismiss as opinion does not have to be responded.
3. Try to keep the values of facts true by avoiding cherrypicking examples as well as not polluting said facts with opinions.
4. Any progress on change of my opinion must be listed below. If at least 50% plus one person consider said opinion change to be major enough that it qualifies as "I have changed my mind", then I will surrender and admit defeat."
Opinion changes:
-Still zero. Try harder.
(Edit log)
Edit 1: fixed spelling, grammar, formatting errors
Edit 2: added the rules
Edit 3: added edit log and spoiler text titles
Forgive me for responding to a post from 2018, but I was, coincidentally, thinking about the topic of this thread a few days ago, and while I see where @DANDAN_THE_DANDAN is (was) coming from, I ultimately disagree.
My argument, trying to keep this brief:
Yes: the modern isekai genre* as conventionally defined (per @Sleeper) would seem, technically, to include stories set in sci-fi-type otherworlds. But the isekai under discussion, as actually understood and practiced today, still consists almost entirely of stories set in RPG-style fantasy worlds. It doesn't seem to have shifted away from that in the last five years.
It would be foolish to say the genre was created to occupy the parameters established by its definition. In reality, the definition was created in an attempt to describe the genre as observed.
It therefore makes more sense to craft a properly descriptive definition for the real-world genre than to proceed outward from this or that definition in a prescriptive manner. Or so it seems to me...
This isn't to say that existing definitions should be ignored, but rather that they should be taken with a grain of salt. Like most things. Salt is good.
* I prefer to include "modern" when discussing isekai in this context, as I can't find much information about the word's date of origin or usage history. Wikipedia (i no) tells me, "the first modern isekai works were Haruka Takachiho's novel Warrior from Another World [1976] and Yoshiyuki Tomino's television series Aura Battler Dunbine [1983-4]." For whatever that's worth...
Isekai is a relatively new genre in the otaku community and, so far, we have only seen its fantasy interpretation. As a new genre, I'd argue that its definition has yet to be solid since we have not seen all of its potential. Anyone can just make a sci-fi story one day and call it isekai and only then will people start arguing of wether its genre placement is proper or not. I'm just ahead of the time and arguing about that now.
My first point as pro-scifi would be that @firefish5000 made a thread that shows sci-fi could arguably become isekai (I know that most of the voters disagree but notice that I italicize "arguably".) In that thread, instead of travelling to a parallel world using magic, MC travels to another planet in the same universe using technology and an apology gift from a butterfinger god.
And as @FlashGordan pointed out, time travel can be isekai as well since isekai translates to other world. I think the new definition of isekai should be "Anything that includes a character being suddenly transported into a foreign world, no matter the method, can be classified as isekai" since most stories of the genre possesses that as a key feature in its theme and worldbuilding.
As you can see, this new definition fit all isekai stories that has been made thus far. Killed by Truck-kun into a fantasy world? Isekai. Killed by knife-chan to be born as an OP slime? Isekai. Fictional characters suddenly got torn out of their worlds and into ours? Isekai- well technically reverse-isekai but whatever. Playing a VR game to suddenly get transported into a world with the same mechanics as the game? Isekai. Dying only to be reborn as a spider; a hot spring; a vending machine; a fricking pair of pantsu? Isekai. BUT... having your world accidentally destroyed by a god only to be brought to a different planet with all your futuristic technology still with you (forum thread I linked)? Also isekai.
(Steins;Gate is not an isekai)
And before any of you point it out, no Steins;Gate is not an isekai. As my definition states, traveling to another Worldline is not traveling to a foreign world considering only minute details, relative to the universe and not the plot, is changed - and as a result, it's not foreign so it's not isekai; just regular, old sci-fi.
(How sci-fi isekai includes time travel)
And if anyone doubts the time travel argument, consider the following synopsis:
George was just your ordinary high school student until one day he was killed in an accident while attempting to save his crush from crashing into a truck. His story, however, is still far from over. A millennium into the future, he, along with his classmates, were the first amongst the great number of people still in cryofreeze to be revived by the most advanced of technologies. But oh no - he is suddenly conscripted into the military?
Getting used to this strange new world, he learns that humans are now participating in an intergalactic war against the an alien race who call themselves primorians. This war is over a brand new material which potentially possesses the secret to infinite energy; and ultimately grand control over the universe. The reason George, along with his classmates, are needed in this war is because the primorians have developed a brand new bioweapon which will instantly kill any human it touches but people from his time are immune against it because the humans of the past have not evolved various weaknesses which this dreadful virus conquers so well.
Equipped with the Mecha-10, will he and his friends help bring fort humanity's victory against the primorians and achieve the holy grail of the universe as we know it?
Later in the story, there's some romance, some mecha fighting, some training arcs and eventually some spicy politics and betrayal. Basically your basic space opera stuffs but combined with cliches and themes from isekai because George finds that this technology is far too complicated for its own good and uses knowledge from his time to improve it by making things simpler and more effective. This happens at least twice in every story arc in order to one-up the primorians.
Wouldn't you classify this as isekai? For one, it contains common tropes of sci-fi while also the same cliches you would find in your normal generic isekai. It also drives away from the fact that MC is in a new world since he's so busy handling the problems now, like other fantasy isekais that now exist does.
I don't provide a poll here since I'm challenging all of you to change my mind. Until I surrender, I will assume victory on my part. Fight me using words and logic, I dare you.
(Rules for myself)
After thinking it over, here's a few rules that I set for myself:
1. Every reply that is directed to oppose my original idea must be replied with the intent of opposing that reply.
2. Any reply that is just meant as a comment or what I dismiss as opinion does not have to be responded.
3. Try to keep the values of facts true by avoiding cherrypicking examples as well as not polluting said facts with opinions.
4. Any progress on change of my opinion must be listed below. If at least 50% plus one person consider said opinion change to be major enough that it qualifies as "I have changed my mind", then I will surrender and admit defeat."
Opinion changes:
-Still zero. Try harder.
(Edit log)
Edit 1: fixed spelling, grammar, formatting errors
Edit 2: added the rules
Edit 3: added edit log and spoiler text titles
I remember some idiot tried to argue that Star Trek should be plop as Isekai as its main genre. Right here on mangadex forum. Because of that Isekai manga, Galactic Naval Officer. The MC didn't arrived to the "other world" via reincarnation or summoning or portal, thus invalidating the manga as an isekai one.
I've always had something like this in the back of my mind though the main thing being there is no major threat the isekaied protag would have to fight thats simply how the afterlife works and now their lost in a endlessly dense, advanced society and universe trying to find their way within it.
