The amazing bureaucracy of isekai

[GipoScribantino]

I never thought of it because the rest of the garbage overwhelms me, but I was checking a so-and-so chapter when I realized bureaucracy in isekai works is so bizarre.
Even though gatekeepers insist on checking everyone, all it takes is gazing at a crystal ball: you don't have to fill a bunch of forms, sign documents, have interviews, just to get a temporary visa; just take this mcguffin item and you're golden.
Guilds emit registrations on the same afternoon as the request submissions; you don't have to wait until the queue is processed at the end of the day, you don't even have to show anything: fill out exactly one form with, like, three or so fields, let it be read by exactly one employee and there you go, now you are a guild member.
I know I live in a place with one of the worst bureaucracies in the world so I'm kind of biased, but if isekai offices were real we would have colonized half of the universe (figuratively speaking); instead, we are here having to staple a print-out of the ID together with five forms, all double signed, in which the same informations of the ID are handwritten in the appropriate blanks. And that's if you are lucky.

 

[NotGary]

 

[OisE]

I realized bureaucracy in isekai works is so bizarre.

That's because you don't know Japanese buraucracy!

 

[GipoScribantino]

That's because you don't know Japanese buraucracy!

Is it good news or bad news?

 

[OisE]

Can't find pictures of the interior of a city office, but it looks like this.

Fyi, foreigners need to go to the ward office of your city to say where do you live and fill some administrative papers...

 

[pandascepter]

im feeling like theres just a puppet.

 

[DrunkinDonut]

I mean... if you have literal magic to do the actual work, Bureaucracy, is really simple to do? Need a Criminal Background Check, don't need weeks to have people do research, just have a Criminal Check Crystal and be done in seconds. Generally don't need to worry about Trustworthiness or Corruption, because a literal Actual God, ensures it's correct.

And let's not ignore the most normal reason it works, you have a way tinier population. In most isekai, the city population rarely goes above 100k, and that's for a major city. In most of the villages where the stories take place, you have maybe on the order of a hundred people? You can ask the neighbor for background check for the Adventurer, they've know most of their lives. Real World bureaucracy for a major city, you might have 100k in all the regional offices at one time.

And all this ignores why the bureaucracy in all Isekai work, it's boring otherwise. You don't want to spend too many brain cells on World details that don't apply to the story. One throwaway line, and you can skip "pages" of minutiae to make the story move along. There are Adventurer/Guild Cards that are actual magic, or just normal paper. Sometimes the employee just issues a new one, sometimes they need to use a Hammer and adjust it. Simple flavor that doesn't need a ton of actual detail.