Hey, y’all. Pardon my lack of posts; working overtime regularly really takes it out a person’s ability to think clearly outside of work. I started musing on things while I was doing dishes, and went off on a tangent of a genre I like: the Isekai story. So I figured maybe I should take y’all on my tangent with me. Prepare to see how I think too much. *submarine siren blaring* Dive, dive!
Perhaps it’s just my English Major training, but it’s good to start off with a definition of the term. So– “Isekai 異世界, transl. “different world” or “otherworld”) is a Japanese genre of portal fantasy and science fiction… that revolve around a person or people who are transported to and have to survive in another world, such as a fantasy world, virtual world, another planet, or parallel world.” (From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isekai)
If it is difficult to imagine how this might look in a story, imagine the story of Alice in Wonderland (and its sequel Through the Looking Glass). Alice goes through a portal in both stories to wind up in another world, where the fantastic seems mundane and the mundane seems fantastic. Other examples are Dorothy and Toto being carried to Oz by a tornado, the Pevensie children going through an enchanted wardrobe into Narnia, and Peter Pan leading the children to Neverland. Essentially, the main character goes to a fantasy world.
Now, the trip to another world has been around in fantasy literature for years and years. From my personal experience, I know of several manga/anime from the 1980s and 90s that I remember reading/watching: Those Who Hunt Elves, Magic Knight Rayearth, From Far Away, Red River, Vision of Escaflowne, El-Hazard and Fushigi Yûgi. (From Far Away is one of my all-time favorite manga.) Spirited Away is another example, just from 2002. The .hack// series of video games and anime also take this idea and transform it into being transported into a video game (which has become a subgenre of isekai stories now.)
Right now, there seems to be a ton of manga/manhwa that is all about the isekai story. I generally categorize them into the following subgenres, with some examples that I like or have popular anime adaptations:
-Being summoned into another world (The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent, My Isekai Life: I Gained a Second Character Class and Became the Strongest Sage in the World, Different World Hospitality Meals, High School Prodigies Have it Easy Even in Another World)
-Being reincarnated into another world (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash, Crimson Karma, By the Grace of the Gods, The Otherworldly Travels of a Material Collector)
-Being reincarnated into a book/game as a pre-existing character (My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Who Made Me a Princess?, The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen Who Will Become the Source of Tragedy Will Devote Herself for the Sake of the People, I Raised a Black Dragon, Villains are Destined to Die, The Greatest Estate Developer)
-Getting stuck in a game as the protagonist’s character (Overlord, Land of Leadale, .hack//, Sword Art Online, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody)
-Dying and going back in time (My In-Laws are Obsessed with Me, The Villainess Lives Again, Untouchable Lady, The Broken Ring: This Marriage Will Fail Anyway)
Please note: Not all of these will suit your taste. Some of them are much more psychological drama than others, and may touch on or revolve around controversial or sensitive topics. And to be honest, I’m not a fan of some of these; I mostly mentioned them because they’re relatively well-known. Also to be fair, not all of these are “legally” licensed? I may or may not have read fan translations online… *Looks away while sweating conspicuously*
“Isekai stories share many common tropes – for example, a powerful protagonist who is able to beat most people in the other world by fighting. This plot device typically allows the audience to learn about the new world at the same pace as the protagonist over the course of their quest or lifetime.” (From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isekai)
So a lot of “typical” Isekai stories have characters who are OP, or overpowered. They possess abilities (magical and/or physical based) that make them stronger than the other people around them. An example of this would be in Black Summoner, where Kelvin reincarnates with the super rare ability of summoner, and of course is the highest ranked summoner ever. In Another World with My Smartphone revolves around a character who has affinity with every magical type in addition to being able to look up things from his homeworld on his titular smartphone. By the Grace of the Gods has Ryoma with affinities for several magics and the childlike curiosity of exploring everything and learning new ways to use said magics. Some series have characters who begin normal(ish) but upon leveling up, receive huge power boosts that OP them. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, and Chillin’ in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers are examples of this. Even if the characters are not magically or physically proficient and could be characterized as “normal,” they can still have the memories of their former life on Earth to help move technology along, have regressed from the future and know the big events that will happen, or been a fan of the book/game they were transmigrated into and know the future of the story.
So. This is a very long-winded explanation. My English professors would have probably marked me down for taking so long. Having said that, it’s just become such a huge genre that it’s just everywhere in manga and manhwa currently. I’m very excited that there are two upcoming anime adaptations of manga I’ve read: My Isekai Life: I Gained a Second Character Class and Became the Strongest Sage in the World and I’m the Villainess, so I’m Taming the Last Boss. Sadly, there are so many good ones that I want to watch as anime, but it probably won’t happen.
Now, on to the whole musing part of this thing. I don’t want to just nerd out over my obsession; this is a former English major’s blog after all. A lot of this is just theoretical, as I haven’t done any actual research. Lol. And to be honest, it’s mostly from my own experience in daily life, but here goes:
We desire an escape from daily life. That’s what I think it comes down to. We have the whole get up, go to work or school, run errands, come home, eat and go to bed. That’s the regular pattern. There are of course variations on it, but I think the majority of people have what we might call “boring lives.” But we want more. We want something that deep in our soul screams to us, “This is why I am alive!” We were made for more than just lives that barely scratch the surface of living. And in the middle of our daily dullness, we see things that are wrong. Injustice of every sort. And I think lots of us feel helpless in the face of it. What can we actually do about it?
And isekai speaks to that. We have, in many stories, a normal person thrust into an un-normal situation. Even if characters become OP, the good stories always put the characters in situations that challenge them and force them to become a better person. They make enemies and allies. A typical story arc for many stories involves an OP character coming to a town that is being oppressed by greedy authorities or unbeatable monsters, then stepping in and saving people. It’s a story type that’s been popular in Western TV, like The Lone Ranger, The Incredible Hulk, The A-Team, and Supernatural. Other stories have long-running stories with political intrigue and rebellion, working on injustice from the ground up. So there is the type of story that speaks to our desire to be powerful enough to stand up for the weak and right the wrongs that we see around us.
Then there is the type of isekai story that is called “slice-of-life.” It could be someone just exploring different types of food in their new worlds and sharing their homeworld (often Japanese) cuisine. It could be someone using their knowledge of engineering or science to enrich the lives of the their new families. It could be someone who has experienced so much trauma or despair in their original life, and are now getting a chance to heal and learn hope. There are so many people who have been scarred by life, and seeing someone else heal and become whole, even in fiction, can be a way for us to heal ourselves. The beauty of slice-of-life stories is that it helps us re-appreciate our daily lives, even the mundane aspects. It romanticizes the small things, like doing laundry, or sharing a meal, or shopping.
Maybe this is all my own perspective. It’s so easy to get bogged down in everything everyday that is just… “everyday.” Like I mentioned, work, errand, meal, sleep. I want something more. Sometimes I just want to scream into the void and have something scream back at me. (Maybe that’s just my depression talking.) Isekai is scratching that itch, so to speak. It’s reminding me that life still exists and is ready for me to tackle.
But yeah. There’s a weird hybrid post for you, all nerdy, essay, existentialy, me. Eh.
I make no promise when I’ll post again. Life is weird. Catch you on the flip side.
Random English Major Thoughts 