GamerEscape

Picture this scenario – you’re trying to relax after a long day, so you go to your streaming service of choice and open up the anime section. You see some old classics, like Naruto or One Piece, but once you scroll past the first couple recommendations, you being to notice a pattern even just within the series’ descriptions.

The formula is as follows: Person X is transported to a new universe to get a fresh start, and [insert power] causes them to have an impact in the world. 95 percent of the time, a disgruntled, under-appreciated individual from our modern world gets granted a second chance from a deity in said new universe. Usually, within the first episode, with relatively minor resistance, it is already established that our protagonist is a gifted individual with potential that exceeds the majority of the “other world’s” characters.

Within an astounding majority of these stories, the male protagonist almost always accumulates a “harem.” In a nutshell, multiple female companions all have a romantic infatuation with the main character, with a theme of “you’re such a great and noble person” being the reasoning and underlying accolade for their infatuation for the main character.

This formulaic genre I described is named “isekai,” which literally translates to “another world.”

So, why did I frame isekais as a modern anime problem? It’s because for those of us that grew up with anime, the landscape wasn’t as prominently dominated by this very specific and overtly formulaic type of storytelling.

There were fewer options back in the day without streaming services being this accessible, and although one could argue that shounens (battle animes written with a primary focus for young males like Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece) might have been titans of the industry, other anime spanning other genres shared a healthy representation in the spotlight, with examples like Death Note and Code Geass (psychological thrillers), Clannad (romance), Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (fantasy adventure), or Attack on Titan (action drama) all being examples of the anime landscape feeling like there is a lot of variety.

Meanwhile, in modern times, popular new series from the genres I previously listed still do exist in the “mainstream” of anime. But whether you’re browsing a manga website, a streaming service with anime titles, or even light novels in physical stores, you’ll notice these extremely verbosely titled isekais just absolutely dominating your available choices, with an example of this type of title being “I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in The Real World, Too.”

I frame this phenomena as a modern problem, mainly because if I were to look at a newcomer’s experience trying to dip their toes into anime (if you’re an avid viewer of non-isekai animes, you might want to try browsing streaming websites in an incognito window to simulate a blank slate without personalized recommendations), the sphere of anime in general just seems extremely formulaic compared to what the landscape looked like in the 2010s.

If I were to try to make a media comparison, the best comparison would be imagining your Netflix, Amazon, or Max main page just plastered in daytime soaps covering 66% of the recommendations. I want to make it perfectly clear, that there’s nothing wrong about enjoying daytime soaps, nor is it “of bad taste” to enjoy formulaic, turn-off-your-brain content. However, having these rigidly formula copy-and-paste narrative formats displace other vibrant, thought-engaging stories is in my book a problem.

So what are in these extremely rigid, predictable isekai stories?

The first core feature is a self-insert power fantasy. These isekai stories present a escapist power fantasy, catered towards your typical male reader that feels dissatisfied with how society treats them. Ridiculous levels of overpowered abilities are granted to the main character within the first 10% of the narrative’s beginning to have dominion over their world are almost unilaterally present in more than 95% percent of these isekai stories.

Whether this power comes in the form of literal videogame stat prowess (such as the infamous scene from Sword Art Online where the MC haughtily declares “my passive HP regeneration is stronger than your attacks”), or in the form of form of literal omnipotence over not only life, but also inanimate objects and even concepts themselves (My Instant Death Ability is Overpowered), isekais tend to present these ridiculous levels of power with no literary buildup. They instead focus on immediate gratification of the self-insert fantasy of massive power over your environment.

The second core feature of isekai is an appeal to a very low bar of “you deserve to be revered” in order to cast as wide of a net for the reader’s self-insert fantasy.

If you have a high school level understanding of basic law and societal structure, you will be showered in reverent adoration and gratitude from everyone (How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom) and absolute influence to create a society “how it should be.”

If you have cellphone, you become a god-deity of information with your phone that can still access the internet and be charged somehow in a universe without modern technology. A deity’s blesses you with augmented magical and physical powers for your troubles, and your cellphone earns you a harem of infatuated women in no time.

If you declare that “slavery is bad” or “beating children is bad” or any other basic 21st century first-world moral value, you deserve to be revered as a deeply loving person worthy of reverence and affection.

The Rising of the Shield Hero and Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation are popular examples of this low bar being grounds for being worthy of romantic adoration and acknowledgement of greatness, with the extra layer of irony being that the main character continues to engage in slave owning anyways after showing the viewer the main character’s basic modern moral position.

Here’s where the aforementioned “super verbose and long titles” loops back into these two super pervasive tropes; it’s almost never about the journey from nothing into greatness. These isekais instead aim for instant gratification in the self-insert power fantasy. The practice of complete long sentences being series titles was born out of light novel book spines / mangas / animes trying to catch the attention of someone who wants to get their power-fantasy satiated as soon as possible.

For the sake of brevity, I will be choosing to pass over a discussion about the societal dangers of promoting these types of entitled fantasies. Purely from a literary perspective, this overwhelmingly monolithic trend of isekai stories end up being next-door neighbors to daytime soap operas in terms of writing quality. If turn-your-brain-off enjoyment is what you’re looking for, then these isekais will probably do just fine.

There are also exceptions to the trends I’ve discussed above, outside of the 95% estimation I’ve been referencing. Some isekais are self aware of these tropes, such as Re:Zero or Uncle From Another World choosing to provide meta-commentary about these ridiculous tropes either in a serious fashion or in a satirizing fashion respectively. However, if you don’t want to do the manual sifting through the mountains of tropey writing, I implore you to look into other genres of anime.

Even if you are specifically looking for a fantasy journey to feel the satisfaction of agency and social fulfillment, I suggest scrolling past these isekais that are being pushed to front pages. There’s a reason stories like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, or Miyazaki films tend to make a much deeper and memorable impression – they’re willing to do their due diligence to incrementally build up their stories and characters.

Just within titles released in the past year or two, there are plenty of amazing fantasy anime whose writing aren’t constrained by an underlying need to deliver a quick and cheap power fantasy. If you wanted a shortcut in the process of scrolling past isekais, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End and Delicious In Dungeon are two fantasy anime that have received critical acclaim.

If there’s a parting message I’d like you to retain, modern anime has an isekai problem. However, I hope you’ve at least gained a basic understanding of why isekai are so generic, and I hope you do not give up on the world of anime — there’s plenty of quality you can find, it might just take some extra scrolling to find them.

Art courtesy of A-1 Pictures, Madhouse, Studio Bind, White Fox, Revoroot, Toho Animation, and Kinema Citrus, and Okuruto Noboru