Why I Fucking Hate Isekai

Picture this. You are walking home one day, it’s a cold winter night and you ran out to get some coffee for a cram session before exams. Trying to mind your own business you happen to look across the street catching a fleeting glimpse of the most beautiful girl you have ever seen. Enamored your body moves without thinking onto the paved road, right into the path of truck-kun. Expect in this world the girl doesn’t save your life nor do you two get married, you die, only to be awoken across from a useless goddess you are not aware is useless yet. My dear friend you have just became a protagonist in a massive hit anime trope known as Iseaki.

So the Isekai term comes from the simple translation of “Different World” and if anyone has seen, I don’t know any seasonal release in the last four years, you have seen quite the line up of them. The general rule of thumb goes like this. We have an average guy who gets thrown into a different world either post-death or by chance. Now, this can go one of three ways. One, the main is just as useless but uses sheer determination to get the outcome they want, IE Subaru from Re: Zero.

Second, the main is stupidly overpowered, to a troll level. An example of this would be like Rimuru Tempest from That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, or (and granted tastefully so) Ainz Ooal Gown from Overlord. All and all these vain of Isekai are my least favorite since most of them play by the rules that the main is just a write-in character for anyone that is watching. Being a clean slate that allows anyone in the audience to relate and project themselves onto. I will not discredit it as a creative form, just not a fan.

The third would be, the strangest. When the main come to the new world, with or without powers, decides to be, I don’t know a fucking farmer or something. It is like when I played Albion many moons ago and realized I didn’t have the time to grind any of the actual competitive stuff so I just farmed, I became a farmer, I raised cattle and sold meat, that was my life. I was a gold founder for a game I turned into Farmville with murder, why do I do these things?

Anyways, so the standard idea that follows the world of Isekai, you die, be reborn in a different world, and figure it out. It should also be a point that this era of anime has become a dominating factor. Every season we are seeing some new Isekai WITH at least three new series at the same time, week after week, and I hate it.

I guess I should explain why?

My dislike of the genre isn’t so much blanketed. Konosuba and Re: Zero I happen to be a large fan of and there are others that I have enjoyed as well. Where my problem lies in the sheer quantity and lack of quality that has come out of the whole Iseaki wave. It is one thing to have a certain niche that is filled multiple times a season but it is another thing to have over 15 of those shows over a year only to have one maybe two with actual memorable substance.

Ever since about 2013 anime as a whole quality has skyrocketed in both critical and original storytelling and Isekai was apart of that but in moderation. However within the last two years the amount of Isekai that have been coming down the pipe paired with the fact that it uses the same skin over with slightly different angels all to come to the same conclusion they do.

Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of people like the Isekai world and have thoroughly enjoyed the coming of the great Isekai era. Sadly, it seems I am just a man of old culture, one who dreams of the imouto, slice of life world that dominated 4-5 years ago. I am looking forward to the time where we get past this, that one Isekai a season becomes more commonplace or shows on the level of Re: Zero continue to get released.

But I guess for now I will sit in salt while OP MCs destroy the whole forest in attempts to kill a low-level beasty, or something of the sort. Either way thanks for the read!