It’s official. You’re not an otaku nerd anymore if you say Isekai but someone with an extensive vocabulary. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else!
It’s official. You’re not an otaku nerd anymore if you say Isekai but someone with an extensive vocabulary. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else!
A Japanese genre of science or fantasy fiction featuring a protagonist who is transported to or reincarnated in a different, strange, or unfamiliar world. Also: an anime, manga, video game, etc., in this genre. Frequently as a modifier. - Oxford English dictionary
Okay, so Fantasy or sci fi with a real world protagonist so to say. Interesting that happens enough to make a sub genre lol
Japanese and Korean media are wayyy beyond saturated with isekai series. I mean just look at this shit: https://isekai.fandom.com/wiki/Isekai_Series
Shit they made that Suicide Squad Isekai anime
Written by Tappei Nagatsuki and animated by Wit Studio and OP by Calli Moriope. I’m neither a fan of shounen, nor the Suicide Squad IP but even I believe it’s probably going to be good.
Wait hold up, Nagatsuki is working on it? Sheeesh
isekai itself isnt any magical new subgenre, it just that the number skyrockete past 2010 so they more or les made it a big thing. it itself is related to portal fantasy in a western sense.
examples of western portal fantasies include titles like the chronicles of Narnia, Wizard of Oz, and Harry Potter and such.
I think it’s a two fold thing: one a reflection on shitty living/working conditions where the salary-man/office lady needs an escape from life and this lets them relate, and two it helps ground a person in the reference of the new world by feeling they could be there too.
You have a whole world of isekai waiting for you
I noticed they studiously avoided using the phrase “light novel”.
I just tried, and they don’t have a definition for that phrase.
The best match that the OED came up with was “railway novel” defined as: