Childhood Arcs In Isekai

[KAbhinavV]

I have recently read supreme magus and oh boy did one thing piss me off!
The childhood never really ends. We are stuck watching a kid forever.
So in my book I decided to keep the childhood arc short, I turned the MC ten in like 7 chapters, and roughly eleven thousand words.
I did this with lots of time skips.
My only goal was to introduce the main tension of the story and the world in brief.
Anyways, what do you hate about childhood arcs and what is the ideal way to do it in isekai stories? Tell me all about it!

My Book: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1402616/born-to-magic/

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I've only seen a few, and only one dealt with a real childhood arc (one had a fourteen year old become a god before hitting sixteen in about 200 chapters, so not sure if it counts) - the MC died in the first chapter, was reborn as an alien, died in that chapter, was reborn and died two more times in the next chapter before waking up as a baby. It spent half a chapter of him (re) learning how to crawl, walk and talk, and then the next chapter or two flashed through his first twelve years of life, and then sent him off to an academy to train further. Did not hear (it was an audio novel my wife was listening to) any more beyond that.

 

[PancakesWitch]

I dont consider it a flaw or something that shouldnt be done, people enjoy writing and reading childhood arcs, and they're especially good for a slice of life story. A lot of people want to relive their childhood or imagine they had a better one.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

I have recently read and supreme magus and oh boy did one thing piss me off!
The childhood never really ends. We are stuck watching a kid a kid forever.

Well, Isekai Childhood arcs were pretty much started with Mushoku Tensei, which is actually fun to read.

Complete with starting out as baby, learning to read, and interaction with kids, altough due to early maturity, the action comes rather early as well, but everything is kinda fun and wish-fullfilment-ishly happy until the first turning point.

If there's another story that takes it too far, and takes it too far is underestimating it, its running and dragging the childhood arc to the ground and beyond, it's "Tensei Shite Inaka de Slowlife wo Okuritai"

It's a Story written up by "scenario writer", in which he specializes in writing scenarios and events for other stories, in which you'll be sure this story is full of events, altough not much in progression.

Even the MC is quite OP with magics, altough not many knows it as he only uses magic when its convenient. Its practically mushoku tensei, but MC stays in home to experience Slow Life and only gets out from time to time.

It sounds like a gag story, with lots of japanese gag that is unacceptable to wrsterns peoples, but many changes happen and not stuck forever, its just extremely slow. But yeah, he's still a child despite the story has been 500 chapters already.

Things i hate about childhood arc ?
Surprisingly i have yet to be disappointed with childhood arcs. Mushoku's childhood arc is too good, it put rose colored glasses to my perspective on them.

 

[AncestorDuck]

The mc flirting with an 10 year old. Man, its so disturbing.

 

[Clo]

Given how much I love Ascendance of a Bookworm, I really don't mind childhood arcs.

I don't super like when the year0 part is stretched out too much.

I also dislike when a character who now 16, but was clearly someone else for many years prior their death, just totally act like a native of that new world.

I understand people adapt to circumstances and learn to roll with things, but I still find it jarring how little they spend struggling with their sense of self.

But that's also why I am writing a story that is basically dealing with those questions almost exclusively.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Childhood arcs isn't required in isekai, so when I wrote mine, I don't put any of that and just summoned the orherworlder in. There's not even a 'death arc' before he was summoned.