I think I get isekai now (warning: navel-gazing ahead)

[AnEmberOfSundown]

As the title says: boring navel-gazing ahead. Viewer discretion advised.

Okay, so I have a pretty long commute every morning and today as I was watching the highway go by I think I stumbled on the answer to something that had been bugging me.

Isekai. I don't get it, not a fan. Absolutely NOT trying to put it down or insult anyone here (in the words of Hoban Washburne "Some people juggle geese."). I just didn't get the appeal. To me, it seemed like overcomplicating a simple thing. Write the fiction, why add in a protagonist who had to "reincarnate" into it? Especially when the genre seems to be plagued (in a self-aware way) with apparently-boring protagonists who are gifted these amazing powers.

Then it hit me. Isekai abstracts the concept of reading/consuming fiction.

Think about it. Reading any fiction story asks us to enter the protagonist's world, metaphorically "incarnating" in their reality. Even in third-person omniscient stories there's normally a protagonist whom we follow, even if we're not in their head directly. The thing is though, we carry our modern sensibilities, our biases, and our genre awareness with us but the protagonist doesn't possess those things.

Unless it's an isekai protagonist. Then, they're EXPECTED to have all of those things. We're basically reading about a reader reading a story, only instead of picking up a book they got hit by a truck.

IDK, this is all probably old news to fans of the genre but it made me laugh on the way in today. I'm sure there are nuances and examples that people will point to about why I'm wrong, but whatever. Still not a fan but I think I get the appeal now.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

As someone who reads a lot of Transmigration (and finally ended up writing one) types of Isekai, basically the Korean style of it, I wouldn't say that is my reason for reading them. A lot of timmes, it's about the power fantasy - other times, it's just about the subversion of expectations with the characters around the MC and the "overcoming" of obstacles produced by someone else's mistakes.
You might not know, since you say you don't really read the genre, but really popular is the old but gold female lead Transmigration trope "I took over the body of a villainess / a shrew / an obsolete plot device that will die". In fact, when I wrote my version, The Crazy Daughter of the Duke's Family, I literally made a point of collecting as many tropes as I possibly could. Like, I went all out. She transmigrated into a villainess, which was simultaneously a shrew AND an obsolete plot device, destined to die at the beginning of the book the protagonist read in her old world. There's so many more of these. And I had fun connecting all of these things into my lore and the story itself, so it would all make sense (because, you know, even if the story is enjoyable, it has always irked me, that a lot of these things remain unexplained - they usually don't even ask the question).
It's a guilty pleasure of mine, but it sure does have flaws. I still must say I don't really feel what you assumed. Then again, it could be like this for other people.

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

As someone who reads a lot of Transmigration (and finally ended up writing one) types of Isekai, basically the Korean style of it, I wouldn't say that is my reason for reading them. A lot of timmes, it's about the power fantasy - other times, it's just about the subversion of expectations with the characters around the MC and the "overcoming" of obstacles produced by someone else's mistakes.
You might not know, since you say you don't really read the genre, but really popular is the old but gold female lead Transmigration trope "I took over the body of a villainess / a shrew / an obsolete plot device that will die". In fact, when I wrote my version, The Crazy Daughter of the Duke's Family, I literally made a point of collecting as many tropes as I possibly could. Like, I went all out. She transmigrated into a villainess, which was simultaneously a shrew AND an obsolete plot device, destined to die at the beginning of the book the protagonist read in her old world. There's so many more of these. And I had fun connecting all of these things into my lore and the story itself, so it would all make sense (because, you know, even if the story is enjoyable, it has always irked me, that a lot of these things remain unexplained - they usually don't even ask the question).
It's a guilty pleasure of mine, but it sure does have flaws. I still must say I don't really feel what you assumed. Then again, it could be like this for other people.

Sorry, I probably should have been clearer about what I meant by "getting" it.

I'm not assuming one single reason why people like the genre, it was more like I didn't get the point of it existing in the first place. It felt like a hyper-specific trope applied to a broad category of fiction which didn't make sense as a practice until I looked at it as a layer of abstraction applied to existing themes.

I'm sure there are a million different reasons for liking various stories/authors/subgenres though.

EDIT: Yes, I get VERY bored on my commute. No, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of trains, my hyper fixation special interests lie elsewhere.

 

[expentio]

My personal big issue with Isekai stories is when the transmigration doesn't matter. I see tons of stories where you could've easily rewritten the plot so that it would fit a native of this world. And if this happens, the isekai becomes just pointless and nothing but clickbait.

Two points I find particularly jarring.
The first is when the character just doesn't seem to act any differently from a native. They don't have different morals, just go along with local traditions, like slavery, and overall act perfectly like a member of this society.

The second is if they don't act like someone from a modern world. Any story where the protagonist starts murdering the local fauna or even humanoids loses me instantly. Normal people from our world don't just get into killing like this. We have sensibilities. We're probably also a bit spoiled by modern amenities. We don't know how to fight life and death battles, we likely won't opt to execute a bandit outright, we are squeamish about violence, and things our morals don't align with. If all this is gone, then seriously, the character doesn't make sense as a transmigrator.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

Sorry, I probably should have been clearer about what I meant by "getting" it.

I'm not assuming one single reason why people like the genre, it was more like I didn't get the point of it existing in the first place. It felt like a hyper-specific trope applied to a broad category of fiction which didn't make sense as a practice until I looked at it as a layer of abstraction applied to existing themes.

I'm sure there are a million different reasons for liking various stories/authors/subgenres though.

EDIT: Yes, I get VERY bored on my commute. No, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of trains, my hyper fixation special interests lie elsewhere.

Ah, well, I mean, fair enough. Again, it could be true for some people, but I do know a lot who are just in it for certain tropes. And a lot of them are power fantasy types ("random Joe get Isekai'd and gains superpowers that may destroy the whole universe for no reason whatsoever" fits that description perfectly). So there's that.

 

[Eldoria]

I'm a former mainstream isekai reader. I've read many titles. But it's precisely because I've had my fill of isekai tropes that I've been inspired to write my current subversive fiction. As an author, I probably wouldn't write isekai. But as a reader, I've enjoyed isekai.

 

[Dawnathon]

My personal big issue with Isekai stories is when the transmigration doesn't matter. I see tons of stories where you could've easily rewritten the plot so that it would fit a native of this world. And if this happens, the isekai becomes just pointless and nothing but clickbait.

I feel like it's a crutch half the time, particularly with "reincarnated as This Specific Character" types. If you're writing a story about Goku from DBZ doing whatever random shenanigans you want, people might wonder why he's acting nothing like Goku ever would. But if you're writing a story about your self-insert protagonist reincarnating as Goku, now you have carte blanche to pick and choose which aspects of him you want to keep (usually powers and character relationships) while ignoring any of those pesky canon facts that get in the way of the power fantasy being told.

Though other times it really seems completely superfluous. Like they're treating the fact that if you're writing a story, it HAS to be an isekai, your protag HAS to be a boring nobody who dies and then is mysteriously handed all the coolest bestest powers in the world...

But those kinds of stories still get a lot of views, so maybe they're not wrong about the obligatory trope adherence depending on the audience.

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

I feel like it's a crutch half the time, particularly with "reincarnated as This Specific Character" types. If you're writing a story about Goku from DBZ doing whatever random shenanigans you want, people might wonder why he's acting nothing like Goku ever would. But if you're writing a story about your self-insert protagonist reincarnating as Goku, now you have carte blanche to pick and choose which aspects of him you want to keep (usually powers and character relationships) while ignoring any of those pesky canon facts that get in the way of the power fantasy being told.

Though other times it really seems completely superfluous. Like they're treating the fact that if you're writing a story, it HAS to be an isekai, your protag HAS to be a boring nobody who dies and then is mysteriously handed all the coolest bestest powers in the world...

But those kinds of stories still get a lot of views, so maybe they're not wrong about the obligatory trope adherence depending on the audience.

Yeah, see this is a big reason I roll my eyes when people say to write the meta. It sometimes feels like isekai-like or LN-like titles are almost a requirement, along with the nobody protagonist who happens to be smarter/cooler than the inhabitants of the world because they understand the meta themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I like playing with genre-awareness and meta narratives too. I just made a deuteragonist whose job description is to basically hang on the fourth wall like a useless lesbian sconce without ever actually breaking through it. She's aware enough to get pissed off about tropes and cliches but not enough to know she's a character, if that makes sense.

 

[Sylver]

Not a fan of isekai, mainly because the Mangas get pretty same-y in concept and execution. Sword Art Online popularized the genre so much that it's become the McDonalds of Manga genre. A majority of fantasy-based stories now follow the Isekai genre, which bites because I miss the imagination and world-building those stuff use to have.

My favorite anime of all time is Inuyasha, which itself is similar to an Isekai, but without the addition of Truck-kun a high school girl in modern day Japan falls in a well and discovers its a portal to a feudal time Japan with demons and Monsters.

I totally get why Isekai works and has a large following, even in stories on this site I expect Isekai to be amongst the Trending most of the time. Heck, it nearly encompasses the popular stories on Royal Road. My argument is I just wish we had more variety and creativity with its concept, or more fantasy stories that go a different direction that isn't Isekai.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

It is a version of classic Portal Fantasy stories, like Chronicles of Narnia, where characters from one world go to another - only, in the isekai case, they usually go from a world similar to the one the assumed reader lives in, to a very different one.
This allows the writer to reveal the world to the reader and have the MC be as surprised by it as the reader might be, rather than a jaded "native."
One classic example would be Burrough's John Carter of Mars stories (A Princess of Mars, John Carter of Mars, et. al.) which has the protagonist, essentially, astrally projecting to Barsoom (Mars) and winding up in a body identical to the one he left (only naked). This allowed the writer to take a character many of his readers knew, some intimately (a soldier on the losing side of a war, still a man of pride and the American equivalent of "nobility") and transport him to another world where he is just as surprised as the reader is to discover his improved physical abilities, as well as to meet the inhabitants of this world, both the red and green Martians. This Southern Gentleman winds up a hero, and then a leader among the people of Barsoom. falls in love, gets married, has kids ... and keeps getting pulled back to Earth until he makes provisions for his descendant (the author) to tell a fictionalized version of his adventures and returns to his wife permanently.

 

[SirContro]

Isekai is a genre that can be great; the main issue comes from the pointless nature of a foreigner to that world as a protagonist. If you're not lazy, however, and come up with a justifiable reason for why your setting and plot are the way they are, you can get some very interesting stories.

In a mostly abandoned project, for example, I have two main characters fighting over control of the same body. The foreigner has to be there because the body his soul enters belongs to the only man talented enough to end a great war, but said man is also an idiot who would get himself killed at the very start of the story otherwise.

In my main story, a similar plot is set up in the typical setting of a book world actually being real, but the trope is subverted as the foreigner's soul is too weak to last one day in the protagonist's body and instead provides assistance by writing down everything he knows about the plot of the story he's in so the actual main character gets a sort of pseudo future sight for main events. The main character also forms a bond with this foreigner and makes his main goal getting strong enough to hopefully reunite with him, making the foreigner more relevant to the plot than just being someone who takes control of a body.

 

[Nolff]

Not a fan of isekai, mainly because the Mangas get pretty same-y in concept and execution. Sword Art Online popularized the genre so much that it's become the McDonalds of Manga genre. A majority of fantasy-based stories now follow the Isekai genre, which bites because I miss the imagination and world-building those stuff use to have.

My favorite anime of all time is Inuyasha, which itself is similar to an Isekai, but without the addition of Truck-kun a high school girl in modern day Japan falls in a well and discovers its a portal to a feudal time Japan with demons and Monsters.

I totally get why Isekai works and has a large following, even in stories on this site I expect Isekai to be amongst the Trending most of the time. Heck, it nearly encompasses the popular stories on Royal Road. My argument is I just wish we had more variety and creativity with its concept, or more fantasy stories that go a different direction that isn't Isekai.

Wanted to go down this way with my new fic, and also adding in the system stuff too.

But, I find it real hard to make this attempt creatively without breaching the fanfic gate (AKA turning my original fic into a fanfic). Might be because of what I've read nowadays are fanfics. Yeah, probably that. BUT-

Anyways, I'm done here. I need to focus elsewhere.