Should Isekai really be that hated?

If someone hates isekai for being "slop" then they'd have to hate most anime in general.

The vast majority of isekai are really incredibly stupid low effort copy-paste slop. So much so that literally every person in this chat could write at least 100 similar stories of the same quality if they wanted to. And their main audience is literally children (mostly not even teenagers) and super undemanding viewers. So yes, their "hate" is completely deserved.

Although this is certainly not even hate, because calling something with low-quality "low-quality" is simply stating a fact.

No. You can go back over the years and find plenty of isekai that are 7/10 or so. In fact most isekai that come out now seem to be like 5/10 or so (slop), not worth hating, and perfectly fine to kill time with.

I think isekai is fairly good. There may be some who hate it. But I think it can be enjoyable, under the correct context.

As someone who has watched / read over 200 isekai series, majority of the 'complaints' it gets are very much valid, and they are not really wrong to call large amount of them 'slop'.

I agree with all the cons, and frankly have hard time remembering most of them, and forget them in less than a week. I once had read a series to 70 chapters without realising I had already read that before. Emphasising that most are that badly unimaginative or lacking any individuality. Despite all that, they are some of the easiest form of media to consume, the lowest of fast-food type, ones you can mindless consume and binge with your brain turned off. Some of the best of escapism media.

I like JP Isekai-slop better than EN progression 'fantasy'-trash or CN Wuxia Cultivation-trash or the worst of bunch KR WN-trash.

Isekai IS very much TRASHY, and that's not really a problem. As long as it's brain-off bingeable. Tho kill all those mediocre hypergeneric moralcuck MCs please.

Most recent Isekais have been "slop" after the genre got popular, so it's understandable. What i mean by "slop" is the many 12-episode Isekai (usually no second season) with cookie-cutter story and stereotypical characters, and barely good enough or below average animation / production quality.

There are the great ones like Mushoku Tensei (if you don't mind the extreme ecchi side) and Re:Zero, which set the standard.

The popular No Game No Life and KonoSuba are also entertaining, although most people forget that they are Isekai.

But there are also seemingly generic Isekais which are actually unique (story-wise or character-wise), like Grimgar, Handyman Saitou, Cautious Hero, and the recent The Old Man Reincarnated as a Villainess, followed by some other titles (Problem Children, Trapped in a Dating Sim, and more).

Since Isekai rooted in Fantasy genre, it's up to the creators and studios for the level of creativity and animation/production quality, and based on those, people's reactions will always vary.

There are people who highly prefers realism over fantasy for various reasons, which is perfectly valid, but their criticism shouldn't be the priority here (especially if it's because they are not willing to set aside logic while watching the more creative types of fantasy).

---

Edit: talking about cookie-cutter / formulaic story, Truck-kun got stale for a while, but recently depending on level of creativity + humor, it actually can be a really good tone-setter for the rest of the anime.

Haven't answered the poll, but i just took a look at the question and you're right, i bet there are more people who give unintended answer than not.

The big problem with isekai is that it's usually the same shit over and over again. A guy is just minding his own business until he randomly dies and is transported to a generic fantasy world with elves, dragons, etc.

Recently, I've been watching GATE. A few episodes in, it's a twist that I am liking so far. Military X Isekai basically.

I don't think the entire genre isekai should get hated, but there is enough harem isekai out there, and I feel that its getting too easy to just fall back into the harem instead of making an actual good story🙏

I mean, my favourite all-time anime is one of the OG Isekai titles, so I can't say I dislike it on the whole. I can say that I dislike unoriginal, uncreative, conveyor belt Isekai that seems to be present each season for no apparent reason. But when done well and with some sort of innovative take, Isekai can make for a great show even in this saturated market.

No? I think people hate specific isekai tropes.. like truck-kun, or "I died and got reincarnation as a XX" predictable bullshit (I mean, the whole story is already in in the title itself. There's also the korean trend - "I got sucked into the game/novel I liked" or "I got reincarnated into a villain" shtick.

Isekai used to be more diverse than what they seem nowadays. Spirited Away, Inuyasha, Tsubasa Chronicle, Sugar Sugar Rune, Doraemon are some isekai examples that most people will exclude when they say they hate isekai.

Isekai seems to be where the really long and dumb anime titles joke came from also they are all the same power fantasy ass story only like a handful of them are original enough to not be considered ass.

@rbp_pbr2 Totally understand your point, like I can't believe such a stupidly long isekai anime title like I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability even exists! It's so stupid.

Anyways thanks for the message!

@Matt6616

I have a folder I keep the longest ones I find in and I saw going to copy it in here... but I did a quick google search and it turns out I'm 4 years late...

https://www.theouterhaven.net/2021/10/new-light-novels-title-is-196-pages-long/

It's already been done, lol.

No worries! In Spirited Away, Chihiro got isekai'd into the land of the non-living, or the land of gods (kamikakushi). It basically functions as the Land of the Dead in the Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End. The movie features a lot of aspects of the japanese shinto religion (you can try watching Noragami or Natsume Yuujincho or even Toilet-bound Hanako to familiarize yourself with the japanese shinto culture). Basically gods are made when people believe in something and pray to them (animism), likewise, gods disappear if mortals forget about them. Names hold immense power. And also the river that left Chihiro stranded on that new place is the river between life and death. This is why Chihiro couldn't eat the foods from the street stalls, Or when Yubaba removed letters from Chihiro's real name to form a new name Sen, she almost forgot about her life before being isekai'd (also why Haku forgot about his identity). You might have already realized that the esteemed guests of the bath house are gods, but what most people don't know is that Haku the white dragon is a river god forgotten due to overdevelopment that's happening along the riverbank resulting in the river almost vanishing and people forget of its existence. When Chihiro commented his name "sounds like a god's name", it IS because he is a god - a forgotten one almost like Yato from Noragami. So yeah, Chihiro basically got isekai'd into a different world. Hope my explanation helps!

@perseii Sorry I should've done this you are totally right, if you'd be fine with it I'll share the last 5 isekais I've watched and what exactly I liked about them (I'll also include this in the start of the thread and give you the credit for saying I should do so.)

(SPOILERS)
I just recently watched I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo) and boy did I enjoy that anime. It had a lot of mysterious elements in it, a giant twist in regards to the generic villainess stories, and is just felt quite exhilarating getting to the ending. I was only a bit weirded out about how the prince in the story came off a bit pdf'ish and was about to drop it off of that but I was glad I stuck with it.

I don't know if it'd be a good idea to put an isekai that I rewatched but I'll put it here anyways. I rewatched Skeleton Knight in Another World (Gaikotsu Kishi-sama, Tadaima Isekai e Odekakechuu) which felt pretty good. There was no harem-esk stuff inside of the anime which made it more enjoyable. They framed the MC not as a super OP character as one of the elf people later on in the village (the female main protaganist's mom) defeats Arc (the MC) in a battle.

The Eminence in Shadow (Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!) was the third most recent isekai I've watched and while at some points I do find it kind of boring and not going in the direction I wished the writers would've gone, I found it a bit enjoyable. The main character Cid (Minoru Kagenou was his name before getting isekai'd) kind of is a bit edgy I guess I would say? Not kind of in actuallity, he is really edgy 🤣. But I digress the anime is pretty alright, didn't go the way I wanted it to exactly, but it had great animation.

From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! (Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan) was another recent isekai that I've watched. It was pretty good and had a bit of a twist as I had fully thought that the dad was really in another world, not in a video game. That being said it kind of turned me off from the show and made me less interested in it as I just felt less... attached I would say? But it has an alright story and I think will have a S2 as I'm pretty sure a lot of other people enjoyed it as much as I did.

Lastly the 5th most recent isekai anime I've seen was Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill (Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi). Overall it was kind of your average isekai with the ability to bring stuff in from another world, kind of like Sasaki and Peeps but in a reverse fashion, but not entirely? IDK. But yeah it was pretty good, the detailed background and food looked really good for a isekai.

Its important to understand that Isekai is the pornography of several people

@Facu225 pornography of which people? Please tell us who they are.

@Yumerei Helped a lot, thanks!

Man it feels bad seeing that you wrote all this out for me XD

No worries, I was just grumbling and it was only a gentle suggestion. Nice of you to actually respond.

I only occasionally watch isekai so I've seen only one of the 5 you mentioned. But I actually remember reading about these, you seem to be picking out the interesting-sounding ones, haha. I was thinking of trying Skeleton Knight and Eminence in Shadow at some point.

Ojisan Villainess is the one I've seen, and I really enjoyed it. I like the "accidentally failing upwards" shtick (Bakarina, Tearmoon Empire), and the old dude charming everyone with his "dad mode" was extra fun. Also liked how it embraced the video game-ness and how nerdy the whole family was.

But I also have to say the story was mostly fluff, so I also got "less attached" over time. And the "lady in a magic school goes "o-ho-ho-ho" on a timid commoner" set-up is getting a bit tired for me (maybe they were parodying it, I'm not sure).

I see you're watching the Water Mage isekai this season. I've given it a try, but the first one-and-a-half episodes came across as so... lazy. It was nice to look at, but the story felt really uncreative and checklist-y, with the whole "skill get, level in starting zone, unlock stronger skills" montage. I should watch more before judging it, but the start was exactly what I picture as the "copy-paste isekai" that so many people hate. I understand that it could've been way worse, though.

All in all, yeah, it's unfair to group the whole genre as generic. But the majority of them do look very generic, and I'm not surprised people get so annoyed after getting flooded with these for years.

No. Isekai should get a lot more hate than it's currently getting (except Twelve Kingdoms). It's all garbage (except Twelve Kingdoms)

@Deathko I don't know why but I feel like you live the anime Twelve Kingdoms?

@perseii Sorry I should've done this you are totally right, if you'd be fine with it I'll share the last 5 isekais I've watched and what exactly I liked about them (I'll also include this in the start of the thread and give you the credit for saying I should do so.)

(SPOILERS)
I just recently watched I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo) and boy did I enjoy that anime. It had a lot of mysterious elements in it, a giant twist in regards to the generic villainess stories, and is just felt quite exhilarating getting to the ending. I was only a bit weirded out about how the prince in the story came off a bit pdf'ish and was about to drop it off of that but I was glad I stuck with it.

I don't know if it'd be a good idea to put an isekai that I rewatched but I'll put it here anyways. I rewatched Skeleton Knight in Another World (Gaikotsu Kishi-sama, Tadaima Isekai e Odekakechuu) which felt pretty good. There was no harem-esk stuff inside of the anime which made it more enjoyable. They framed the MC not as a super OP character as one of the elf people later on in the village (the female main protaganist's mom) defeats Arc (the MC) in a battle.

The Eminence in Shadow (Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute!) was the third most recent isekai I've watched and while at some points I do find it kind of boring and not going in the direction I wished the writers would've gone, I found it a bit enjoyable. The main character Cid (Minoru Kagenou was his name before getting isekai'd) kind of is a bit edgy I guess I would say? Not kind of in actuallity, he is really edgy 🤣. But I digress the anime is pretty alright, didn't go the way I wanted it to exactly, but it had great animation.

From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! (Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan) was another recent isekai that I've watched. It was pretty good and had a bit of a twist as I had fully thought that the dad was really in another world, not in a video game. That being said it kind of turned me off from the show and made me less interested in it as I just felt less... attached I would say? But it has an alright story and I think will have a S2 as I'm pretty sure a lot of other people enjoyed it as much as I did.

Lastly the 5th most recent isekai anime I've seen was Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill (Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi). Overall it was kind of your average isekai with the ability to bring stuff in from another world, kind of like Sasaki and Peeps but in a reverse fashion, but not entirely? IDK. But yeah it was pretty good, the detailed background and food looked really good for a isekai.

the reason "people" like "90s isekai" who actually spawn across twenty years, when they're not even isekai is just 100% nostalgia, they had the same "shitty" archetypes and plot aesthetics people complain about (almost like you "people" don't know shit about media conception). Just another angle of dismissive ccommentary and anti-intellectual consumerism. Dim mind filters all of that out because the cel-animation

@Matt6616 It's interesting to see how people's opinions on the same work can vastly differ. I watched 3/5 (technically 2/5 since I dropped one) and didn't like a single one with one even being close to a hate watch. At a quick glance the other two seem to be at least not terrible but they are not the kind of shows I'd proactively seek out for entertainment.

Instead of joining the chorus preaching how generic and sloppy isekai are (although I'd not disagree with that) why I happen to dislike many isekai.

I hate power fantasy, self-insert protagonists, generic fantasy worlds, harems, presenting other characters in a bad light to make the mc look better, spoiling the mc - in short I hate when an anime does not tell a story but tries to pleases me by pandering to my supposed fantasies. To me a main character is just a lense through which the story is told, the world is not supposed to revolve around them.

Many modern isekai just happen to bear too many of those traits I mentioned and therefore I probably won't enjoy most of them.

Majority of Isekai, especially in the last 10-15 years are a copy-and-paste of a NEET guy who gets ran over by truck-kun, is overpowered and them gets a harem.

Unless something changes in Isekai, it being less disliked is unlikely

the problem with isekai their stories,characters,power ups is just copy pasted from each other and that make's them boring and generic shows while isekai have massive potential that is not used well with isekai you can create anything literally anything and yet it's alway boring generic fantasy world with main character being op day 1 rince and repeat characters look pretty much the same to so does the story...they are not using isekai potential at all.