Trope Talk: Magical Otherworlds
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
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Everyone likes fantasy stories! Swords, sorcery, adventure and excitement! But hear me out: what if we put our fantasy story INSIDE a REALISM story? All the fun of an engaging high fantasy romp, plus the cognitive dissonance of a pseudo-realistic framing sequence! Today let's talk about stories where a hero from "the real world" is shunted into a fantastical otherworld, and what that's like for readers from the REAL real world!
Finally we explore the realm behind the bookshelf's weird gap…
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Side note "The executioner and her way of life" takes a dark twist on ALL of those isekai tropes by focusing on the point of view of characters ALREADY living in the fantasy world and what they think of all these overpowered but emotionally unstable teenagers popping up randomly in their world. (Namely: Fuck this, we've already had four close brushes with the literal apocalypse, never again.)
I think bad writing advice said it at best: if you think about isekai(especially the overpower ones) are like a invasive species.
Is it just me, or are isekai with female protagonists almost always more interesting than their male-lead counterparts? Ascendance of a Bookworm, My Next Life as a Villainess, So I'm A Spider...Even The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, easily the most straightforward female-lead isekai I've seen, provides more novelty than most isekai with male protagonists.
Is it just selection bias? (IE, I only hear about the good stuff and the most boilerplate trash, with dude heroes being part of the template)? Is the male-lead isekai average just weighed down by all those cheap hikikomori wish fulfillment light novels? Or is it the reverse, where authors who want to do something novel are more likely to pick female protagonists?
@@timothymclean You pointing this out had made me realize just how much of the isekai that I like actually has a female protag. Really makes me wonder if it really is a selection bias or the authors writing the female protag isekais are actually putting in more work for whatever reason.
@@timothymclean Writers either want to tell a story or make a cashgrab. If the latter, there's no reason not to make the protag male for easy self-insertion. Therefore the only time the protag is female is for when a story wants to be told.
@@timothymclean That's not quite true. Male led isekai tend to be more popular, thus female led isekai needs to be above a quality treshold to be popular.
There's plenty of garbage below the surface, if you know where to look. The villainess sub-genre in particular has a lot of terrible entries.
One day I want to see an isekai where the character just keeps going deeper. He gets hit by a truck, and wakes up in a magical fantasy land. While on his quest to defeat the demon lord, he gets hit by a wagon and wakes up on a spaceship. While on his quest to overthrow the tyrannical emperor, his ship crashes, and he wakes up outside a town in the wild west. While hunting down the notorious outlaw, he gets thrown off his horse, and wakes up in a cyberpunk dystopia, and this cycle continues.
You might need a few extra elements to make the show compelling beyond being funny the first few times, like an overarching plot where they actually figure out what's going on and find a way to break the cycle. And maybe they can bring some of their skills/equipment with them to the next world, and while they never have time to get the best stuff, something that's weak in one world can be great in the other, but then weak in the next, so they have to adapt (i.e. the laser they gave him in the sci-fi world is easily the most powerful weapon on the seven seas in the pirate world, but isn't very impressive compared to even some of the basic spells they teach in the wizard world)
I would read/watch the heck out of something like that
So... Inception
Or the Brothers Lionheart
I had an idea like that except the big bad evil guy has the ability. Evil guy dies, causes chaos for whatever story reason, dies and repeats. The protagonist in turn has to die, undo the chaos as fast as they can before offing themselves so they can keep chasing the evil guy without falling behind.
There's a light novel series with the English title 'I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse' that sort of does that. The main character is the designated understudy for heroes in various genres and thus gets dragged into three or four different plotlines at the same time. He usually swaps items and weapons around to solve the issues (laser gun to deal with dragon, protection spell to dealy with meteor crash, et)
Honestly, on the never returning home thing, I tend to feel that a lot of portal fantasy tends to kind of neglect *actually giving characters any reason to want to return*. The original world is not only boring, not only does it have nothing going for it - characters straight up have no positive relationships, no family they're actually attached to, no friends in their original world that they miss, nothing. Only bad things happen.
At that point, it feels almost mean-spirited to make them go back. It feels like watching someone finally escape a terrible personal situation and move away to a different country to make a completely new start, only for someone to go "no, you should go back and fix your shitty original situation, grab those bootstraps you lazy bum" and punt them back.
There are some cases where the protagonist wants to live a quiet and easy life, but since they can't return, they try to carve it out on the new world. Of course that fails, but I quite like it
I feel like there's a feeling, even among people who are seeking out escapism stories, that the real world is the place they have to go back to. IE even if you don't like your life at the moment, there's still the sense that you have to go back eventually. Like at some level you know that never going back just isn't an option. Or would be giving up and be a failure at some level.
two shows that have done that well recently is the owl house and amphibia, and the reason why is honestly dead simple.
family.
neither are over yet and both have it slightly differently, but fundamentally its a case of "yeah my mom (and dad in amphibia) is there and not here and I ain't willing to never see them again without so much as a goodbye" as well as the fact that the circumstances they left being nothing horrible (kinda mucked relationships with friends in amphibia's case and going to a crappy summer camp for the owl house)
Its a case of properly leveraging the fact that the main characters are kids to give the desire to find a way back home (if only temporarily again they haven't finished yet so unclear how it all shakes out) a reason that is properly convincing to the audience.
And on top of that, if the character has no reason to doubt that their otherworld is just as real as where they came from, or at the very least, no reason to think that being there is harming them in any way, then I don't even see how the "escapism is bad" angle could possibly be applied. If moving to a real fantasy world that's more to your liking is escapism, then I don't see how improving your life in any way isn't also escapism. "What? You hate the cold so you moved to a warmer climate? Escapist weakness, you should have grown as a person and learned to enjoy the cold." No reasonable person would say that, people move all the time to improve their lives in various ways IRL. So why would moving to a preferable alternate dimension be any less valid?
The Owl House is doing a great job at handling this very problem. Seriously, it gets pretty heavy.
Gotta say: I love that you have used the word "grounded" rather than "realistic." It's a much more effective word for communicating that the thing is sensible and understandable, relatable in a way _like_ the real world but without having to have the same _rules_ as the real world. Great video!
yeah. "realistic" can depend a lot depending on well everything to the point of trying to be "realistic" feels ironically more fictional than well normal fiction
grounded conveys the element of "trying to be closer to reality but still not enough"
@@ianr.navahuber2195 Judging from the shows that were usually hailed as "realistic" until the cows came home with vertigo, that's pretty much a codeword that translates to "how much can I tilt the scales to the characters' disadvantage before the scales break". Or "grimdark", for short.
Heck, I'd argue that for all of its edge, Berserk WAS grounded/realistic in certain aspects, because while there was much cruelty in it, not ALL of the people in that world enjoyed kicking puppies with orgasmic glee.
I can’t remember what video it was from, but I’ve also seen the term “believable” used-specifically, “fiction doesn’t have to be *realistic,* just *believable* ” within the confines of its own world.
All this talk about magical otherworlds has left me with one burning question on my mind: Is Futurama an isekai?
An ordinary (and, if we're being honest, generally below average) guy is just going about his life, when, at seemingly random, he is launched into a fantastical world he doesn't understand. Now, he has a bunch of new friends and (eventually) starts a relationship with a girl who by any metric seems way out of his league. There's also the fact that Fry, despite being just some guy, is frequently sent out on 'deliveries' (quests) by an eccentric old 'scientist' (wizard) to save the world and/or universe.
Probably? For all intents and purposes, Fry *dies* and doesn't go back to his old world. Wouldn't say it's a power fantasy, but it definitely falls within the periphery.
There is also an aspect of prophecy in Futurama too. Fry is frozen into the future because he is the only being in the universe that can stop the brain swarm. Since due to some time travelling, he is is own grandpa. Leaving him without the "delta brainwave" that leaves everyone else at the mercy of the brains.
Fry even has a few chances to remain in the 20th century. The first time is when he learns the truth about his freezing. But decides to let events play out as they did because he sadly feels more at home in the future. The second is when he uses the time correcting timecode to escape the nude scammers. Only to mess around with the code, creating a time duplicate and getting frozen again. Meanwhile his time duplicate stays in the 20th century until learning that HE is Lars. Either way, Fry will always go back to the future. Because that is where he belongs. The episode where his ex girlfriend freezes herself and arrives in the 30th century demonstrates that. She feels so out of place while Phillip is completely fine.
I'd say it counts. As far as Fry's family in the 21st century is concerned, he disappeared and is probably dead. We even see this in the show's flashbacks.
...My God, you're right.
Technically, it is. Just like Dr. Stone is an Isekai.
That’s what I love about “my life as a dating sim villainess” our protagonist is 100% aware of what will happen in the future in the story and does everything in her power to NOT let that happen. Heck, she learned how to grow crops at a young age because in one of the 2 endings she’s exiled from society. THIS GIRL GOT GOALS!
That's a bit of an exaggeration. The only reason she succeeded in avoiding her doom flags is because she innocently stumbled into making everybody else fall in love with her (not some big plays on her part), but she's so dense she doesn't even realise it. I mean come on, her big brain plays were summoning earth bumps with magic if she were to be chased and throwing toy snakes at people for the same reason.
the best part of that show/manga is that she derails the entire story from the get-go before the protagonist even arrives, just by being a good person in place of the villainess. "i am GOING to be a good sister to you and there is NOTHING you can do about it". And then she steals all the romance flags for other characters with the protagonist. its great
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System runs with a similar premise.
I adore that series and it absolutely could not work without the isekai element, which is what I want from my isekais
What about in Katarina's case, which her stupidity makes her frequently forget about it and save everyone to the point they fall in love with her?
I'm surprised Coraline never came up, because it honestly feels like a great subversive take on this trope.
I SAW THE TITLE AND THE FIRST THING THAT CAME TO MIND WAS CORALINE I kept watching and thinking, wait are they not going to being up CORALINE? So then I scoured the comments to see someone mention it
I agree, though I’ve never seen it. The trailer played before The Tale of Desperaux and it so terrified me I couldn’t sleep.
@@joshuaridgway3230 honestly, it's just as scary as the trailer showed it to be so you probably shouldn't watch it lol
@@Evielicious it was the button eyes that did it for me.
@@joshuaridgway3230 LOL What do you know about the plot? I don't think I've actually seen the trailer, I just know the movie is really scary (seen it)
Honestly a lot of the isekai heroes never returning home have less to do with the literary aspects and more with the fact that almost every one of the stories are unfinished or even outright canceled.
Also because quite a few people (I'm one of them) actually hate it when the protagonist abandons his friends and/or loved ones from the Isekai world to return home. (Escaflowne!!!!!!!!)
😁😁
That's kinda funny.
Considering most of these series are made to keep going until the author burns out or people stop buying them, not to tell a self-contained story, that tracks.
Probably cause most of the anime adaptations are just ads for the light novels or they end up being garbage that’s not worth continuing.
Anime being ads is a myth. It’s usually in an attempt to start a franchise nobody asked for.
Narnia is kind of an interesting blend. The kids don't seem anxious to go home for the most part and are always sad to leave but at the same time Aslan makes it clear the point of Narnia was to help them live in their homeworld. Great video as always, Red!
Except for one of the books ending with the kids being told they died in a train accident (if I remember correctly, mightve been some other kind of transportation accident?) and getting to "live" in Narnia for the rest of time.
That was the last battle. It was also when they went through the Narnian equivalent of the apocalypse
@@ryannmarshall3033 Yeah it was a train (everyone except Susan at least)
@@ryannmarshall3033 To be fair that was less Narnia and more actual Heaven. Like, all the good christians who didn't die walked through a door and wound up there while all the devil-worshippers/not-white-people-don't-think-about-it-too-much died in like a flood and fire and stuff.
Anyone ever realize how absolutely terrible it would be to have have lived a full life as royalty, than be transported back to being kids and normal people. Aslan did them no favors with this happening.
I don't think the disconnect of the heroes wanting to stay in the otherworld is an unsolvable problem, but rather that the vast majority of isekai don't even *try.* There's a lot of potential space to play with the interaction between an otherworld and the mundane world without necessitating the hero returning afterwards. I feel like the *really* unhealthy angle is the way modern culture *vilifies* escapism. Demanding we set aside silly dreams of actually being happy and just accept our place under a corporate boot.
God, agreed. It feels like escapism isn’t allowed in favor of gritty and bleak so often. Like, don’t get me wrong, I love me some darkfics or TLOU games, but also, there isn’t anything wrong with a desire to escape a shitty situations to a fantasy world. Is it really any worse than fantasizing about leaving a shitty situation via a lottery win or attracting the affections of someone with a more realistic power to get you out somehow?
Your comment makes me wonder if there's a story where the hero checks off all the boxes of an otherworld/isekai, but then when the adventure ends, they have to manage their status, their harem, their wealth, and everything else that comes with escapism and power fantasies every day for the rest of their life.
@@FREEK777ful "Yay I'm the king now!"
"Great, here's all these forms to fill out, at least 15 complaints from spoiled brats, several impatient diplomats from countries that range from minor to 'DON'T PISS THEM OFF', and you're also the high-commander of our army"
"shit, I'm the king"
@@FREEK777ful There kinda is? It's called 'How a Realist Hero rebuilt the Kingdom'. Basic plot is the main character got Isekai'd not because he has some fantastic super power, but because of his management skills. The king isn't a good administrator, and *knows* he's not a good administrator, but doesn't really have anyone he trusts to do a better job of it, so summons someone with that ability, and promptly abdicates in favor of the person who clearly can do the job better so the former king can.
His 'super OP power', such as it is, primarily involves being able to animate multiple quills to fill out paperwork faster, at least at first.
I very much agree with Red on this point. But this is my first time reading a response from someone who disagrees, so for what it's worth I really appreciate a different point of view on this trope.
I have to say...I've always felt like the going back part doesn't make sense in a lot of "otherworld" stories. You can define it as escapist, but that really only tracks if the otherworld isn't real. The moment that we establish that the otherworld is an actual place, the paradigm shifts. Sure, if the protagonist was happy in their previous life, then going back makes sense, but in a lot of these stories they weren't. The idea of "learning to appreciate your circumstances" doesn't make a lot of sense if those circumstances were genuinely miserable, and especially not if the protagonist doesn't _need_ to accept them any more. Meanwhile, the protagonist has this new set of circumstances, where they have status, acceptance, are possibly financially well off and almost certainly well connected, and where they have typically already resolved the biggest problem that world faces, ushering in an era of relative stability and peace. If we accept that these worlds are, within the context of the story, real - that is to say, if we discredit the "escapism" argument, because the character is not choosing a fantasy if the world is "real" - then going back seems to be making the message that it's normal and correct to let the life we've become accustomed to hold us back. Give up your progress, your growth, and your success, because family and friends are more important, or simply because that's "not where you belong".
From a realist perspective, the "Dorothy Gale approach" makes much more sense. Rather than letting the love for the family she left behind hold her down, she ultimate uses her new position to lift the people she cares about up. In taking them with her, she teaches the lesson that as good things happen to you, as you succeed, you bring what you care about with you, but it's okay to leave the things you've moved past behind. To me, it seems that unless there is some core flaw of the otherworld that prevents the protagonist from accepting it as a permanent circumstance, this should be the expected goal. Not going back to a worse set of circumstances, but of retrieving the things they left behind that are still worth keeping. With the "keep the portal open" route as an acceptable backup for those who can't take everything they care about with them. There's nothing wrong with visiting your old home town now and then, but giving up your successful career to move back in with your parents and work at the local McDonalds is just weird.
Incredibly well said.
I feel like I resonate the most with your take the most from what I’ve read in the comments- and that may be bc of my life experiences that I relate this way. But I agree that the hardships of the “normal life” often dictate what the “Other world” represents. When the “Normal life” is better comparatively to the other world, it makes sense that going back would be the goal. But when the “Normal life” is miserable, or unfulfilling in some way, and fulfilment is found in the “Otherworld”, I feel like we’re growing backwards if we go back to the “Normal life” to apply all the lessons learned all over again.
This is why I'm REALLY dreading that Owl House will take that route. I'm pretty sure Terrence is self aware enough to KNOW that Luz moving back to Earth permanently is the worst possible outcome for this story on several levels. But the cliché ending would be devastating there.
I think Red's commentary is specific to the "real world protagonist escapes into a work that is literally fiction in universe" variant. As that's the one with the most parallels to the experience of an audience member
agree, in settings where we've established that the magical world is real, it becomes the equivalent to a foreign country. It has its own people, history, rules, culture, etc and the protagonist has the decision to move there full time, visit a lot, or return home once and for all. And much like visiting an actual country, even if they choose to return home, they might do so having grown from their experiences and taking bits of that country back with them (new ideas, items, words, etc).
In that case, deciding to stay in the fantasy world would be equivalent to visiting a foreign country and deciding to immigrate there. And if that country clicks for you and you have opportunities there, why wouldn't you move there full time?
I think its a matter of perspective. Red, I suspect, was viewing those other worlds under a lens of escapism (its key to the entire trope after all), but what if they might be better viewed as an analogy for world travel? Maybe the magical elements are metaphors for the sometimes magical experiences of going someplace you've never been? What if the monsters are the fear, uncertainty and genuine risk that comes from visiting certain places? And the protagonist acquiring magic or tools that help them survive in that world, synonymous with learning that place's language and culture so you can better navigate? Is making a fantasy world as a metaphor for real world travel strictly necessary? No, but then what is strictly necessary when we're talking about literature?
And if you're like me, and you don't have the money or opportunity to travel, fantasy worlds are really your only option. Escapism, sure, but sometimes that escapism is exactly what you need.
Honestly this is one of the reasons why I never really liked Final Fantasy Tactics Advance's story and how it tries to spin an "escapism is not healthy!" story.
Like, it's not a magical otherworld. One of the kids whole-ass rewrites reality itself with a magic book and replaces it with a new one.
Also two of the three kids' lives are utterly miserable. Mewt gets snowballs with *rocks* inside it hucked at him, his mom is dead and his dad is a chronic drunk who can *barely* hold down his job. And the hero's younger brother is chronically ill to the point where he has to go to the hospital on the reg and can no longer walk.
...And, in spite of this magical otherworld being actually real (in that the real world itself was turned into this place), and the suffering he knows that two of his loved ones have waiting for them in the normal world...The hero literally asks out loud "Why don't you want to go home......? :( "
Like...If it was a story about the dangers and ethics of playing god with world-changing magic, or the powers that maintain that otherworld being dangerous entities manipulating the kids so they could keep that world going, it could have had a real interesting angle...
But nope, purely a story about 'escapism bad'.
...Which is fine for some of the characters who just needed some confidence to stand up to the bullies. But man do I feel for the younger brother, who really got the short end of the stick. :(
On the note of staying forever, the most healthy take I've seen is what I'd describe as 'I fucked up in the normal world, I'll do better this time' - basically, their life was miserable before, but that was the result of their choices, and they're aware of that fact. They're not just staying in the magical world because it's fun and with magic, they either can't go back or the life they've built is better because they're more motivated to live a good life. Examples being 'I killed slimes for 300 years' where the protagonist died from overwork, and chooses to be an ageless witch who just lives in a cottage in a field, or Reincarnated as a Slime where one of the protagonist's main requests upon dying was just to have someone to talk to in his next life - the fact that this wound up being a nigh-omniscient agent of the world and later, a city full of people was happenstance and his own hard work respectively.
I remember reading a manga (can't remember the title) where the protagonist was an evil queen of a fantasy world who didn't care about her people. When her people executed her, she got reborn in our real world and decided to make up for her sins by becoming a doctor. Then she died again in a plane crash iirc? And woke up as her old self (but years before her tyrannical rule) and continues to be a doctor
Wait is that how he got Great Sage in the light novel/manga because the anime was just a virgin joke about him being a great sage.
Paladin of the Marches a.k.a Faraway Paladin is basically this. MC trying to do better with their new life.
@@misamisaa4547 also sounds like doctore elise?
@@misamisaa4547 bump incase someone gives the name.
"...the audience will run out of story and end up back in the real world"
Or they turn to fanfiction and never leave
which, on the other hand, doesn't rule out running out of any meaningful story anyway and/or ending up in essentially a cliché copy of the real world. Not that there aren't good fanfics, but it's far from guaranteed to get one randomly.
@@pRahvi0 you could write your own at that point.
@@TheAssassin642 That rabbit hole is very, very, deep.
Yep. That's what happened to me. I fell down that rabbit hole and I'm NEVER going to find my way out.
Don't do fanfiction, kids. It's a drug more addicting than heroin.
Help me.
@@WilliamTheMuddy I wish I could help, but I'm afraid that I'm just as addicted as you are. I fear it may be inescapable.
1:52 Greatly appreciate how Red felt no need to specify whether she meant 'neighbours who *are annoying* ' or 'how best *to annoy* one's neighbours '- We've all seen you, Bilbo
"Even if it is breached, it would take a number beyond reckoning - thousands - to storm the keep."
"Tens of thousands."
"But my lord, there is no such force-"
Isekai:
Specifically, Arifureta
@@aflyinfaux1447 eat a bar of soap and wash the hands you typed that name with- this is a family friendly channel. We may be nerds, but we have *standards.*
@@bodaciouschad I wanted to google it but now I'm afraid of what I might find
@@navarog378 the anime is ok but doesn't have the depth of the manga.
I appreciate that theirs an Isekai character named Rudeus that has a legitimate explanation for why he has such unusual skill and magical prowess as a kid. He was literally reborn in another world as in he started in a new world as a baby. He was already aware of himself and had all his previous experiences and memories and decided much earlier than most people would to practice magic with the determination that kids don’t have. So by the time it was recognized he had been practicing for maybe 10 years. He was freakishly strong because his adult brain came up with a plan and goal much sooner than other people would and practiced all the time
Regarding the escapism of a character staying in the otherworld forever: If their real reward is more the friends they made along the way and they stay there more to be with those people than it doesn't feel as much like pure escapist fantasy to me. A story like that could be rewritten to work in the real world; in real life you can visit another place, meet people you like, and decide to move there, the otherworld just adds fun magical elements to the plot. If the reward the protagonist gets by staying in the otherworld is getting to be hero-king of the world with fame and riches and power, that feels more totally escapist to me. There's no real-world equivalent to that story you're just spicing up with magic, it's something that can only happen with magic.
curently slowly working on a story where the hero gets abducted to another world where high fantasy magic is used like technology and finds it much more enjoyable and peacful then our world despite the on going conflict with the demons who abducted him in the first place only reason he wants to find a way back home is to let his loved ones know he's ok that is until he finds out the earth has been invaded by the same demons who have been causeing trouble in this other world and leads the charge of knights to go back to earth to save the day only to find while its been two years for him it's been five years for everyone else, half of mankind is dead, banished to other dimensions or enslaved, multiple citties and nations destroyed, his younger sister is now the same age as him, his parents are dead, and the humans working with the demons are being lead by his childhood best friend who has now become a mad tyrant. This isnt the earth he left behind this isnt home anymore as the time that was home for him has long since pased not just beacuse of the disaster and changes that have hapened on earth while he was gone but his time in the otherworld has changed and matured him. The earth he returned to isnt his home anymore its the otherworld now as thats where he has more friends and a life now which is why even after saveing earth and opeing travel between the two worlds he chooses to stay in the otherworld as thats where his home is now.
One of my favorite of this genre does something akin to this. The character ends up in the world by DYING, but still spends most of the series yearning to return to earth. Eventually he comes to terms with his own death, and realizes that his family will have to carry on without him. Along with *that* realization is another, that the people he has met in the otherworld need him just as much as his family on earth did.
In the end, the story isn't that he decided to stay in the otherworld because it was better, rather he accepted his place IN the otherworld and devoted his energy to that, rather than getting home.
Edit: By request, the series is the Celestine Chronicles. Be forewarned, its quite lewd, but genuinely well written mythology mash-up fantasy
@@matthewturpin6429
can we get the title, please?
@@matthewturpin6429 seconding the need for the title for this series tbh
@@matthewturpin6429 You going to share that with the class?
Hear me out: A story where the main character switches from the real world to the magical world when the fall asleep, or from the magical world to the real world through the same process. To anyone else, it seems like they are a heavy sleeper who just woke up, while to them they are living two lives in completely different worlds, maybe bringing random things with them between worlds during some of the switches. Alongside this, day in the real world is night in the fantasy world, and vice-versa. They feel fine waking up in each world, and would also be unable to avoid switching because everyone can only go so long without sleeping. Then the readers would be invested in both worlds, and maybe something will begin to threaten both worlds so the main character has to do something about it in both the real and magical worlds
This sounds like a great idea! I feel like it could certainly solve the issue of "one world being noticeably superior to the other", for a start
I feel like, by what you said, you'd like Welcome to Japan, Miss Elf!
Or the character is the *reason* something begins to treathen both worlds
that if done right could be amazing.
@@icarussarts Oh! So like, maybe the character is disrupting the balance of the universe due to their constant dimension-hopping?
Rick: "Do you two want to stay here forever?"
Morty: "Why does it have to be forever? Can't we just go home during the weekend or go back to do laundry? "
I had a funny idea an Isekai protagonist who’s cheat ability is that they have been Isekaied over and over again and they have several lifetimes of skills to draw upon. No special cheat magic abilities, but just them having years of experience to draw upon.
this is what Quickly Wear the Face of the Devil does - MC was yeeted through countless worlds before the beginning of the story when he gets rid of system that forces him to play along the original story of the story world he got yeeted into. He realises that the system's big boss is using these worlds to collect energy and since he's *very* pissed at it, he yeets himself through some more worlds where he does the best to totally fuck up the original story and get the energy that boss system would normally get so he can go home. Ok he technically has a bit of a cheat because the author made him a top level hacker in the real world but that can also be shoved into the "he has experience with this" box
@@misamisaa4547 Darn, seems it's purely a manga... for now. The concept sounds good, but I require it to be an anime before I can watch it with one of my best friends that's hugely into isekai.
Spoiler Warning for Cautious Hero:
This is actually why Seiya is overly powerful. He was Isekaied before, yet when he was returned home and his level was reset as a normal person again, his base stats remained higher. So the second time he's isekaied at the start of the series, he starts at level one and can train his stats even higher.
If you're interested, you kind find that by looking into genres dealing with quick wear/quick transmigrations, particularly ones that utilizes infinite flow.
omg my oc is that same way, no cheat skills but 'I've done this for so long it doesn't even bother me'
Coraline was my first experience in this trope. Honestly, it was a great story and one that actually kinda helped me as a kid, since Coraline's real world looks so bleak when we first see it. Then, over the course of the movie, she learned to cherish what she's got in the real world, because the people there are the ones that care about her, even if sometimes, it doesn't feel like it
Good comes with bad, you can't have one without the other. The bad things are what make you genuinely appreciate when things truly do go your way, and I've yet to find a story that encapsulates the feeling that Coraline presented.
I think the classic "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" gives the best "Over-powered" reasoning even if it does ignore the limits of medieval machining. Also, a reminder that bathroom scenes can be powerful when they are included ala "All Quiet on the Western Front" and GoT.
Modern definitely-isekai parallel: Ascendance of a Bookworm, where the bibliophile heroine reincarnates in the body of a sickly peasant child after a bunch of books fall on her in an earthquake. She uses all of her modern knowledge to make books common enough that she'll be able to run a bookstore, like she wanted to do before dying of books.
It's good for a lot of reasons that don't really fit in a comment.
What's the bathroom scene of All Quiet on the Western Front?
One only needs play through Duke Nukem to find out "The bathroom is the BEST place for a truly horrific fight scene. ;o)
The real world equivalent to staying in the otherworld forever I can think of would be moving to another state/country you visited for work/studying abroad because you found it happier even if it meant leaving behind family in your hometown. And even when it just represents an escapist fantasy, I can't fault a story for that if it's the logical outcome.
Exactly! It feels more mature and rewarding when the isekai protagonists initially wants to go back to the cozy old life they knew but over the series grows to love the new world and decides to stay there. I completely disagree w/ her.
I partially agree but usually if you move somewhere, you will be able to communicate with your family and friends you've left behind, and see them occasionally. Not so if you are in a whole other world. There are situations where it'd make sense and stuff but the decision to never see any of the people you knew, or any of the previous world ever again is a much heavier decision than moving town.
@@ymous9109 North Korea and South Korea would disagree
@@Ucatty2 that's not the devastating response you think it is. Like I said, there are situations in which staying makes sense, one of which being if your life was bad in your old world. However, I was explaining that it is not an equivalent choice to moving town. It is a decision that some people would make, but it is a very weighty decision
I mean...I feel like if a story makes a bad or unsatisfying decision because it's the logical outcome of the story, it still deserves _some_ fault for making _that_ the logical outcome.
Not necessarily true in this case, but I've seen the Thermian Argument used in much stupider situations.
The staying there forever aspect can be better used when it changes the characters involved and explores the pain and struggle of never returning home. Re-zero, ascendence of a bookworm and mushoku tensei do this by showing how they had of lot of stuff worth living for but the fact being they can never return or undo those mistakes.
"luxurious apartment on student salary" is something that gets me about various Russian classics.
In that main characters are mostly students who are struggling to make ends meet (I mean, some go to murder to get money). But they also have a maid at their house who makes tea and stuff.
Pretty sure this is actually based on reality and not the same situation as Red has mentioned but it still feels weird.
Sounds like the TV show Friends but with a maid (twenty-somethings living in ridiculously large apartments in New York City that would cost an arm and a leg in the real world to rent despite some of them struggling for cash).
@@akl2k7 Yeah, though part of the reason for that is due to the limits of filming technology at the time, they wouldn't have been able to fit a camera, lights and all in a smaller space. Though the main thing is that the capitalist class ignores the plight of workers.
To note a very good Otherworld story, I want to mention "The Never-ending Story", but specifically the book there-of. If you know the classic 80s movie, that is only the first half of the story and the second half involves Bastian, the kid reading the book, going on an adventure through Fantasia. However the drive slowly pushing him to wanting to go home is the mechanic of him making wishes, but they have to be deep desires, thus they end up being important to him personally. However the second half of that is for each wish granted, he loses a related memory - like one of his first wishes changes his physical form, thus he forgets that he ever looked like the somewhat dumpy kid he really was.
It ends up a journey of self-understanding that leads him to his way home, and his truest friends in Fantasia helping him find his way because they know practically his whole story when he has forgotten it.
TL;DR, read the book of "The Never-Ending Story". It is deep, thoughtful and massively more than the movies were (yes, the second movie was loosely based on the third quarter of the book. I however deny that any other movies ever happened).
Fantasia, yes! I thought the movie was fun when I was a kid, but discovering the book years afterwards was mind blowing.
@@M0ssP1glet Word. I stumbled across the book by literal accident, as I was at a church kids' summer camp and someone left their copy sitting around. I later bought a copy when the second movie came out. That book has been lost along the way, I wouldn't mind a new copy.
That hallow feeling at the end of stories where the character gets to stay in the reality where everything is just better for them is all to relatable, but I also find it a little motivating too. It kinda gives me a certain drive to make the reality I live in a little more and more like the reality I find ideal, one step at a time.
I'm surprised Red never mentioned Re-zero in this video:
- A protagonist goes to another world because he died
- finds out he can't run from his personal problems by going to a fictional world
- deals with actual mental health issues and sets a realistic reason for why the protagonist doesn't want to go home
In conclusion, I highly recommend this show!!
One good use for this trope I can see is that you don't have the "as you know" problem where you have to explain basic world mechanics to your readers that everyone who grew up in this world should know. I'm not sure I can think of a better way to establish things like that.
You then do fall into another problem which is when your exposition is just straight up infodumping to a character, vs. some sort of show don't tell exposition.
Well, all you need for that kind of exposition is a "fish-out-of-water" type protagonist. Which you, for example, can also get with a protagonist that grew up extremely sheltered or imprisoned. Jarod from the show the Pretender comes to mind for me (yes, I'm old).
@@Rhaifha Or start with the protagonist as a child. They don’t need to stay a child for the whole thing, just long enough to have a parent/grandparent/teacher/mentor sit them down and teach them all about how their world works and what details are gonna be relevant to the situation.
It's one potentially useful device, but if it's just for that it's at best cheap and also comes with the danger of making resorting to straight up infodumps for everything seem much more justifiable even when its still be bad storytelling.
Any extent of fish out of water can give you a fair jumping off point for why other characters may need to explain certain things and exposing in a world in dialogue or otherwise overly explicitly usually is not a good choice.
It's better to use a fair amount of indirect exposition, or incluing/Indirect Exposition spread throughout the story, especially if you have a completely different world to build.
In a book this may be in the narrative (As they entered the city through the new gates Luna caught her first glimpse of the bustling crowds and landing platforms.).
In comics, movies and such you can tell a lot by what things you show in the background, like putting up pictures involving a zeppelin or showing a train station to set the story in a steampunk/early industrial setting.
In just about any medium you have the option of implying things with the dialogue and actions without necessarily coming out and saying it. Things like characters avoiding a certain part of the town, saying that X group could help, bemoaning their issues (people complain about things even when the general problem is known) and so on all can help establish the setting.
Now, it does usually pay off to have characters that are more or less knowledgeable about certain parts of the world (or that have different views on them) to be able to get across things that can be hard to explain otherwise, but it doesn't have to be as extreme as knowing literally nothing. Most of the harder to explain parts are also things that characters may not know without necessarily having to be naive beyond belief, entirely isolated or from another world.
If you're joining a band of rebels, you may need some introduction to how things work, who's in charge and so on, if you're not from the region there may be social things that don't make sense to you, if you're not a mage you may not get why this magical device that V is building is a big deal or why the weather acting in a particular way may be concerning.
What personally would interest me most is seeing the clash of more mundane presumptions.
How religion works, aspects of society, what's real and what isn't (Dragons are totally a thing but if you believe in lizard people you're still crazy), weather there's any kind of identification, getting used to a different money system or a completely different economy (IRL figuring out Canadian or US dollar is hard enough, imagine if things didn't have similar worth in proportion to each other as you'd likely find in any pre-industrial place), different relations to distances or places (both in the "This is 200km away, it takes several days to get there" and the "Ok, let's hop onto a shuttle ship to the moon base" direction), different levels of technology (maybe magic enables comparatively advanced communication tech but guns never really took off?)...
Hell, give me two different magic systems, or one that doesn't quite work the same for the protagonist (without making them OP) and show the differences there.
Those things are a lot more interesting than "UwU I got here, everything is cool and quickly understood, I am super OP and I get a harem!".
It feels weird hearing this music and not hearing the phrase "A LOVE TRIANGLE!" associated with it.
TRUE
And a weirdly charismatic bartender from the west narrating everything
I really like the sub-genre of this particular trope, namely the Reverse-Isekai, where character from the Otherworld end up stuck in the Familiar World (See Devil is a Part-timer)
And then Dark Isekai walks in and reminds you of the existential dread. Fucking Rezero and Tanya.
@@catboyvideoessays1480 Ha, as if I need reminded. Existential dread is my default state lol
13:49 Wait, this is an actual thing? I never had this problem. If the MC decides to stay in the alternate world because it makes him/her happy then I'm happy for them, I never thought to myself "oh geeze they get a happy ending and I'm stuck in sucky reality". They just decided to move. Now I've wished for some things in fiction to be real but I'm not jealous of the hero getting a happy ending. I just want to be entertained. :\
same lol
Same here.
Red has some odd quirks in her likes and dislikes.
I get this feeling. Life in the real world is so mundane and has no magic. Reading/ watching portal fantasies is a bittersweet experience because the protagonist finds a new home and adventure; I have to return to the daily grind, with the knowledge that there is no real escape.
@@erinbond5106 I think the world we live in can be wonderful and at times it is. Its people with too much power that make it unbearable at times. Gotta remove the abusers from power.
100% agree on the "The world you see for 95% of the story is fake" is such a letdown and depressing trope
Yeah. That's another reason why I love Log Horizon, because you only see glimpses. The first episode starts off with the main character already in the video game world, along with every other player that was logged in when the new expansion dropped, and no one has any idea what's going on.
Sometimes there's flashbacks, mostly of people sitting in front of the PC and playing the game, and when a character dies, they find themselves in a grayscale version of the real world until they are ready to go back and try again.
The NPCs are mostly considered flat and boring by the players, until they slowly realize that those people have lives, hopes, dreams, and so on. Heck, one guy even lives with an NPC, and she is the man in the house, even though he could kill her 100 times over before she dealt 1hp, and he's immortal.
Dude has a short temper, is violent, and completely out of her league, and yet she has the balls to boss him around. It's amazing.
It's really not too different from the infamous "it was all a dream" endings when you phrase it that way.
@@Stratelier "It was all a dream" mostly falls under this category with the exception of the cases where the dream is somewhat real, like Alice in Wonderland
@@Maxisamo1 alternatively where the "it was all a dream" is used as a deus ex machina to save the characters because things were ending so badly, them being told at the end "it was only a bad nightmare. but it is all right. everything is fine now" is a happy ending (see Grant Morrison's Animal Man run's final arc, or a more bittersweet that still keeps the story going in Young Justice S1 episode failsafe)
8:43 Wait a minute, bullet #2, are you telling me *Superman is an isekai protagonist?* He was transported to another world where he was super powerful by that world's standards.
Well the world doesn't constantly give him random women so probably not.
I'd argue that no, because there be wasn't any previous word familiar to him (too young for that).
Ostensibly yes, however the audience is unable to project themselves onto Superman for obvious reasons, and Superman himself doesn't derive anything from being from another world other than his powers. He fits the in-narrative role closely, however his metanarrative role is completely different.
that's an interesting question, does a different planet count as another world? sure, there's physical distance separating the two, but they're still in the same universe
@@sevencats4964 isekai can be done on the same planet with time travel, no reason why another planet wouldn't count.
When Centaur World and The Owl House are used as examples, you know it's going to be an interesting video.
I think one of the most interesting takes on the whole "I have read this story so I know what's gonna happen" is in Beware the Villainess, where the main character ends up in her favourite *whatever the korean equivalent of "shojo" is* novel and... let's just say she changes the story so much that she ends up confronting the personification of the will of the author.
I just rewatched "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" this past Sunday, so this trope talk was timely.
Also, I'm glad to get a definition of Isekai... I keep running into and forgetting to look up what it means.
I, on the other hand, was recently reminded of Silent Hill, so I was thinking of something very different going into this video. XD
The way SAO plays with this trope is a lot more interesting than most give it credit.
In the first half of season 1 ( Vol 1 and 2 of the novel) the main goal is return to reality, which contrast with the motivation of the game creator Kayaba Akihito, that created the game as way to escape the limitations of reality and finally reach the world of his childhood dreams.
Near the end of that story arc the main character admits to his love interest that he doesn't care about returning to the real world, he just wants to live together with her forever. While Asuna agrees that it would be a wonderful experience, she reminds him and the Audience that the real bodies experiencing the VR simulation would never last forever ,even inside real world hospitals ,so said dream would be impossible to obtain.
In the second half of season 1(volumes 3 and 4) the situation is inverted, with the main character being incapable of accept reality and his new situation. Not only he doesn't have access to the powers he had in VR, his love interesting still being keep away from him by the new villain.
He literally says to his VR headset "please share with me your power again", than he goes to another back into VR just because of the small chance he could save Asuna.
At the end of this story arc, Kirito realizes he is not that different from the new villain, both were using VR worlds to escape from their real world weakness and flaws.
SAO despite being called a power Fantasy by "critics", actually criticizes the Power Fantasy mentality, and shows how unhealthy those escapism tendencies can be.
And because rule of 3, this theme is repeated on the first half of season 2( vol 5 and 6)
The new character Asada Shino(Sinon) suffers from serious PTSD, and uses VR to become another person in a different world. Someone strong and with no fears. This works for a while, until she has a PTSD induced panic attack inside VR. Causing her to realize how foolish she was, by thinking she could become strong in the real world by being strong inside a Video game.
The main antagonist in this story arc, is another SAO survivor, that just like Kirito was unable to adapt to the true reality, and misses the power fantasy he had while trapped in SAO. But for this guy, just being the strongest is not good enough, he wants people to be completely afraid of him like he is the real Grimm Reaper. His end goal is to become a urban legend that will never be forgotten, a eternal symbol of fear.
In several scenes he talks about how he has "real" power, and how he can cause "true" death.He mocks Kirito saying that he "breath the rotten air of the real world.
While Kirito was finally able to accept both VR and the Real world as a part of his life. Most of the antagonist are delusional psychopaths that see VR as a way to escape reality, a way to gain some kind power even if fake or they think reality itself is fake and that VR is the true "real world".
Using a trope to try to criticize that trope is a not a good form of criticism, unless you are actively subverting the trope throughout to show the issues, which SAO does not do. While the over all theme may be to address how bad giving in to this kind of power fantasy can be, they only really express this in a few conversation and in the confrontations against the main antagonists of the the given arcs, with the vast majority of the story just depicting the power fantasy. It is generally true that the over powered character(s) are only really being depicted as being happy when they aren't giving in to the fantasy, the fact that they aren't actively depicting giving in to the fantasy as a bad thing the majority of the time, and that they only gained access to the things that are making them happy outside of the fantasy by giving in to the fantasy in the first place, makes SAO a very poor example of criticism of the trope.
The criticisms of SAO being a power fantasy are about writing and not about the message it's saying. While the story might be "Don't delude yourself with a power fantasy", Kirito proves the complete opposite since whenever he enters the VRMMO of the season he's powerful and ends up getting the girl, which sends completely different messages.
Man despite SAO getting lot of shit talk. It truly a good story that probably deserved better adaption. Guess that explains idea of incest that it again gives reality check to its characters. Was that point of incest side of story?
Just as expected people are going to disagree with my idea of SAO being a criticism of power fantasies.
I just feel people don't really stop to think about the messages in this story.
Kirito being powerful or wining in the end, doesn't take away from the message.
The amount of suffers that Kirito goes through in the story, makes it clear how his life is in no way perfect. He suffers from depression, and a realistic depiction of PTSD, not to mention how he attempts suicide at least 3 times in the series.
Also here is are some quotes from the character itself and what he thinks about power fantasies:
"Levels are just numbers, in this world strength is a illusion, there are more important things"
"In the world a GM is almost a god, but that power I'd given to you by the system. It's not like you discovered them, or honed them yourself. True power is inside of you, both in the virtual world and the real worl"
@@shadowclaw7210 kinda, when Suguha thinks she is developing feelings for brother, she avoids the problem instead of trying solving it. The VR world was the perfect way for her avoid this shame and self hate she was feeling.
This is a topic that I'm very familiar with. I watch isekai and the Owl House. And honestly, the Owl House is one of my favorite takes.
Edit: I just realized that the Owl House is falling in a middle ground between escaping and staying in the magical world. We want Luz to succeed in getting home, but we also want her to stay with her new friends and family and gf.
The owl house is an amazing show
Ironically this seems to be the motive of the villain too; smashing the two worlds together.
@@LaZodiac That's why I believe the theory that Belos' plan involve merging the human and demon realms together. Because if that's the case, then Luz might be faced with a choice, allow Belos to succeed and ideally get the best of both worlds or stop him to prevent a catastrophe that would be the consequences of his plan.
@@aaroncabatingan5238 Oh that's absolutely going to be the case. The villain wants exactly what she does, but for evil reasons (human realm's mundanity turns off magic).
So she'll stop him, and just have her own portal.
@@LaZodiac the show could be cruel to us and make the solution permanently destroying the portal. Luz would have to choose which side she stayed on and I would weep no matter the choice 😭
Some spoilers for Amphibia, but I loved what they did with the seasons where you had Anne going to the semi-magical otherworld of Amphibia, then _inverting the trope_ by having the Plantars, the talking frogs, wind up on Earth and that becomes THEIR weird, alien otherworld. Anne is taught by the Plantars how to survive in Amphibia, then she teaches them how to survive on Earth.
The thing with "Over the garden wall" is that that world exists and isn't just a dream its more like purgatorio. So it kinda fits both dream and fantastical grounded
She said they didn’t have to be non real
They just had to feel dreamlike and be less rigidly defined
Whatever the unknown was, it couldn’t be 100% real and it couldn’t have been 100% imaginary
It was purgatory, or a dream, or something
And it happened
I wonder: Would Pan's Labyrinth count as one of these? Technically, it might count as an "inverted" version of it: After all, if we take the story at face value, Ofelia originally came from the "Otherworld", and the story is about her journey to return there. From a certain point of view, within the fictional narrative, our world would be the *actual* "otherworld", there.
That story actually fits more into the 'possibly a dream' category.
Or it might not fit at all into the "magical otherworlds" theme because it's not a work of fantasy but magical realism (there is always a plausible explanation for any unnatural events, but the story never denies the possibility either. It never confirms if what happened belongs to the natural or the fantastic, leaving both interpretations open as possible truths).
@@Katwind IDK if it helps any, but Guillermo del Toro actually DID confirm all the magical stuff in the movie was real.
The novel The Neverending Story did an interesting take on engaging in the Otherworld power fantasy.
In the book, Bastion becomes the Emperor-God of Fantasia, fully able to alter the fantasy world however he pleases, but loses himself a little more every time he does.
The movie only covers, like, the first third of the book.
By the way, Narnia, Samurai Jack, and Jumanji are my favorite isekai anime.
"Instead of focusing on a hapless everyman struggling to handle a strange new and frequently hostile world, isekai trend a little closer to the power fantasy side of things, where some mundane characteristic the protagonist has had all along makes them super special and OP in the magical other world."
*Two Japanese Dudes in Tracksuits:* _internal and external screaming_
Which ones, now?
@@Coid Probably Kazuma (Konosuba) and Subaru (Re:Zero).
@@thomaspoteete4119 at least Kazuma is making bank from selling his patents to a shady businessman. Subaru, on the other hand, there's no joy to be derived from his situation and he is experiencing only suffering now and forever
13:17 let’s be honest, anyone who died before the dawn of the Internet would probably consider it as much of a magical otherworld as any other fantasy. As would the residents of said magical otherworld come to think of it.
Two words to describe arguably the best use of the magical otherworld: Silent Hill
Sure as hell aint the best one to be in though
I'd say Pathologic
@@vintheguy Eh...
Pathologic is a different bag of cans of worms.
@@nullpoint3346
Nah I'd say it fits very well
@@vintheguy Of course it fits, it's an eldritch shape that'll fit any hole you put it in...
Not unlike Eggman's di-
"It looks like every Tetris block _at the same time!"_
Another trope I would like to recommend is the trope I like to called the "mysterious magical companion", those characters that the main character find the other magical world in which they know this world and kinda vague in backstory ether because they have amnesia or something. They might come to real world and discover who they are. They might all existential crisis with them. There usually the heart and healer of the party.
Examples are Aelita from code lyoko, teddie and Morgana from persona, Ralsei from deltarune etc
One of my OC otherworlds is basically a dream world and most of the story happens in that dream. The characters only remember tiny parts of their adventures when they wake up and they aren't aware that they are sleeping when they are in the dream world.
I disagree with the whole feeling hollow for characters who stay in fantasy worlds thing. Maybe it cause i dont tend to project as much as others but when a good escapist story ends with the character deciding to stay in the other world they established a good life in i just feel happy for them in the end. What would make me feel hollow is if they just returned to real world just for the sake of it and their bad situation doesn't actually improve in any way.
They were expressing how the stories made them feel, they weren’t saying that this is a fact of these stories
I think it depends on how good their original world was. If everything is terrible and boring, then sure. Maybe dont go back. But if the world is actually not bad, or the character still has ties to family and friends, it makes sense they'd want to go back. I dont know though.
Well if your Hero come backs to their original world just to end up in the same situation they started in, then they're not a real Hero, they're victims of circumstance. They haven't completed their "hero's journey" by overcoming their short-comings, they just went into the otherworld and came back the exact same. Their "adventure" was pointless.
As for real heroes. During their journey, they become better equip to overcome the challenges of life. So it doesn't matter if they go back to their "original" world or not. They will find hapiness either way.
Anyway, an author saying that "the only way for the Main caracter to be happy is to live in the otherworld" is the same as saying "If you didn't want to be poor, you should have been born rich". Which makes the story feels hollow.
I feel similar. I agree that it might be caused by a lack of projection, (I rarely relate to narrative protagonists as well) but seeing a story where the character choosing to stay somewhere they've invested in always sits well with me. I like my narratives character driven, and one of the best character moments is someone choosing between their desires.
It really does depend on both the story and the reader.
8:30: I'm so glad I'm not the only person who thinks the distinction between "portal fantasy" in general and "isekai" in specific is the way that the hero mostly just...accepts that they're in a new world, making their origin largely irrelevant in most cases (except for making the lump of tapioca acting as our protagonist more "relatable" and sometimes justifying some element of their success).
There _are_ isekai stories where the real-world stuff matters (Re: Zero, Ascendance of a Bookworm, My Next Life as a Villainess, Mushoku Tensei, even SAO), but aside from SAO, what's going on in the real world matters _way_ less to these stories than to, say, the adventures of the Pevensie siblings.
EDIT: I mean, there are other genre conventions common to isekai but elsewhere rare in portal fantasy, and there are definitely-isekai series that don't follow this convention (including the aforementioned Sword Art Online, probably the series that made isekai as we recognize it a proper _genre_ instead of a bunch of stories within a larger genre), but just because we can't make a firm definition of a genre doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to point out common characteristics. Just because not all fantasy stories have magic doesn't mean we shouldn't point out that fantasy stories generally have magic, while other speculative fiction generally doesn't.
I'm of the opinion that if the real-world backstory doesn't factor into the plot, then just do a normal fantasy. If it's an Isakai, then the main character should dam well use their knowledge of technology and history to their advantage like in Bookworm, Tanya the Evil, Konosuba, slime, Rezero, and Mushoku tensi.
If you just want a clueless main character so you can explain the world to them and by extension the reader than you can always do the tried and true amnesia or doomed isolated starting village troupes without opening the can of worms that is dimension hoping and modren knowledge.
Yeah, I prefer these stories that has smt like this, but even if it only affects one world. Part of my fascination with works that involve traveling to another world is the culture clash that you'd expect to occur. So, I prefer stories that include having the traveler bring smt from their home world with them (be it different mindset, new ideas, skills, etc.) that'd greatly affect their position, mental or status-wise, or the plot in this new world, or portal stories where the real world gets affected bc of the portal existence (like 3rd season Digimon, Tamers. And there's also a webtoon I'm recently into, *Pathfinder,* that does an interesting take on this).
Lol, dude, you used SAO as a positive example. I can't take you seriously.
@@elizak4628 It wasn't so much a positive example as...an example. I thought the "even" would make it clear that I was counting it in a separate category from all the good isekai I mentioned.
@@timothymclean That makes so much more sense. 😂
So two comments I want to make.
1. I feel that the "why does this character have to be from our world" problem on top of the projection aspect I feel a major part of it that wasn't mentioned as well is exposition and explanation, as having the character come from our world gives a really easy reason to have all the lore of the world explained to the character and in turn the audience without interrupting the flow. Writing exposition that believably flows into the story without interrupting the pace is hard and an isekai-ed protagonist gives an out to that.
2. The comment about the disconnect of the character getting to continue living in the fantasy world while we the reader cannot also makes me think that that is the reason so many isekai series have troubles ending or even lack a clear ending point to begin with. They will often have a big bad or goal but the road to that goal is often unclear and often not the focus as well. As the instant the adventure ends we have to stop projection ourselves into the world and imagining the kind of adventures we could do in it.
It makes sense especially in the owl house I'm not going to go into spoilers on something that does happen but it does actually make sense because of parallels. Another one that makes sense is the one where the main character is just playing a video game like . hack gu because you don't get the problem of I want to stay in this fictional world because the fictional world is literally just a video game the main characters are playing so you don't not get that problem it's also just a very good jrpg in general. Another good one that is infinity train you have to wash the show to find out because if I tell you it would kind of spoil a plot twist with the numbers going to say is the train is abducting multiple people to go on to it and leave it.
One of the many reasons I love The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System is that the POV character is so interesting that there is a lot of fanfiction exploring what could have happened if he didn't transmigrate in the first place.
"Every Heart a Doorway" is basically about this trope. I strongly recommend it, and the rest of the series it's in.
"And the hero stayed in Narnia until the end of their days."
Don't remind me; C.S. Lewis wants me to be jealous.
Well, technically, they died in the real world and went to Narnia heaven. So.... yeah.
@@eshbena
Not all of them-King Frank and Queen Helen were yoinked from London and invited to stay. Helen even fears she drowned or is drowning from the laundry she was yoinked from, but she’s assured she’s Truly Alive.
And insult to injury-they got to enter Narnia and STAY in Narnia as goddamn ADULTS.
None of the “you’re Too Old” ageism bullshit that the kids all had to experience (y’know, until they literally got run over by a train.)
Except for the girl that wanted to wear lipstick and have a boyfriend, because that's sinning.
@@stevejakab274 This comment proves something, that something is that atheists have second grade reading comprehension.
The SCP story "Adventure is Nigh" is a good example of the "never going home" trope.
The SCP in question is a book, that seems to contain the consciousness of a being known as the Storyteller. When someone reads the book, they will fall asleep for 8 hours, and experience an amazing adventure in their dreams, tailored to the best of the Storyteller's ability, to what the person needs to experience to do better in life.
One day, a researcher reads the book, and goes to sleep. He doesn't wake up for 4 months. In this comatose state, the book is silent. Eventually, the researcher is awoken, and between his testimony and the Storyteller's the other researchers learn that, instead of accepting the story to be over, the researcher forced the Storyteller to keep going, crafting a world where he became a great king, slayed many a beast, found love, and had children, living a full life.
The researcher tries to use the book again, but is barred by security at the Storyteller's request. The Storyteller was not prepared to face such desperation, and is genuinely devasted that he failed to help the researcher. The researcher then hangs himself in his office not 5 hours after waking up, stating in his note that he can't bare to live in a world where all the things he's accomplished in the dream meant nothing, the same old sad reality of his first life.
Does anyone know if Red has seen Evangelion? Considering how her concern about the escapism of otherworlds leaving a hollow feeling aligns almost spot on with the how Eva ends.
If you like DnD and the Otherworld genre I recommend the podcast Dungeons and Daddies, an actual play podcast about 4 bumbling middle aged fathers who are sent through a portal to the Forgotten Realms in their Honda Odyssey on their way to their sons' soccer tournament
And if you like the same things but with a more tragic twist, pick up the comic DIE, in which a group of friends play a tabletop game and get sucked into the game's fantastical but also horrible world and take on their severely messed up character personas.
6:06 “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
This comes at the perfectly sad time where I had to NOT choose a module on 'Medieval Otherworlds' because I could only choose a certain number of classes. Still found the reading list online and will do my best to read them all
Imagine a story where it begins with someone awaking in an otherworld, we never learn about the familiar, and the tale is EXCLUSIVELY about figuring out said otherness.
So... amnesia in a fantasy setting?
That would be an odd idea, because we'd have no context for the main character. They'd be a blank cipher with no past and no history. Maybe an amnesiac would work, but you'd have to explore their past in some way to explain why they are who they are.
couldn't over the garden wall be considered that?
I think a fun example of this trope I like is in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, involving three characters who all have very different thoughts about having been pulled in to another world with the central issue being that the means of escape remains in possession of the person who least wants to return to reality because their life is so much better there.
Who hopes Red talks about the “Toxic Ideals” Trope, the “Tinker Character” Trope, the “Moral High Ground” Trope, the “Characters Who Don’t Go To Therapy” Trope, and the “Characters Who Do Go To Therapy” Trope
I do!
I do!
The "Characters who don't go to therapy" trope covers what feels like 90% of them, tbh. XD
What about characters that need therapy? They're technically not the same as characters that don't go to therapy
Wouldn’t “Toxic Ideals” just be “Tregedy”?
A great example of simultaneously giving the protagonist great power and none at all is the webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons. While the protagonist has a cosmic artifact in their head that lets them teleport between planes of existence and wield power that with training that could make her the most powerful being in existence, for the first few arcs until breaker of infinities she is dramatically less powerful than the demiurges (the antagonists who wield similar powers) even as she meets them face to face.
Didn't realize Astrid Lindgrens "the Brothers Lionheart" was actually an Isekai anime
A lot of isekai stories involve someone living a boring life who dies and gets transported into a fantasy world as the opening point of a series partially because it's a well-established trope by this point and partially because... There's a sizeable market of japanese males age 18-35 who are dissatisfied with their lives and would do literally anything to escape. It's depressing to think about, but it's partially why the trope is so common. But then because the trope is so common there's a lot of deconstructive and metatextual isekai stories that take different approaches to what living in another world with some kind of fantasy power is like (like Re:Zero involving the protagonist basically dying over and over to try and figure out the best way to resolve a situation, Mushoku Tensei involving the protagonist actually growing up in the fantasy world rather than just popping in fully grown teenager/adult, or plotlines like Rising of the Shield Hero or The Hero Is Overpowered But Overly Cautious having the whole summoning thing being a part of the story's core narrative and that the protagonist is not the first person to be summoned like this etc etc)
Why come back to the old reality, when the old reality is a soul-crushing capitalistic hellhole?
Yup Re:Zero shows how sometimes said power gonna more likely to kill you and show it possible that there wouldn’t be any fun.
Mushoku Tensei and Paladin from far away. Use past live of mc, for theme to grow. This people want to be better than they were before.
Overly cautious hero is great comedy, while shield hero is good revenge story.
This is something I was going to note in a comment of my own that... The major "issue" with all these Isekai stories that seem to go so far into escapism that the hero being a "real person" doesn't even matter anymore, is because so much of the Isekai subgenre in Japanese media specifically (light novels, manga, anime, and all the ways those 3 media intersect) is designed to appeal to a specific group of dissatisfied young men looking for that exact sort of escapism to the utmost degree, but... I think that those people who really don't want to hear life lessons about how the real world can be good too are the ones who NEED TO HEAR the life lessons about how the real world can be good too.
Even reverse isekai has become overdone. Still, neither takes away from how depressing it is that isekai is such a popular genre in Japan. It is somehow more depressing than grimdark, because at least grimdark might leave you feeling like "maybe my real life isn't so bad afterall", while isekai openly implies that the viewer/reader is "a loser who will never accomplish great things, so you might as well hope to die and come back in a new world"... What a fucking awful message to continue putting out to people season after season. This is like "it is already too late to stop climate change" level of apathetic messaging.
@@RWAsur That's basically what I'm saying... Though I'd then play a little bit of devil's advocate that the writers of these stories are probably just writing what the "Isekai Fandom" wants to hear, and stories that would try to go for the deeper understanding of "Hey the real world doesn't actually suck" wouldn't get that many eyes and ears.
Honestly, one of the best ways that a piece of media uses this trope would have to be Deltarune. In the game, the Dark Worlds are fun, cool places with wacky adventures, bunch of hijinks and character developments and fun moments underscored by a grand sense of purpose in being the only heroes who can stop the end of the world. Its a really grandiose story with some amazing down-to-earth moments that makes for the classic fantasy world adventure.
But, then the game also outlines that the Dark Fountains - the things that literally let the Dark Worlds be real, the way that you have these wonderful adventures that bring a smile to your face and tears to your eyes, that's the thing that's literally bringing the world to its slowly approaching doom. So while these are places to cherish, you *have* to go back. Because if you don't, the world will end. You have to seal that fountain, you have to bring that adventure to an end. And while you still get to meet and talk to the characters in the Castle Town, there's no more adventure to be had. No secrets, no enemies, no bosses. At that point they're functionally just pals you meet up with an the weekends to have a cold one.
Its not an adventure to be enjoyed. its a force to be stopped. And every time you have another epic adventure, its going to inevitably be brought to an end to prevent the world from ending. It makes each moment in that world that much more important, that much more of a memory to be treated with care. Because its once in a lifetime, literally.
And then the fact that *anyone* can open these portals? Anyone at all, if they just believe hard enough and stab the earth, they can create one of these fantastical worlds to get lost in, gives that sense of distrust in the narrative. Anyone could do it, so what's to say someone close to you isn't doing it? And for a reason - maybe not even to bring on the end of the world. What if they just want to have fun adventures, to escape from reality without realizing the dire situation it may lead to. Meanwhile it allows the main characters to *use* these fountains, rather than stop them. If a fountain can just be immediately sealed, what's to say they can't just open one and use it as bait? Lure in the person they really want to find, the person making the fountains that are putting the world in danger.
Just the fact that these fountains occupy both the fantasy land happiness and literal end of the world sliders, while also being open for potentially anyone to create, makes it an incredibly intriguing plot that keeps things so open-ended and questionable that I'm certain *nobody* has fully guessed how the game is going to unfold when the full release comes out.
Red: *talking about the trope*
Me just happy to see some owl house clips show up because its a great show: :)
So glad that the Owl House is used as example, as it usually indicates Red watches it and is probably a fan. Kinda sad Amphibia isn't here which I guess means Red hasn't seen it yet. Hey Red, if you see this, I highly recommend Amphibia! It's a great show and basically hits the Hero's Journey beats well and gives a reason why the isekai-ed characters want to go back to their own world.
Honestly, as much as I perfer TOH overall, I think the use of Amphibia's magic otherworld is a bit better. Mostly for the ending, the entire revel around Marcy and the message. Reality freaking sucks dude. Its chaotic and messy and harsh but... its real and its not healthy to try to escape it forever. That really speaks to me because if I was 13 year old me and found a magic box to possibly take myself and my freinds to another world and escape this place forever, I think I'd take it for the exact same reason Marcy did.
Pretty much sums up how I feel about isekai. A lot of them feel like they would be more interesting if they were just set in the world and not an isekai
The biggest reason for this is the otherworld exists for the sake of "knowledge" but nothing feels like its carried over.
If you can replace the otherworld with just natural talent or a capable teacher then the otherworld serves no real purpose. Especially when most of the time the story doesn't really start until the character is already of 'proper age' to adventure so would have plenty of time to learn.
You could even keep the death and reincarnation element and just make the character someone who was a hero in a past life.
If you pull the Isekai shit I expect culture-clash and growing through both worlds to be a factor. If you don't bother with anything real world after the initial summon I'll respect you a lot less than if it was just a standard fantasy tale that doesn't bother with the real world.
@@sunlitsonata6853 No you don't understand. The author NEEDS the main character to reference the anime and games that the author likes. What else could they possibly substitute for actual jokes?
@@TheWrathAbove Ready Player One logic: if a character references a thing you like, therefore, you like him now.
@@sunlitsonata6853 I think if done properly reference can be fun, especially when a work is paying homage to it's influences. That being said, I'm getting real damn sick of seeing "oh so it's like Dore*mon" with a little drawing of Doreamon in the text box for literally no reason in so many isekai manga. I get it guys you like Doreamon, so does everybody else it's not that interesting.
I feel like "My Next Life as Villainess" pulls of the game/story world angle pretty well, and avoids the pitfall of "why not go back" beyond just "I reincarnated."
Catarina is the villain of a romance visual novel. She has an accident as a young girl, and gets a head injury that gives her memories of her past life... which includes playing the game her world is based off, and finds out that in every route she appeared in, she was a hate sink that gets either killed or exiled.
So, she spends basically her whole life trying to avoid that death flag, not realising that her massive shift in personality has caused the cast to change personalities completely.
I feel like it works better in context of a subversion of a harem story, rather than just the story itself. It's not "A modern girl is plunged into a medieval fantasy setting", it's "a fantasy setting character gains modern knowledge and visions of a future she changed a week after finding out about, but is too dense to realise it."
I feel you are underselling just how dense Catarina is. The rest of the cast have used "she's literally too dumb to even think of a plan like that" as a reasonable and sensible explanation as to why she wasn't responsible for something happening.
@@natesmodelsdoodles5403 I mean, the comments section of a video isn't a good place to recap the entire show.
I would like a story where the character chooses to stay in the magical otherworld with all the sweet new powers it gives them and makes then feels special, and as a result their familiar world loved ones that they abandoned FIND them, and they are PISSED, "You ABANDONED US?! FOR THIS?!" and they, due to the function of the other world, are JUST as capable as the MC, and they hold them super accountable for their choice to say. It shatters the ideal that they are special and makes them struggle, bonus points if the people OF the magical other world are like "Nah dude, you kinda screwed the pooch on that decision" and refuse to aid the "champion" any more. or maybe as a counter story, The MC realizes that this other world is a lot better then their world and brings their family over with them some how, and this develops into a familiar world people "immigration problem" of some kind. Like "what are we gonna do with all these chosen ones?" "Turn them out?" "They can kill evil gods with a frightening amount of ease, let not to do anything that if we fail could turn them against us horribly". and so on.
The Oz books had Dorothy bring Uncle Henry and Aunt Em to Oz and there were some cute quirks because these two people had worked hard their entire lives and found that they couldn't just sit around on their butts doing nothing and being royalty all of a sudden. Aunt Em ended up being the Royal Chicken Keeper or some such and Uncle Henry, iirc, got a plot of land to play farmer on. They had serious trouble adapting to their new lives at first and couldn't quite handle a world where they were considered royalty and where animals talked and magical stuff happened. But, they stayed because they had nowhere else to go.
I like the first idea that takes the Isekai power fantasy and turns it on it's head, especially when the MC loses all the good faith they had gained from the denizens of the other world and said MC has to deal with reality crashing down on their head while combating their extremely warped moral compass and philosophy on happiness.
Bonus points if the family member (lets say a single parent that had to bust their ass to raise their only child) boasts that they went through a similar experience the MC went through in their youth, and will outclass them in their supernatural powerset. "I regret not pointing this out to you... You shouldn't mistake our powers as being equal."
@@eshbena OH! Sounds good! Might have to pick up the wizard of Oz series then!
This could be an interesting deconstruction of the genre norms. For example, you can focus on the idea that the hero's loved ones thought they were dead when they suddenly went missing and weren't found for years. And that they didn't even try to come home or just find a way of messaging them even after the adventure was over. As a result, the people of the world who originally see the hero as a paragon who was willing to do the right thing no mater the difficulty view them in a more negative light upon hearing how their negligence has left the people who cared for them to pick up the pieces.
This sounds like the anime Gate. Simple premise is a gate opens up linking a magical otherworld and downtown Tokyo. Fantastical beasts storm through, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. Then the Japanese SDF shows up and cleans house, containing the area surrounding the Gate and ultimately sending a small squad in to explore. As this group of people interact with the native denizens of this Otherworld, the military starts to set up a base camp on both sides of the portal. There isn't really an Ancient God to defeat, but modern weapons of war does make for a group of OPPs--Overpowered Protagonists. The behind the scenes plot ends up being "for better or worse, our two worlds are linked. How do we make this work out amicably for everyone involved?" Including allowing people from both worlds to cross over into the other. It is a unique twist on the isekai genre.
Isekai gets a namedrop, of course. But nobody's talking about Dante's Divine Comedy.
It's DIVINE. And it's a Comedy. What is WRONG with you people!?
14:13 I think a princess of Mars is probably the worst offender here. He spends all of about three pages in the real world, goes to Mars (how? doesn't matter!), has his daring and very Heart-of-Darkness-esque adventures, and then the story concludes with him getting yanked back to earth, with not explanation, against his will, in the last three sentences of the story.
In other words, it's the absolute worst of both worlds. All the problems with not going back, most of the problems with going back, and a thoroughly unsatisfying ending all around.
ERB does it with a LOT of his characters, they somehow make it wherever.
With the Mars series, there is an explanation for him going and getting back in how it happens (It's heavily implied that when he's killed he goes between worlds...he dies in the opening, and dies leaving mars, which explains the entire thing for his tomb and setup...it doesn't exactly cover the full mechanics of it or why it's happening to him, but it does...I also believe the "publisher" ends up being retconned in later stuff in that universe to actually be Jason Gridley who invents the way to communicate with all the various planets, moons, and the center of the Earth that are part of that world.
But the death transition also explains how he's back on Mars for the rest of the series...
9:20 - This is exactly what happens in the 80s book series "Guardians of the Flame". An Iseki long before the genre was a thing in the US.
A group of (not) D&D playing college students are sent to the world they were playing in by their college professor (who turned out to be a Wizard from that world and the BBEG). They eventually make it home and decide to go back to save the life of two of their group... knowing they will never be able to come home again.
It is notable because this new world is SUPER dangerous and the players can and DO die (and some suffer worse fates). So they lose everything they knew and loved to struggle for and in a world they don't belong to.
Some underrated modern titles that immediately came to mind that use this trope:
- Strange The Dreamer
- A Darker Shade of Magic
- The Archived
- These Hollow Vows
- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (yes, that is the actual title)
- The Young Elites (in the last book in the series)
- The Bargainer series
Speaking as someone who reads a lot of Korean Shoujo which extremely often have the plot "person is reincarnated into a book/game and is trying to change the story" I feel a lot of the utility of the trope is that it's an easy way to establish stakes and make it clear what the price of failure will be. Also frequently it does it to contrast the MCs expectations with reality, typically they expect the other people to act like book characters and then have to face the reality of them being real people.
That whole "portal kept open" thing usually leads to the fantastical elements of the otherworld leaking into the familiar world. In fact, it happens in the Inyuyasha example. But space-time travel shenanigan's is also how vampires in my setting are able to appear in both Earth present time and over 9 billion years in the future on an alien world without succumbing to the vampire version of old age that afflicts the oldest one of the group, who's only somewhere between 40k and 130k years old. At first, this rift only exists through divine intervention from Death itself, but, at some point, the local Light cult on the alien world reverse engineers it and starts fucking up the setup the vampires got on modern day Earth. This new version of the rift is made using Light magic, so only "the pure" are able to pass through it without being made non-existent, but this unfortunately includes normal humans. There's a whole lot more to the story than just this, and it's basically just an excuse to reuse the same 8 or so vampires for this one group while still having their mental capacities remain the same in both time periods, and to include modern-day references in the wildly distant future setting.
The way a person goes through the rift can be mistaken for an introduction to an isekai too, because there's a sudden blinding white light, followed by being disintegrated, and then you wake up in the other world, like you just got nuked and isekaied. But it's not an isekai, there was no nuke, and you're able to freely go between the two. Imagine going through this, thinking you're in an isekai and that you're the chosen one, only to very quickly get bodied by a four-foot-something, skinny, dark humanoid creature with a huge white mohawk, who then shouts at you, "Renegades 4 lyfe, man!" as they skateboard away, like, you can literally hear them use the number and the misspelling in their voice when they say it, and then some stout hairless dog with a large pair of bull horns shows up and starts eating your remains. Shit sucks, eh? Worst isekai ever? Well, it's not an isekai, get wrecked.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Deltarune yet. I’ve always been fond of the “dreamlike fantasy” version of this trope, and Deltarune seems to draw a lot from that. Also, Deltarune makes the “real world” explorable and interesting in its own way
Deltarune also brings up the escapism part of Magical Otherworld with the Chapter 2 ending involving Kris and Susie being the one who brings Kris to Dark Land in Chapter 2 because of her abusive background.
The way the otherworld works in Deltarune reminds me a lot the books _The Magic City_ and _Knight's Castle,_ in both of which the characters travel back and forth between real life and a world shaped by the toy city they set up, and many of their problems in one world have to be solved by doing things in the other (creating an important building by building it out of household junk, locating a lost item via an epic quest, etc.). Of course Deltarune hasn't yet allowed you to go back and forth between the "real" and "fantasy" versions of a dark world, but there are many chapters to go. I think it'd make a very interesting mechanic.
well, she did show footage from Alice In Wonderland, which is pretty clearly where Deltarune draws a lot of inspiration from at least. she didn't mention Inscryption either which makes me think she's probably less of a gamer than blue is
There's also reverse-otherworld... Where our relatable character comes from the magical world while the exotic otherworld is our world that magical hero ends up stuck in for some reason.
I like that kind of story.
OSP shouting out Hilda is great, I really hope more people will watch it! It’s a really wholesome and beautiful show!
This makes me appreciate Jobless Reincarnation (ironically, the story that popularised Isekai), because it's very clear the protagonist WASTED their life in the real world and now, they essentially have a second chance to make something of themselves. The real world isn't inferior to this cool new magical world, just the protagonist didn't make the most of it.
Re:Zero does something similar with its main character Subaru, where the further into the series you go the more the audience learns how much Subaru hated himself and felt like a failure for wasting his life despite the options and opportunities he had, thus why he initially is all too happy about the sudden random transport to another world. It was his chance to start over.
HOWEVER, unsurprisingly, just being in a new setting where no one else knows what he was like before doesn't just make character flaws and personal issues go away, and things start to fall apart for him because of actions and decisions he makes because of his insecurities (including white knighting for the girl he likes in front of a bunch of literal white knights). A large part of Subaru's journey throughout Re:Zero is him needing to address his faults so that he can actually start over in this new world he's found himself in and grow as a person.
@@aros0018 I really like that last part of this. Most people when breaking down re zero say that the whole point of the story is for him to become a better person. However growing as a person and becoming a better person are 2 fundamentally different things. Becoming a better person implies a moral failing, where the person in question was a bad person at the start. That is distinctly different from growing as a person, where one over comes flaws. Subaru is a good person, but an incredibly flawed one. Hell it's even directly acknowledged in the story that he is a good person. Part of his problem is that he thinks that his flaws makes him a bad person when they don't. Subaru is a good but flawed individual. So it irritates me a bit when I see better person used, because im an asshole(duh) and it undermines one of the essential points of re zero, which is to love yourself. I really appreciate your terminology rant over. I'm sorry
Surprising that Inkheart wasn't mentioned, the concept of the characters from an otherworld getting stuck in OUR world is really novel and a neat inversion on the trope
I'm surprised there aren't more otherworld stories being used as a coming-of-age story. Leaving home to study and live on my own felt like a strange, scary new world I learned to adapt to.
9:30 Swedish nationally beloved children's book author Astrid Lindgren does this too. In "Mio my son" Mio goes to live with his father who's the king of a otherworld. In the Brothers Lionheart the brothers both die early in the story and gets to Nangijala, where it is still the age of sagas and campfires where they mean to wait for their mother who's still alive but they get pulled into a quest to save the world.
An idea: A denizen of a fantasy setting gets transported to a hard science fiction setting. Magic powers may or may not work, and has to come to terms with it.
Any further ideas?
I've had an idea similar to that for a while where sci-fi futuristic superpowered people and old school magical fantasy creatures inhabit the same world. Something I've been trying to make work.
Magic does work, but it works based on established scientific principles. How they influence said principles isn't important, only that they know the laws. (eg. laws of thermodynamics to make fire or ice, magnetism for "telekinesis" or to make a lightning bolt)
That denizen isn't the first one to have been transported there.
I think the main benefit of having the main character be transported to the otherworld ala isekai is it makes exploration of the worldbuilding more natural to the audience or at least easier for the author to write. It's easy to exposition-dump when the main character is asking the same questions the audience is.
"Food is only important when it shows us something about the person eating it"
wait other people don't use food as like a backdrop for a conversation
the food isn't important but it's there because -the writer has no self control- it helps establish what time it is or something
(i've also used it to show things about people but sometimes it's just there because i was hungry)
The only thing that doesn't grow on me and ultimately becomes a thorn in my side are magical otherworlds that contain possibly (albeit interestingly) carnivorous plants.
sounds like you have a lot of deep-seeded issues with those, i wonder what the root of the problem is?
@@DarkLordFluffee It probably stems from a bad place
Amphibia addressed the “character wants to stay in the other world forever” in a pretty interesting way
Did anyone watch the Canadian TV show “Myth Quest”? It was about two kids getting transported into myths and they take control of a character in the myths. They did well known mythology but also some that are not well known. It was Netflix for a little bit and it was an awesome show.
it's a good thing that, in the sea of trash Isekai power fantasy books, you can find some exceptional examples that bring something fresh to the genre, whether exploring something new about the concept or deconstructing them.
Such examples being Konosuba, a fun parody of the genre and its tropes, having an MC and partners that are too incompetent to fulfill their quest; and Re:Zero, a deconstruction of the genre that explores the idea of what being in an isekai world would really be like if you got there with no OP powers to speak of, save for a respawn power akin to the one from Edge of Tomorrow
5:23 love that red just used logic and chaos to describe other worlds, any Wayward children fans kicking about you know what I'm talking about.
These stories also can have a really interesting play on gender, since the body you're in in the otherworld might not always be same sex (i.e. Jack Black in Jumanji), which itself could also play into interesting themes about sexuality too.
Not really. They pretend to play with gender, but they take heteronormative cisgender approaches to every aspect. I think its interesting that people think these gender bending things have anything accurate to say about real world gender or sexuality, when they are built on tropes entirely diverged from real world LGBT experiences.
It'd be like someone writing about magically changing ethnicities without ever listening to or using information from real people who have struggled with conflicting ethnic identities. And you also get a "Men write women terribly" stuff. Theres a subreddit full of it.
One particular isekai romcom I remember touches on that. I think it's called "Fantasy Bishoujo".
It's basically really fun gender-bender romcom with a fantasy backdrop. It's actually better than it sounds, trust me.
I can get where you're coming from on that bit at the end, but honestly, I usually have the opposite problem. It takes a lot for the main character(s) going home to feel believable or relatable. Even Chronicles of Narnia gave me weird vibes, because the Pevensies by the end of the LtW&tW deeply like they dusky belong back here anymore than they felt like they belonged in Narnia at the beginning, and the later books continue to mostly (freaking authorial prejudice and Susan...) show that they really haven't adapted happily to life back on earth again. Honestly one of the only ones that really sold me on wanting to go back (and lord do I know people are going to crucify me in the comments for this...) is SAO. Maybe it's because the first place they end up in is a death world and they're trapped, maybe it's because later on its so easy to jump back and forth between the games and reality, but despite all the power and benefits they had in VR, I don't think I could ever buy them wanting to stay there full time, like, I get the distinct feeling that if they figured out a way to stay there without dying, they would be more likely to bury it than use it.
Maybe this is because I grew up with relatively few straight examples of the hero's journey (no matter how much people harp on Star Wars basically being a copy paste, the going home part doesn't really fit (the same planet doesn't count any more than growing up in New York, going off to fight in a war, and "going back home" to a farm in Ohio), and it's barely a return, he's there on a mission and he's right back out of there as soon as that's done), maybe it's that, even once I became aware of the formula and started seeing it in places, I always found the return home the most arbitrary part of it, maybe it's just because I don't really feel rooted myself, and I don't see a problem with that, it's the people, not the place, and stories typically begin with the destruction of everything tying the character to a home, at least in stories where they didn't jump at the call, which are themselves that rare.
Red, thanks for mentioning The Owl House in this episode, that show is a masterpiece
There is a difference between knowing the whole story once and parts of the story often. If the butterfly effect is accounted for, it is quite different. Interestingly, the more powerful the future sight, the more careful you have to be. Assuming the cool down is proportional.
Another side effect of isekai I want to expand on because the story is taking place entirely in the other world(especially if he never return to the "real" world)
_ If you expand on the MC past & flesh him out, you're wasting the reader time because very few elements of the real world(the ones that is established while fleshing out the MC) make it to the other side(his)
_ If you just throw the MC into the other world as quickly as possible without fleshing him out, he will come of as bland & generic
I don't agree with the first point, though. If you expand on a character's backstory and flesh them out, you're explaining their personality and psyche. That doesn't disappear just because the character traveled to another world. Fleshing them out will explain their actions and the way they relate to others in the story, as well as their reactions to this new world. It's not a waste of time, unless it's reeeally badly executed. But if the writer knows how to introduce these backstory elements for the protagonist in a way that doesn't feel jarring for the reader, then it can make for a really great character. The second point it's true though, and it creates some of the isekai characters I dislike the most...
(Writing this made me realize that you might mean "spending a lot of time in the familiar world before having the character isekai'd might seem like a waste of time for the reader", and in that case I agree.)
@@mekinot
_ That's what I mean. The best way to flesh out an isekai protag is showing how he acted while in the familiar & the other world to see how it affect him. Also because a lot of element can't be fully utilised anymore after the travel like:
+ The MC relationship with his family: sure he can remisise & try to make a new one but unless he return he can't get that back or resolves issues(an argument with his father, a fight over the job he wanted,,...)
+ The MC is bullied: Well he is not anymore but he didn't overcome his bullies & nothing stop them from continuing to do it to someone else who may not be so lucky to get isekai
_ There is a way to solve this problem, by having isekai just be a part of the story. This way you can flesh out every elements & have all of it interact with each other directly like:
+ Millenium World is an isekai arc within Yugioh
+ Digimon have the protag travel between 2 worlds so their lives & history matter
one otherworld you missed is Pleasantville. It's a really overlooked movie about 2 modern kids who get trapped in a trope filled 50s sitcom and they're trying to get out but end up changing the script as they go. It's honestly worth watching.
Oh I hope there's some good isekai critiques!
Iseki protagonist: *exist*
Truck-Kun: hey do you wanted many attractive women to be attractive to you for no really reason.
One anime I love is Log Horizon. The main character, and thousands of others, get stranded in an MMORPG.
It kinda deconstructs the power fantasy thing, because the main character is an enchanter, a rear support caster with little to no offensive capabilities of his own.
Also, the world is dictated by skills, classes, subclasses, and flavor text. For example, even if you're a skilled chef in real life, without the chef subclass, and a high enough level in it, any food you try to make would turn into tasteless purple sludge, and just disappear. And while every character can make simple foods through the crafting interface, those have no flavor.
At one point in the second season, the main character finds a clue to returning home, and tries to communicate with the moon. But he reaches China instead, and talks to a friend who he has a history with, but every time someone asks about her, he gets weird.
Anyway, turns out she moved from Japan to China, and has a child now. And as any good mother would do, she already has plans to show her baby this crazy world. Just yank the portal wide open and come and go whenever she wants.
that intro sequence has made me want a webcomic where a narratively important main character is roommates with normal person