Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - An Isekai a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
mdo7
 Posts: 6625 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I've said this in the past, and I've said this as a unpopular opinion (something I said on another thread) regarding isekai but...
I wish the current isekai anime fandom can learn to respect the older pre-SAO isekai anime titles, and give them the same love to those older isekai titles that they give to current and newer one. I mean the people that praise isekai titles coming out are not bothering to give something like Fushigi Yugi, Magic Knight Rayearth, etc... I find it also disturbing that the same isekai fans ignored titles like Aura Battler Dunbine, and Super Dimension Century Orguss since both of them are isekai. I did find it disturbing isekai fans just dangerously ignored Dunbine given that this anime was the one that started it all before Sword Art Online. Also, I find it very upsetting that SAO fans are going after .Hack franchise for "ripping off" SAO even though .Hack came out decade before SAO. I've seen .Hack fans are not happy that SAO are getting the praise and love that .Hack should've had back then, and I do agree that .Hack may have been better executed then SAO. But there is one good news: Escaflowne trended in Japan 28 years later, so that's good news for one pre-SAO isekai title, hopefully maybe that can lead to isekai fans to go on a retro-anime circle and find Aura Battler Dunbine, Orguss, Fushigi Yugi, etc... But yeah, I'm turned off by isekai fans not giving the old pre-SAO isekai titles the love and respect it deserves. I'll end my post here. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Joe Mello
 Posts: 2324 Location: Online Terminal |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
It certainly stands to reason that most of the isekai that hit this season look to be ones that take advantage of the setting rather than just using it to tick a box. I feel like that's been a drum that's been banged on for quite a while.
Tale as old as time. A child is only aware of what was made after them unless it's put directly in front of them. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
mdo7
Posts: 6625 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Well guess what, there are kids that can still watch old Disney films made before they were born. Oh, and go tell that to the Gen Z/young retro gamers out there. Yes, you can be a teenager born after 1996 and be a fan of the NES-era, PS1-era gaming. If retro gaming can gain popularity amongst even the younger audiences, then it should be possible to be a teen isekai fan and watched pre-SAO isekai classic titles like Aura Battler Dunbine, Orguss, Escaflowne, Fushigi Yugi, etc... Gen Z are also buying vinyls, CDs even in the era of Spotify, Apple Music streaming. They're even saving mall from permanent closure. How do you explain that? If you can be a young teen fan of retro-gaming, buying vinyl, or saving shopping malls, then it should be easy for a young fans of isekai to appreciate older titles. Then why is it so hard for a fandom like isekai to appreciate any isekai titles pre-SAO? I just don't understand. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joe Mello
Posts: 2324 Location: Online Terminal |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
By pointing out that the people that expose kids to new video games and music are also purveyors of older games and older music, all of which are easily accessible through commercial radio or online game stores or just watching YT or Twitch. Not only has there been a known problem with cable and streaming providers not making older TV available easily, when you specifically talk about anime, for a lot of people it's only a 25-year-old medium (compared to 40 for video games and 65-70 for music) that's only had a lot to pull from in the past 10-15 years since they made good internet. The incuriosity of young people is a much more interesting topic than "why people don't think like me" |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Top Gun
 Posts: 4844 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
All else aside, I think the most depressing thing about isekai is that there's enough of it to make an entire viable TWIA column for every single season.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
mdo7
Posts: 6625 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
One thing: anime is much older then video game, there are anime movie/films and TV series that came out before Atari 2600, and before the Golden Age of arcade video game. Old school anime are being exposed on Youtube too, and you know those lo-fi 90's anime AMV like this one, this one, and this one, and I can find more of those. Yeah, those are helping 90's anime aesthetic to find newer and younger fans. If a Gen Z anime fans are able to find these, then it should've been the same possibility for an isekai anime fan who watched SAO or any titles that came out in the last few years to have stumbled upon older pre-SAO isekai titles out there. So, if you're a younger Gen Z person who are able to enjoy retro video games, vinyl disc, CD, and even watching 90's anime aesthetic lo-fi AMV. Then it should've been possible for those isekai fans to have discover or even watch the older pre-SAO isekai titles like Dunbine, Orguss, Escaflowne, Fushigi Yugi, etc... That's why the isekai fandom make me scratch my head when they're not able to give those older pre-SAO titles the same love they would give to current isekai titles. Don't tell me they don't know or are not aware of what those titles are given these are the same demographic that are able to play older video game that were made before they were born, or are buying vinyl disc player, or watching those 90's anime aesthetic AMVs on YT. If they're able to find and enjoy those, then it should've been possible for these same isekai fans to have been curious about isekai anime before SAO. This is why the fandom baffled me and they turned me off despite all the evidence above I've seen from Gen Z demographics. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
tintor2
 Posts: 2215 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Nice to see Red Ranger. Just watched the first episode and enjoyed it like Bravern
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shay Guy
 Posts: 2377 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I thought some today about how I might execute some of these recurring tropes to make them a little more interesting.
Magic Amazon Interface: Purchases take time to arrive, but not as long as shipment would normally take. It's about what you'd expect if someone was actually packing the boxes and preparing the shipment, then they get sent to your side shortly after they leave the warehouse. You're logged into a specific Amazon account, and can't switch to another. Even if you remember your credit card or bank info, they aren't options for payment; you can only pay with money from a specific account that starts with either no money, or a relatively small amount being loaned to you with interest. To add money, you have to use another interface that you can access, to a much more sparsely designed "Seller's Portal". There's an option to sell commodities, which currently only lists silver and gold, at varying prices, though there's also a link to a form for recommending others. (If you remember anything about current silver or gold prices in the real world, you might notice what you're being offered is somewhat less.) There's also an option for putting up individual items, or sets of items, up for sale, which seems to work a lot like eBay -- write a header and description, set a minimum bid, etc. You can't see listings other people may or may not be posting, though, and all bids are anonymous. The intent of all this: raising questions, and suggesting some answers, about just what's going on at the other end of this -- with the strong implication that whatever it is, there's humans running the show on Earth, with their own agenda. Plus it means limiting the protagonist's abilities and posing new challenges; you have to figure out how to attract buyers in both worlds. Reverse-Isekai Reacts to Industrial Civilization: That "if you live in such a tall building" screenshot is the sort of thing I've seen with other characters from worlds with a medieval-ish standard of living, coming to or hearing about our own. I think I'd like to take it in a slightly different direction: The reverse-isekai'd character boggles at how high up the apartment is, but at the same time, she notices that she's standing on a starkly designed walkway with a whole lot of doors in a row, identical to the one she came out of. And going back inside, she notices that her host's quarters aren't exactly spacious. Many of his possessions are incomprehensible, or seemingly crafted with impossible precision, or both, but a number of them show clear signs of wear. The paper covering the wall has a crack in it. The design on that paper has a repeating pattern, and those terms impossible precision and identical come to mind again. In fact, the closer she looks, the more they show up in subtle ways. Like this "news paper", with enormous amounts of perfectly straight and clear text -- and somehow, every character of any particular type is exactly identical to all the others of that type. Yet the paper itself is rough, of low quality, not the sort of thing you'd use for a book meant to be kept for generations. The writing, the wall-paper -- there's a quality to these things as though they'd been cast from a mold, like coins. The books on the shelf, many of identical height and width, with flimsy covers surely not made to last. The bright glass lamps. The kitchenware. The stitches on her host's clothes. The pieces of that little handheld tool he uses to control that black glass panel like a viewing-mirror. So many knobs and fixtures, made from precise shapes, but simple shapes, practical with little ornamentation. An idea slowly takes form, and if anything, it shakes her even more than the fact of the wonders her host lives with: He is not wealthy. He is not nobility. This is how commoners live here. Reverse-Isekai Reacts to Modern Food: The elf studies the burger in her hands for a moment, then smiles warmly. "No matter where you go," she says, "humans are the same." She explains that in her own world, as in this one, it was humans who invented cereal agriculture, and built their civilizations on top of it. She's young, but she's been to a number of human lands over the centuries, and while the grain itself may vary from one place to another? Wherever there's human civilization, humans will be grinding that grain into flour, and making the flour into dough. And always, always, there's some local food made by putting meat in the dough and cooking it, in one order or the other. Tacos, baozi, hamburgers -- humans make them and eat them everywhere. Other notes… There was some Discourse earlier about the girl at the inn in Middle-Aged Online Shopper, and looking at the screencaps here… yeah, I think I get where the ick is coming from. She describes it as a “repayment”, as though it all has a transactional quality. Literal “put niceness tokens in, get sex out”. Chris is right that it’s a move these stories don’t generally make, though. Headhunted to Another World sounds like it draws on a well that spans from Black Lagoon to Iruma-kun to arguably Zom 100. There's even some more niche webnovels that come to mind, such as The Perks of Working in the Black Magic Industry (from the author of I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level) and The Revenge of My Youth. Details and execution quality vary wildly, of course. What’s really funny to me about the 1970s shojo manga references in From Bureaucrat to Villainess is that from what I’ve read, the “akuyaku reijou” trope has far more to do with those characters, and their successors in later shojo manga, than anything in actual otome games. And after all, the story that really got that ball rolling on Narou was set in the world of a shojo manga. The screenshot from The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer had me wondering how many Super Sentai series use dinosaur mecha – apparently only four out of dozens. I spent way too much time going down the rabbit hole to see if this took more influence from one than another; couldn’t tell in the end.
I dunno, there's a lot of older console games that have never been ported to more recent platforms. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
FilthyCasual
Posts: 2429 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ms. Elf and Sentai Isekai look fun this season.
Have you considering talking about these older isekai anime to the people you want to watch them and recommending them instead of turning this thread into a drinking game? |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FishLion
 Posts: 285 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
To me that sounds like they enjoy the modern signifiers of the isekai genre and not necessarily all isekai. From what I have seen, most modern isekai tends to be very SAO-like in terms of the way the world functions and the general aesthetics. There were others that went in SAO's direction before, but it seems like SAO really crystalized the various parts into a combination of things people like and made an impact that seems to be really formative for the modern isekai genre. So while there have always been isekai stories and there are fans of "isekai" as a concept independent of the genre, before it was really much more like a trope used in other stories and couldn't be considered a genre the way it is now. There's the unifying factor of traveling to another world, but there was still not nearly enough series to call it a genre the way that we now have critical mass of stories made specifically to be capital "I" Isekai. We really only retroactively think of shows like Rayearth and Escaflowne as isekai titles and not fantasy titles with isekai in them is because newer titles created the genre proper. They were stories that were considered part of other genres at the time of release and not the massive genre that exists in the modern day with a bunch of specific aesthetics and tropes it likes to use. I think that's part of why some people have started to include stuff like reincarnation in the isekai genre. Whether a new world or old, you are following a character with a life unlike their own in a fantasy setting, when it is a reincarnation litRPG it becomes even harder to tell the difference. I can see why some want to stick to the technical definition of "other world," but details like where the MC originates from and how the litRPG elements function are small potatoes compared to the fact that so many follow similar story beats whether they go the isekai, reincarnation in the same world, or the VRMMO to explain why the protagonist is in a weird situation compared to their old life. Of course when it was becoming a genre I wasn't really part of the fandom and I am just speaking for the US, so it is possible I am entirely off base, my brother showed me Konosuba and I just thought it was a quirky fantasy series at the time. I just really suspect that the post-SAO world explains why people perceive them differently because SAO is right around when I stopped paying attention and even through the grapevine of friends that liked anime and participated in fandom, I never heard the term isekai until much later. I also think for clarity during discussion people tend to separate stories about isekai and the isekai genre in their head. Calling the classics stories "isekai" without context and not "classic isekai" would lead to confusion. Like if someone said "Let me show you my favorite isekai" and pulled out Magic Knight Rayearth, I would be deeply confused. Not because it isn't an isekai story, but because as a story it is so different from the genre that using the term "isekai" without more information to describe it almost feels misleading. Like, if you say something is the greatest horror movie, you expect it to sort of be a much more superior version of things you see in the horror genre, not a progenitor of the horror genre that feels completely different from horror as I know it. It's same the other way, I thought of Konosuba as some random fantasy anime when I first saw it, but with my current genre awareness if someone told me they were showing me a fantasy anime and put on Konosuba then internally I would think "ah, an isekai, it's that subgenre of fantasy." The difference is that, in a genre sense, Konosuba is so isekai it almost feels wrong to leave that out of the description if it were published today while you could describe the plot of most classic isekai using the translated term "other world" and not have the subgenre cross your mind at all. That's what my theory is anyway, people are looking for something mechanically, thematically, and aesthetically similar to the other works they love and just because those stories you mentioned are all isekai by definition does not mean they neatly fit in with the isekai genre. I do have to wonder how it is used in Japan as well, when we take loan words we also add our own connotations all the time. I wonder if they use it mostly to refer to the modern Narou-kei style isekai genre or if it's a broader term that we picked up on and that's why I associate it so much more with Narou-kei works. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Thulebox
Posts: 33 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Uhm I've been wanting to watch The Vision of Escaflowne (tv) recently since I only have the old movie dvd but the only ways seems to be buying the blu ray(which is a expensive but reasonable as physical anime goes roadblock) since the page on Crunchyroll is there but doesnt have any episodes for me. Which is a weird regional thing or glitch that happened in the FuniRoll catalog merge I think? Not too sure on that. So ya ease of access for older titles is absolutely a problem for younger people when they get served so much that it probably doesnt even come to mind for a lot to seek out older titles that because of say the video format look ancient to them. Like I get that Anime has been around for a looong time but like another comment said so many younger fans treat it like its been around for only 25 years. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Lord Geo
Posts: 2708 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
FishLion, just about everything you're saying about isekai as a genre is either wrong or just a tad ignorant, because "isekai" has literally been a genre for decades, long before the SAO or the modern style seen in anime, and if we don't want to be pedantic about only using a Japanese word it's a genre that's existed for literal centuries.
Titles like Rayearth & Escaflowne aren't considered isekai "retroactively", because they literally ARE isekai stories. Just taking Japan into account the first "modern" isekai would be the 1979 novel Isekai no Yuushi/Warrior from Another World by Haruka Takachiho (the word "isekai" is literally in the title), while 1983's Aura Battler Dunbine is generally looked at as the first real isekai anime, and this was decided long before even Narou was a thing. Hell, the concept of isekai in Japan technically dates back to the fairy tale of Urashima Taro, which go back to at least the 8th century. And, of course, there all of the non-Japanese stories that have existed for hundreds of years that, by any definition, would be "isekai", like The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, etc., etc. An isekai story is one where someone from one world is taken to another world, whether that be via reincarnation, teleportation, hallucination, dream, & (arguably) even VR, simple as that. It's just that before the constant deluge of modern isekai anime made the term "isekai" ubiquitous worldwide there were other terms for the genre, like "portal fantasy", and anyone trying to argue that "isekai" as a genre is a modern construct is just blatantly ignoring history.
This is complete fallacy, because whether or not something is the "greatest" is a wholly subjective & personal thing, not to mention that tons of older stories still have themes that apply to our modern world just as strong (if not even stronger) as back when they first came out. Just because something is more recent doesn't mean that it has an inherent & natural superiority over what came before it. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
FishLion
Posts: 285 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I shoud have clarified I meant isekai in the modern loan word context
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Thulebox
Posts: 33 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I'm gonna side with FishLion in that I think they're pointing out the "modern" etymology of the word which really started with SAO whether we like it or not.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
mdo7
Posts: 6625 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Can I ask you 2 of you a question: Are any of you 2 are retro gamers, or fans of using retro stuff that pre-date your birth? Do you 2 watched older anime? If you say yes, then it should've been possible for you to access pre-SAO isekai anime out there. I mean if you're a person who watch isekai anime that came out post-SAO but at the same time you're able to buy a CRT TV and an old refurbished SNES/Super Nintendo along with Super Mario World and Super Mario All-Stars cartridges, then how on earth does that retro gamer who buy a CRT TV and a refurbished SNES with those 2 Mario SNES cartridges and watch isekai anime from the last few years at the same time weren't & aren't able to find time or gain knowledge/research about pre-SAO isekai anime titles that existed even after they become fans of SAO and isekai titles today. Thulebox, although I understand that there are accessibility problems, it should've led to those fans in the isekai sub-fandom that are also retro gamers, and also retro users, they would've done their research on isekai and found out there are isekai titles that pre-dated SAO, I don't expect these fans to be seeking out those anime on home video, or streaming. But I would've expected fans of SAO and Konosuba and other isekai titles that have came out in the US for the last 8-10 years to probably show respect and appreciation to the older isekai anime that pre-dated SAO. But instead, I see ignorance and SAO fans attacking .Hack, and what looks like they didn't know that isekai existed before SAO. That's why the fandom makes me scratch my head. I have to ask where are the millennials, Xennials, and Zillennials anime fans that grew up and had access to the pre-SAO isekai anime titles back in the old days that are part of the current isekai anime fandom? Why are they not guiding and influencing the younger Gen Z isekai fans to watch Escaflowne, Aura Battler Dunbine, Orguss, Fushigi Yugi, Magic Knight Reyearth, Digimon, and other pre-SAO isekai titles out there? That's also another question I like to ask regarding the fandom along with why are there isekai fans assuming they're Gen Z and the larger Gen Z are retro gamers, retro whatever they're using even though they were born after it went out of fad, and yet these same demographic that watch SAO, and other isekai can't somehow be able to watch and access pre-SAO isekai anime titles or bother to research on the history of the genre. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group