×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
This Week in Anime - What New Isekai Anime Should You Watch?




Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18507
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2023 12:28 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
It does make me wish the series would lean into the "Vending Machine Otaku" angle more, and maybe it will in later episodes.

It will, although more in the diversity of what the vending machine can offer than in the machine design angle. There will be at least one or two cases brought up in the first half of the series that even veteran travelers to Japan probably aren't aware ever existed.

For me, Reborn is the stand-out this season amongst the new isekai titles; I may give Heretical Last Queen a try if my seasonal watch list isn't otherwise full, but it didn't impress me as much.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
zztop



Joined: 28 Aug 2014
Posts: 650
PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2023 10:09 pm Reply with quote
IMO the choice to adapt Vending Machine as an anime is rather odd given the light novels it is adapting was discontinued after 3 volumes back in 2017. The author wrote its original source webnovel to completion with a proper epilogue, but according to readers the published novels only covered a fraction of the WN's material. Even odder is Kadokawa's Even more surprising is Kadokawa's decision to resurrect this dead IP, albeit for this anime and an ongoing manga adaptation.

(No reason was ever given for the discontinuation, but highly likely back then the LNs were not meeting the publisher's expected sales targets.)

Some of you may recognise the author's latest work, The NPCs in this Village Sim Game Must Be Real!, where a depressed shut-in receives a mysterious sim PC game where he plays benevolent god to a bunch of surprisingly lifelike AI villagers. As he grows more immersed in ensuring the villagers' livelihood, he learns to climb out of his shell and pick up the pieces of his real life again.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
blooperboy



Joined: 28 Dec 2021
Posts: 138
PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2023 10:19 pm Reply with quote
I'm actually really excited about Great Cleric. I've read a ways ahead and really like where they take the story, so while I get that the beginning is pretty slow, I do thing that people will feel it pick up a bit in the second episode. (I mean, the guy gets nicknamed masochistic zombie healer. Its beautiful.)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Chipp12



Joined: 30 Mar 2012
Posts: 332
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2023 2:41 am Reply with quote
Quote:
It is a strong enough lead for Sweet Reincarnation. It helps that the production values look better than the other shows we've discussed.

Well, about that... the production values deteriorated awfully quick after the first episode so there's that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Terraziel



Joined: 01 Jul 2023
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2023 6:21 am Reply with quote
Chipp12 wrote:
Quote:
It is a strong enough lead for Sweet Reincarnation. It helps that the production values look better than the other shows we've discussed.

Well, about that... the production values deteriorated awfully quick after the first episode so there's that.


I kind of think this doesn't get the attention it deserves, but in the last few years there have been some seriously poor productions, I mean we have been getting multiple shows a season which are basically slideshows.

Obviously this isn't just limited to isekai, though they do take the brunt of it. It is to the point that even if the original stories were interesting the production would be so bad to make it pointless.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Phrunicus



Joined: 23 Oct 2018
Posts: 34
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2023 12:57 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Just because our hero is named Boxxo is enough for me to shower praise on this series. It's not that it's stupid; it's confidently stupid. There's a fine line there, but if you're on the right side of it, you can have a whole lot of fun.


As a wise man once said,
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4830
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2023 1:07 pm Reply with quote
Just like the past several years, the policy of "none of them" remains a safe bet.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Oggers



Joined: 29 Nov 2017
Posts: 379
Location: Ontario, Canada
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2023 3:48 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
As we all know, these shows are primarily wish-fulfillment for a generation of men who feel they've been left out of a narrative of economic and familial security (that may have always been a fantasy in the first place).


Quote:
It makes you realize the proliferation of isekai as a genre might be a sign of the times more than anything.


This is something I try to keep in mind whenever I wonder why there's just so much isekai anime these days (and it is rather unfortunate, given the problems of exploitative companies and poor work-life balance in Japan), but it still doesn't stop me from wishing that more of them could try shaking up the formula a bit. I probably won't watch Reborn as a Vending Machine, but I still give it props for at least standing out thanks to the sheer ridiculousness of its premise.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
Posts: 1201
Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 6:39 am Reply with quote
There are isekai and fake-isekai RPG worlds. Main characters are not reborn or reincarnated, but they do live in a world vaguely fantastic with RPG stats and tooltips, which, to be honest, I can't see any exciting in them. I did read somewhere that's because the readers do play that kind of games so they are used to that kind of scenarios.

Sigh, I wish this craze pass soon.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Terraziel



Joined: 01 Jul 2023
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 7:31 am Reply with quote
kgw wrote:
There are isekai and fake-isekai RPG worlds. Main characters are not reborn or reincarnated, but they do live in a world vaguely fantastic with RPG stats and tooltips, which, to be honest, I can't see any exciting in them. I did read somewhere that's because the readers do play that kind of games so they are used to that kind of scenarios.

Sigh, I wish this craze pass soon.


Whilst that might have been the case a decade or more ago, at this point the RPG bits are pretty ingrained in the genre as a whole, ie they aren't doing it because games are like that, they are doing it because the books are like that.

These sort of Light/Web novels are basically like Pulps from the last century. They are fundamentally big, flashy, stupid and trend driven, the goal is to make you go "hey that was cool!" and they don't particularly care that you have forgotten about it afterwards. RPG trappings offer a common language, which lets face it basically everybody can understand, we all get that Lv1 guy beating Lv100 guy is 'impressive', even if no explanation is presented at all for what the numbers mean.

And I think it's also worth nothing that the RPG bits are rarely the real problem, god awful writing that means you get stuck on the RPG bits is the problem. It's got to have been about the Megumin spinoff, but there was a post I remember where someone was noticing for the first time that Konosuba is an RPG world, and yet at no point did it feel the need for endless stat screens or scrolling through skill lists.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
Posts: 1201
Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 8:30 am Reply with quote
The animes are like that because the LN are like that because the RPGs were like that so in the end, everybody is doing that because everybody is doing the same and nobody remembers in the first case why is that, or care.

In the end, it's low-quality fiction with few redeemable exceptions.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group