Your opinion on the Over Abundance of Isekai?

Oreo

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I have nothing against the genre; there are a lot of intriguing things you can do with it. I just get the impression that they don't do anything with it and stick to what's popular.
 

Anon2024

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That's because branching out is risky and could be considered wasted effort. Also when readers come to expect one kind of story, giving them a different one gets an unpredictable reaction.
 

BlackKnightX

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I can never get bored of it, really. It’s been years since I got into this genre, and I’m still completely in love with it. The reason? Nothing much. It’s just fun, plain and simple.
 

Sp4de

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Escapism? People want to imagine another world other than this one, yet they want their MC's to have their mindset so that they can self insert and properly enjoy another world from the perspective of this comparatively crappy one.
Though I call it escapism, I don't feel it's a good word. We just love to explore new worlds, imagine fantastical places and heroic events. Many times people have nothing but their imagination to spice up their life. So I hate it sometimes when people call fantasy a way to escape reality. I mean, how much money goes through the entertainment industry? People who like isekai or fantasy are no different from the millions who go and watch box office movies. And writers don't have to pay for their entertainment. I think we're the better ones :)
 

AetherialCore

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Mostly generic, bland, and written without putting in even the tiniest of effort. Rarely can you actually find a good isekai in that pile of junk.
 

CabbagePreacher

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Yeah, who in their right mind would write another isekai when the market is already so oversaturated...
I try to be original in terms of setting and characters. I'm having fun writing it. That's all that matters, really.
 

CarburetorThompson

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I wouldn’t mind as much if it didn’t seem like in most cases the Isekai part only matters for the first few chapters/episodes of a series then it just. becomes a normal generic fantasy story, but with a character who is kind of boring since they have no connections or relations to anyone or anything.
 

SternenklarenRitter

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in most cases the Isekai part only matters for the first few chapters/episodes of a series then it just becomes a normal generic fantasy story, but with a character who is kind of boring since they have no connections or relations to anyone or anything.
Most 'isekai' really isn't anything more than the author being lazy about the protagonist's origin afterall. Or it might be a cheap trick to make the protagonist slightly more relatable "even though my story happens on Middle Earth, maybe Canadians will like it more if I say the hero is from Toronto". I don't count those as isekai. If you call it "another world's fantasy", then the origin world has to be relevant somehow.
 

ElliePorter

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I like them.

I've been fond of reading Farming, Dungeon Master, Fallen Hero, Slow Life, etc.
 

HappyVainGlory

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They're fun time wasters to write and read. Almost like playing a JRPG but only story and no grinding.

I wouldn't rate any as high literature though. It's inherently a different standard.
 

Temple

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It's normal there are many of them because they're an efficient way to start power fantasies. They're in the same vein as time travel, rebirth, and resurrection. The point is to have an easy clean slate to start a new life of being a badass in a fantasy setting. What's sellable are power fantasies. One of the tried and tested ways to start them is isekai. Experimenting and reinventing the wheel can lead to very interesting stories BUT will readers even go for that? Only a few. (Speaking from my own experience writing different kinds of stories.)

In topics like these, don't blame the writers, blame the readers. It's natural writers want readers to come, and this is what readers want so writers provided it. Trying something new is very risky and will usually lead to failure.
 

aattss

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A lot of them have pretty bland and lame protagonists. Other than that, they're just fantasy stories, though perhaps stories that just so happen to be lazy in terms of blindly copying tropes from others stories of the same genre.
 

BearlyAlive

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Braindead. There were a few good to acceptable ones before the isekai genre became a genre. But the current ones? Overlord's just a cartoon villain succeeding, slime's a mix of kingdom building and classic fantasy, spider's a brainchild of .hack and NGE.

They all'd work as well without Isekai elements. You only need to tweak the beginning a bit. The good ones get carried by the story they carry. Characters need to ride the story not the other way around.

But "Slave Harem with Smartphone because I was so unpopular only a Self-insert Powerfantasy can save my Soul from turning into a Productive Member of Society" doesn't work. Neither with isekai nor without because there is no story that could save the characters
 

LessThanSavory

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I'm a huge fan of the genre, so overabundance is a plus for me. Yeah, it means wading through a lot of garbage, but I actually find some of the garbage kind of fun and the rare actual good story makes it worth the trouble.
 
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Isekai is like the air fried Twinkies of the anime fandom. No value or substance, probably really bad for me, but I just can’t get enough of it and I’ll happily consume half a dozen in one sitting.
 

melchi

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I'm fine that there are a lot of Isekai stories. It used to be really rare. Lots of meh ones exist but there are some good ones too. Back in the day it was just inuyasha, magic knight rayearth and fushugi yugi for about a decade. What's better, having 3 to pick from or a whole webpages dedicated to the genre?
 
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