I don’t know why isekai ends up with so much slop (no AI relation intended) while the high fantasy genre gets certified bangers like Sousou no Frieren and Dungeon Meshi. I mean, take away the stereotypical protagonist and I don’t see what isekai offers that you can’t get from straight fantasy.
A non-isekai fantasy means they have to write a believable in-world reason for the protagonist becoming who they are and why we should care, instead of just yoinking some nobody out of Japan into a fantasy world
Isekai allows amateur writers on Narou (the webnovel site most of these isekai originate from) to completely avoid worldbuilding or any need for original thought. So it ends up being a convenient thing to write, but for whatever reason people watch this slop. They adapted dozens of them into anime last year; hopefully we’ll be seeing that scale back in the future.
The world needs another Record of Lodoss War OVA series. Peak animation, peak styling, just pure awesome bundled into a few episodes. Was it accurate to the source material? Yeah, for the source material they had (anime was made before the series finished so they had to invent the ending). But it felt fun. It felt like a genuine adventure. It was captivating.
I haven’t had the same feeling from high anime fantasy, and I have watched a lot of it since.
I don’t know why isekai ends up with so much slop (no AI relation intended) while the high fantasy genre gets certified bangers like Sousou no Frieren and Dungeon Meshi. I mean, take away the stereotypical protagonist and I don’t see what isekai offers that you can’t get from straight fantasy.
A non-isekai fantasy means they have to write a believable in-world reason for the protagonist becoming who they are and why we should care, instead of just yoinking some nobody out of Japan into a fantasy world
Isekai allows amateur writers on Narou (the webnovel site most of these isekai originate from) to completely avoid worldbuilding or any need for original thought. So it ends up being a convenient thing to write, but for whatever reason people watch this slop. They adapted dozens of them into anime last year; hopefully we’ll be seeing that scale back in the future.
The world needs another Record of Lodoss War OVA series. Peak animation, peak styling, just pure awesome bundled into a few episodes. Was it accurate to the source material? Yeah, for the source material they had (anime was made before the series finished so they had to invent the ending). But it felt fun. It felt like a genuine adventure. It was captivating.
I haven’t had the same feeling from high anime fantasy, and I have watched a lot of it since.