It’s like capitalism has gotten so bad in Asia that it’s profitable to make shows about depressed salarymen/hikkikomori dying and reincarnating in a happy fun exciting world where they are a badass super god/goddess that gets all the women easily.
It’s like capitalism has gotten so bad in Asia that it’s profitable to make shows about depressed salarymen/hikkikomori dying and reincarnating in a happy fun exciting world where they are a badass super god/goddess that gets all the women easily.
It’s an escapist thing because people’s lives are so shit under capitalism they want to imagine being the protagonist.
Add to this it’s easy as fuck to start any Isekai story. You barely need any backstory or world building initially. “I was some asshole working a desk job. I fell into video game world.” That’s it. World built. Everyone watching these shows gets the idea. They know what a desk job is. They know about fantasy style video games. It’s all super relatable and thus anyone can throw this thing together.
On the other hand if you had a similar story but it wasn’t an Isekai but following a person in that magical world, you actually have to get to know the character somewhat. What’s their motivation? What makes them special? Why is this their story? Etc, etc. It requires a lot more writing, and actual good writing to do this. These are all things answered instantly by the Isekai genre so why go through the trouble of it when you can just have some asshole in the “real world” get tossed into it?
Dr Stone and Spellbinder are my favourite isekais. One’s about a Japanese nerd who rebuilds technology from the group up after the world’s people turn to stone for thousands of years, and one’s about an Australian nerd who goes to Fantasy Outback Poland and figures out how their “magic” works with the power of Earth Science.
imo isekai is only worth doing if you’re going to have your character use science to understand the fantasy world.