Isekai Is Ruining Anime, They Claim

A recent post on a comment forum in Japan has sparked intense debate among anime and video game fans. The hot topic at hand is the overexploitation of the "isekai" and "virtual worlds" genres, which have flooded the entertainment industry in recent years.

"We need to stop talking about 'isekai' and 'virtual worlds'. In the past, when you said "it's an anime like [x]", it was automatically dismissed as a copy without even looking at it, you knew that? That's why there were so many video games and original stories in the past. I know they'll probably call me old for saying this, but I think the settings and plots are too simple nowadays."

The author of the post begins by reflecting on how, in the past, mentioning that one anime was similar to another automatically disqualified it as a simple imitation, without even giving it a chance. This attitude, according to the author, led to a greater diversity of video games and original stories in the past.

The post has generated a wide range of responses from forum users, some supporting the author's opinion and others defending the popularity of the "isekai" and "virtual worlds" genres. The debate over originality and quality in anime and video game storytelling continues to be a hot topic in the Japanese fan community.

"I regularly see topics like isekai and reincarnations abounding out there, but many believe that if you disavow something that's popular, it's because you're a moron who feels unique."
"I think this is already a format. As if the protagonist is a footballer, the pitch is the stage. I rate it based on whether what is developed in it is interesting or not."
"A fucking idiot who just wants to believe that his favorite works from his youth were original. An enormous amount of works are produced in a fashionable style, and then geniuses of that genre emerge, and based on that, it becomes fashionable again. There's always something to base a work on, even if it seems original to you."
"Trash is garbage. The otherworldly reincarnation is rubbish from the moment the gender is defined, and even then, if there are enough people, there will be a certain number of outliers, but in the end, the genre itself is rubbish no matter how you look at it, and it has no significance."
"I'm quite impressed by the originality of the 'isekai' approach, though. From real adventures to reversals of exiles, rise to power, fiefdom/state management, slow living, making things, etc., you can do anything you want."
"That's like saying to a mystery play, 'Stop telling stories where people die and find out who it was.' It's a game of daring to accept the boundaries of the genre and where to differentiate yourself."
"History says it can be imitated. If it's a bizarre setting, you don't have any ideas to develop."
"And the period of mass production of fighting manga after Kinnikuman? Just a trend of the time."
"I'm seeing things like how much they can twist a similar setting, and how the quality of the author and the comicalization can make a total difference. Although I think there are a lot of cumulative series apart from the isekai."
"Well, I understand that customers who have run out of market want to speak out. But I don't agree that they should be destroyed."
"Well, buy and support a dense idealistic work, old man. I'm seeing a lot of dense works that should have been planned and approved with the best efforts of the industry itself and young people being cancelled for lack of good initial sales. Most only buy by the author's name or the genre of fashion."
"Generally, only people who say that 'the old days were better' don't realize how limited their knowledge and field of observation used to be. They don't realize they've changed."