General Isekai Thread

Yeah, seconding that Grimgar is a very good show. The watercolor backgrounds really give it a unique atmosphere too.

Not sure why we never got another season. It's the same with stuff like Undead Adventurer, Helck, and Hero is Dead where there's this big mystery teased that's never gonna get solved in the anime.

I would imagine it just didn't do well enough sales-wise. There are something like eighteen volumes of the light novel, so there's plenty of content to draw from.

The "summoned to be a slave soldier or worse" idea is also what's going on in Record of Wortenia War. People are forcibly summoned from Earth to be cannon fodder. It's even worse for girls who get summoned — they become sex slaves.

As for why the summoned remain loyal to their new masters? It's because they get branded with magic that prevents them from disobeying. We then later find out some of these slaves have figured out a way to undo the control...and they're running a conspiracy to get payback on the world that made their lives hell.

A lot of people found Grimgar boring despite being really solid.

Undead Adventurer is very good (not an isekai though). As I stated in the Winter anime topic. I was initially warded off because its listed as a comedy on many manga sites and it really really isn't.

Wait it was listed as a comedy?! It HAS comedic moments, but they're, more of a dry sort of comedy and humor, but aside that it's fantasy series in a similar vein to Grimgar or even Dungeon Meshi in that it deals with the nitty gritty of adventuring work with a side helping of mystery and intrigue. I made a thread for the series, but it was pretty much never used and deserted and keeping it alove as the only poster was depressing me(props to thuse for his work on Shadows House).

I think I posted in that thread saying I was following the series. I was caught up on the manga at the time but now I'm letting chapters accumulate.

Yes its listed as a comedy on certain manga sites.

Well damn. That's gonna mess up expectations. Haven't kept up with the manga in a while, but am 100% up to date with the LN if you or anyone else is interested. And please feel free to breathe some life to that dying thread. God knows it needs it.

Since it came up elsewhere, and pertains to an earlier conversation, for your (this thread's) consideration; Failure Frame.

Y'all called Shield Hero misogynist (I don't really think it is but I can see where people are coming from) man Failure Frame might actually be. From the evil goddess (who might be a lesbian so we have the old tired psycho lesbian trope as well) to how often rape comes up as a threat, Failure Frame is up its own ass trying to be edgy and trying to grasp at Arifureta's glory.

I had never heard of this story before but looking up its TV tropes page and- wow this is the most miserable ass thing I've ever beheld. It's existence doesn't absolve shield hero's sins but it is unambiguously worse than it.

Edited by Mami on Apr 26th 2024 at 7:17:00 PM

I left after reading the Abusive Parents trope on that page.

The story-summary alone gave me "okay, this is really bad but turn the other cheek and at least hear it out first" but the first trope alone on that list told me enough to not get this involved in my memory under any circumstances.

Making the world that horrible is not a good way to go when making a story.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Apr 26th 2024 at 8:42:28 PM

Since you've seen the page the only other series in that big list of "Compare to" that I've heard from others is any good is Nito's Lazy Foreign World Syndrome. The rest have... issues. Failure Frame is just the one where they're so glaring. Its honestly impressive. You'd think it'd be fairly easy to improve upon what Arifureta did but no one has been capable of nailing the heart and soul of it.

I have a complicated relationship with Grimgar. I distinctly remember hating it at the time because of Ranta being annoying and the fact that the main characters were so boring to watch. But as time's gone on, I really came to appreciate the concept of an SAO type story from the perspective of the lesser people who got isekaied.

Renji is the badass alpha male and his parties off fighting dragons and sorcerers and other cool stuff, and our actuals viewpoint characters simply can't compete and so they have to grind and do the unfun stuff you never hear about. They're stuck fighting Goblins and Kobolds because anything more serious would wipe them out (For the record, I prefer Grimgar's usage of Goblins Goblin Slayer). Also I really liked Yume.

It's on my list of things to read but I hear the book kinda falls off a cliff quality wise later on.

Edited by Codafett on Apr 27th 2024 at 12:00:46 PM

Good lord, I made one post about Grimgar and I killed the thread for 2 weeks.

No worries, this thread tends to sleep for a bit unless we talk about Isekai ethics; controversial stuff, the differences between Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Isekai, or now how the LitRPG elements often don't fit their stories.

I personally gauge based on the humor and humanity of Isekai stories but I don't go looking for much. So I have no idea if there's more garbage going in than good stuff coming out.

I don't know about Japanese isekai these days (honestly, I've gotten good at ignoring the random "reborn as a vending machine" stuff), but I'm definitely seeing plenty of American isekai. Almost always LitRPG, though not always something that needed to be isekai. The number of times I've screamed "just use a damn native."

Anyway, right now I'm reading Terminate the Other World, which is, long prologue short, a reprogrammed female Terminator finds herself in another world after she created a time paradox by being sent back to kill her creator.

but muh wish fulfillment cipher!

I am slowly working on making isekai folk more...relevant in my setting instead of being a worldbuilding device FWIW. But it is going to be a slow process.

I also want to eventually delve into the protag's past life and how it would connect to the overarching plot, but that is a matter for later.

That said if I had to explain why the overlap, I suppose it is the matter of "NPCs" (read: natives) not being versed enough in the mechanical underpinnings (if they even are aware of them at all) to exploit them like "players" can. Or to put it simply, they are less likely to be metagaming for want of reason to beyond their intended roles.

You coudl actually go into destiny related pontification with that kind of set-up, but granted you prolly didn't need an isekai setup for that. Endro~! did just that in a world that parody JRPS but the closet it got to iskeai was Mental Time Travel and all involved were natives of the setting.

The other reason likely has to do with the gimmicks, with the standard rpg setting being Dragon quest flavored medieval euorpe-coded, you'd be hard-pressed to justify things like vending machines or smartphones otherwise, (magictek notwithstanding)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 4th 2024 at 3:49:38 AM

"Why is the main character the only one properly exploiting the system?" is something that comes up in pretty much every LitRPG, with various options trotted out. "The main character is a gamer from another world" is sometimes the answer, or bizarre feats of achievements or whatever. Those explanations usually fall flat for me.

Terminate is doing something with it I like: It's explained that the vast majority of cultures follow the "champion" model: The strongest person in a group leads, and everyone else works to make them stronger. The problem is, once that person dies, if the next-strongest can't replace them fast enough, the group dies. Humanity rose to prominence when they started focusing on training and specialization instead. It's easier to train up a hundred level 50 soldiers than fifty level 100 champions, so they can be replaced far easier, and they have a broader range of specializations to draw on. Eventually they'll find the perfect counter to that level 100 champion.

I haven't finished the first book yet, but it's repeatedly implied that the terminator couldn't survive if she pissed off the human Empire; even if she can slaughter them in droves, they would manage to overwhelm her eventually (and she's also had serious trouble with individual champions before). Yeah it's an OP MC story, but not a no-challenge story.

I tend to prefer the answer that either the protagonist has/finds something unique or gets lucky. But only to a degree that it lets them get started.

Generally I prefer if its also not something totally inherent to them.

I think its kinda boring when the protagonist keeps getting tons and tons of unique skills/equipment/magic piled upon them.

I'll admit though the biggest factor rather than the exact specifics of the "Why is the main character the only one properly exploiting the system?" question almost entirely comes down to the writing chops of the author.

What I imagine would be the easiest way to make that work is simply that the protagonist is approaching things from the viewpoint of an outside looking in. They can see things that someone raised within in might not.

Isekai person is OP because their name glitched the setting so they're getting an EXP and damage overflow bug, throwing out absurd attacks that deal 0 damage to enemies but severely damage the terrain.

Write that down! WRITE THAT DOWN!

Anyway I'm been thinking about hypothethical Slime sequels and think there are two routes the writer cna go after ending it.

• the most trad route would be focusing on Chloe Aubert, as the story established her to be prime for a grand destiny of heroism... that already partially played out due to time travel shenanigans. It also makes it a potential stealth prequel that can be used to focus on the events leading to her sealing Veldora
• the more unlikely one would be a story focused on Youm and how he managed to spread the good world of the Jura-Tempest Federation and kept up the "ultimate hero" part of the Fake Ultimate Hero gig.

I'm thinking probably more spinoffs of other people's perspectives since Slime Diaries, Trinity, and Walking the Country of Monsters all were very good and sell quite well. Now with whom is the big question. There were some after stories in the WN that with some work could be reintroduced into the new canon.

As an aside, I'm really curious if we'll see more of Parallel World Pharmacy and if the situation with its companion series will get sorted.

Edited by doomrider7 on May 5th 2024 at 8:28:42 AM

One isekai story justified the lack of natives exploiting game mechanics by showing that doing so in a real world instead of a game is incredibly dangerous.

For one example in that story, one special skill's requirement for being unlocked involves losing half your health. When the MC tries it, he realizes first-hand that "losing half your health" in real life means being beaten to a pulp as opposed to seeing your health bar go down in a game.

I don't actually remember the title of said story, sorry.

Edited by M84 on May 5th 2024 at 10:23:04 PM

Bummer as that sounds really interesting.