General Isekai Thread

I take it Truck-kun is the purview of the god of smithing and engineering?

That gives me an idea of my own: A bunch of gods isekai people whenever they need a champion to save/rule over the world, usually someone from within their sphere of influence. The god of the seas always picks a sailor, for example. This time they switch it up and so every god gets to isekai a hero, but the hero has to be from a different god's usual set of people. The god of nature has to pick a soldier, the god of war has to pick a gamer, the trickster god is stuck with a lawyer, the love god gets a politician, etc.

If I were to write an isekai story, I'd probably go with the good old-fashioned method of just using a portal as a way to get to another world.

Edited by sgamer82 on May 21st 2022 at 12:13:22 PM

You know what I want to see?

It would be hilarious if the MC was a truck driver who ends up hitting an isekai creature/person and end up being transported to isekai.

WITH his truck.

Like, I'm talking about those massive, trailer trucks with beds inside and everything.

Once transported, it could be a road trip story where the MC traverses through rough terrains in a divine mission. And almost every couple of chapter, the MC would beat the villain or monster simply by just running over it with his truck.

And of course, (literally) picking up chicks along the way. This is isekai, after all.

It's not exactly the same, but something similar already exists. Truck driver gets hit by a bigger truck only to find himself in another world with his truck and that his truck is now alive and in love with him.

@dRoy I felt disrespected when you tried to veer the subject back to Truck-kun when I tried to get the subject back to what you were saying when it came to alternative methods of getting Protagonists to Isekai worlds. I was trying to help and now I don't know.

If alternate method to get isekaid is on the table, then being abducted while you're asleep should be one of them...

(Which also is a far more peaceful way to go than most.)

That, or the forces to be sends off your reflections when looking into a mirror, allowing you to remain in the world while the other one goes off into adventure as an expandable pawn for forces beyond...

Well there the Evil Space Lord Isekai where the MC got Isekai by a "Tour guide" who tricked him into making a contract before he die. The "tour guide" even present "Isekai pack" options for the MC, including a fantasy option, space opera option or a Otome Isekai option. But it pretty clear that the "tour Guide" was guiding the MC to pick the Space Opera option.

Honestly I think the method makes very little difference to the story unless it includes the ability to leave or the story involves the protagonist wanting to return home.

I guess the whole god/goddess offers someone a choice adds some ongoing direction.

The Evil Space Lord isekai one does matter to the story since the "Guide" is the closest thing to a Big Bad too. The only reason he offered the MC the deal was because he's an Emotion Eater who feeds off of negative emotions and he wanted to set up the MC for a life of absolute misery.

This ends up backfiring big time since the MC's uncanny luck, wild misinterpretation of others, and his attempts to be an Evil Overlord without actually having the true malice needed to be one and a guardian angel in the form of a dog means the MC's life is a massive success. And the MC thinks it's all because of the "Guide" and is appropriately grateful.

And since the Guide is an Emotion Eater who is nourished by negative emotions, positive emotions have the opposite effect of completely fucking him up.

The Guide actually gets savvy about this and tries the opposite tack of trying to "help" the MC in the hopes that this will lead to trouble for the MC. While it does seem to work at first, this ultimately backfires too.

Edited by M84 on May 23rd 2022 at 11:07:27 PM

I mean it would actually be novel to have an isekai where the MC is actively trying to return to his place of origin instead of just going on power fantasy #517809 (even thought hat would prolly ensue regardless), preferably one that doesn't include underaged slaves int he harem like Ragnarok.

Also would like to see abolitionists in the genre, preferably not as antagonists.

While raising the question on is it really iseaki if it was basically a clone instead of the real person doing the usual shenanigans.

That said it might be interesting if both optsion were mixed, with a Dream Mirror like setup of someone dreaming they are in another world. With the potential for Schrödinger's Butterfly to be in play.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 23rd 2022 at 7:42:18 AM

Wortenia Senki actually has the MC trying to get back home because the world of Wortenia he ended up in is an absolutely horrible Crapsack World with no concept of human rights. Unfortunately he ends up caught up in political power struggles meaning he cannot devote all of his time and energy to finding a way back.

The funny thing is that the MC also has a case of Born in the Wrong Century — he had an unconventional upbringing that gave him a lot of values that would be more fitting in Japan's Warring States era as opposed to modern Japan. This means he adjusted very quickly to the Crapsack World of Wortenia. For starters, he felt zero hesitation at killing the summoners who abducted him and escaping.

Isn't a big part of that because his grandfather was summoned and got back and trained the MC up specifically in case the same thing happened to him?

Yep, and he even ends up summoned back to Wortenia later along with his grand-niece the MC's cousin.

He also notes that the summoning has targeted multiple members of his family for some odd reason.

Edited by M84 on May 24th 2022 at 1:01:31 AM

it bothers me that Re:Zero doesn't have a dedicated foreshadowing page, since it is very dense with foreshadowing and scenes that get completely recontextualized by later scenes (and that's even without counting the IF stories and side stories).

unfortunately, i'm not a source reader yet, so i can't exactly make that page

Edited by MABfan11 on Jun 3rd 2022 at 11:50:29 AM

Random rambling.

I kinda want to see an isekai that primarily evolves around food.

The main character is a chef who died from overwork in a restaurant (which would even be additionally realistic, considering both the physical hazards and ruthless hierchy) and now finds himself in an isekai.

He has a power to transition his cooking into stat boost, so now he can travel around fighting monsters and cooking whatever the hell he damn wants. Hell, he can turn monsters INTO cooking ingredients and his power movesets might involve cooking techniques.

Also, let's also have him land in a world that doesn't have a very diverse food culture (like, say, it's a culture that is just recovering from a long religious repression that basically was a big killjoy) and whatever the MC cooks everyone goes batshit insane over it.

It would be like a mix of Toriko and basically an extension of canteen function of Monster Hunter franchises.

And I'm pretty damn sure there already is at least one work like that out there, I just don't know the name of it.

Hmm, I’ve read a few isekai where food is the primary focus, but they’re usually not mixed together with fighting. They do however tend to go to worlds with bland dishes and they drive the otherworld people crazy by being the only person around who knows to use salt or something.

You might wanna give Isekai Cheat Survival Meshi a try. It’s not quite what you’re looking for. But it does have a guy who decides to make the most of his situation and try out the delicacies of the fantasy world. And in that world, the strongest monsters are usually the most delicious ones. MC can also copy the abilities of the things he eats, among other food-related cheat abilities.

Hmm, haven't heard of that one, even though I feel like I should have. I will give it a try.

Personally, I feel like that falls into the category of reactionary isekai for me - where it puts some average slob from our world into a world that is specifically crafted to be shitty enough for him to be amazing, and show that wow, actually, Japanese culture and food is the greatest after all!

Isekai Shokudou helped alleviate that a little bit by justifying it with modern availability of spices and seasoning, as well as a few offhanded mentions of agriculture and food science advances that make things like the cheese Nekoya uses actually almost physically impossible to replicate in the other world - but most series like that seem to think that a fantasy world could get up to Dragon Quest-knockoff high medieval fantasy without ever having the idea to put something on top of a piece of bread, or to cook a grain crop.

It’s decent for what it is.

Isekai Shokudou really is good at selling why medieval-fantasy era otherworlders would be astounded with modern cuisine. Isekai Izakaya Nobu and Nobunaga no Chef are also fantastic in that regard.

I mentioned Isekai Cheat Survival Meshi and in that one, people CAN cook good food. But the really delicious meat, fruits and herbs come from really dangerous monsters and areas. So your average person (or heck, adventurer) would not be able to cook himself a dragon steak.

Most other food-based isekai I can remember are what you call the reactionary kind, which I also dislike.

Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi is a funny one since the only reason the MC's ability to summon supermarket items from Earth helps him at all is because a powerful wolf spirit likes the food and becomes his familiar so he can keep getting more.

Yeah, I would like another one like Isekai Shoukudou but by this point I fully know that it's asking too much. XP

I was thinking of Toriko and Delicious in Dungeon when reading these, but it reminded me of one of the rules of writing webnovels and possibly internet based writing. Writing stuff is an effort by an author to fill a niche they don't see with their work. Because of the internet, a person can not only get instant gratification on their work, but also can see other similar works to theirs. Seeing that said niche is potentially oversaturated with either good stuff or bad stuff. Webnovel Isekai are an oversaturated market that has been somewhat trimmed by turning some into light novels, but an author probably needs to have a strong enough sense of self and strong enough belief in their writing to write what they think while taking the minimal amount of influence from others to not be a plagiarist. Know what I mean?

I feel like that's giving the field as a whole too much credit, unfortunately. Not to sniff down my nose at web authors or Narou authors, but it's very much a field and a site based around catching the eye of the investors to become the next anime juggernaut. Sense of self and taking the minimal amount of inspiration is the exact backwards to look at it; it feels like most writers take what's popular (game isekais, revenge porn, and now exiled-from-party) and scrape the serial numbers off just enough that it's a near-guaranteed sell with the minimum of investment or effort.

Hell, there's a reason more isekai nowadays don't even give the characters names. That would get in the way of telling readers exactly what characters from other works they should picture saying the tropey phrases.

But doesn't that mean there's going to be a point of stagnation and/or where the bubble is gonna burst if people are just making such similar works to one another? In addition if there is an increasing amount of works that are so similar, are we not reaching the point where A.I. can not only make titles for Isekai but whole weekly run series? Is the ghostwriting industry for webnovels potentially dead already?