D&D General Are You There D&D? It's Me, J.R.R. Tol-KEEEEN!

[rhythmsoundmotion]

isekai is the anime and manga where characters come from a different world and experience a foreigner in a strange land story. (There is a similarly spelled genre that is a whole lot more adult.) While some Isekai have themes of overpowered main characters others can have themes of slice of life. However these are not over arching tropes of the Isekai genre. And yes some Isekai works contain adult and gore themes (but they are far from representative or common.) I would say that knowing if an anime or manga is an Isekai one does not tell you much about its content. Maybe a similar example would be learning if a movie is an espionage genre piece (it only says a bit about the movie.)

 

[Chaosmancer]

Hm. I'm not saying you're wrong and I don't really watch isekai anime... primarily because as I understand it's not very wholesome and generally has some pretty messed up sexual themes. It just surprises me that 'wholesome' makes anyone think of isekai anime and not something like Delicious in Dungeon or Frieren.

It depends on the anime and its tone.

Ascendance of a Bookworm? Totally wholesome (when not dealing with the realities of nobles and orphans in a medieval society)
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom? Totally wholesome and sweet relationships, if you don't think too much about the RealPolitik and the harem forming around the King as political marriages pile up. Also if you are just fine with Polyamory.
Bofuri? Absolute wholesomeness, if you don't take the gag of the airhead main character being a goddess of destruction who terrifies all who face her seriously

Meanwhile, I've heard rough things about Shield Hero, OVerlord is about being the Villain, and Tanya the Evil is... well she is literally called "the evil".

It is sort of like asking if Looney Tunes had sexual humor, yes, sometimes, but also not really and it kind of depends on how seriously you take it and what the intent of the author was.

 

[Parmandur]

Cozy fantasy as a trend is not necessarily seperate from Anime influences in all cases, but it is a seperate genre trend.

 

[Scribe]

"J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji."

Terry Pratchett

Oh I like this.

 

[Mistwell]

no, that was after Gen X, the youngest Gen Xers were 17 when the first book was released

My man, I once went to Vegas in my early 30s, when the latest (4th book? 5th?) Harry Potter book had just come out, and no joke I literally counted EIGHTEEN adults around that pool all reading the same book.

The idea that Harry Potter was just a youth thing is absurd. The books were read by all ages. 20-somethings and 30-somethings were heavily into them at the time.

 

[Chaltab]

It depends on the anime and its tone.

Ascendance of a Bookworm? Totally wholesome (when not dealing with the realities of nobles and orphans in a medieval society)
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom? Totally wholesome and sweet relationships, if you don't think too much about the RealPolitik and the harem forming around the King as political marriages pile up. Also if you are just fine with Polyamory.
Bofuri? Absolute wholesomeness, if you don't take the gag of the airhead main character being a goddess of destruction who terrifies all who face her seriously

Meanwhile, I've heard rough things about Shield Hero, OVerlord is about being the Villain, and Tanya the Evil is... well she is literally called "the evil".

It is sort of like asking if Looney Tunes had sexual humor, yes, sometimes, but also not really and it kind of depends on how seriously you take it and what the intent of the author was.

That's entirely fair. My window into isekai anime is just Mother's Basement videos on Youtube so I fully confess to some ignorance on the topic.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hm. I'm not saying you're wrong and I don't really watch isekai anime... primarily because as I understand it's not very wholesome and generally has some pretty messed up sexual themes. It just surprises me that 'wholesome' makes anyone think of isekai anime and not something like Delicious in Dungeon or Frieren.

Yeah, thinking wholesomeness is a result of the popularity of isekai is very much a “tell me you’ve never seen an isekai without telling me you’ve never seen an isekai” situation…

 

[Aldarc]

Isekai themes were a thing in a lot of '90s and '00s anime: Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi, Magic Knight Rayearth, El Hazard, Twelve Kingdoms, etc. Technically this would even include Those Who Hunt Elves, Digimon, and Monster Ranchers.

It just seems like at some point it pivoted from being more prominent with Romantic Fantasy with female protagonists to pure power fantasies for young boys. And I don't recall the term "isekai" until the latter became the norm, often involve pretty one-dimensional dudes who are great at the video games they find themselves in. I greatly found the former more interesting than the latter.

 

[CreamCloud0]

technically, wouldn't most of the Narnia series be isekai?

 

[Azzy]

Isekai themes were a thing in a lot of '90s and '00s anime: Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi, Magic Knight Rayearth, El Hazard, Twelve Kingdoms, etc. Technically this would even include Those Who Hunt Elves, Digimon, and Monster Ranchers.

It just seems like at some point it pivoted from being more prominent with Romantic Fantasy with female protagonists to pure power fantasies for young boys. And I don't recall the term "isekai" until the latter became the norm, often involve pretty one-dimensional dudes who are great at the video games they find themselves in. I greatly found the former more interesting than the latter.

In my opinion, anime has really gone down in quality in writing since then. A lot of it is just uncreative spam.