What can be done to save the isekai genre?

What can be done to save the isekai genre?

I doubt it can, the only good isekai is konosuba, and that's because it's a parody.

It's weird of the extremes of the Japanese and Chinese world-traveling novels

Chinese ones go slow as all hell and takes 100 chapters for the MC to get anywhere, and that's only if they are OPMCs (normal ones take a lot longer).

While Japanese ones give the MC all the powerups, harems, and OP abilities from the get-go without the MC having to work for any of it. So most MCs have not much long-term goals besides "do whatever I want"

They can both do with better pacing.

Stop making it. At this point, it's as played out as the school battle harem.

ANIME KUMO

what of 12 Kingdoms, Escaflowne, and Geminar?

Weren't all that great but your standards have gotten so low that they're the first things you think of.

my suggestion would be read more novels

Was escaflowne good? I never finished it because kinda boring

Nothing. All you can do is stop fucking making them and let the genre cool down for awhile.

>what of 12 Kingdoms, Escaflowne

I was talking about modern Isekai.

>your standards have gotten so low that they're the first things you think of.

Make us laugh, what Isekai are better than 12 Kingdoms and Escaflowne?

It needs to be euthanized.

This

I wouldn't be able to talk about them because it'd be breaking the rules.
You'd be on /lit/ if you truly cared

>What can be done to save the isekai genre?
Konosuba.

>the reason
Make the solid reason for world-travel, not suicide, random god's will or etc.
>the protagonist
Make him real character with weaknesses and strength. Cut this useless cheating buffs.
>the world
Make an interesting world WITHOUT RPG OR MMORPG REFERENCES. With people living, with all contradictions, politics, evildoers and stuff.
>the plot
Make plot pls. Just make it.
>the harem
Make interesting harem, with girls being characters, not walking titties.
That's pretty much it.

Yes. You probably just can't stand shojo, but I have honestly no idea how someone can find the first episodes boring.

But thats part of the cancer. Thankfully ReZero is actually good.

Nothing, it's beyond saving.

Hataraku Maou-sama is a good reversal of it, though. At least in concept.

A rookie wizard is sent to earth during an alien invasion and helps humanity win the war against superior alien technology by combining science and magic.

Have a greater diversity of how the other world is used.

Stop making it the playground of a single reincarnated cheating otaku.

For all GATE's faults, it at least did something slightly different.

Muv-Luv Alternative is another one that tried something new.

naturally they can do with more creative worlds

whole point of isekai is the the MC is a fish out of water in a strange and fantastical world.

Have a MC be a normal fuck in a horrible hybrid of Final Fantasy and Wagner. That everyone are hammy high-born gods that can kill the MC by breathing on him too hard and that no matter how well off the MC gets that's still true. He has to us his wits to get by and explore the world and it's wonders with great enthusiasm because even though every person is a god this also means that all of the stuff they have far surpasses his own world.

What solid reason would you suggest?

That's because it is boring the whole way through.

if you are fully awere that those things you have in mind are unrelated, you can avoid shitposting instead of trying to sound elitist.

It's a shitty premise for garbage writers to appeal to an equally shitty fanbase. It just needs to completely fuck off, nothing good is ever coming out of it.
Konosuba was average at best.

I'm glad you ended that on some obvious bait. I didn't want to respond seriously.

yeah I didn't like it either

replace Escaflowne with El Hazard then

I'd also put Now and Then, :Here and There as well but I didn't like that series either.

No indication they were talking of modern. clearly doesn't like 12 kingdoms

I guess you yourself don't like Geminar.

Make up your mind, am I shitposting or trying to sound elitist?

[x] remove harem

there has never been a world where the two are mutually exclusive

With more Log Horizon

Are you really so unbelievably stupid?

>MC start playing VR online-game.
>Get female avatar and tries the new ``Sex´´ option with random dude for giggles.
>Gets the `Pregnant´´ status.
>Suddenly, everyone gets transported to the game isekai.
>A noob, alone and pregnant in another world adventure starts.

By embracing the true possibilities of the genre.
More realistic medieval and gritty worlds, MCs abusing technological and physics knowledge from our world, etc etc.

Imagine an isekai where the MC pushes back the Maou's armies with muskets instead of cheat hax powers.

the kid is the chosen one

Second season was snorefest.

kinda like Drifters?

More Overlord

>instead

More trash?

[x] remove male MC

>They got transported becaused MC accomplied a requierement to breed a god (Weakest newborn x strongest douche. And he masturbated to it).

Like that one movie where they predicted an eclipse to put out a fire?

>Imagine an isekai where the MC pushes back the Maou's armies with muskets instead of cheat hax powers.

and the real villain is the church!

hey wait, Mark Twain wrote the first isekai.

How about we do it where a generic anime MC with all the OP powers and a harem despite having no real personality to speak of dies, and is reincarnated into a different fantasy world where things don't come as easily to him, and women treat him as a joke at best?

He can still have successes and victories, but no LN-style victories. Just being a constant failure hero is just trying too hard.

Also reincarnate him as a girl, for shits and giggles.

A bucket of shit isn't improved by adding more shit.

You mean like Vampire Princess?

Instead of being lost and miserable Mr Bones was having fun. What's wrong with that?

"If you were aware it would be too much of a tangent, you could have not said anything at all instead of shitposting trying to sound elitist."

That's not an American sentence.

>good isekai
>konosuba

You're a part of the problem.

>knowing that it's a divine entity spends the series trying to protect the child while preggers
>MC dies in childbirth
>he wakes up to find that he's the child

Is Bleach Isekai?

Anteilier Tanaka was a LN in that vein

he's ugly, most people fuck with him, and those girls that end up falling for him are all fucking other dudes

To be honest "modern equipment vs primitives" is really not that different than hax powers, and it got boring pretty fast, with Gate being the final nail in the coffin for me.

Isekai by itself is not really good or bad, it's the writers themselves who make it shit by resorting to generic tired tropes ("Magic sure is convenient!")

How about an isekai where MC is a programmer and ends up in a world where magic is code "compiled" by the wizard's brain, and although MC doesn't have the part of the brain required to cast magic, his academic knowledge puts him on par with the greatest wizards of that world when it comes to "inventing new spells" so he slowly makes his way up in the shadows by supporting a dumb mage that everyone makes fun of.

And don't go ahead and ruin it by giving him a harem, a single love interest is enough, make it some chick who likes stealing corpses from the graveyard and dissecting them to learn medicine and draw the internal human body in detail, and MC decides to help her out since he wants to figure out what makes his brain and this world's brains different. So he has to keep his cover and make his dumb friend a hero by day, and commit grave-robbery and research by night.

it's more of an exorcist series really

A huge problem with it is that they fucking ignore the fact that they are stuck in a different world very quickly. I don't get why they just don't start the story off with the fantasy setting as a default if that's typically the case.

It's simple, we kill the isekai genre.

That's a more OPMC version of Warlock in a Magus world (and Leilyn was already pretty OP).

Better writers.

It's been literally over 20 years since Escaflowne. At the time it was pretty unique, but I wouldn't recommend it today. I thought the movie was better.

that's probably the best answer
all the isekai series the people in this thread knows were all made by webnovelists

and web-anything are usually known for no quality control.

>not recommending watching for Dilandau burning everything

>What happens when a scientist from a futuristic world reincarnates in a World of Magic and Knights?
>An awesome MC — that’s what happens!
>A scientist’s goal is to explore the secrets of the universe, and this is exactly what Leylin sets out to do when he is reincarnated. Dark, cold and calculating, he makes use of all his resources as he sets off on his adventures to meet his goal.

Description is already a big enough of a turn-off, goddamn chinks.

It's not a wonder why the adaptations are so fan fic tier.

if we had actual professionals write the Isekai plots it would definitely up the quality

people think there's not much creative freedom with the genre, problem is there's too much and they use to to write their wet dreams.

It wasn't exactly a snorefest. Children Arc was boring but when Roe2 got introduced things got interesting. Also moon server and all that was nice.

Japan can't into isekai. They should just stop embarrassing themselves.

There are plenty of great Isekai anime.

Tatami Galaxy is probably one of the greatest examples out there.

I think there's a russian novel where a military squad gets sent to elfland.

I think it ends with elfland being literally nuked.

So yeah, when in doubt, as the russians.

>How about an isekai where MC is a programmer and ends up in a world where magic is code "compiled" by the wizard's brain, and although MC doesn't have the part of the brain required to cast magic, his academic knowledge puts him on par with the greatest wizards of that world when it comes to "inventing new spells" so he slowly makes his way up in the shadows by supporting a dumb mage that everyone makes fun of.

Literally exactly every novel by Jack L Chalker, although it's usually the villains doing that scheme. Magic is programming the universe, anything that lets a magic-user solve equations better than a human makes them overpowered. It still gets old. Chalker was a pervert too, but considering the topic...

>web-anything no quality control
OOTS, Erfworld and Unsounded disagree with you.

Something came to mind when I was bored yesterday. Basically have the plot be something like this.
>Old man with a really jumbled together set of clothing and accessories.
>Turns out each one is came from a different world he traveled to, he wears all of them despite not matching because they all hold memories to him.
>Story is him describing the story behind different pieces he acquired on his journeys.
>At the end of every part, something forced him to teleport to a new world in need of a hero.
>Slowly becomes more distant and jaded through every world since he won't see any friends or lovers he made during is time there after he is forced away.
So basically Freeter from Hero Message Board. Wouldn't fix the genre or anything, but I'd like to read something like that.

Subverting the genre norms is a good place to start.

Don't make the main character a god out of the box. In fact, avoid making him too strong in general. Specifically regarding the rebirth/reincarnation types, if this is a fantasy world then functional immortals should be a thing. Starting with 20-30 years of experience out of the gate is nice, but the protagonist shouldn't be out doing 900 year old liches.

Unusual protagonists (not average spiky haired japanese high school boy) are also nice as they give a fresh premise to work with. You kind of see that with the "reincarnate into a monster" types, but they all usually fall into the previous mentioned ultra-fast-power-creep issue.

No explicit rpg/mmo mechanics.
They are bad and make the world a cheap numbers game.

it's basicallyexcept for the "his academic knowledge puts him on par with the greatest wizards" thing

MC can only be as good as what he knows and the wizards are basically the admech from 40k but more jewish when it comes to knowledge.

I read a comment about how the west likes fantasy where the main character is fantastic to begin with like conan or harry potter, but japan prefers stories where the protagonist is a normal person like the reader who coincidentally has fantastic stuff happen around him.

I think it might be because isekai are a lazy way to get around worldbuilding.


You see, if the MC was a native, he wouldn't need to get infodumped on literally everything, and so worldbuilding would have to be built upon more subtly and carefully. His ethics would also be those of his world, not ours, which makes writing an isseakaier much more barebones.

the protagonist is the creator of an indie RPG that becomes a surprise cult hit, but when brought into his own creation as an actual world for whatever reason, finds himself drunk with the knowledge of how the very world he created works as he dilutes and fucks up everything out of his own interests and self-insertion desires
the real protagonist is an NPC who ends up having to step up to the role of a hero and beat the creator's face in to get him to stop fucking everything up

"no quality control" doesn't mean EVERYTHING will be shit

just that most of it and that the shit will be really shit, no rhyme or reason, nothing is taken for granted, and nothing is sacred

also people have already called the things you listed shit (like OOTS but kinda got bored with the Durakon arc).

The isekai genre doesn't need to be saved. It needs to be killed.

Nothing. They are fine as is. They accomplish exactly what they aim to do, and what their fans want them to do.

I wasn't talking about modern equipment vs fantasy.
More like, MC abuses his knowledge of modern physics to make money or create new weapons (better smelting techniques, early gunpowder weapons, etc etc).

Wow, so you really are so freaking stupid. First you try to sound superior and then you display such poor reading comprehension. I know obnoxious wannabe-elitists are usually retards, but that's too much.

>More like, MC abuses his knowledge of modern physics to make money or create new weapons (better smelting techniques, early gunpowder weapons, etc etc).

Which leads to modern equipment, doesn't it?

Of course I didn't necessarily mean the weapons we have right now, but for barbarians there isn't that much difference between muskets and shotguns. By modern equipment I mean in comparison with the new world's level of technology.

to be fair, I feel like Japan having such a difficult language is what holds japan back, considering no one will read novels, they're all forced to write light novels instead. And since anyone can write light novels they end up being shit

unpopular, but re-zero put a good twist on the isekai genre. Konosuba is fun because parody, i think the next big hit will be tate no yuusha

By fusing it with shojo.

>erfworld
>not solid proof for that
Unsounded I don't know, but Erfworld is shit. Somewhat relevant shit to the topic, but still shit.

Nice we got a second thread going? It needs more loli hags

Make him be accompanied by an old, war-veteran QA tester who always complains about how nothing works as it's supposed to, and an a gameplay designer that always gets into arguments with the MC (porogrammer) about the feasibility.

Japan has actual novels even today

you don't know about them because your knowledge of foreign novels are entry level but they exist

>but japan prefers stories where the protagonist is a normal person like the reader
>MC-kun is a young shopkeeper in a small village. However one day the village is attacked by Orcs. MC-kun manages to escape, and finds a magic macguffin that will give him the power to avenge his village and save the world.

Thought of ti as I wrote it. You don't have to be from the "real world" to be normal at the start. Anyone with actual writing ability or creativity can do much better than my shitty example.

Actually, early gunpowder weapons weren't much better than bows and crossbows.
It took more than 200 years for muskets to become viable alternatives to the crossbow.

I really want to see a series where a dumb harem protagonist gets completely crushed. I'm talking complete psychological devastation where he loses everything that was given to him through his own shortcomings. There should be enough ill will against that character archetype built up to carry at least one cour of that.

While the threads here, anyone know of a series where mc gets robot waifu? Doesn't have to be isekai, but that'd be a bonus.

>the edge

Perhaps not think of profit and try something out of the box?

My favorite writers, though not exclusive to Sup Forums, tend to do what they want and leave lasting impressions because they're not following a trope guide book. And if they are they're usually intentionally twisting it.

Clearly Sup Forums but Assasin's Creed 1-Brotherhood is one of my favorites while not being all magic based.

>I was talking about modern Isekai.
Define modern Isekai.
Because honestly, the Isekai "genre " has existed for a long time in anime, it just wasn't given that name.

Other examples include Magic Knight Reyearth, Tsubasa Chronicles (kinda), Inuyasha (even though it's supposed to be time travel), Fushigi Yuugi, Digimon (most of the franchise) and that's just naming popular 90s/00s examples.

What exactly are your defining points setting "mordern" Isekai apart from "old school" Isekai

>Konosuba is fun because parody,

Ad because the bits of story and characterization blend with the parody very well. I'm really surprised how it can still work so well after 8 volumes.

>i think the next big hit will be tate no yuusha

Probably. Personally I found it mediocre at best.

see