Which tropes would you ban from the Isekai genre?
Personally i would pick :
>MC instantly gets a harem/love interest with little to no effort
>MC has godlike powers compared to the natives
>Most of the characters are retarded except for the MC
Those are the most cancerous.
>Isekai genre
its large enough to be called a genre at this point
then delete the genre
I'd ban
>Dense MCs
>No god-like powers unless MC can actually become a god
>Lack of clear main girl
Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari and Death March Kara Hjimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku are the only two series that are doing iseki right in my opinion.
Male MC
>delete a very profitable and popular genre
>Death March
Uh, what? Thats the series where the MC uses a GM cheat and reaches over level 9000 without even trying.
And he instantly gets a love interest in the first chapter by saving that girl.
And now hes got a harem of demi-humans who are utterly devoted to him.
I wouldn't ban anything. Sure there's a lot of shit, but that's the free market.
thats a common misunderstanding of the free market, often, the free market requires regulation
That's pretty much it. He got to like level 300 something, but people think levels cap at 100 since the required exp to get to 101+ is insanely high or something.
He has his menu unique skill but it completely used for information gathering. It doesn't do anything for combat, not that he needs it since he's over leveled and stuff.
Translations are almost caught up, but he's looking for a way to become a god so he can marry and have children with the high elf Aze. He's looking, but not too hard. For the most part, he and his harem (whom he's acknowledged to hold no sexual/romantic feelings for) just tour the other world playing around, eating delicious food, ect. The usual other world stuff, but without all the forced drama and need for shonen spirit.
See I don't have a problem with main girls, I actually hate series with them more if they're going the harem route. It's already wish fulfillment nonsense go the tenchi route and bask in the fact.
All of those posts look like contributions to discussion to me. You on the other hand have done nothing beneficial for this thread. I have nothing more to say on this matter.
I can see where you're coming from and can agree. I just hate it when the MC is too indecisive to choose anyone at all.
Like, just choose. Choose all of them if you want, just don't let that shit linger and then end without anyone getting together.
Dirty furry fucks and other freaks of nature.
>>Like, just choose. Choose all of them if you want, just don't let that shit linger and then end without anyone getting together.
I'm completely with you on this much. The relationship drama just eats away from any other significant plot angles, and ultimately detracts from what ever story there is. Unless you're just a gag story, in which case go for it if that's your main joking point.
>He's looking, but not too hard
And this is the reason I fucking drop it, it was fine when the story didn't have a plot but the moment the author introduces an end goal and does nothing to move towards it just become shit
Edgy shit.
There's nothing worse than an isekai that pretends to be deep by having the MC suffer and cute girls get their limbs torn off.
i disagree.
I feel differently. I like that there is a goal now (although whether it's an end goal is unclear) but if the author always went straight for the, the series would be over within a few dozen chapters leaving most of this other world unexplored.
I feel like Death March isn't about the destination or the struggle to get there. It's about the journey and all the joy experienced before you find yourself at the end. Experiencing another world wouldn't be much fun if you're always focused on the end.
so you want a series where the MC never suffers and no girls get hurt?
...
Is Isekai a metaphor for the white saviour complex and the trend of white English teachers living in Asia?
no its a wish fulfillment fantasy in most cases
It's definitely not a metaphor, but in most cases it could be an example of, if you consider oriental people, namely Japanese, to be white.
Then again, the MC is usually just the most self insert as can be so MC is usually a white male because many people can relate to or at least sympathize with a stereotypical white male.
MC has a dick
no, I'm serious
part of the reason why Overlord does so well is because the main character doesn't have a dick
What about Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken?
What i hate about it is the fact that the guy reincarnated as a slime and had a dragon god give him a name, in a setting where monsters are nameless, and monsters with names are the strongest.
>I hate good storytelling where actions have consequences, give me more meaningless fluff
I would ban instant love interests that appear from the get-go. Or at least not until quite a few heroines have already been introduced.
Re:zero really brought home the point that waifu pandering turns shows into shit.
that, and kumo desu ga suffer from the same flaw
no clear vision and genre
Overlord still has many tropes ruining the series though.
Those aren't just problems with Isekai, they're problems with Light novels.
If anything the whole medium needs to get banned.
Slime is more about building relations with other races and founding a nice place to everyone.
I'd also molest that slime.
Its not the medium, its the editors that dont enforce ANY kind of quality control.
In japan, for some reason, many editors will simply accept anything as long as it is a shameless copy of something that is popular. This doesnt work often in the west (otherwise everyone would just submit shitty twilight ripoffs). We are not talking about some shitty third bit publisher either, but major publishers in Japan do this.
Eragorn was only published because the author's parents owned the publishing company. In japan, you dont need to do this, just submit it to a major publisher and VOILA.
slime goes to shit after the MC becomes super powerful because he is a special snowflake
...
>MC is an otaku
>Harem of any kind
This
Stop that "I'm an otaku" shit. MC doesn't have to be GI Joe, but give him some other defining characteristic other than being an otaku. Maybe be part of the baseball team. Make him like a right fielder or something.
even the series without the MC being an otaku largely skip ove the MC's past.
They just go "oh MC was a salaryman" and thats pretty much it.
>isekai series never have the MC be a monster girl
why
Nigga
huh? you lost me
Niiiiga
Named Weapons
Any sort of magic mind control/manipulation. Maybe, potentially, it could be handled alright if it never happened to a main character. Otherwise, it just fucks over the characters and turns the story into a shitfest.
how does it fuck over the characters?
how does it fuck over the characters?
first girls winning
tsunderes
ban those two from japanese series in general
It screws with their development because it removes most/all rules of how a character has to act after experiencing something. It's basically just an excuse for the author to force any sort of development or scene they feel like regardless of whether or not it makes sense for the characters. See: Tate no Yuusha, Zero no Tsukaima.
>it's another Sup Forums thread on Sup Forums
Death March is a load of shit. Mc that has an actual loli harem (the bar is very low at this point). Paces itself with dumbass foreshadowing that takes so many chapters that lack a decent build-up. OP protagonist does not help you idiots (OP protagonists like that lack tension in effort and are just snowflakes, great lesson in journey with your arguments). Prostitutes yay (not)! The writing style is pretty jarring (First person is not very good) (Don't say "I think it is good", it is not). Load of horseshit kind of JOURNEY when say that kind of crap. Stop your bullshit. Death March is shit. Face it. And don't get me started on kekkon. And stop your bullshit, COMFYFAGS. No matter how much you try and defend your comfyshit, you can never fool the standard for comfort. Like a pillow, you need the right fluff, material,and softness. Otherwise you are gonna get a jagged rock and people think it is comfy.
> Stuff like this should not take too much thinking
Well user, sorry you don't use your brain. You should go to the E.R. to make sure that you still have it.
> opinion
Now that is where you come off as wrong from the start. Tell me, the context is fucking terrible from the start and you fuckers should say opinion? This is why you people deserve to be shit on for your bullshit of a notion.
It's a sub-genre of fantasy you dim-wit (science fantasy in some cases). Muv-luv somewhat applies but it made itself science fiction pretty much.
I would ban all kinds of "virtual reality" type tropes.
>no "levels"
>no "i got transported to a mmo that i used to play and my character was too op"
>no "stats/cheats"
>MC instantly gets a harem/love interest with little to no effort
That's not too bad if handled right, my pick would be
>Static\useless\uninteractive harems
If the author wants 3+ girls to hang around MC, he better make them hate\compete with each other, make them attracted to the different aspects of MC, and they all need to have a solid reason to be there in the first place. And be an actual 3-dimensional characters with interpersonal motivations.
>Most of the characters are retarded except for the MC
Self explanatory
>MC has godlike powers compared to the natives
Again, power levels can fluctuate. One of the staples of fantasy and issekai as a sub-genre is the discovery of new broken powers and ways to utilize it So as long as the writer makes MC smart enough to overcome the imminence struggle by experimenting with his powers, but limits it to a single break-points in the story, that would be interesting.
>isekai genre
stop
>>MC has godlike powers compared to the natives
But that was my favorite troupe on Isekai. Making the MC has edgy personality is also nice.
>The deconstruction came out decades before the genre went main stream
The only one that should be removed is
MC not a skellington
Stats tickle my autism just right sometimes.
Not an overpowered os super special power MC seems good enough
It's too late. Narou was a mistake.
So you hate Overlord then, OP?
Overlord is shit, yeah.
>MC was a middle aged hikki who died in the real world and is now a teenager
stop
If I had to choose one, it'd probably be the "being overpowered" trope. The MC has memories from another world, make him use those to be stronger instead of just getting a cheat power. It's even easier if the MC reincarnated, because he now has the intellect of an adult (or teenager) as a fucking baby.
One WN that does that aspect right is the gun otaku one. It sadly suffers from the harem trope (at least up to where I read), but the explanation of how he makes the guns isn't too far-fetched, and it does take him a long time to make the first guns.
>MC has godlike powers compared to the natives
No, the problem with this is that authors don't know how to correctly scale the difficulty of the MC's challenge.
Sure you can have OP powers and make natives scared of you, that shit is fun to read sometimes.
But its boring when the story has nothing besides that.
Don't dedicate an arc or chapter about some low level monster or thieves getting btfo by the MC. Have a conflict that actually deserves MC's op powers.
>Again, power levels can fluctuate. One of the staples of fantasy and issekai as a sub-genre is the discovery of new broken powers and ways to utilize it So as long as the writer makes MC smart enough to overcome the imminence struggle by experimenting with his powers, but limits it to a single break-points in the story, that would be interesting.
If you look at the isekai genre, most simply make the MC OP from the get go to avoid having to bother with character development and overcoming obstacles.
Overlord is probably the most famous example right now. Part of what makes stories like Lord of the Rings great is because the characters have to find ways to overcome obstacles along the way, and that's completely lost if the main cast can just teleport into Mordor, beat up Sauron's entire army because they are level 100 and the orcs are level 1 and finish by dinner time.
One dimensional evil villains. Victimizing children. Deconstruction my ass.
Overlord has a lot of wasted potential.
MC being a skeleton is a great idea and there was a lot of potential for character development there. But instead the MC just goes "huh im a skeleton now" and thats pretty much the end of it. Aside from a few comedic bits like the MC getting bored because he doesnt need to sleep or having to use magic to conceal his real appearance, the fact that he is a skeleton has almost no impact on the story.
The fact that the MC is worshipped like a god universally by the whole of Nazarick also removes a lot of storytelling potential. Its basically the equivalent of saying "Everyone loves the king in this fairytale". If you just want to tell a simple story where the hero saves the king, that works but anything complex requires something more than a superficial relationship between the main characters.
The entire premise of Overlord is shaky in the first place because the main cast is so powerful that they could scour the entire world, both known and unknown areas in a week, and confirm whether the other guild members are there too, but instead the MC decides to screw with the natives and seems to have little to no interest in his stated goal. It would have made more sense if the MC had just gone "eh fuck it i will just fool around" from the get go.
>from isekai genre
I'd remove isekai completely.
>the fact that he is a skeleton has almost no impact on the story
>turn into a skeleton
>decide to go out and save some village from bandits
>kidnap a whole bunch of mages who were attacking the village and use them for experimentation
>send a homicidal vampire loli to go kidnap martial artists because he wants to learn more about martial arts
>use magic to disguise himself and sign up as an adventurer to become famous
>find out there are some lizardmen tribes living nearby, deliberately engineer a convulated plan to make them band together and fight an undead army while simultenously testing his subourdinate's capacity for initiative and strategic thinking
Yea, the whole skeleton bit is really high on his priority list.
_I reincarnated as a sword_
his first wielder is a orphaned child who he helps to escape from slavery. The first person they kill is a member of the crime syndicate who enslaved her. They cut off his arms, use him as a test subject for thief skills, and then dispassionately kill him as he helplessly begs for his life. It's a methodical "adventurer's procedural" story.
All of that isn't the real problem. The real problem with Isekai is making references to RPG logic.
The moment where a character is attributed numbers to describe his abilities or where he's graded from D to S or something you know that it's going to be shit.
Agreed on that. I was about to argue that it's interesting to know a character's abilities, but I realized it would be much more enjoyable to not be certain about the outcome of a certain battle just because someone's numbers were higher.
>Death March
Twice as bad as Re:Zero
This has to bait.
Literally every series is 'doing isekai' better than those two.
I keep trying to figure out why I hate this so much. I think it's because it makes the story feel so much more plastic when you just insert concepts from a completely different genre to use as the main logic of your fantasy story. Not to mention it feels like they pandering to me hard when they make the main character a sudden badass because he's a lonely nerd who plays videogames all the time.
>no clear vision and genre
Literally nothing is wrong with genre mixing. There's absolutely no point in arbitrarily limiting yourself to the conventions of a single genre.
And the Kumo author has planned the story out pretty meticulously from multiple viewpoints even if they sometimes resort to filler while trying to sort out exactly how everything fits together. Like holy shit the elf village battle has been delayed forever. But it's not like the story doesn't have a clear purpose and ending unlike a bunch of SoL isekai.
OP powers are fine as long as the author writes a sufficiently interesting conflict involving them whether it be by throwing equally OP enemies at the MC or MC's OPness causing personal or political problems for him. Like, even if you have the power to wipe out a large nation, if you want to live in peace with other people carelessly showing off your awe inspiring, terrifying powers is a recipe for trouble.
how many authors do that
Though i loved komosuba i do think they went to far with the stuff like having a hero card and assigning points to skills to learn them and even having the "Quest complete" after doing a mission.
It isn't that bad in Konosuba because Konosuba is more of a parody that doesn't take itself seriously.
zero no tsukaima is stupid.
they had all this background build up saying how the mcs slave/familiar seal more or less was mind control but then they drop the ball later on and say it was nothing. like wtf.
Konosuba is bad contextually. It is a bunch of idiots that fuck around and people think that is good (not). Also, Konosuba does not explore the rpg crap further so it does not do it right. If you think a bunch of idiots that fuck around as a comedy is good, then your taste in comedy is pretty dry. Because parodies do not work in the long run if they lead no where. The characters are literal jokes (you people consider them good characters, ha!). Take Onizuka, he may fuck around a little (never gotten laid, though), may make himself a joke, but he has a silver lining in the fact that he is trying to be the best teacher and instruct his student the hard way.
Oh, it's this sperg again.
I like the ones that gently bullies female protagonists. There's something special about a girl who tries her best but the world makes her fail. But she doesn't give up. What a good girl.
Ascendence of the bookworm
and
I said make my abilities average
though the latter isn't so much bullying especially not in the newest chapters
Like every other shonen manga eventually escalates to the MC having literal earth-splitting powers but keeps stakes high by introducing villains with equally earth-splitting powers.
It's cheap powerlevels inflation but it works.
If Konosuba starred a female NEET being punted around by the whims of Fantasy 'Straya would it still be as popular?
Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari doesn't feel like an isekai to me.
It just feels like a normal fantasy harem adventure.
Might be because it doesn't have anything game-related in it though.
Or because he could technically leave whenever he wants if the grandpa let him.
I feel an important part of isekai is being unable to return to their own world, but Kekkon Yubiwa doesn't technically have that.
The MC also chose to go there, he wasn't forced/draggen in.
I love Humanity Has Declined and Sabagebu!, so I would definitely still enjoy it if he personality wasn't changed.
Sorry if I pissed you off, konosubafag. Before you say, "you didn't". Because I would call you inconsistent.
>"I guess I'll just use my vidya knowledge to overcome all the hardships"
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT
I second - user, Watashi-like MC would be great.
>Because parodies do not work in the long run if they lead no where.
Satire can have an incredibly long life-span if done well. It's just really hard to do good satire.
If Kazuma was female Konosuba would so much more vicious.
Kazuma at least has a shred of chivalry in him when he's feeling generous, female Kazuma would just tear into Aqua like there was no tomorrow.
school setting, delete all school setting
>adventurer guild
>trapped in an mmo
>everything that OP stated previously
MC gets teleported to a fantasy land that clearly looks like it's supposed to be modeled after Europe but all the people still speak not-Japanese and practice not-Japanese customs.
Isekai connoisseur here.
Sevens is harem and mc done right (he starts as a generic dense/incompetent mc but throughout the novel becomes a lot more confident and competent and just overall a nice character.) The harem members actually fight each other and form factions.
Tsuki ga Mibichiku no Douchuu is OP mc done right, but he a bit on the beta side (the novel does explain why his attitude is like that) but even though MC is very op, there is actual tangible conflict in the story and the mc gets btfo.
Mushoku Tensei, Shield Hero, Death March, and all the others like that are kinda your how to get into the genre do they can be good depending on how tired and jaded you are.