After scrolling through hundreds of Isekais (yes, pic related) I realized that not wish granting thingy is actually the worst (which appears in like 90% of all isekais) but the combination of this and RPG mechanics.
I mean what the fuck. We are talking about realism right? Do we have here any RPG mecahnics? No. Why the fuck are they supposed to be in another world? Even if you can use magic why does it have to be with fucking levels HP and MP? I would say nothing but almost EVERY SINGLE ONE of those (isekais) contains that RPG mechanic.
This is why people like Mushoku Tensei and hate most of other isekais. It has wish fulfillment but no RPG mechanic, here. Of course not having RPG and wish fulfillment won't necessarely make isekai better I love emilia but it won't throw it in the trash can at the first chapter.
But really, why are nips so obsessed with RPG mechanics? Can't they have some originality?
The problem with RPG mechanics isn't that they're unrealistic - plenty of fiction is unreal, especially fantasy. It's an issue of it not matching the piece. RPG mechanics - especially MMO mechanics - work as abstractions to help a player interact with a game. When you're just telling a story that doesn't help at all, and just gets in the way of showing what's actually supposed to be happening.
John Perry
>RPG mechanics In my opinion they are just pathetic excuses to explain all the asspulls. Like: > "MC has a vast amount of skills but we never know his limits except he is level 9001 so he can use basically every single skill the author comes up with in that one moment and we will accept it because ofc he totally could do it" And then author tries to show it off as if it was some kind of exciting battle.
Nolan Stewart
That's why Log Horizon was great. Same thing with .hack//SIGN. People bitch about SIGN's lack of action, but the music, mystery, and atmosphere had me sold.
Thomas Scott
Another reason Log Horizon was great. MC is not the fighter, he is not really "the hero," just a tactician.
Joseph Nguyen
>Do we have here any RPG mecahnics? No. What the fuck kind of reasoning is this? Think this through. You really don't want to go there. Do we have any elves, magic or cute girls in reality? No? Then why should those appear in fiction?
There are good reasons against CRPG mechanics in isekai. Yours is not one of them.
Tyler Phillips
RPG mechanics can be explained as natural rules of physics.
HP existing is very strange though as HP is an abstraction of morale, physical health, luck, stamina, etc. The hell is the difference between a 9000 HP rabbit and a 3 HP rabbit?
Brandon Fisher
8997 HP.
Tyler Lopez
is there even an isekai without the rpg elements in it?
Robert Williams
Lots. You should expand your horizon.
Cooper Barnes
what do you call RPG mechanics? GATE didn't have RPG mechanics but it did have magic and a generic RPG world
Camden Murphy
>Can't they have some originality? Obviously not.
Connor Allen
...
Thomas Rodriguez
Not him but I assume he means something like that?
James Powell
>isekai in a nutshell keked
Logan Foster
>Do we have here any RPG mecahnics? >OP cant open his status screen Its literally the first thing you learn when you are born. zstr
Nathaniel Turner
>Ive read more than half of these. Please kill me.
Kayden Taylor
...
Daniel Clark
Because its easy to make powerscaling with RPG-system. You can just rank enemies by level, justify any powerup as skill gain and level up. Its the most easy way to make your self insert wish fulfilment character with that as he does not have a need to master any abilities and just gains the highest stats and skills immedeatly.
>Sex B-but they never get sex. The isekai MC's are all fucking betas. Even if any girl from his harem would undress herself and say directly "Fuck me please" he would still blush or something and say "hey that's what people should do when they become adults" and turn away.
Isaac Myers
>superior japanese food >killed by a knife/truck >Mc can replicate any technology without effort(kind of) >demon lord >otaku/neet/salaryman MC >Harem >Adventurer's guild >Superior japanese baths >Slaves >medieval world >FREE SPACE >Demi-Humans >Evil church/corrupt nobles >MC has unique broken skill(kind of) >SEX >Evil god >Betrayal/revenge
And it doesn't bingo at all.
Luis Edwards
meant to quote
Henry Jones
That's because you don't read many LNs.
Jason Richardson
>muh mushoku tensei Is this the elitist pick for isekai? it's boring as fuck, I'd rather read re:monster than this.
Nicholas Carter
>Mushoku tensei REEEEEEE Why do you have to be like this, nobody said MT is the be all, end all of isekai.
Ian Hernandez
damn thats harsh....
Jack James
seems youve only read 3, the MCs that fuck their harem are as numerous as the ones that dont.
Ian Kelly
Ainz vs Shalltear is a great fight because it's two broken characters trying to ruse each other for 20 minutes
Aiden Cox
Fuck off, Shiroe is a Messiah archetype. He has a plan for every occasion.
Thomas Hill
Not really, it's one character rusing another for 20 mins straight.
Caleb Morris
Chinese isekai >>> Japanese isekai
Joshua Ortiz
Explicit RPG mechanics are absolute cancer.
I wouldn't mind an isekai series like Now and Then, Here and There. A post-apocalyptic desert ruled by tyrants with good folks trying to eke out a living where they can.
Jonathan Robinson
>GATE didn't have RPG mechanics but it did have magic and a generic RPG world
In spite of how shit GATE is, that it didn't rely on retarded game mechanics elevates it above much of its competition.
William Morris
>can't they have some originality? These days, the nips can only be somewhat original when all of the main characters are female (in anime, at least). But all female casts or even a female lead don't go well with isekai because it's mainly wish fulfillment. Hell, even of the ones that have female MCs, most are just genderbent dudes, which is just another kind of wish fulfillment.
Chase Nguyen
What is then british isekai?
Tyler Cooper
Asian here
Fuck you Chinese Isekai is even worse, they are all practically the same shit
>My name is ( u dont need to remember) Gyangon kai >Im from another world / another dimension / reincarnated into this world >This information is merely mentioned at the start because there is fuck all i do with it >Instead it gives me some generic shit like DOUBLE SOUL KI / SUPERIOR SOUL ENERGY...etc >But it doesnt matter because i lost my Ki / Got my Ki destroy through some mean >So then i got this ring / legendary item / legendary scroll / legendary martial artist randomly in the corner of fucking nowhere >Power up 10x faster than every scrub around >Occasionally throw in some slightly better scrub only for them to be defeated later to make MC look good >MC keep picking up LEGENDARY / S+ tier / Super item out of fucking nowhere >Rinse and repeat
Aaron Allen
you forgot >cultivation
Josiah Jackson
This goes not just for isekai but for most of that chinese manga (or how they call it) aswell.
>MC is always the chosen one >Son of emperor/demigod/strongest XXX >Always pretends to be weak to show how op he is one chapter later >Gets artifacts/powerups/ki which are strongest in this world >Even if he is not the strongest now, we already know from beginning that he will become the god-emperor and archmage of everything because of that Fuck that.The asian user here is 100% correct
Easton Anderson
...
Luke Bennett
Name ONE (1) good isekai right now.
protip : you can't
Jonathan Ross
Inuyasha
Aaron Lee
Easy
Lucas Wright
Pretty sure there isn't hundreds of isekai.
Evan James
>Inuyasha >Good
That is some colossal shit taste right there
John Wright
This hasnt happened in my 2 moms are son cons.
Ayden Williams
Easy, Zero no Tsukaima.
Liam Reyes
Tanaka th >Good oh sorry, my mistake
Adam Thomas
I'm following over 100 translated isekai novels.
Ryder Garcia
I keep forgetting Release that Witch is chinese. very few of the usual tropes, MC is powerless, isekai is actually relevant. just an engineer role playing his Civ 5 game.
Jonathan Bell
yeah, it's more like thousands
Blake Clark
Why are you so tsundere for isekai Sup Forums?
Ayden Stewart
Because WNfags and LNfags shill it so much but there's always shitposters.
Gabriel Ortiz
Faraway Paladin
Landon Smith
that keeps being brought up but the translations look dead. am I looking at the wrong one?
Ethan Smith
Official translations are up to volume 4
Daniel Martin
>still no stealth isekai >lack of electronic equipment and technology in general makes infiltration and espionage easier >POWs and VIPs can be rescued on horseback or domesticated wyverns >crossbow can be used instead of handguns so many missed opportunities because nips just love their demi-god power fantasy self-inserts
Jonathan Nelson
Missed opportunity and isekai goes hand-in-hand.
Leo Reed
>659 page essay damn.
Jack Cooper
say no more
Benjamin Phillips
Do say more.
Bentley Mitchell
>implying magic doesn't make espionage even more difficult than technology >wahahaha you triggered my detection trap as well as my secret cameras everywhere within this city
Justin Hughes
Wise people know always to buy sentry wards, and dust of appearance. There's never enough dust of appearance
Ayden Cruz
Log Horizon was great and it used RPG mechanics like Tank/Damager/Healer divisions, guilds, quests, DPS, levels, HP, MP, fucking time-based recharge times for skills, as the basis of all the strategies formulated in the story. That is considerably more RPGish than normal, yet it is still interesting because of how creative the strategies get. It is clear that the author wrote the story that way because he was deeply familiar with competitive MMORPGs and had conceived a lot of fun, original strategies that kinda deserved to be showcased.
The issue with RPG mechanics in most other Isekai is that they merely serve to gauge power levels, and they get thrown into the story because it is clear that the author is too lazy to come up with an original magic system, so he just went for the most basic one that he knew of. And if an author is that lazy with combat mechanics, what can you expect from the worldbuilding, lore, etc.?
tl;dr: RPG mechanics are a symptom of creative laziness, not a cause of bad stories
Nathan Lewis
>Log Horizon was great No, the race options are shit and the author has no idea what to do with the story and keeps abandoning and making newplot pints.
Jose Morris
Log Horizon was boring as fuck. There is still no risk even when you die which kinda ruins the point of a battle anime Also MC is overpowered, even if he is "just a support". Being the best player who defeated the best bosses as his prelude kinda ruins it for me
Joseph Morris
>No, the race options are shit I don't think most people would consider that an issue
>and the author has no idea what to do with the story and keeps abandoning and making newplot pints. I can see why this could be annoying if you watched it as it aired/was published, but it is hardly noticeable if you just bingewatch it. I had just assumed that the pay off of those scenes wasn't animated for some reason until you mentioned it.
Uh. It is a MMORPG. Thousands of people beat the best bosses. And while the "strategist of legendary non-guild" status was annoying, it was also sorta necessary to let the MC have enough influence in the politics of the new world. No Max Level Guild Leader would have taken shit from "spunky no-name level 45 samurai". Plus, the "brilliant strategist" status means jackshit if numbers are truly stacked against him, so it is not that bad.
I did feel like they went a bit too soft on the dying penalty, though.The memory loss should have been something like an entire year of your life worth of memories or something like that.
Alexander Hughes
like?
Evan Cook
Literally zero filled spaces.
Asher Baker
Like, read the thread.
William Flores
>isekai is correctly understood in these threads I'm fucking laughing. There's no way. >yfw the Japanese read these threads too
Aaron Bennett
I didn't know I want this until now. Why is there elements for everything though?
Eli Wilson
>looking for realism in your fucking fantasy settings
Leo Ortiz
He didn't have a plan for when SEMETSU got taken in by his flavored weapon.
Brayden Brooks
DD
William Ross
I got this.
Matthew Sullivan
Holy ESL Batman, this is some grisly murder of the English language.
Jonathan White
OP posted it already. Overlord is the one isekai where the MC struggles with his own incompetence while being extremely OP at the same time. There's no infantile romantic tension either, as his harem forms itself instantly and all his suitors already worship him. And the fact that he became a literal eunuch monster with very low libido actually gives him a proper excuse not to want to fuck them.
It's a fresh nip take on the classic superwizard story.
Jace Brooks
Full of asspulles. Especially the last volume of Narnia. Holy shit, that was such a shit move.
Zachary Miller
What happened
Jose Russell
>World ends >every dies >even Aslan goes away >one of the humans from our world is left >lives in the dark land after the apocaplypse with filthy dwarves >suddenly a light appears and all the dead kings of narnia come back >they led him to the true world >Narnia was actually a shadow of the true world all along >the human child then sees everyone who ever was on the the good side of the stories there >they all party their for eternity with no explanation what the true world is or how they exactly all came here besides Aslan did something
Joseph Collins
>lives in the dark land after the apocaplypse with filthy dwarves LIVIN' DA DORF LFE
Jason Robinson
not so nice if everything the dwarves do is crying around in the dark while spilling all remaining food over the ground
Hudson Price
Oh then, nevermind.
Landon Nguyen
The premise is if life were an RPG, you would be just as excited
Ryan Nelson
But we do, everything has stats and specific parameters in this world, it is just hidden behind of the complexity of science. Knowing the amount of atoms, the force and the strength of the bond between them you can translate it to "HP" from your usual RPG games.
Joshua Rivera
>He hasn't seen inuyasha
Andrew Butler
Is it really isekai if it's a well
Blake Young
A well to the past apparently?
Eli Perez
I never considered Inuyasha as real isekai. They always walk between each worlds. In my opinion true isekai is only when there is no way to get out the isekai world (except in the end maybe) so the whole time you will be trapped. That girl from inuyasha could always get out of that world.
Dominic Cook
Soon.
Logan Cruz
El Hazard.
Noah Martin
Did Kumo end? I never seen any threads anymore.
Henry Flores
Morality killed it.
Sebastian Carter
like?
Nolan Robinson
The reason RPG mechanics are popular is because the target audience is full of people who reject reality. In reality, no matter how much effort you put into life, there's no guarantee of success, no way to show your progress, and no easy way to improve yourself.
In a video game world, you have your stat sheet, xp bars, titles, etc. Your progress can be viewed in an easy to understand way. You just have to kill monsters for experience and/or skillpoints to make yourself stronger. When you accomplish things, you get tangible rewards and a title gets slapped on your status sheet. All you have to do is walk outside of town and beat up some monsters; you don't even have to train, practice, or hold a job. In fact, there will inevitably be some entity who will pay YOU to level yourself up (adventurer's guild), despite the fact you would have done it for free.
Juan Reyes
Think there's just been less enthusiasm over time. Too much happened too quickly and was explained too poorly after spider got out of the dungeon. plus some of the translations were barely readable at points.
Carter Collins
This is the real answer here. Faraway Paladin is the savior of light novels. No game mechanics, no harem, character-driven story, epic fights, a meaningful op protagonist. I think I heard the author got his inspiration from DnD