Even the objectively-bad "Trash Isekai" can be…
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Even the objectively-bad "Trash Isekai" can be entertaining and actually kinda good
So, a substantial portion of anime these last few years (and we're talking subbed, dubbed, and simulcast) are "Fantasy Isekai". A main character, often a dark-haired typical high-school boy, gets randomly whisked away to a fantasy land filled with dragons and magic. The main character ends up having some super-amazing magic power, which he ends up using to defeat the Evil Demon Lord and Save the Kingdom.
Many of them are decried by anime fans for one reason or another. "Failure Frame" had some pretty terrible CGI/animation effects. "KonoSuba" and "Re:Zero" have protagonists with mediocre skills and when things go their way it's by whining repeatedly. Re:Zero is especially potent, because the "super-amazing magic power" that Subaru gets is that when he dies he regains consciousness at some previous point.
Hell, even I concede that "Arifureta" rushed through the first book's content...and becomes unfathomably generic as a result.
And those are ones that are interesting enough to warrant being criticized. Ones like "Level 2 Super-Cheat Powers" and "Red Ranger Isekai" are dismissed for following the same structure and story beats and side-characters. Ones like "Zenshuu" get dismissed for being for not delivering what they seem to promise. Ones like "Fluffy Paradise" and "By The Grace of the Gods" and "Farming Life in Another World" get dismissed for the lack of serious plot.
And sure, some are bad. But many aren't that bad, and even the generic ones introduce aspects that are at play in the others. In fact, KonoSuba is an explicit parody on the entire setup... a person dies, gets the chance to be reincarnated with whatever power they want, and they choose the goddess that's reincarnating them because they are petty and the goddess is kinda a bitch. "Instant-Kill Ability" has a main character whose power is something he had before his class was Isekai'd to a fantasy land... which makes it a karmic sequel to the major conflict of "Failure Frame" where the cruel bitch of a goddess tosses the main character and his "useless ability" into a death-pit to die a terrible and quick death. In one the mean goddess can do whatever while the main character can't do anything, and in the other the main character can get revenge.
"Zenshuu" and "The Executioner's Way of Life" both explore the consequence of the "Divine Hero Summoning" trope to such Isekai... and it's something that "The Water Magician" states in Episode 1 as to why he sends a reincarnated hero instead of directly intervening in the world... because the hero like in "Executioner's" and "Zenshuu" is just a drop, and they destroy entire countries every time they sneeze.
You can pick up the little details that specific ones focus on, and see them in almost every other Isekai. And that makes them engaging, entertaining, fun.
#conversation
So, a substantial portion of anime these last few years (and we're talking subbed, dubbed, and simulcast) are "Fantasy Isekai". A main character, often a dark-haired typical high-school boy, gets randomly whisked away to a fantasy land filled with dragons and magic. The main character ends up having some super-amazing magic power, which he ends up using to defeat the Evil Demon Lord and Save the Kingdom.
Many of them are decried by anime fans for one reason or another. "Failure Frame" had some pretty terrible CGI/animation effects. "KonoSuba" and "Re:Zero" have protagonists with mediocre skills and when things go their way it's by whining repeatedly. Re:Zero is especially potent, because the "super-amazing magic power" that Subaru gets is that when he dies he regains consciousness at some previous point.
Hell, even I concede that "Arifureta" rushed through the first book's content...and becomes unfathomably generic as a result.
And those are ones that are interesting enough to warrant being criticized. Ones like "Level 2 Super-Cheat Powers" and "Red Ranger Isekai" are dismissed for following the same structure and story beats and side-characters. Ones like "Zenshuu" get dismissed for being for not delivering what they seem to promise. Ones like "Fluffy Paradise" and "By The Grace of the Gods" and "Farming Life in Another World" get dismissed for the lack of serious plot.
And sure, some are bad. But many aren't that bad, and even the generic ones introduce aspects that are at play in the others. In fact, KonoSuba is an explicit parody on the entire setup... a person dies, gets the chance to be reincarnated with whatever power they want, and they choose the goddess that's reincarnating them because they are petty and the goddess is kinda a bitch. "Instant-Kill Ability" has a main character whose power is something he had before his class was Isekai'd to a fantasy land... which makes it a karmic sequel to the major conflict of "Failure Frame" where the cruel bitch of a goddess tosses the main character and his "useless ability" into a death-pit to die a terrible and quick death. In one the mean goddess can do whatever while the main character can't do anything, and in the other the main character can get revenge.
"Zenshuu" and "The Executioner's Way of Life" both explore the consequence of the "Divine Hero Summoning" trope to such Isekai... and it's something that "The Water Magician" states in Episode 1 as to why he sends a reincarnated hero instead of directly intervening in the world... because the hero like in "Executioner's" and "Zenshuu" is just a drop, and they destroy entire countries every time they sneeze.
You can pick up the little details that specific ones focus on, and see them in almost every other Isekai. And that makes them engaging, entertaining, fun.
#conversation
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