So, i'm not quite sure which one was the first isekai (world travel?) but I quickly began to find several trends that began to annoy me to no end.

People that read manga tend to also be exposed to a bit of the japanese culture and most definitely enjoy it. Ofcourse we do, it's completely different from our own so whats not to like? Some parts are cool and I wont speak of them, because this is a grievance.

1. I can not stand it when entire pages are filled with nothing but characters apologizing to one another for incredibly insignificant things. "Oh, i bumped into you, now I must prostrate on the ground and beg forgiveness," "Oh, you are apologizing? I'm sorry you are apologizing when it didn't bother me, please allow me to prostrate as well!" Then its like a page and a half of how everyone apologizes. !@#$ that, I want to see you @#!% them up for unintentionally bumping into you! But seriously, it just wastes pages and doesn't progress story at all.

2. Their insane attachment to their food culture. They are in a new world to experience new things and the only thing that pages of freaking dialogue are filled with are how much they miss rice. RICE!!! I've had it, it's tasty, it's plain, it is hardly a good device to push plot forward. Please, crave tacos or a cheeseburger instead! however, what i really mean to say is, after reading 10 novels and how much they crave rice and how it seems to be the main story line, like, this isn't a story of being reincarnated into a different world and experiencing and discovering there, it is now a story of finding rice...

3. The lolicon BS...granted, these are mainly directed toward children, but typically, the main char's are a bit older and either its filled with loli fan service and sexual inuendo between the two that i literally drop manga's when i see it even if it could be interesting. Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku is the one that makes me feel most uncomfortable its like the author has a secret loli fetish and it honestly disgusts me.

4. With the aforementioned grievances above, it seems like every other isekai manga is written by the same dude. The characters change, the names change, the places change, but they all have the same lazy writing tactics and plot developments that have nearly turned me off to the genre.

5. The only one's i've appreciated so far are fairly new or they have like 4 chapters so i guess not enough content to really show me if its an isekai of discovery and adventure, or one with loli fanservice, with the single goal being RICE.

The few I've appreciated so far are...

[/m]Koushaku Reijou no Tashinami
[m]Saihate no Paladin
[/m]Souzai Saishuka no Isekai Ryokouki
[m]Youjo Senki

to name a few.

The thing with isekai is that they are almost always interesting from the beginning. The formula is proven to work and any reader can see a lot of potential and get hooked up from the start.

But after the first few chapters the manga has to start walking on its own two feet. And obviously as you've pointed out, most of them can't.

And if you thought manga had an epidemic of bad isekai, you should(DONT) check out Web Novels/Light Novels. Granted, there are a few gems, but you have to dive into a pile of shit to find them.

A few of the isekai Web Novels/Light novels I've found to be good:
- Kumo desu ga, nani ka (I think it also has a manga)
- Main Character Hides his Strength
- My disciple died yet again (Xianxia warning)
- Overlord (Does have a manga and anime too)

Yeah, Kumo is fine and all, but it's like the others. It eventually trails off and loses focus, its twists are uninteresting, and the only thing that I believe keeps readers hooked is her eventual evolutions and where they take her.

Overlord is so terribly written. Like I've mentioned before, these stories always start off good, but they end up being very poorly executed.

Overlord is by far probably one of the better ones but the writing is sooooooo terrible. Everything just kind of falls into place for Ainz, there seems to be plot holes and unanswered questions left and right. At least it has stuck to its world domination course but even in the LN (I've read to most current volume) there hasn't been a real struggle since shaltear was brainwashed.

The thing is that the whole "transported to another world" thing is actually an old trope. Shoujo and shounen fantasy manga have been using it for decades. (While I have no love whatsoever for Fushigi Yuugi, I do admit to having a lot of fondness for Kanata Kara. Beyond the Beyond is one of my favorite manga ever. And I'm still hoping for someone to pick Amagoi back up.) So there's nothing inherently wrong with it as a trope.

The problem I find with the recent upsurge in isekai novels is its adherence to an otaku worldview of power levels and status enhancements. Instead of having a protagonist living organically in a new world, they're given literal video game mechanics to power themselves up. The whole idea of level ups and special status effects in video games were created to emulate real life in a tangible way, so it's kind of silly to basically turn that around and try to make real life emulate a video game instead. And these mechanics really severely limit the scope of the story.

You don't get any of the neat cross-cultural connections (including language learning!) that you get in something like Kanata Kara. Nope, you get a "skill" that allows you to understand all languages and that's it! Different culture? That's fine! Just introduce your obviously superior Modern Technology™ (easily created with yet another skill) and everyone will immediately see how great you are! These are all obvious "cheats", not only in-universe but also as a writing convention. You can't write a good story if you're constantly taking shortcuts on story development!

Also, since a lot of these stories end up being power fantasies, a lot of the side characters end up being very... underwhelming. Basically video game NPCs with no role in the story other than to push the plot forward, or to act as the MC's love interest, or best friend, or whatever. This is true of both male- and female-led isekai novels. There's honestly very little concern (or respect) for anyone in many of these stories except the MC, and that's, I think, the worst thing to come out of this trend. A bad story could be saved by good characters, but no matter how interesting the world is, if the characters are bland, there's no saving it.

This is all not to say that all modern isekais are bad. I've read quite a few of them that I've enjoyed. But I can't say that any of them can reach the same heights as previous portal fantasies if they keep on adhering to these terrible conventions.

This is a much better explanation of what I was trying to convey. I wrote my original post half in anger and half in frustration of all the absolutely absurd tropes that fall with isekai.

1. It is an important part of Japanese culture.
2. It is an important part of Japanese culture.
3. It is... an important part of Japanese culture that foreigners don't need to understand.
4. It is a tragically important part of Japanese culture.
5. They are traitors to Japanese culture, seiyoukabure-domo ga.

But I'm sure you already knew that.

So your whole grievance is that there are some aspects of Japanese culture that you don't enjoy. Okay, noted.

________________
Active translations list
Completed translations list
Dropped translations

To give him credit, though, (web/light) novels are an incredibly easy format of media to create with a low level of entry. It's infamously known that the longest piece of literature in the English language, with over 3.5 million words, is...


However, OPs main problem is that he doesn't want to explore or have fun. Just go pull up something like Parallel Paradise and learn to laugh. Heck, isekai isn't even exclusive to the Japanese.

________________

Reading something bad to laugh at it is always a double-edged sword: it can be fun in moderation, but it also takes your time away from good stuff.
When you read too much stuff to laugh at bad taste, chances are you have bad taste. And I feel like there's very little to save from the Isekai genre, even from a parody standpoint. It's basically OG fanfiction most of the times.

________________
My current top 3:
Fullmetal Alchemist
Pandora Hearts
3-gatsu no Lion

Much like how the superhero genre is beyond repair with it becoming nothing but Mary Sues running around, so people are turning to series like Boku no Hero Academia, Keyman: The Hand of Judgement, and Don't Meddle With My Daughter!?

Edit: Damn it! I took back what I said abouy getting laughs out of Parallel Paradise. Actually starting to read this, and it isn't funny. It isn't funny at all.

Last edited by Transdude1996 at 11:21 pm, Oct 10 2018

________________

1. I get it, an apology happens, its cool. "i'm sorry", "it's ok" damn, 4 words. It's a vast difference from how ineffectual that they profusely apologize simply for the sake of apologizing. Yes, it may just be how Japanese people apologize, always prostrating themselves over the most insignificant things in life and continuing to do so even if the matter happened years ago right? ? ?

2. You can't be seriously happy with a story that devolves to an adventure for rice...can you? ? ?
Not even shokugeki no Soma keeps shoving it in our face how #@!$ing fantastic rice is of all the variety of foods (both Japanese and internationally) they have cooked. Seriously, tell me, are you really happy when these stories main focus is finding rice? RICE lmao.... ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

3. So being a pedophile is an important part of Japanese culture? Come on..... ? ? ?

4. I would say it is a tragic part of the genre instead of Japanese culture as Japanese aren't the only ones that have written stories of reincarnation or multiverse scenarios. I'm beginning you're just a big fan boy/girl. It's fine to like bad stories if it makes you happy, I'm only expressing my frustration with how generic, non-adventurous, non-fantastical, and non-interesting the stories/plots quickly become.

5. I've gotta believe you are trolling me by this point so congrats.

My grievance isn't that I may not like Japanese culture 100% like some other fan boys. The Japanese culture should be critiqued and the bad parts should be pointed out much like anything else that exists, so that they may improve.....? ? ?

But I am looking for stories that are interesting at the very least an actual plot line beyond reincarnated perfect looking boys and girls throwing the power levels so far off the charts that they become god's for no other reason than they like rice, like little boys and girls, and I did list some that I have found interesting....so far, they are still fairly new to me with little chapters available to read, so later on down the road they may end up in the same pit fall as the other ones I've mentioned.

Again, I'm not trying to read just the flavor of the month manga, that's why I go out of my way to read many until it just becomes a manga/light novel about my listed grievances and that's why I can say with confidence that I have explored through a mountain of garbage to get to a few that are genuinely ok at the very least.

I was being facetious only on point 5. On points 1-4, I just wanted to point out that works produced by Japanese are a part of Japanese culture, and that Japanese culture is different in many respects from your culture. These are truisms and banalities.

I can go into more details.

1. The apology ritual is very important. It's one of the examples usually given when describing how Japanese have a shame based vs Western guilt based culture.

2. Rice is a comfort food to Japanese. I can't live without potatoes, they can't live without rice. The topic of food and cooking is far more mainstream in Japan in general. That is the result that you get. Us being happy or unhappy about it has nothing to do with anything, since we aren't Japanese.

3. Have you noticed how typical manga and anime character designs increase "cuteness" by introducing childish features even in adult characters (disproportionately big eyes and heads, that is). Doesn't that hint at something?

4. The important part of Japanese culture is being like everyone else. It's only natural for it to be reflected in authors imitating each other's story tropes. And it isn't just the tropes, it's the language itself -- and then translators are accused of being boring and repetitive when they merely faithfully reproduce the original wording in English.

That is exactly why I'm saying that in the end, you are not complaining about isekai stories, you are complaining about some fundamental aspects of what it means to be Japanese, even if you don't realize it. Personally, I am not making any judgements because I've only read a single isekai web novel, and also the first book of Juuni Kokuki (I had to drop the second because the language difficulty got out of hand). I'll leave it to internet kiddies to decide who fanboys/girls are.


________________
Active translations list
Completed translations list
Dropped translations

Well, in the end, I am reading as a westerner with western tendencies. It's fine I guess, Japanese can't imagine a world outside of Japan (edit: obviously this is not true of many Japanese authors of w/e genre media (love you Oda)). Thing is, as someone previously stated, these authors are nothing of note. They haven't truly written a story I guess. There are plenty of Japanese authors that don't inject their culture every panel or at the very least not at such as extremes as isekai novels tend to do. It isn't the genre itself, iseaki, that I don't enjoy. Psyren is a great example of what I would be looking for content wise. It is set in Japan and farm more fantasy filled than most isekai and the story never devolves into the same things many isekai do.

I guess Overlord is another example of that, but it's so poorly written that it becomes less enjoyable the further you read (and I've read up to the latest volume of LN translations, so please, don't hit me with I don't give things a chance or don't explore, I'm sure I've demonstrated I do try and give things a chance).

If I may ask, what is there to improve? Japan has a lower crime rate than any Western country, they're paying off their national debt, much more diverse in the workplace, media is selling like crazy overseas and outselling Western media, they actually take pride in their culture, their school system isn't designed to educate the students on how to get a job at a factory or spreading propaganda for a political system that has never worked and claimed almost a billion lives, they have the third highest GDP in the world...



As far as I know, the only problems with Japan (And, are exclusive to them) is how work culture is designed around employees working themselves to death, an almost irrational devotion to doing everything that an elder requests, them screwing around with Korean political sphere.

Last edited by Transdude1996 at 3:47 pm, Oct 12 2018

________________

Hmm, everything I said, you simply interpreted as "Japanese can't imagine a world outside of Japan"? But the most obvious question is, if Japanese write for other Japanese, why would they even need to bother? Does anyone complain when an American writes a book laced with American values throughout? I was trying to gently hint that you shouldn't force your values on another culture and declare it annoying, and you double down by heaping even more accusations on them. ?

I certainly don't want to take this relativism to an extreme as I'm sure we can all agree there are some universal human values. But what you bring up aren't them. I don't know about you, but I love Japan precisely because it is (still) different, mostly in good ways. And honestly, food obsession, constant apologizing, and general conformism aren't even bad. And come to think of it, if you look at the great example from Transdude, if you have to pick between tolerance of fictional child porn and actual rape of children, what should you really choose?

On my last flight to Japan, they apologized three times at the gate because the departure was two hours late due to weather. During the flight, they apologized over 10 times (I lost count after 10, at least). Have you ever been apologized to by someone for having to walk three feet in front of you in order to exit an otherwise empty elevator? You may find it annoying, I find it endearing -- you just need to have correct expectations: they may apologize a hundred times, but if they don't want to do something for you, they still won't do it. So when I was reading the list of your complaints, I was simply thinking "Yep, sounds like good ol' Japan. Please never change."

So what point am I trying to make here? I suppose what I want to say is that from your perspective, your criticisms are certainly valid. But people who have wider cultural perspectives (such as me) will find a lot to object to. Many of those whose culture you are inadvertently criticizing will find it downright insulting -- what business is it of yours, hairy gaijin, what we write for ourselves?

________________
Active translations list
Completed translations list
Dropped translations