Recently, a new kind of setting is proliferating in the manga landscape, that of MCs reborn into a new world (or live their old lives again) and/or where they become incredibly OP. Yes, I'm talking about Mushoku Tensei - Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari
Tsuyokute New Saga
Legendary Moonlight Sculptor
ReLife
The Gamer
AND SO ON. There are many LNs that also have the same setting that are yet to be adapted into Manga. My questions:
1. Why are there so many manga that have such a setting lately?
2. Why would people want to read such manga? Manga used to deal with so many issues that plagued our society and they often offered deep insights into how things worked in RL. Instead, you now have a shallow wish fulfilment plot intertwined with a game setting. It's ridiculous! If you like such manga, what is your reason for liking them?
3. Do you think such manga are bring down the quality of storytelling? There is hardly any true suspense/thrill. It's such a 'safe' setting!

Please enlighten me!

The increased number of another world/virtual reality manga is mostly based on the increasing success of such light novels.
Series with such setting are easy to explain - the authors don't have to come up with intricate new worlds, create new magic and social systems. They also don't have to put that much thought into the backstory.
Such worlds are easy to create and easy to adapt to.

It's not even a new concept - the whole Forgotten Realms book universe is based on the D&D games. It's actually got me into reading, these 15 or so years ago.


I have to admit that I quite enjoy reading there "new" type of series. They're just so... light. And after a long day of work, that's just what I need.

Then again, I was also a bookworm long before ever picking up a manga - I never expected that much from manga anyway. I cannot say whether these stories bring down the quality of manga. I'd have to know what series you consider to be "quality" ones.


________________
You can PM me if you need a temporary (freelance) cleaner/redrawer for some project. Especially if it's something with nice art.
Being the lazy person that I am, I'm not likely to accept anything long-term though.

1. Web novels are on the rise, which then get LN's and/or manga adaptions. Reincarnation etc. in a different world is the prevalent theme in a lot of the highest ranking novels. But before the rise of these kind of novels, there actually weren't that many manga with this kind of theme, or at least less than one would expect (I remember I looked for those kind of manga some years back and was shocked how few manga made use of this setting)

2. Does manga have to be deep, give us some poetic message and provide us with insight on rl problems? I do get what you mean, but those reincarnation manga aren't the only exception to that, are they.
I also dislike how a lot of these start with fat otakus reincarnating and becoming op and getting a harem. The biggest reason for my dislike is however the horrendous writing and story telling. But that doesn't mean that all of them are like that, I've found a few I really like to read and they don't lack depth just because they deal with the life in a different world.

3. No, why would they? If it doesn't suit your taste, don't read it. There are good and bad manga (ofc depending on one's taste), it's the same for the one's you listed. I wonder if every manga you've ever read had a lot of suspense/thrill, because then you'd be missing out on a lot of stuff.

Obligatory: original > adaption

Such tales are the definition of escapism and Legendary Moonlight Sculptor (manga for me) is even good. There further have never been as many videogames out there as now so expect more! Re:Monster is surprisingly fun due to it´s Byronic nature and World Customize Creator is actually very nice. I bothered to review both so more on the form can be read within and none of these are the devil.
The market will adjust when it had enough. The End.

________________
I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb