So a bunch of Japanese stories use a common Western fantasy trope, and people are acting like the Japanese invented it?
Yeah it’s like how the Japanese “slice of life” genre was actually just invented by Seinfeld.
Which was pre-dated by Burns & Allen by 40+ years.
And a reasonable bet they were pre-dated by a prior radio program.
That’s right, no Truck-kun Alice or Connecticut Yankee, but Dorothy’s Tornado is close I guess. (And yes, I know the truck isn’t required, just so common it has become a short–hand or joke)
The Japanese have a set of story-telling traditions and tropes, some of them influenced by the West, some by the Chinese, some by other Japanese stories. They attach words to their genres and those words are in Japanese. I think that’s permissible.
We’re discussing Isekai, and a lot of the conversation revolves around edge cases. Most of Isekai involves a modern person and an event where they are dropped into another world suddenly and without warning. So you have a protagonist that the audience can relate to on the one hand, and some world-building on the other. That’s the core of the trope I think. Often the other worlds will be influenced by video games and D&D. Because the audience is familiar with that. There is also some self-insert fantasy: eg how is the character going to get out of this mess? There is currently an Isekei fad in Japan, which is far enough along that people are getting sick of it. (Not me though, but I don’t live in Japan.)
In Connecticut Yankee you get the same sudden change of venue, though the implication that the main character isn’t actually traveling through time fits the genre less well. In Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Back to the Future, the characters get to go back to their old life after a short period of time, which typically is not the case in Isekai (though there’s no bar on it, because the genre isn’t set in stone). I think you can call any of those works Isekai if you feel like it, but they are edge cases.
You also get some where someone from a fantasy world is dropped into the real world. Not sure if they are considered isekai or not.
Examples:
https://ww1.mangafreak.me/Manga/Orenchi_Ni_Kita_Onna_Kishi_To_Inakagurashi_Surukotoninatta_Ken
https://ww1.mangafreak.me/Manga/Tanbo_De_Hirotta_Onna_Kishi_Inaka_De_Ore_No_Yome_Da_To_Omowareteiru
It’s absolutely permissible, and anyone can name anything whatever they want. My problem isn’t with the Japanese, it’s with fans who are so ignorant of science fiction and fantasy that they think they’re encountered a new sub-genre.
By defining it as “a Japanese genre…,” does that imply that Japanese-ness is necessary for something to be isekai?
Seems ambiguous to me, which would mean that the thread title question is still unresolved.
Darren - Yeah, there are a lot of variations.
It’s a Japanese genre. There’s no reason why a non-Japanese person couldn’t try their hand on it. And again, there are old Japanese folk tales that I consider edge cases, but that the Japanese happily characterize as Isekai. So I’d lean toward lumpiness rather than splittiness, though I don’t think the word’s meaning has fully solidified.
Here are 2 more Western examples:
Gilligan’s Island. A group of castaways on a three hour tour find themselves on an unchartered isle. So you have the sudden change to an unfamiliar venue. They will never have a permanent escape. If they were on another planet, it would be a decent match. Except. There’s very little world-building. They are occasionally visited by neighboring tribes. But there’s no real outside politics or intrigue.
Lost in Space. Following sabotage by the nefarious Dr. Smith, the Robinson nuclear family is catapulted to strange worlds. Another decent match. Though again, world building is of the monster-of-the-week variety. External politics are delivered on a per-episode basis only.
Alessan might note that there is plenty of Western science fiction with great world building and man I should really read more of it. The Isekai gimmick of inserting a contemporary protagonist into the story is just a hook to draw in the audience and structure a story so it writes itself. This is a light novel/manga/anime/pulp genre after all.
I would consider Gilligan’s Island to be isekai if the title were How I Survived a Shipwreck Only to Be Trapped on an Island With No Phones, No Lights, and No Motor Cars Along With Six Other Crew Members and Passengers.
Yeah, if it were told from the perspective of the Professor, it would be a near-perfect match.
But that’s not an Isekai gimmick - that’s a Western SF gimmick that dates back to John Carter of Mars, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. I would never refer to those stories as “Isekai”, unless I was speaking Japanese - which I don’t.
Talking about a show custom built for an OVA episode. They’re already at the beach.
Your two examples are Robinsonades. Does that mean that Robinsonades are all a subset of isekai?
I think that the genre spans cultures, and probably spans all cultures. It’s just that the Japanese language has a widely-used term for that genre, while English does not. I mean, we can certainly describe the genre in English, but what would the English word be?
Portal Fantasy. But yeah, I agree with Chronos. There’s a popular word in Japan, while in English the terms are much more obscure.
I dunno, let’s scroll through some Japanese examples.
A bunch of gamers log on to a multi-player roll playing game, one with special headsets that allow full immersion. But - oh no! - the headsets were designed by an evil programmer who won’t allow them to leave the game! So our protagonist, along with hundreds or thousands of other players, are locked in a video game that they must clear in order to leave. Sword Art Online.
A classroom of kids is magically transported to a fantasy world. Most end up in fantasy high school (learning magic and the like) but a female loner is reincarnated as a weak spider in a dungeon. Oh no! So I’m a Spider, So What?
There’s a once-popular multi-player role playing game, that is shutting down. A powerful player (and low level salary man in real life) sticks around on the last day out of nostalgia, as the big server winds down. Oh no! He then finds himself in a fantasy world counterpart of the game that he has mastered and knows all the cheats for! Will he ever get back? (No.) Will he ever meet anybody from his old world? (Unclear.) Overlord.
Survival nerd crash lands with class on deserted island. Suddenly his skills can be put to good use! I was going to argue that this wasn’t quite Isekai, but I was wrong. Because the name of the story is Isekai Yurutto Survival Seikatsu: Gakkou No Minna To Isekai No Mujintou Ni Tenishitakedo Ore Dake Rakushou Desu Translation: Easy Survival Life in the Other World ~Everyone in School Transferred to an Uninhabited Island in the Other World but It’s an Easy Victory for Me~
So I guess Robinsonades would be a subset.
Via Wiki:
Buck Rogers:
“I was 20 years old when they stopped the world war and mustered me out of the air service. I got a job surveying the lower levels of an abandoned mine near Pittsburgh, in which the atmosphere had a peculiar pungent tang and the crumbling rock glowed strangely. I was examining it when suddenly the roof behind me caved in and …
Buck is rendered unconscious, and a strange gas preserves him in a suspended animation or coma state. He awakens and emerges from the mine in 2429 AD, in the midst of another war.”
Verdict: Isekai all the way, baby! Except: Buck Rogers is a hero from the start, and generally Isekai characters are schlubs who become heroes, which makes for a better self-insert.
Flash Gordon:
The comic strip follows the adventures of Flash Gordon, a handsome polo player and Yale University graduate, and his companions Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov. The story begins with Earth threatened by a collision with the planet Mongo. Dr. Zarkov invents a rocket ship to fly into space in an attempt to stop the disaster. Half mad, he kidnaps Flash and Dale. Landing on the planet, and halting the collision, they come into conflict with Ming the Merciless, Mongo’s evil ruler.[1][2][9]
For many years, the three companions have adventures on Mongo…
Verdict: Isekai all the way, baby! Except: ditto.
John Carter of Mars: Ditto, ditto.
Thinking it over, if I had to describe a remake of Buck Rogers to an otaku who wasn’t familiar with the franchise I might call it, “A US pulp Isekai from the 1930s.” In other words, if I was using the term to refer to non-Japanese works, I’d probably include some adjectives.
To me, the classic example would be the Narnia books.
Strictly speaking anime can only be produced in Japan which means that shows like Teen Titans are “anime style”. I suppose that if this is true then the term isekai would only apply to cartoons produced in Japan.
Still the definitions of anime and isekai were created by someone. Should my understanding be limited by them?
Okay, this really bothers me. If that’s true, then nothing created in Japan can be “sci-fi” since that’s a western literary form. It must be “sci-fi style”. And how DARE Japanese artists try their hand at abstract or pointillism or whatever? There’s cultural respect and then there is ridiculousness. Frankly, saying “only the Japanese can create anime” sounds like some weird form of Western apologia and something the Japanese themselves don’t seem to believe:
From the Wikipedia article on anime:
However, in Japan and Japanese, anime (a term derived from a shortening of the English word animation ) describes all animated works, regardless of style or origin.
Sorry if this come across as harsh, but this is something that really gets under my skin.
It’s not about cultural respect: it’s about truth in advertising. I agree that anime in Japanese means “Animation” and manga in Japanese means, “Comics”. But in English, those terms imply, “Made in Japan, originally in Japanese”. The Last Airbender is a fantastic animated series with Japanese influences, but it’s not anime. It’s Hollywood. Meaning, the Western influences outweigh the Japanese ones.
There was a collection of Western comics published during the 1990s which claimed to be manga in the title. It really wasn’t. Manga can be good, manga can be bad. But that wasn’t manga, though it happened to be mediocre with the most generous interpretation…
Sci-fi is created in many countries. Hollywood Westerns are not. Nor are Bollywood musicals. Can a Westerner create manga? Sure: a Westerner can be hired by a Japanese publisher to create a work published in Japanese in Japan for a Japanese audience. It’s happened. I trust it’s logically possible for a self-publishing Westerner living outside of Japan to create a work that very closely resembles manga without the input of a native Japanese speaker. Have at it, dude. I just haven’t seen anything like that. Then again, I don’t see the point either: just create something good.
I don’t see the same truth-in-advertising issues with Isekai. I do perceive some communication issues, since the word is a little obscure here, though prominent enough to be added to the OED.