How did isekai became so big

Ideally, isekai stories can lead to all sorts of good world building and characterization. This was indeed the case with a lot of the isekai stories from the '80s and '90s. The problem is that a lot of what made these earlier stories great doesn't show up any more after the genre got taken over by otaku. Nowadays isekai stories tend to not even bother doing anything with their world building. It'd be one thing if only the really bad ones did this, but even the most popular isekai novels get this affliction.

Also, I don't buy that this is the result of copycat writers. Under normal circumstances, there's nothing wrong with beginner authors copying from the writers they admire. This is one of the ways that bad writers learn how to be better at their craft, and originality is overrated to begin with. Copying books does not mean that you'll have things like weak characterization, poor world building, and irrelevant plots. That can only come from copying from writers who are bad to begin with.

 

I'm not talking about copy cat in that sense but in that they are not completely original in idea I.e. summon to other world to kill demon lord or accidentally summoned and then became OP. I'm just saying that it has a general focus on how isekai will begin, although i didnt clarify before

 

Better is a strong word, I just find them more interesting.
Chrysalis is good, also on Royal road, I like Oblivion online it isn't isekai but draws along those lines. The scouraged earth, dead earth online, dungeon robotics. I only say "better" because they don't fall completely into isekai but have something similar and more unique but still enjoyable.

 

Double or triple? Lol. Pretty much every country has a body of isekai stories that is about as big as the one in Japan. It's been this way since we ran out of unexplored places on Earth.

 

For how big isekai genre is in media such as manga, anime and novels, it is almost absent from live-action shows and films.

 

Modern isekai is exclusively an otaku genre. If you're not an otaku you're not reading and you're not writing it. Otaku don't give a damn about live action media so why would any get made?

 

That's why it's always an unusual niche in Japan, despite being massively popular manga readers and anime viewers, which many are.

Meanwhile, China has a lot of xianxia and xuanhuan novels adapted into C-drama, many of them have transmigrator from Earth as protagonist, the very isekai J-drama lacks.

 

Uh... I thought all wuxias are isekais though. I mean, do chinese people ever fly? Heck, even Disney use isekai as a popular trope.

 

Thanks to Chinese government censorship transmigrated Protagonist are now banned.

Here is the kicker, the top earning movie in Japanese box office history is an anime. You would be an idiot to fix something that isn't broken. Besides live action is not all its cracked up to be. It can get very expensive

http://www.dramabeans.com/2013/07/sandglasslegendfaith-producer-ends-life/

There’s a similar backstory to the January suicide of another producer, Jo Hyun-gil, who produced IRIS and Athena and was the former CEO of Taewon Entertainment (IRIS’s production company) and H Communications. Then in June, former CEO of Yedang Entertainment Byun Doo-sub also took his own life. All three had been struggling with production and investment failures immediately prior to their suicides.

It’s a sad story all around, and makes you think that something’s gotta change in the industry before everybody is driven off the edge. Surely there are more sustainable ways of producing entertainment? Surely?

 

Not only transmigration, but time-travelling also got banned. Hell, they ban ghost stories and probably reincarnation as well as any supernatural stories next.

Thailand has a lot of time-travelling and alternative history dramas, but they limited not portraying the recent kings from the current dynasty as well as some from the previous dynasties in bad light. It's impossible to ban ghost stories here though, since almost everyone believes in them.

Indonesia still has a lot of ghost stories on their media even if according to Islam, ghosts don't exist, they're actually djins pretending to be ghosts, and even after the recent wave of hardcore muslim rising across the nation. There are also many supernatural things in their mainstream media, even if somehow muslim aren't supposed to believe in supernatural.
I don't really understand muslim.

IRIS and Athena? Are they not detective dramas? That's tough.

 

Humans are hypocrites. My Love from the star was so popular the chinese govt banned all korean dramas and even chinese dramas with a korean star for 2 years.
There is video evidence of their congress discussing how to make a similarly popular chinese dramas
Sadly, they missed the main point, the story is about a time travel/ transmigrator/alien all rolled into one

 

The difference is that, despite how it may appear, Chinese web novels and Japanese web novels are entirely different beasts. In Japan, these works are purely for otaku audiences with zero mainstream appeal. However, the interesting conundrum is that because Japan doesn't have a pop culture core any more otaku works with zero mainstream appeal can still score fairly highly in terms of metrics like Blu-ray sales and the like; thereby making them look a lot more popular than they actually are.

In China, the situation is very different as web novels there do have mainstream appeal; perhaps too much for the federal government's comfort. Qidian is owned by Tencent and Tencent in turn is the largest company in China. Also, TV shows (and films) based on web novels will sometimes get top talent and tons of exposure.

 

Webnovel adaptations based on xanxia are looked down on,right? Even my friend considers xanxia and xuahuan novels as crap
http://www.dramapanda.com/2018/10/yang-zi-talks-about-how-xianxia-aka.html

 

I don't think that TV shows based on Xianxia novels are looked down; at least not any more so than any other TV drama. For example, one of the absolutely most popular TV shows in China is Eternal Love, and that's based on a Xianxia novel. I'd say that the books are thought to be less quality in general, but that has as much to do with the amount of amateur writers as anything else.

 

But Eternal Love is really a romance story and written by Female unlike your run of the mill stories like Martial Universe.
Speaking from experience, female written stories on jjwxc seemed to be of higher quality than male written xianxia.
The Journey of Flower is another good example. I didn't check the ratings much last year but Martial Universe was not top

 

Gigguk (an anime youtuber) has a dedicated video about isekai. (Around 16mins).

Here's a breakdown for those that can't (or don't want to) watch the video:

• Introduction and Scope:
  
  • What is an isekai? How did it come to be?
    
  • How can a niche idea become more popular than other genre? What are its roots?
    
  • Is there anywhere left for the genre to go?
• Concept of a modern man/woman being transported to a new world is by no means an original concept that originated from anime.
  • Alice in wonderland: The first prominent fiction that is "isekai". Other example include Wizard of Oz and Narnia.
    
  • Dunbine, the first anime isekai that resembles the current "modern isekai"
  • 90's is a time where there's a surge for "transported to another world" genre of anime. Vision of Escaflowne, Magic Knight Ray Earth, Twelve Kingdoms, Inu Yasha (He didn't mention it but Fushigi Yuugi as well). But they are more rooted to Fantasy Genre like Alice in wonderland than the current modern isekai. (female protaginst transported to another world)
    
  • .hack and Greed Island Arc from Hunter X Hunter shows a switch to isekai genre by making them "stranded" to a virtual gaming world. Zero no tsukaima added harem elements to it and came to the time where Light novels adaptation are starting.
    
  • Combining the three above and we have.... SAO. (He has a dedicated video about SAO too: Why isn't SAO dead already?!)
    
  • Hate it or love it and despite it being "technically not an isekai", SAO found the footing for modern isekai genre to invade anime. It's different from the 90s as introduced the elements that made it so popular: Male Protagonist, Overpowered Protagonist, Harem. Set not in a traditional fantasy world but to an RPG world, specifically JRPGS like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger.
• What made the modern isekai such an appealing genre?
  • Escapispm? Self Insert? Power Fantasy?
  • One of the best things isekai platform allows for are its relatable protagonist, more so than traditional fantasy.
    
  • Having someone from a modern world transported to a new world allows the audience to have a shared experience with the protaginst in learning about this new world from the ground up. This avoids the need for heavy expositions because as the story plays, it tends to favor gradual progression and development.
  • Isekai: greatest platform for self insert characters which turns the genre in the truest form of escapism. That is if you are part of the wide target audience... A gamer, a gamer, a gamer, a gamer..........
    
  • Modern Isekai becomes synonymous with an RPG world. Knights, Mages, NPCs, RPG like stats. Whether the story is more akin to a gaming world like Log Horizon, or something more unforgiving like in Grimgar Fantasy and Ash. He even forgot that Danmachi, something that checks a lot of isekai tropes is not actually an isekai as no one gets transported to another world.
    
  • If we look at the most popular shows at the genre after SAO we see the different appeal that made them stand out:
    
    • No game no life: Same power fantasy as SAO but instead of showing that through action scenes or raw strength, it was through interesting contests and mind games.
    • Konosuba: Standard setting but adding a memorable and colorful cast that makes it more like a sitcom.
    • Re:Zero: Subverting the genre by deconstructing the OP protagonist.
    • Everything has something that makes it different but the setting remains the same. An RPG world even if the shows have nothing to do with video games itself. They appeal to the same demographic of gamers that allow SAO to become popular as it is.

It's getting long and it's only half of the video so I'm stopping here. If you have more time, I sincerely suggest you watch the video as not only is it informative but also highly entertaining. (And no i'm not getting paid for advertisement )

 

You must have noticed that isekai usually involves fantasy, in a very unrestrained manner, right?
For live-action shows, it means Huge Budget. Only really big-name works of fantasy like LotR and Harry Potter get adapted to live-action.

Capitalism doesn't get along well with sustainability. I hope we humans figure something out before it's too late.

Christians are like that too. Many fantasy creatures associated with Christianity aren't from the Bible. I think no angel was described as a winged human, and there is only one Devil in there, with no legions of hell. For that matter, there is no hell mentioned either.
I read that a century or so before, many people in my country would believe not only in Christian stuff, but also in all the traditional fairy creatures. Even though Christianity has been the dominant religion for about 900 years.

 

Many Christian festivals were adapted from Pagan festivals.
Cherubim has wings.
Hell is mentioned but not like the Dante's inferno type that is mainstream

 

And quite a lot of other parts that have no place on a human. Like 4 faces. When a biblical angel appears and starts speaking with "do not fear me", it's because they're so damn scary.

 

I think the feeling of mystery it produces which is pretty captivating but also eventually the feeling of greatness parallel worlds can produce once thought as a big one