Most Hated Isekai Cliche

Small subtrope that isn't terribly common, but I find it more often than I should and it really annoys me:

-Top rank Adventurers/Hunters are obliged to accept 'emergency' requests from the Guild and/or the King/Nation.

Promotion literally turns you into a practical slave to the authorities? Unless you have a severe case if heroism or stupidity, why would anybody ever accept these terms? If these people are the strongest people in the nation, how are you ever going to enforce this rubbish?
Adventurers are generally some sort of mercenary, not civil servants employed by the state.

 

Yes this is what i want with so many bad option there is a waste if you only able to choose so few

Another small thing really bother me if it is reincarnated/transmigrated and when asked to make poem, MC apologize in their heart and do plagiarism from famous artist/poet/narrator(?) and acknowledged as MC's work. I see MC lose personality here

Just one or two from the choice above actually make the story interesting but put them all together the story become a mess and most author overused them, just like students in whole school write the same isekai story but with different MC and name and a little variation about the story

 

The 30-40 year old salary man who transmigates in a teenage body and then act like they are a teenager. Seriously why can´t these people act their age. A teenager and a middle age man are not the same in they way the speak, act and think. yet when I read these novels it is not only their age that regresses but also their mentality apparently. If you were going to make a mc that act like a teenager, why not make him a teenager from the beginning.

The type of mc that only knows a girl for a few seconds and then helps her like she is the most important thing to have ever happen in his life. Oh you want this treasure I busted my ass for. Sure here, oh you want this special op skill that nobody has. Sure why the fuck not. Oh you have some trouble with some powerfull people and by helping you I risk everything that I worked for. Hell yeah why the fuck not. Most people would not even give a random stranger money, hell not even would they help a distant relative, yet you want me to believe that a random girl that the mc has just met gets everything that mc owns. At the end of the day we all know the reason why these mc´s do this is for the slightest chance that the girl will suck the mc´s dick.

 

A few of those options are not really isekai tropes, but (Japanese) fantasy tropes in general (humans, or the rulers of human society, are the real evil is common in any multi species series), or just symptoms of bad writing (Mary Sue)

But for me it is the gospel of Japanese Cuisine, I can understand wanting what you grew up with, but not everyone raving how superior it is.

Some stories actually explain why, "Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?" and "The Death Mage Who Doesn’t Want a Fourth Time" both have explicit reasons why the systems were created (and in Kumo the MC even permanently loses the assistance of the system after so long, and has learn to make due without it)

That would be because they are taking the ranking system from other sources, using one they and the reader base is already familiar with, The first time I can remember seeing it is Devil May cry, but I am certain it is much older then that. Though some authors try to mix it up, I prefer the few who have the ranks given names (normally metals)

EDIT : Is seems to actually be form from school/academic grading in Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Japan

END OF EDIT

Without explanation this is kind of bad, very few people can kill without being conditioned for it. Even in war there are soldiers who do not shoot to kill.
Some stories have there be something that is affecting their viewpoint (the 3 jerk heroes in Shield Bro all initially see the world as a big video game, so they are disconnected from the real weight of their actions) or in summoning stories they often have a training and adjustment period that may or may not be shown, but the better series always show an initial reluctance to kill (outside of self defense where fight of flight can take over, and make you kill to defend yourself)

Ya, that only works if they are also given political/noble rank to go with the adventurer rank, and the guild is limited to that nation, since in many stories it is international.

I remember in one series it being mentioned that the MC was deliberately keeping herself at a specific rank to avoid those missions.

 

You forgot:

Beta male mc syndrome (ignorant, useless, emotionlessly immature and limp)

Ultra ruthless mc syndrome (extreme power fantasy, kill everything, rape everything, excuse self, rinse/repeat)

 

Top ranking gets you noticed by those in power, and to maintain your freedom you take on those requests, otherwise you get scrutinized and censored. It is like owning a tank with loaded shells, you can continue running quests but the authority won't let you just wander around. Try and run to another country but they don't like rogue tanks either.
It is usually a deal between guild and country than adventurer and country. In return for guild autonomy or monopoly they will provide these service. And in return for the adventurer doing these tasks the guild will pamper them.

Babe magnet is the most peculiar for me. They'll drop everything from their retainers to boyfriends to panties to brains for the MC, and I like NTR, but at least with NTR the thief demonstrate he has the bed skill for it, he put in the effort and work. Babe magnet, he ex(is)t therefore am.

 

And this leads to OP protagonists who turn down promotions or keep a low profile and avoid earning the necessary credit.
Mandatory obligations chase the greatest human resources away from the positions they're needed in.

 

ISEKAIs are just Fantasy novels with extra steps. Just put a prologue of MC's previous sorry ass story back on Earth, then rarely, if not never, mention it again.

Anyway, the thing I detest the most are MC's creating all modern inventions from memory. I'm also aware of inventions like Steam Engines, however it's still impossible to create it even if you read a book about it.

 

Steam engines are not to bad actually, They are ancient with the first versions made millennia ago. All the major components existed in Roman times. Crude and not as strong ones should be doable in most worlds given tinkering time.

There are others, but it does rely on the materials and manufacturing available in that world.

Things like modern gunpowder that require high end manufacturing and chemistry can be a bit off.

Though really it depends on how fast they are making the item, spending a couple days is not reasonable, but a year or more tinkering when you know the basics is fine for a lot of things.

 

The things I hate the most wouldn't count as cliches but the difference is fairly fine: it's stuff like poor characterization, self-serving writing, manipulative writing, and poor prose. These are all hallmarks of bad amateur writers, and there are tons of these people writing Japanese web novels. It's really too bad because they often come up with interesting premises and creative ideas, but then they lack the ability to do a good job of delivering the story and the lack of willingness to improve their craft.

While this is true, I don't think that anyone is using the term "isekai" in its strict definition. Most older isekai novels aren't anything like the modern ones and very few of the story elements mentioned in the OP would apply to them. Here, the term is used as shorthand for "otaku fantasy" as those works are more or less identical to modern isekai and they share the same story structures and techniques.

 

I can nitpick about all kinds of cliches and tropes in general but most of the time what annoys me the most is the very fact of the author making the story an isekai in the first place even in stories where it serves no real purpose.
In general if a story would have worked even without the isekai element I typically feel that it would be better without it.
I get that the usual argument is that it is there for the reader to relate to the mc more, I just don't feel that is a good reason most of the time, or even well executed.

 

What I'm saying is the MCs' understanding on every minute details to recreate it even if they haven't even seen the first gen.

 

It depends on the characters background, many isekai protagonists are obsessive over some hobby or another, and posses much greater then average knowledge of that area.

Also, you do not need to have seen the first gen, if you are familiar with the later blueprints. But the most important parts of a steam engine is stuff you could find and refine with some tinkering (heat source, boiler, pistons and gears and shafts to transmit the energy to the wheels). The outward appearance being largely cosmetic.

There are things that would be unreasonable, your example is not really one of them.

 

Out of those, I think my most hated one is: Monster Protagonist; immediately gain human transformation.

But like... I can generalize it actually, I don't need to be stuck to this specific scenario.

My most hated cliche is: Protagonist has a defining characteristic that has real consequences and will be a problem to the protagonist throughout their life; immediately finds a walk-around to said characteristic and basically negates 90+% of its inherent issues.

Like, a blind protagonist that can see the mana signature of things, or a deaf protagonist that cam hear the sounds of people's hearts, or a protagonist that can't walk, but learns how to fly... And of course, the monster protagonist that becomes a human.

 

Being obsessive on paper is different when put to practice. Even creating a small power supply with all the parts and tools, you could still fail nor make it from memory. What more if it's in a time where metals are still in the form of ores. Besides most MCs are a bunch of salarymen or losers in their past life. If they could really tinker machines up to the minute details then there's no way they'd be miserable in the first place.

 

OTHER : Eventhough I'm monster, actually human, so I forbid killing humans eventhough they're the one making war, slavery, discrimination toward other races beside human, and killing the monster's brethren/subordinate and women with human physical is the one monster like.

 

Incompetent Gods – I'm not saying someone like Aqua in Konosuba. Isekai gods apologizing to the MC because their death is just a mistake so they just gonna compensate with a cheat skill so you could enjoy your life in another world.

 

Depends on how complicated the power supply is. Steam engines are not that complicated. At their most basic it is a piston and a valve to release the pressure. Plus if you have al the parts and tools, unless something key is missing from your memory you can figure out what is wrong and get it right.

If you are testing each part as you build them, like any protagonist should be, the odds of the final assembly (which is all you see in most stories) working rises dramatically, as only an idiot builds a car then tests the engine.

Metals are to really an issue, the level required is well within most settings, especially since almost every isekai setting has magical metals available that are superior to modern metallurgy.

That is no how it works. Having a hobby or obsession does not mean you are happy in life. being unhappy can easily lead to doubling down on the few things you enjoy, and make you more obsessive

Really, do you have an argument for why you example is not a horrible one?
There are things that would be unreasonable, you just choose a really bad example.

 

The MC knowing how to make a steam engine in another world is either an Engineer/Mechanic or a guy looking up too much of those stuff in google fantasizing about going to another world and thinking they can uplift the world and start an industrial revolution.

 

Generally, the idea is that if you're not able to make something in real life, you're far less likely to be able to do it in an isekai world. Letting the protagonist do too much is overly self-serving and it's just not all that believable.

In the book I'm reading right now, the protagonist goes back to early Modern Europe and he builds up his own empire. So when it comes time to think about building steam engines, he only remembers a few details from when he was in high school and doesn't have the skills to actually build one. So what he does is to jot down a few of the things he remembers and a rough diagram of how such a machine would work and gives this to someone who actually has the skills (in this case, Leonardo da Vinci) and orders him to get it going. A year later, Leonardo has made some progress but his steam engine is still useless because he didn't have the condenser that James Watt came up with. So yeah, just because something is possible to invent doesn't make automatically plausible.

There are things that are pretty easy to design as long as you understand the general concept; things like the stirrup, the movable-type printing press, or the flintlock mechanism. But most of the inventions and innovations out there require actual skill and expertise. Just because you know how a device roughly works doesn't always mean that you're going to be able to build said device.