For real though, isekai for me is like an instant pass nowadays. I don’t mind fantasy anime, but the “hurr durr I’m a highschool loser that died and woke up in an MMO world” has to be the most creatively bankrupt genre of modern anime/manga and I really don’t understand the appeal, especially when 90% of them are just variations of generic Dragon Quest tropes. You can make escapist fiction without having to resort to beating a dead horse that has been dead, buried and decomposed for at least a decade now.
And now that I think about it, do these isekai animes and mangas even sell that well to justify making so many of them? There’s no way Japanese audiences aren’t also getting sick of them to at least some extent despite how many of these still keep getting made.
He further criticized modern anime for incorporating game-like elements without logical in-universe explanations.
“Recent anime works will show things like a level-up gauge that appears when characters tap the air, even though there’s no in-setting reason for them to have a personal interface like that. I may just be getting old, but it really makes me wonder: ‘What is going on here?’ It just doesn’t work for me.“
I couldn’t agree more. It just goes to show how little thought and care is put into the setting and world building of these shows, there’s no craft behind most of these, they’re just following trends it feels like.
the appeal is that it’s the same predictable crap, over and over and over. people like that.
there are studies on this. people who prefer watching the same show over and over tend to be insecure, depression, and anxious types and their habit of never trying anything new reinforces this.
new and complex ideas are difficult and painful for most folks, so they avoid them.
