Talk:Isekai

No mention of Omega?

The article says "The role-playing adventure game Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (1997),[20] and the Digimon Adventure (1999 debut) and .hack (2002 debut) franchises, were some of the first works to present the concept of isekai as a virtual world", but Omega came out in 1987, a full decade before Moon: Remix RPG Adventure. In Omega, you play as a college student who gets sucked into a virtual world after running a program on the mainframe computer at his college. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:2180:199:CD7F:613D:4136:9ACA (talk) 21:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Trolling

for shame, how did no one notice the obvious trolling? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.198.227.238 (talk) 11:06, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

• For future readers, the IP user above seems to have been talking about this vandalism, which they reverted... Though somehow they missed the immediately preceding bit of vandalism by the same vandal made less than a minute earlier. And somehow nobody else caught it either, until now... Fixed. V2Blast (talk) 06:53, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Why is this page necessary?

Explain to me why this page is necessary? Isekai is in no way a unique genre to anime, and in no way can be said to be meaningfully different from other accidental travel or otherworldly travel fiction. This entire page can be one line on the "accidental travel" page, that reads "in japanese fiction, this genre is called isekai" this is an entirely pointless page. This page even inexplicably makes the claim that non-japanese works are somehow taking inspiration from this genre, as the genre, (while they may be inspired by japanese works, I am fairly certain this genre has a logn history in western fiction as well) this feels... pointless. 2601:40A:4100:600:507C:6A1E:CB2F:3642 (talk) 17:12, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

We go by whatever the sources say, and the vast majority of anime/manga sources agree that isekai is its own distinct genre of anime/manga/light novels, therefore it should have its own article. The same for almost any other major anime/manga genre, such as mecha anime and manga, harem genre, cooking manga, magical girl, sports anime, Japanese cyberpunk, etc. It's irrelevant that similar concepts or genres exist in other media, as these articles are specifically about anime/manga/light novel genres, not those other media you're referring to. Maestro2016 (talk) 00:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I concur, I see no reason for this article to exist outside of articles that already exist for such types of portal or otherworld fantasy. 47.218.105.234 (talk) 20:40, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I disagree! I ended up on this page because I was watching an (originally Japanese) show with my kid that did not translate the term "isekai". He wanted to know what it meant so we looked it up here. This is the very point of an encyclopedia. If a foreign language term is used untranslated in English, then it makes sense to have an article so people can find out what it means. Mvolz (talk) 16:47, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

That information could still be preserved if the article was merged with existing articles about portal fantasy, although I'm neutral on deleting the article or merging it. Deku link (talk) 06:55, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

To add on to this, the word "isekai" to mean this specific genre is largely an American term. The word by itself in japanese literally means "another world." Deku link (talk) 19:33, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm going jump in to say that an article's subject doesn't determine notability. Many sources have used the term "isekai", just search on Anime News Network. It is enough to warrant keeping a separate article per WP:NEXIST. A similar situation happened on original video animation, and I think a similar solution should be done to what Morgan695 proposed. WP:STUBIFY is what we should do if you ask me. Link20XX (talk) 19:39, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Practically all the articles on Anime News Network cited are paid promos. Deku link (talk) 19:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Woeful citation situation

For an article classified as high importance for WP:A&M (which is dubious in my opinion to begin with as any importance this genre has is due to oversaturation in the market due to recency bias rather than importance to the longer history of anime and manga), this article is severely lacking in good citations and overall just reads like a fan spiel page of a popular trend rather than an encyclopedia entry on an existing genre. An overview of the current citations:

• A primary source citation of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, which is also entirely in Japanese. The ONLY citation in the lede (which is currently just a list of anime and manga that vaguely fall into the genre without citations)
• A creative writing website's definition of the genre for the sake of tagging, which is also entirely in Japanese and is the only citation for defining the types of the genre
• A gimmick article from Crunchyroll specifically designed to promote their catalog and the show Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody that reads like a magazine puff piece rather than a reliable source
• A comicbook.com article about a parody of isekai posted by a twitter artist. Neither this nor source 3 are very specifically related to the information in the article.
• A promotional article for Re:ZERO
• ANOTHER gimmick article from Crunchyroll designed to promote a show
• A promotional article for That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
• Yet another Crunchyroll promo article
• An AnimeNewsNetwork article observing the isekai trend, which despite blatantly being a paid advertisement and a paid article, ends up being one of the only useful citations on this entire page.
• An AnimeNewsNetwork article describing an anime adaptation of Urashima Tarō which, while interesting, is not particularly relevant

From this point on it would get redundant to list every single other blogpost or crunchyroll/animenewsnetwork article created specifically to be selfpromo that is cited here, because that's quite literally every single other citation (besides citation 28, which is for some reason an AMINO blogpost). Quite frankly this article is painfully poor in its current state and I would absolutely consider a merger with Accidental travel just because of the lack of proper citation. There is some scholarly analysis of the isekai genre, but the page in its current state needs to be heavily pruned to justify having a page at all. Deku link (talk) 19:57, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Did you not read WP:NEXIST? Plus, here is a couple of good articles on the genre from Anime News Network (1, 2), and that's just from the first page of search results. I'm aware it sucks in its current form, which is why I suggested WP:STUBIFY like the article on original video animation. I have yet to see how this situation is any different than that. Link20XX (talk) 20:05, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Update: Here is a couple more (1, 2) Link20XX (talk) 20:10, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I am aware of WP:NEXIST, but my point is moreso that every single citation on this page comes from either a blog or anime news network (many of which are paid promotional articles or on par with blogposts themselves). Obviously concessions sometimes have to be made for the sake of articles like this that do not receive mainstream coverage, but there ARE academic sources on isekai that could be used instead. Deku link (talk) 20:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Time travel

Isekai is clear if the protagonist ends up on another planet or a different dimension/realm, but unclear if time travel on the same planet is involved. In one scenario, the protagonist could travel to the past or imprint his memories on his past self to change the future, technically creating a parallel world that the older and younger protagonist has yet to experience (e.g. Redo of Healer, Tokyo Revengers). If you time travel to the past to observe yourself without changes (no parallel world created), is it isekai or more like a memory of your past? In another scenario, the protagonist could end up in the future and experience a "new world" (e.g. Dr. Stone). You could also time travel to the future to observe yourself without changes, which is more like a vision of the future, so is it still isekai?

As far as I understand, the "self" consists of the memories of one's experiences, so without memories you technically cease to be the present and developing "you", but become a new and different "you" going forward. So for isekai, the protagonist or part of the protagonist has to be relocated in time and/or space and at some point in time has to remember, whether fully or partially, his/her/its past experiences, usually from a previous life or lives [(re)incarnated], but can also be from the current life [summoned/transported], and going forward has different experiences the protagonists wouldn't have had if those memories weren't remembered. Jroberson108 (talk) 20:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Sword Art Online is not isekai

The author Reki Kawahara officially mentioned that "SAO is a real world story, and I'm not a pioneer (of isekai)."[1] Sosul (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, he would, wouldn't he? The label isekai has earned some negative connotations, so of course he would deny it. But in any case, we go by what RS say, not by what the author says, and RS have called it an isekai ([2]). Link20XX (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

This is not a matter of accusation, but of classification. "Some anime fans credit SAO for launching the isekai trend, while many other fans don't even count SAO as isekai in the first place."[3] In this case, author's opinion should be applied to determine which source is correct. Sosul (talk) 00:53, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

General consensus in this type of situation is that the author's opinion is irrelevant (see for instance RWBY, where an RfC determined it is not an anime despite the creator and some sources describing it as such). It is also worth noting that CBR is considered a situational source at best (see WP:ANIME/RS), though even the article does credit SAO for popularizing the genre and states that it has clear isekai elements and themes. Link20XX (talk) 01:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Many articles on the net starts with "SAO popularized isekai genre", but that does not mean "SAO is isekai". (It just fueled Narō novels and them animated.) The problem comes from the fact that many people misunderstand it as isekai (another world), while SAO always states that those VR worlds exist as a part of real world. Should we include all anime that deals with game play like Bofuri or Shangri-La Frontier for having game (not isekai) elements? Sosul (talk) 03:28, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

There are several high quality reliable sources that describe SAO as an isekai, so that's how it should be listed on WP, regardless of the reason (see Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth). For other series, it is a different topic altogether (see WP:OTHERSTUFF). Link20XX (talk) 03:56, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Then would this edit be acceptable for you?

with Sword Art Online (2002 web novel debut) following in their footsteps,[21] although many people[4] including the author[5] do not count it as isekai. Sosul (talk) 04:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

That wording is too vague. Would with Sword Art Online (2002 web novel debut) following in their footsteps,[21] though this categorization has been disputed, including by the series' creator (with citations at the end) be acceptable? Link20XX (talk) 04:41, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

OK. Thank you for the discussion, introducing many guides to me. I'll do the edit. Sosul (talk) 04:48, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Additionally, multiple CBR articles that the above article links to explicitly describe it as an isekai ([6], [7]). Link20XX (talk) 01:37, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

“ without the possibility of returning to their original world”

Why is this line there? That’s not a requirement of the genre. Brend0 (talk) 19:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this line should be clarified, but I believe its intention is to distinguish isekai stories from the increasingly popular "gate"/"dungeon" stories in similar media, where the protagonist repeatedly enters other "worlds" and returns to their own after clearing the "gate." These stories usually wouldn't be considered isekai—certainly not any more so than stories about logging in and out of a video game. However, I do agree that the "possibility" of a return to the original world is not the distinguishing factor here—it's more the protagonist's own agency/choice (or lack thereof) in their displacement. Okayplanetary (talk) 15:50, 30 May 2024 (UTC)