OK, it's time to admit I have a problem. Here's how it goes. I have a great idea for a subject I want to talk about on this blog. I start writing. I end up stuck because my thoughts are all over the place. I start over. I outline my post, to get my thoughts in order. I start writing again. I end up with a minor thesis on the subject, with four more points in my outline still to be discussed. I get overwhelmed by the amount I have written and have to edit, and I end up shelving the post indefinitely.
Yep. It's a problem. But since I have a little extra time this week, I am going to try a third step that might actually allow this post to make it to you readers. I am going to start over one more time, but this time, I am going to be as concise in my points as possible (I know, I know... this opening is anything but concise... I'm working on it). So, bear with me if this post seems a bit abrupt and less in depth... I am currently working through my own writing issues.
OK, so this entry, which is currently my fourth attempt to post on this topic, is about the "isekai" genre in anime and literature. For those who don't know, isekai stories follow characters who enter and experience adventures in "other worlds." The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz, are all classic literary isekai stories, and while Sword Art Online is the most well known example in anime, the genre currently saturates the viewing market with multiple examples every season.
I am writing to defend the anime form of the genre, which currently receives a lot of negative criticism from anime reviewers and analysts. Most of their criticisms fall into three broad categories. First, that isekai is fundamentally "escapist wish-fulfillment," and by serving this purpose the genre fails to be thought provoking, becoming mediocre storytelling at best. The second criticism is that the characters are too overpowered; the vast abilities granted to isekai protagonists means that they cannot grow, change, or develop over the course of the story, leading to boring characterization. The third criticism synthesizes the previous two; because the characters of isekai serve as an analog for the audience, they tend to be socially awkward characters who "magically" are able to cultivate successful relationships with multiple women over the course of the show, creating a "harem" of beautiful women romantically interested in the main characters. Critics devalue the isekai protagonist as "boring" and "too perfect," and also question the believability of his ability to build a harem, dismissing it as "catering to the base desire" of the assumed male viewer through a self-insert, blank-slate protagonist who is unrealistically powerful and successful. In the interest of being concise, I shall not go into the criticisms any more than this.
First, I wold like to address the idea that isekai is fundamentally "escapist wish-fulfillment," and that this status somehow devalues the genre as a whole. I don't believe there is anything wrong with escapism in storytelling. Any time one reads fiction, one is, in a sense, escaping from the real world. The question then becomes, what sort of escape is does the story provide. Proponents of a more "literary" (in the snobbish, academic sense) form of storytelling assert that "good" storytelling comes in narratives that engage with complicated questions about politics, ethics, economics, or society through either a gritty and realistic or deeply symbolic representation. In this sense, isekai fails to be "good" storytelling, because it is "not realistic" nor does it tend to be allegorical. But is this an accurate criteria for judging "good" storytelling? What isekai is designed to do is to create a world that is different from the real world, one that presents an "other" context in which to explore its themes and questions. In this "other" context, those themes are explored through the concept of "adventure," or a journey in which the hero encounters and overcomes trials while bonding with his companions. This context of adventure allows for the exploration of diverse themes that the protagonist evaluates based on the real world and the new world's values. One of the most common example of this lies in the relations between the ruling power structure and an oppressed subclass. No Game, No Life seems the epitome of "escapist wish-fulfillment;" two shut in games are transported into a world where every problem is solved through simple games. Anyone who collects all the chess pieces of the various races will win the right to challenge Tet, the ruler of the world, the god of games. This seems like an ideal world for both the characters and the nerdy, game addicted fanbase they supposedly represent. But this escape is not so simple as it might seem. Sora and Shiro are humans, or "Imanity" in the terms of the game world, the lowest species because they can't use magic. They are faced with the handicap of being unable to use, or even recognize when magic is used around them. They constantly face disdain from the other "superior" races. Despite these short comings, the two siblings are able to rapidly game their way into power, as they outwit various opponents. On the surface, their story is one about two nerds being unaccountably successful because the rules of the world change to accommodate their idiosyncrasy. The story does more than that, however. It values hard work... the hours of research that the two put into creating their strategies or acquiring the necessary information to be able to win their games. it emphasizes intelligence and creativity as the greatest weapon a weak opponent can use against a strong, and it advocates for people to reject their preconceptions about the power structures of their world, and to instead, make their own future through their own efforts. This is a powerfully positive message for creating effective change, even in the real world, but it is only made possible through the characters transfer to the "other" world. Similarly, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime also subverts traditional power structures. The main character is a human who is reincarnated into a fantasy world as a slime monster. The power structure of the world is based around a concept of human supremacy, and monsters are not allowed to live in or trade in many human cities. The protagonist (Rimuru) uses the (overpowered) abilities he has gained as a slime to unite the monsters into a single nation, and through (mostly) peaceful negotiations and trade to create alliances with the major powers in the world, creating a booming new monster civilization. In both That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and No Game, No Life, the characters are faced with systemic oppression and elitism, but are able to use the skills and knowledge they brought from their old world to subvert the system and create powerful nations defined by their openness and ingenuity.
In a sense, the escape in isekai is not an escape at all. Most isekai protagonists do not land in a world that is "easier" than our world. Even the kindest isekai worlds; worlds in which the characters are overpowered and cannot really die (they simply revive at a checkpoint or home location), can still be dangerous, as characters are forced to confront a wide variety of mental and emotional attacks. Ainz Ool Gown in Overlord is so overpowered no one in the world is truly a threat to him, but he only achieves and can only utilize that power by sacrificing his own humanity and becoming the monster he looks like. In Log Horizon characters have to cope with an apparent eternity of bland, tasteless food in a world they cannot even escape by dying. In Re:Zero the protagonist dies so many times his mental health is shattered by the trauma and he is driven to the brink of madness. The world of isekai isn't all harems and OP one-shot kills. It is war and danger and death, it's madness and slavery and class-ism, it is all the uncomfortable bits that accompany real adventure. What makes this world appealing, despite all that, is that the characters' actions have meaning in the other world. In the simplest terms; one person can battle monsters, defeat the demon king, and save the world. In more complex cases, a single person can disrupt stratified class systems or overcome their past traumas in order to create a new type of civilization. Isekai doesn't allow escape into a world without issues, it provides hope for a world where such issues can be overcome. At it's heart, isekai is a genre that promotes hope, hope that a world (if not "the world") can become a better place through the choices and actions of individuals. This escape is not reductive but redemptive; it does not deny either the difficulty of living or the reality of systemic problems, but it does provide the hope that those problems may one day be solved by individuals taking their lives in their own hands and building the world they want to see.
Moving on to the second criticism; that because isekai characters are overpowered, they are not interesting or do not have room to develop or grow. My initial defense for this criticism is... because of what the genre is, it doesn't really matter if the characters are as well developed. Protagonists of adventures stories in general tend to be less well developed than those from other genres because the development of individualized quirks and characteristics is not necessary, and can sometimes hinder the development of the narrative itself. Too much characterization can bog down a story... it doesn't matter if a character's favorite food is strawberries or if they have wanted to study dinosaurs ever since they were a kid, if that character is fighting for his life against a horde of zombies. To say "all isekai protagonists are the same" is like saying all the heroes in the Iliad are the same... sure, they all get angry, go into rage mode, kill a bunch of people. and are described in fundamentally the same way, but to complain about that is to miss the point of the story, which was to narrate this huge and awesome battle with these incredible heroes. In the same way, many isekai protagonists are not well developed, but that is because the focus of the story is not on their internal journey, but rather their external adventure.
This isn't to say that there is not good character development in isekai at all. On the contrary, many of these protagonists undergo mental battles that mirror the physical ones they fight, that force them to confront their inner demons and grow past their initial fears and insecurities. Many of the heroes in these stories are introverts with social anxiety; gamers, programers, NEETs, who seeks refuge in digital mediums because they do not interact well with other people. As they are forced into a new world that tests their capabilities as gamers, they are also forced to grow and improve in their social lives as well. Consider the series How Not to Summon a Demon Lord. On its surface, this story is pure wish fulfillment; an inept nerd is summoned into a game world as his avatar, an overpowered demon lord. He accidentally enslaves the two women who summoned him, and is forced to party with them as the three try to find a way to break the enslavement. Sounds ideal, right? Except the protagonist has crippling social anxiety, and is at a complete loss how to interact with people due to a childhood trauma. So when he is forced to interact with people, in the avatar of the demon Lord, he resorts to the only method of communication he has learned; he role plays. He thinks, "How would a demon lord respond to this situation" and then does or says that thing. This enables him to live and function within his new environment. But as he begins to grow closer with the two women who summoned him, the persona of the demon lord is slowly stripped away. He isn't "cured" by the end of the show, but he has made obvious progress toward learning how to interact with people like a normal human being because of his role play as the demon lord. Although he is overpowered, he is still able to grow and develop as he learns to transcend his fear and overcome his flaws. Most of the time, the character development in Isekai is similar to this example; small steps forward when the character realizes that his circumstances have forced him to grow out of the flaws that hindered him in the past. Isekai character development is not about a sudden realization of fatal flaws or the dramatic revelation of their deepest fears and weaknesses. It is about characters who know they are not perfect trying to make the best of their circumstances, and moving forward because they have slowly grown out of their old errors. It's not as flashy or dramatic as a more traditional characterization, but in my opinion, it's a lot more productive and truer to life.
The third criticism deals with the concept of characterization, wish-fulfillment, and harem building, and it is here that I tend to become deepest sunk in the quagmire of my own thoughts and opinions. So, the criticism goes, the socially inept nerds that populate these shows would never get the girl in real life. To have them win elaborate harems is unrealistic and serves only to justify a male power fantasy. And while I understand these criticisms, as a female viewer, I have a slightly different take on it. The reason that isekai heroes are successful with the women around them isn't because they are powerful or because they are mysterious, or from a different world. Short and sweet: isekai protagonists get the girls because they aren't jerks. Let me explain. There is a mistaken belief that respect for women is about things that you do... opening doors, paying for dinner, pulling out her chair when she can sit down. But those things are all surface level. Consider the act of paying for dinner. From someone who genuinely respects, women, this is a sweet action that demonstrates he cares about a woman and wants to provide a something nice for her. From someone who somewhat respects women, the act of paying is checking off a box in the social etiquette quiz so the date continues to run smoothly. For a man who is disrespectful of women, the act of paying implies that the woman is unable to take care of herself and that she needs a man to pay for her (the flip side of this is that she now owes the man something, and he may demand physical favors in return). The same action can be either hugely respectful or disrespectful depending on the context. What makes isekai protagonists so interesting is that, for all their faults, they actually seem to genuinely respect women. Consider Kirito from Sword Art Online. This show is often disparaged for following the "harem building" trend, but, while Kirito is surrounded by beautiful women who all seem to be interested in him, he is exclusively faithful to Asuna, the main love interest. And the relationship between the two is the definition of respect. Asuna is Kirito's equal (or maybe his better) as a swordsman. The two of them hunt monsters together on even footing, and while Kirito will go out of his way to protect Asuna in dangerous situation, he never tries to stop her from entering them. He is absolutely confident in Asuna's competence; a stand out moment in the Aincrad arc of SAO is when the two are at a fishing event and a massive monster emerges from the lake. When Asuna charges the monster, the locals ask Kirito why he isn't going to help her. He casually points out that she has the situation under control, and then watches with a look of satisfied pride as she proceeds to single-handedly obliterate the monster. He happier to stand by and let "the girl" be the badass than he wold have been to kill the monster himself. Similarly, in a later arc, when Asuna is invited to go adventuring with an exclusive group, he does not try to stop her, nor does he try to insinuate himself into the group with her. He again stands back and lets her have her own adventures, recognizing her need to be an individual person and supporting her through the process. When he finally does intervene, it is not to steal the heroic spotlight, but merely to support her as she pursues her goals. He holds back the enemy so that she can complete the quest... simultaneously showing his interest in her interests, and also his respect for her space. Kirito's respect for Asuna (and for women in general) is what draws others to him, and what makes him a genuinely likable man from a female perspective.
In fact, most isekai protagonists are incredibly appealing to women because of their respectful nature. They do not hesitate to let women fight with them, they are supportive when those have their own dreams or issues they need to pursue or resolve, and most importantly, they listen. Instead of talking about themselves all the time, isekai protagonists listen when the women around them, and then they act on that information. A female support character used to be an accountant? The isekai hero remembers that information and comes to her for support when a plan requires financial insight. A woman mentions that she used to be a teacher and is concerned about her students, an isekai hero will go and train those students and find a way to make sure their magic doesn't get out of control. A girl is cowering in fear as her pet dragon is killed before her eyes? An isekai hero will accompany her through the dangerous dungeon as she attempts to resurrect it, while showing her places to level up at the same time. Isekai heroes don't just "collect" women. They win them by showing a genuine interest in their thoughts, listening to their fears, and allowing them to demonstrate their strengths. I completely understand why the love interests fall for their protagonists... if a man treated me with that level of respect and attention, I'd fall for him too.
Let's wrap this up. While isekai has many critics, I think their complaints stem from a lack of understanding for the genre. Isekai isn't about complex characters whose profound and deep thoughts tantalize the intellect and dazzle by obfuscating. On the contrary, the genre is about simple characters who can make simple, good choices, to make a difference in the world. It is about characters who are forced to face their fears and who gradually learn to work past them. It is about men who respect women and treat them well, who are rewarded for that respect. I could talk a lot longer about each of these points (and I'm thinking about starting a YouTube channel where I do just that... give your thoughts on that plan in the comments), but for now, I'll just finish by referencing Tolkien's essay On Fairy Stories: "Those most concerned with escape are prisoners and jailers." It is not a bad thing to escape from a world where the tedium of everyday life is devouring your soul to a world where goblins may try to devour your body, but at least you have a way to fight them.
Well, back to reality.
