Do you think "standard" isekais are over?

[Reisinling]

I've been wondering recently... are "standard" isekais over? By standard isekais I mean the stuff that dominated the genre at the beginning, simple stories of a Guy/Gal reincarnating, becoming adventurer with inspection cheat, and slowly growing in power. Then there was skill stealing era, then there was era of thousand twists... and now it seems these stories, while they still exist, no longer get as popular as they did in the past. Stuff like what I do, monster reincarnation (or qt girl reincarnation) still do okay, but hmm we seem to have passed the dungeon meta, and are now in full on crafting meta.

 

[Zirrboy]

Slow life used to be a thing, too. Though I don't know how well that's doing right now.

But I'd say most reached saturation.
There are only so many "unique" executions and premises before new works can't help but end up as rehashs of existing works.

 

[LostLibrarian]

Not really. Isekai stories do just fine and make enough money.
We will see other genres/tropes that get overhyped for a few months, but isekai will just do fine as a popular genre on its own...

The only change will be that isekai will become part of a story and not be the story themselves. If "over" means that the tag alone won't give you 1000 readers, then yeah. But otherwise, people still read mediocre and above isekai...

 

[BlackKnightX]

Honestly, I’m an isekai lover, a hardcore one. I don’t think isekai will die out just yet. Heck, I don’t even consider it a trope. Rather, I consider it a way of writing.

What did I mean by that? Most people read web fictions for escapism. In other word, they want to go to another world. And isekai does exactly just that. It gives the reader an escapism directly.

So I don’t think it will ever get old. What really do get old might be some tropes you listed above. But Isekai itself? Nah, I don’t think so.

 

[Zirrboy]

I was referring to the "standard" in the title.

As a genre that promises escape in a world where more people than ever find themselves confined to their lonesome, it's probably growing again, if anything.

In a few years, political Isekai might be the thing. Perhaps family/parenting on the account of most of the core readership having reached the respective age. Or something else entirely, who knows.

 

[EternalSunset0]

I don't think "standard" Isekai will be dying, but there seems to be some trends going on. It started off with all those RPG worlds, but now, as you said, it seems that kingdom-building/political Isekai's starting to boom. Villainess Isekai seemed to briefly have the limelight a year or so again, I think? It's Bakarina's fault

 

[SakeVision]

I don't think "standard" Isekai will be dying, but there seems to be some trends going on. It started off with all those RPG worlds, but now, as you said, it seems that kingdom-building/political Isekai's starting to boom. Villainess Isekai seemed to briefly have the limelight a year or so again, I think? It's Bakarina's fault

Vanness isekai is still doing great and dominating josei/otome genre, esp in manhwa and korean webcomics.

 

[A.P.R.L.]

Standard isekai in my time was someone being summoned or apppearing in a different world by some means or other, instead of being reincarnated in a new body...

It's just how things go. They constantly evolve, but there always comes a time when "old" things become fashionable again. So it will not die, but it might come a time when it becomes quieter in comparison to other new things.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Welcome to Earth, where time passes and your generation first becomes and then slowly stops being the dominant consumer

 

[Reisinling]

I don't think "standard" Isekai will be dying, but there seems to be some trends going on. It started off with all those RPG worlds, but now, as you said, it seems that kingdom-building/political Isekai's starting to boom. Villainess Isekai seemed to briefly have the limelight a year or so again, I think? It's Bakarina's fault

Personally I think kingdom building was booming like a year ago, though there are still remnants. I forgot to add it in my progression, but they were the second wave I think, though since fewer of them got animes made out of them, they didn't get as popular (maybe it will change?)

 

[Jemini]

If "standard isekais" were over, the anime adaptation of Mushoku Tensei would not be the hottest thing in all of anime right now.

I guess you can say that trends keep moving on for the trash-tier isekai, but if you just plain focus on writing a really good story then it really doesn't matter what collection of tropes you use. You've just gotta implement them really really well rather than just lazily tossing them in the soup. Every single last ability and feature you throw into the story needs to be for a reason.

Seirei Gensouki is another example of an isekai that uses all of the most tired old overdone cleche tropes, but implements them well. That's the level of praise I'll give it. It does not implement them REALLY FREAKING WELL to the point it's like you were hit by truck-kun yourself like it is in Mushoku Tensei. SG just manages to do it fairly well. So, SG is an example that you really don't even have to clear the bar by all that much in order to get away with using all the cleche tropes. All you have to do is just not write your isekai like a lazy trash-tier cash-grab.

 

[Reisinling]

If "standard isekais" were over, the anime adaptation of Mushoku Tensei would not be the hottest thing in all of anime right now.

I guess you can say that trends keep moving on for the trash-tier isekai, but if you just plain focus on writing a really good story then it really doesn't matter what collection of tropes you use. You've just gotta implement them really really well rather than just lazily tossing them in the soup. Every single last ability and feature you throw into the story needs to be for a reason.

Seirei Gensouki is another example of an isekai that uses all of the most tired old overdone cleche tropes, but implements them well. That's the level of praise I'll give it. It does not implement them REALLY FREAKING WELL to the point it's like you were hit by truck-kun yourself like it is in Mushoku Tensei. SG just manages to do it fairly well. So, SG is an example that you really don't even have to clear the bar by all that much in order to get away with using all the cleche tropes. All you have to do is just not write your isekai like a lazy trash-tier cash-grab.

I would say that anime is generally a year or two behind the breakneck pace of written isekai. It takes a year or two for webnovels to get picked up by publishers, and then it takes a year or two for that to get anime adaptation.

And my point wasn't necessarily that these stories are completely dead, just that they are no longer the main fare of webnovels, the same way there still are metal bands, but metal music is not mainstream in the same way it was 30 years ago.

 

[Echimera]

Was there ever such a thing like "standard" isekais in the first place?
Sure, what you describe is a very prominent part of the recent boom of the genre, and may well have boosted its popularity quite a lot, but that doesn't really make them a standard template for Isekai stories.

Remember, the genre is way older than the term, and not limited to Asian works and works derived after these templates. Though admittedly, many of the most prominent tropes of modern Isekai were codified during the early years of the big Isekai boom, and depending on how you look at it, that boom may have pushed it from a widely known and used trope to a genre on its own.
Still, I would count the Narnia series and Alice in Wonderland as Isekai just as much as most Digimon series, The Vision of Escaflowne or many a story regarding Fae in mythology.

 

[Jemini]

I would say that anime is generally a year or two behind the breakneck pace of written isekai. It takes a year or two for webnovels to get picked up by publishers, and then it takes a year or two for that to get anime adaptation.

And my point wasn't necessarily that these stories are completely dead, just that they are no longer the main fare of webnovels, the same way there still are metal bands, but metal music is not mainstream in the same way it was 30 years ago.

The tropes of the two specific isekai I named out are WAY older than the ones you were calling "standard isekai" on the opening. They were also considered tired and old by the anime viewing community, to the point they would actively rage and even drop a series just for exhibiting one of these tropes. However, when those 2 series did them, the same people who would normally complain about those tropes accepted it from those two with a smile of genuine joy on their faces.

Mushoku Tensei just does all of the old tropes SUPER well, making just the slightest adjustment to each of them in order to bring them more toward what would really happen. (Included in this is the fact that it actually crosses "that line" that all the others are too spineless to cross. The MC bangs the harem.)

Seirei Gensouki throws all the old and tired tropes up in your face as though it's trying to showcase each of them, saying "see? THIS is how you do this trope right!" And it does them like that over and over again. I will be honest, I had really gotten tired of it by the time the forced marriage one came up at a timing that just so happened to coincide with a point that the MC could do something about it. That may have been just a step too far. But, there were other elements still at play on that one that managed to make it work out in the end.

 

[Sabruness]

the "standard", or what you could call "classic" isekai, in it's original simple form is probably long over. As you pointed out, the meta of isekai stories has moved on yet again (and will probably shift yet again in a year or two).

I do think that it still exists, in a form, in the isekai meta but perhaps blended into some novels from various other isekai metas.

 

[BenJepheneT]

(Included in this is the fact that it actually crosses "that line" that all the others are too spineless to cross. The MC bangs the harem.)

fuck, now you spoiled it for me. I'm just at that point in the manga where mc finds out that bodyguard is his elf childhood friend during his time in the academy.

 

[Jemini]

fuck, now you spoiled it for me. I'm just at that point in the manga where mc finds out that bodyguard is his elf childhood friend during his time in the academy.

Oh be serious. It's already happened a couple books ago by that point in the story. Although that one was more of a 1-night stand sort of thing. Or, maybe they cut that part out in the manga? Honestly, that wouldn't surprise me.

You should be watching the anime or reading the lite or web novel version anyway. From what I've heard, the manga is an INCREDIBLY poor adaptation that cuts A LOT of important things out, or otherwise just doesn't deliver quite as well as the source material or the anime adaptation.

To everyone else though, sorry about that. I have spoilered the offending portion now.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Although that one was more of a 1-night stand sort of thing.[/ispoilers]

wait a moment, when you say MC bangs his harem i thought you meant he gained more members and went to town with them

fuck it, I'll ask upfront; has he only ever fucked ONCE or is there more to come?

 

[Jemini]

wait a moment, when you say MC bangs his harem i thought you meant he gained more members and went to town with them

fuck it, I'll ask upfront; has he only ever fucked ONCE or is there more to come?

More to come. Definitely more to come. A lot more to come. What partner(s) though, I will keep that one under my hat unless you specifically ask me for more spoilers.

My comment there was half facetious to cover up and throw people off from the spoiler, but at the same time I would thing that with how this series goes deep and realistic on adult relations that most people should have been able to predict it anyway even before the 1st one with Eris. And it's definitely not the sort of thing that is designed to just stop at once.

Don't worry, that stuff is going to stay a side interest. The series isn't about to become a hentai.

 

[PhillisCreziles]

Standard isekai. I don't think they will die out that easily.