Just as the title says so,
Some of my friends agrees that time-travel is isekai, while others doesn't... because it's not like 'reincarnated in another world', but 'transported to a future time'.
Now I'm totally confused if I'm gonna include the tag or not?
Your friends are either dumb or ignorant of what isekai mean. Isekai (otherworld/another world) mean going to another world by any mean, being reincarnation, portal to another dimension, transmigration, etc...
Inuyasha is different cause it's either the past era and then it's not an isekai or just another dimension who are almost identical, explaining the fantasy element Kagome encounter there.
Edit: If you want an old isekai in the same years as Inuyasha, you have escaflown
I feel like if it's time travel to a time that's so different to what the main character is used to, to the point it's like an entirely different world, it's technically isekai. Like getting sent to a fantasy-inspired version of the past, like the world of King Arthur.
Well, by definition, Isekai is literally otherworld so no amount of time travelling can ever fulfill the criteria. It's just...the virtue of that word, I (Other) + sekai (world). That being said...
I need to make a stand for my first anime ever. Inuyasha is not Isekai; it's a combination of time travel, urban fiction, and historical fiction. The reason why it might be mistaken as Isekai is because the world of Inuyasha is so similar to our own, but if you think about it, they're not actually the same.
Inuyasha's Japan isn't our Japan; in our Japan, we don't actually have yokai flying around, we don't have evil demonic swords, and we don't have wish-granting jewels. But they sure do in Inuyasha's Japan. There were multiple instances where fictional elements appeared in Kagome's timeline, and that would fit the criteria for urban fiction. The sengokku era of Inuyasha would fit the criteria for historical fiction. And since Kagome goes back and forth between those two, time travel. But Isekai doesn't work; it's the same world, it's not "other" world.
Think of it this way: if we lived in a world where demons and magical swords and wish-granting jewels were around, Inuyasha wouldn't even seem like Isekai to us either.
Based on reader expectation, I would say no. Time travel is not what one expects from an Isekai story.
In practice, I would say it depends on how you implement time travel. It's regression or similar to Back to the Future, I would still say no.
Some stories do feature the protagonsit in a stone age world, but they don't necessarily specify whether that is the past of the original world or simply a new one.
In Lord of the Mysteries, the protagonist initially appears to have entered another world, but it is later revealed that is simply the future of his own world (in which Lovecraftian style entities have interacted a bit more since he left via a form of stasis). Basically, you can use the Isekai tag if you want to deceive the readers with an unreliable or non-omniscient narrator.
However, there are notions of time travel which specify a person can't interfere with their own timeline (to avoid paradoxes), which in effect creates another world the moment before the person arrives in which they arrive while leaving the original world, which corresponds to their past, intact. Alternatively, there is Isaac Asimov's time travel story, "The Instability" (wikipedia), in which the time travel back to the future from the past puts one outside the universe.
Then there is the possibly that, rather than entering a time machine, someone does transmigrate into the world as it was in the past. That obvious isn't their world. Actually, I have to wonder if Sleds was being sarcastic, because the first half of the comment seems like the perfect support for answering "yes".
A quick bit of research suggests yields this paper on Isekai stories (download .pdf on click). It was published in the "Journal of Anime and Manga Studies". I haven't checked the jouranal's or article' reliability or whether it's peer-reviewed, but such a standard doesn't seem necessary at this time.
“Other world” stories include any story that involves a setting that is outside the
“real” or “everyday” world. Other worlds can be defined spatially (a different land or
planet), temporally (a past or future age), or as simply being different.
As others pointed out, Isekai can be translated as "Other World".
Later on, the author directly cites Inuyasha as an Isekai.
I have not read the entirety of the paper yet.
For time travel like that, I argue that it is Isekai because via time travel an "other" world, not their own, has been entered.
I would also suggest Inuyasha is an Isekai since I am not aware of any Yokai from Inuyasha's world living through old age into Kagome's world. Absent clear evidence that time is the primary difference between their worlds (and the Yokai suggests otherwise) I see no reason to conclude otherwise. Similar but parallel worlds separated by time do exist in stories. I admit I only watched the first season of the Anime (I think).
My eyes and head are aching, so I'll stop refing this post. Long story short, it could go either depending on implementation and definition, though the safe answer is no.
The thing is, and I'm just too lazy to currently look for the kanji (y'know those moonrunes), but Isekai is literally composed of the kanji for "different" + "world", so you can either argue that every sci-fi is Isekai since there are "different" worlds or that the Isekai genre only applies if the "world" as in the "setting" differs from the previous one.
Which was for marketing reasons as far as I understood. Nobody would say no if asked "Is your story that existed before this super mega ultra popular genre actually part of this super mega ultra popular genre?" Same reason some people at Bamco try to sell Digimon as Isekai in their marketing, even tho the digital world is established as part of their world and setting.
Stories like Inuyasha, Narnia or Digimon AREN'T Isekai, they're Portal Fantasy. You have an established way between worlds snd both worlds have at least heard of each other. Characters from world A could go to world B and vice versa. I mean that genre exists since Alice in Wonderland if not longer, so why replace it with an even broader term?
Just as the title says so,
Some of my friends agrees that time-travel is isekai, while others doesn't... because it's not like 'reincarnated in another world', but 'transported to a future time'.
Now I'm totally confused if I'm gonna include the tag or not?
Some people consider time travel Isekai because it is said to be impossible to go to the same timeline you have come from; therefore, if you're in another point in time and your actions do not mean there will be consequences for your original timeline, you are in another world. Which is what happens most of the time: although you have gone back to the past, your actions do not mean you will cease to exist once you kill your mother (your current self in the past, and not just your traces which you existed in the "future").
It all depends on what you mean by "Isekai" and which definition of "Time Travel" you are using. Everything can be possible, though most of the time, it's all handled very sloppily.
Just as the title says so,
Some of my friends agrees that time-travel is isekai, while others doesn't... because it's not like 'reincarnated in another world', but 'transported to a future time'.
Now I'm totally confused if I'm gonna include the tag or not?
Isekai literally means "another world" translated from japanese. Those friends that say that it is considered one needs to be checked if they're a tourist
