Spyke
aussie.zone

They do the isekai thing so then the world building happens naturally as we watch the clueless dork explore the fantasy world and encounter stuff.

Otherwise you have to find ways to explain stuff to the audience when the characters grew up in that world and should already know all about it, so don't need to discuss things.

68
Squidsreply
sopuli.xyz

Otherwise you have to find ways to explain stuff to the audience when the characters grew up in that world and should already know all about it, so don't need to discuss things.

...you mean worldbuild organically like any other story set in a universe that isn't our own? Countless shows and stories have been doing that for centuries, why should anime get a special little exception?

84
spauldoreply
lemmy.ml

Hard to do with the axe hanging over your head. "Sorry, but chapter 3 didn't score high enough in our magazine poll so we're killing your serialization."

15

Most Isekais are Novels. Barely any pressure in writing for most of those companies (or at least, not that type of pressure).

3

Countless shows and stories have been doing that for centuries, why should anime get a special little exception?

Imagine the intelligence and attention-span of your average Anime fan. Now realize half of anime fans have lower levels of attention and intelligence.

11
lemmy.wtf

And for centuries they have been struggling to find good ways to present that newly built world in a natural way. Just because good examples exist doesnt make it an easy thing to accomplish. Bad fantasy stories have also existed for centuries.

You may call it lazy, but you gotta admit that with isekai settings presenting a new world is easy and natural.

And its not like only animes use that. Harry poter, Narnia, Peter Pen, Alice In Wonderland, Tron Legacy etc etc... All have clueless main characters finding themselves in a new world.

10

I think that overusing ideas that affect the premise of a story isnt nearly as bad as overusing ideas that affect its progress/conclusion, like Disney's plot twist villains, "i am your father" and white knight cliches.

Stuck in another world, stuck in a death game or a "chosen one journey" cliches make the beggining seem unoriginal, but can develope in so many ways that as a reader/viewer, i dont mind if the idea is overused as long as the story that follows is good and original.

1

Yeah, but explaining it to someone who is new to the setting as an audience insert is easier!

1
CoderKatreply
lemm.ee

I think this is often what amnesia is so common in fiction, too, despite being extremely rare in the real world. It provides a convenient plot device, both to perform exposition and for some inevitable gotcha behind either their identity, how they lost their memory, or some other major revelation from their past (seriously, has there ever been a case of amnesia in fiction where they didn't conveniently forget some big, plot relevant thing?).

14

I would love one where the person forgets who they are and what happened to them, but they remember the big plot point and have no idea why they know or why it is important.

Pretty sure there are some that already exist, but can't think of any off the top of my head.

8

Yeah it’s similar to why hidden world fantasy is popular. Or some rube idiot protagonist. It’s a lot harder to do something like mistborn where everyone knows what a basic allomancer can do without it either sounding weird or the author thinking it does

8
programming.dev

Too short, append ", but I'm a level 2 demon lord?" to the end.

30

why does everything have to be relatable to this miserable prison planet existance

26

Also, japanese weebs/neckbeards need some relatable protagonist, who gets to live a life they never will, harem and all.

7

Also, since the main character is an audience insert it gives the author an excuse to expo-dump.

4

I liked the approach of Tearmoon Empire a lot. Instead of typical isekai, the main character from the same universe time travels to her past right after she dies by guillotine. Everything she does is to avoid dying again, her personality at its core doesn't change. Would reccomend it on the next anime season.

8
lemmy.world

Well they tried that with arguably the most well known fantasy world in existence, D&D, and it flopped because too many people need their worlds spoon fed to them.

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demletreply
lemmy.world

Relative to its budget it was considered sort of a box office failure, from what I've heard. Maybe I'm mistaken. It was probably my favorite movie of the past few years for what it's worth, wasn't trying to bash it.

8

From what I remember it was considered kind of a failure for the budget it had. I personally loved it, to be clear. As far as I know, I'm not retarded, although people who interact with me socially might disagree.

5

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Isekai | Spyke