Is Time Travel Isekai?
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
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In the depths of his Mother's Basement, Geoff Thew creates videos analyzing the storytelling techniques of anime and video games. He has been named the number one Worst CZcams Anime Reviewer by The Top Tens. - Krátké a kreslené filmy
If time travel is counted as Isekai, you have to acknowledge that Futurama counts as Isekai. Boring, down on his luck everyman protagonist "dies," wakes up in a strange new world, becomes wildly important out of nowhere, befriends a strange cast of lovable misfits while going on adventures, and eventually ends up with the main girl who is arguably way out of his league.
And?
Oh its worse, Outlander would be Isekai
Futurama is isekai. 100% even when he got back to his own time Fry still chooses to get back to 3001.
Demolition Man starring Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stalone is an Isekai
Futurama sidesteps that by being a spacefaring futuristic setting. Since it has labels that fit it better, the isekai setting barely applies. Plus he awakes in a future world that still has traces of his original past. There was an episode, for example, where Fry finds the frozen remains of his dead dog. And several locations still resemble the past, if just barely.
So nope, not isekai. The viewer, and the character, can both still recognize their home world, do this is not “another world”.
Does anyone ever bring up Chronicles of Narnia as an Isekai? It pretty much hits all the marks.
I just reread all the books. It’s definitely an Isekai.
@@Roseforever84 how about legend of oz?
@@airplanes_aren.t_real the oz books definitely are since Dorothy actually physically travels there. The movie's a bit fuzzier since it's a dream
There has been more agreement about Narnia's isekai status than there has been about Avatar's anime status.
@whiteraven562 oh I had no idea she actually travels there or there was book learning so much before I hit the sack
Stuff like Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, and Wizard of Oz made me realize this genre always existed but we never put a name to it till Japan did it for us.
It was called portal fantasy.
Whilst Narnia undoubtedly has travel to other worlds, Alice is only dreaming and Oz is just a country in the real world.
@@Showsni Dreaming counts, but you're right about Oz.
It was just called Fantasy, period. And honestly, the label is not what tainted the idea, it was the barrage of low quality light novel adaptations.
Japan didn't invent any name, Isekai literally means "other world", and people have always called other world fantasies as such even if it wasn't an agreed upon term, we just started calling it "Isekai" because we're weebs.
Inuyasha is so isekai that i once had an argument with a friend about whether it counted as a time travel anime. She was adamant that it couldn't be counted because it only "uses time travel as a vessel for isekai" and "doesn't explore time travel conceptts" and couldn't be two things at once. So this video is Extremely gratifying.
Well, there was the ONE time travel conceit in Kagome meeting Kikyo, the person Kagome is a reincarnation of.
Inuyasha does occasionally indulge in time travel shenanigans though, I recall one monster of the week episode where Kagome travelled back to her present to find the remains of a demon they were having trouble fighting in the past.
@@Grasslander Isekai is literally translated as different world/other world. MMO style anime is just faaaaar easier to convey and translate the complex reasons behind the plot devices. its a relatable interface that makes isekai work but its not required.
Not All MMO anime is isekai. else we will be here a while.
but lets say, "it was intended to only refer to MMO sytle world." that' ship set sail and sunk because the consensus has it meaning to include all transported to a different world. just like other words had one meaning before and now have a different one that is more widely accepted. using the old meaning is conceding to the fact that you will be misunderstood, both intentionally and unintentionally.
Time travel = sci-fi
Isekai = magic
Stuck in a videogame = stuck in a videogame
If you time travel by magic, magic is the main playing theme when you get there, or through the magic known facts about history have been significantly altered, and if there's a way back to the present then it is also magic, then you have been isekaid if kagomi had built a time machine to go fuck a raptor then that would sci-fi.
I think Inuyasha is a reverse isekai every time kogome goes back to the modern world because Inuyasha has to go there and bring her back. Lol imagine human inuyasha in school foe awhile because of a curse.
_“The best isekai…Army of Darkness”_ made me smile
Hail to the King, baby.
Hail to the king.
Travels back in time via magic portal to fight an army of undead demons and returns via a different portal, checks out.
If I had been drinking my tea at that moment, I would have spit it out.
Hail to the King, baby.
Groovy
I once got in a debate with a friend about whether Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, and random time travel romance shows/ novels like Outlander are the same basic concept as isekai. I still argue that they are.
I mean isakai definition is basically: go to another world. So you right
They're absolutely isekai
Are acid trips an Isekai?
I mean, Outlander is basically a low-fantasy version of Inuyasha
Are dream stories isekai?
"Isekai-ologist" is a crazy title and I don't think any human should take it upon themselves to be that for their own sanity sake, but as an enjoyer of the the occasional Isekai, I appreciate the work and efforts of said individuals.
I fear the people who watch every new isekai of every season of anime released
I think it depends on the context. IMO Isekai is when the protagonist is sent to a world that’s far removed from everything they thought they knew or understood. Usually this means a fantasy world, but I do believe it can also refer to time travel if done in a specific way.
DR Stone is not an Isekai IMO. The future Senku finds himself in operates under the same exact rules as the past (other than the mysterious event that took place in the beginning). There was also no time traveling done to get to where he was. Time progressed as usual, he just couldn’t move for a few thousand years. Sure the series can be a little over the top in its depictions of scientific processes, but it’s still relatively grounded.
However on the flip side, Inuyasha is absolutely an Isekai. Kagome frequently hops between modern day and feudal Japan via a portal. And the feudal Japan depicted is one with magic and demons. Far removed from the feudal Japan she thought she knew from schoolbooks. It’s practically a completely different world.
I've broken it down to if you travel through time via magic it's usually isekai, but if you travel through time via sci-fi elements it's a time travel story.
Agreed not sure why Dr stone would ever be confused with isekia
Inu Yasha is not an isekai. Any world where the threat is real is not an isekai. Isekai anime sucks balls.
Tanya of evil is an Isekai and the world is very similar to the guys original world to the point history goes in a similar direction which he takes advantage of by used our world's military knowledge
@@TheFourthWinchester lmao that's not how it works. It has the conventions of the genre so it is isekai, same as Mushoku Tensei and Re Zero, two isekai where the threat is real
I'm going to show my age, but there was no term for Isekai when I started watching anime. Back then we called the whole "person moved from their normal world" an "interdimensional exile" anime. That covers space, time and other worlds. So, for me it is a yes. It counts.
"Masters of the Universe!"...reverse Isekai. America!
Damn. Now you've made me feel old too.
Digimon Adventures: The Definitive Isekai
Ah yes, the El Hazard, Escaflowne, and Those Who Hunt Elves generation
When I started watching there was no term for it yet as well, and the medium was way better for it.
Isekai is usually about showing what happens a modern human is dropped into a world that is nothing like the current world. Going back 20 years isn't really Isekai, but going back 200 might be.
Ok but if you grabbed someone from 2003 and brought them to 2023 I'm pretty sure they'd think it's a completely different world from their's
@@airplanes_aren.t_real So basically people that go to prison for 20-30 years
Completely?
Unfamiliar for sure and the role of technology is stronger but not even close to enough in your time hopping example
Better 20 year hop would be between actual major changes in our history like industrial revolution
I'm not saying that there have not been changes in your choice but the person might be able to live exactly the same way he/she did in your example
Of course that's location dependent as well, some places change in different times in history
I mean, once you think about it, Futurama is basically an isekai
20 years ago is so insanely different it is absolutely an isekai. Wtf are you smoking?
Fun fact: the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon from the 80's count as isekai. A group of teenagers from our world get transported to another and are given special powers to fight an evil overlord type...
Interestingly, the oldest pure example of isekai I can find is Guardians Of The Flame by Joel Rosenberg, which is a very brutal and realistic view of a group of gamers isekai'd into their ttrpg characters and the world they played in...
Also D&D has another isekai trope in that they are transported to a world that is clearly based on an Earth role playing game and they all adopt game character attributes (classes) from that game.
It even counts as an anime because it was animated by Toei.😉
Wait! Another person who has read "Guardians Of The Flame"? I'm not the only one! I was ever so very lonely....
@@biggusgeekus2561 Not nearly the only one, it's a vastly under-rated and under-appreciated series. The same could apply to all of his work, sadly.
D&D didn’t just inspire isekai fiction - isekai fiction inspired D&D! Three Hearts and Three Lions was listed in an official appendix as an influence, and its plot is pure isekai. Among other things, it’s where we get D&D paladins, law vs. chaos, and dwarves being Scottish.
I've been reading a lot of Chinese and Korean Manga recently, quite a few of them started with "I've been reborn as myself as a child/teen.young adult" and almost all of them decide that with their foreknowledge of what's about to happen the best thing they should do is become a psychopath.
But to counteract their knowledge of events, the world always seems to move faster, making most of their knowledge useless.
I love the way that the story/history tries to correct itself in those kinds of mangas
@@bboops23 Same. I appreciate it.
Actually Japan also starting to follow this trend. I can mention some like Tearmoon Empire, where the princess travel back time to her younger days. There's also that one where the MC always return time up to 99 times until she can start to fix the future.
I do have to say you missed one of the most popular time travel stories. One which no one could legitimately argue AGAINST it's Isekainess. The original Planet of The Apes. Modern dude gets proverbially hit by Space-Truck-Kun and wakes up in a completely different (to him) world. It even has animal people and a proto harem in later installments. Oh, and protag-kun is more skilled and smarter than every other human on this world since he can communicate with the Ape masters.
If that isn't Isekai, then the term is too narrow to be meaningful anyway.
It's as much an isekai as "Now and Then, Here and There", which was brought up in the video.
And in the third movie the apes go back in time to human ruled earth to make it a reverse isekai
We don't talk about the OG Planet of the Apes
Speaking of anime, Geoff also missed the MANY Doraemon movies that existed since the late 70s.
Yep, this franchise is older than Gundam. And they mostly come with new movies each year since the 1980s.
@@Grasslander Way to copy and paste spam every comment in this video. That's pretty tacky.
For me personally Time traveling only counts as isekai when the time you travel to or from changes the fundamental rules of the world. Such as traveling into a future where magic exists when The time you traveled from didn't have magic. Inuyashua for example is isekai because She traveled from a future where there is no demons to a past that does have demons. PS. In retrospect time travel needs to be about of 500 years of difference.
>isaki
@@jendorei fixed it
@@Grasslander 🤔 I don't care; about Etymology of the word. Only the modern connotation. And not even that very much considering I commenting on my subjective usage/definition of the word.
@@Grasslander If you're going to be that stingy with the term. You may as well say ...
Isn't a heroic story if the hero isn't chosen by the gods; Isn't a adventure if they hero doesn't fight a dragon, or something similar, with a magic sword; Or isn't sci-fi if there's no space travel.
Just because the term started with a specific type of story, doesn't mean it can't include stories with a similar core but different setting.
@@VivioSaf Well, the thing is there are so many isekai that fit within that narrow definition that the word can still do work as a definition that specific
one of the primary details missing from this conversation, is that the English equivalent of Isekai, isn't "another world" (or litrpg).. The English version of Isekai is called portal fantasy. And if you look at a lot of these examples it matches pretty well, while also clearly including Narnia, Alice in wonderland, a wrinkle in time, and yankee in king authors court (the examples I use when talking to someone from an older generation about modern anime or books)
There are two Isekai, the Isekai of everything before SAO, and the Isekai of everything after SAO. Both are identifiable entirely by vibe, the prior being the vibe of innocence, adventure, and wonder, and the latter being the vibe of a laundry hamper full of socks that smell very strongly of something that definitely isn't sweat.
💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
I mean, there are a few exceptions to that description, but in general... yes.
@@joda7697 I would love to hear about these "exceptions" you speak of.
Yes, time travel is totally Isekai. My best example for an American one is "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain. Another fine example is "Army of Darkness" a film by Sam Rami that stars Bruce Campbell.
You’re gonna like this video I think
No.
Mark Twain: the original light novel author.
@@mothersbasement watch Kotaro lives alone
For reference for all the future comment readers who can’t see the exact times, this comment was made 4 minutes after the video went up.
Here’s another question: Is the upcoming Super Mario Bros animated Movie an Isekai since Mario and Luigi are transported to the Mushroom Kingdom?🤔
Hard to say, but if so then the original live action movie would also be!
If the mushroom kingdom is in the same world as mario then no, it's just a fish out of water story
It's sorta like asking if captain America going to asia to fight bad guys would be an isekai
@@airplanes_aren.t_real or going to 7-11 is an isekai
@@airplanes_aren.t_real My prediction is that the Mario bros will get sucked down an inter-dimensional pipe while on a plumber job since we see Mario get spat out of one in one of the trailers and the existence of their plumber business.
I think "portal fantasy" might be a more appropriate term
I think one of the things that separates Inyuasha from other Isekais isn't the Time Travel but instead Kagome's situation in this Other World.
From the moment Kagome falls into the well she is never really stuck down there. In most Isekais the main character is pretty much unable or downright unwilling to leave the Other World.
Kagome, after the first few episodes, pretty much has free reign to come an go as she pleases, and often times she does.
I see a lot of people get stuck on that. I agree. There’s an idea of isekai requiring the characters to be stuck in the other world though having read a lot of stories of other worlds I’ve found being stuck is not always used. I don’t think that’s a hard rule for the genre like people make it out to be.
what about GATE where they have a portal to go back and forth between japan and the fantasy world. It isnt even time travel its full isekai but the ability to just move between both worlds puts in on the same level as inuyasha
Excited as F*CK for the Happy Science cult video! The previous parts have felt like an Isekai in which Geoff is an observer from our world taking us through the bizarre adventures of whacky spirit people in their quest for seizing the wallets and lives of the cult's followers, while trying to make it out with his sanity intact. Kind of.
You might as well call the whole Precure franchise isekai.
Fairies come from a different world to transform girls into Precure.
Heck, Hirogaru Sky Precure is basically a reverse isekai.
Besides Sky Precure, some Cures are from different worlds. Cure Passion, and Beat are good examples.
And Star Twinkle had the Precure going to different planets.
Genre and subgenre are primarily defined by mood, aesthetic, and what happens to the main characters (aka plot). Like, Cowboy Bebop is absolutely a western, but not because of that one episode with Andy. I'm not familiar with precure, but unless the fairies are the primary protagonist or viewpoint character, I don't think that would count for most people. I could definitely be missing something though.
Sora was absolutely reverse-isekaid to earth.
No, thats reverse isekai, like The Devil is a Part Timer
Got this notification while I was watching my favourite isekai “Back to the Future”
I'm going forward to the past
I've always liked the definition of genre as "a collection of media in conversation with each other". Like a manor house dinner party, mostly you talk to the people right next to you with occasional comments across the table.
Some things are more involved in one end of the conversation than an other and others are in more than one (Trigun and Cowboy Bebop are both in the scifi and western conversations along with Westworld but at different corners).
A really good conversationalist make cogent observations on many different topics.
Your mention of Zipang reminded me of the weirdest book series I've ever read (which definitely counts as an isekai), Destroyermen. It's about a WWII destroyer which is sent to an alternate reality where the dinosaurs never went extinct, and intelligent lemurs are at war with intelligent velociraptors.
In Dr. Stones case, it might as well have been an Isekai. Especially given that Senkus method of introducing science to a newly barbarianized society has a lot of similarities with a protagonist doing that in a typical Dragon Quest fantasy world.
It kind of feels like an isekai.
Even if it's still earth, it has changed into a "different world."
Senku also had to adapt to this world. Yes he's smart, but his physicality created some obstacles whereas before he was turned into stone, he was able to acquire a lot of resources.
It's terms of living a new life in the new world, then it would be more like a time travel (which can still be considered isekai), but in terms of the reasons why he's there and his goal, then it would not be isekai, because he's not trying to return to his original world, he builds the same one just from the very bottom, and without doing any unnatural things, which is the reason why his world is still the same as his original one. He uses the same technologies-based instruments (except the formula of making people come back from stone)
@@notationmusical But he adapted by already knowing how the world worked.
After past 3700 years, senku is petrified at the same as the others, fortunate enough senku is a genius, unfortunately for others educational background that were impractical on a stone age era.
Same case here, it might be, but if alienation was the main aspect of Isekai, that's divisive and I'll lean towards no.
I usually consider Isekai to be “unfamiliar” world rather than “another” world. Under that definition, severe enough culture shock could be isekai, even without time travel. Personally I consider Percy Jackson (the better YA series about a Mary Sue with secret magic) to be an isekai, just as an example.
No matter what side you fall on, I think it's just straight up a fun conversation to have. You could explore all sorts of non anime fiction from cultures across the world and ask that question. (Maybe it HAS to be anime to be isekai? I dunno, and don't care lol.) I like to think of Wizard of Oz as an isekai.
It is
To me it's a very boring conversation because one side is objectively correct and there are no possible arguments to ever support the other. All the conversation does is point out which of your friends are incapable of intelligent thought.
You must be a real blast at parties.
It's the anime equivalent of the "are hot dogs a sandwich" debate.
I just realized that my Real Life Father is an Isiaka protagonist.
He was born in 1935, making him 88 this year.
When he was born in Rural Nebraska. They did not have electricity or running water. They had literal horse drawn wagons to get to town. Only the local wealthy had cars..... no tires though, he was 4 when WW2 began and remembers VE and VJ days.
He saw the Birth and Death of the Soviet Union. Literally, the rise and fall of Empires.
In the 50's, he was in the Navy. They talked about transistors being a theory that would soon be coming.
He saw the birth of computers, the introduction to the home, he even had a proto-Internet service that he could look up grain prices on. He was an early adopter. I was the first kid whose parents loaned a cell phone to in order to call when we were coming home from out of town games.
He was a farmer, he saw everything from horse drawn plows all the way to GPS enabled self-driving Tractors and Combines.
My beloved Father, the Isiaka protagonist.
I think if you're going to say time travel as a form of isekai, the key is how recognizable the world is compared to what the hero is used to. I also don't think the Tokyo Revengers comparison is good because the setting is only as unrecognizable as scenarios you could get into without any form of time travel or world travel. Like, there are a number of stories where a character is deaged without any sort of either (An easy recent example would be Onemai). A 60 year leap where the world is still similar and just has slightly more advanced tech but people are living in isn't an isekai, a 20 year leap to a post apocalyptic world might. The point is isekai is used to explore a setting that is straight up impossible in the confines of the modern world and where the disconnect from the modern world is key to the experience. Any connections that do exist must be limited, and there needs to be a distinct dividing line between the 2. Isekai where the characters can travel back and forth tend to have strict delineations between both for example, with only a limited number of travelers. Hell, the very concept of back and forth inherently requires a strict delineation between both settings.
I'm thinking: If a person went back in time to a more Primitive version of Earth or Futuristic, that isn't another world, it's just the same world but changed abit or didn't change yet.
like the post apocaliptic haren i forgot the name, where every man died, except the ones who were cryogenically frozen because they had some disease, the world is different enough to fell like another world, but the plot is all about lewd, so there isn't a lot to explore
Every story can be an Isekai if you travel far enough.
like Gulliver's Travels
@@maleprincess5559 I personally don't think that those count, I feel like if you followed that logic then "trip to the center of the earth" is an isekai
Isekai means different world not "unexplored part of the world"
Btw loved your pfp and username
That sounds like an inspirational quote
@@maleprincess5559 "the world" is relevant to the character. If the character is unfamiliar with the environment, then it's an other world.
Being alienated does felt surreal and otherworldly, like visiting Morocco and Japan.
in the same timeline; Center of the earth isn't an isekai, how that pilot met Wonder woman in Amazon island isnt an Isekai, Gullivers travel is an Isekai. I think it's the way how they get transported 🤷
Every once in a while Mother's Basement casually mentions Sonny Boy, and my heart grows three sizes from the reminder that other people out there are thinking about that absolutely buck-wild arthouse piece.
I'm just sitting here quietly admiring the phrase "getting Isekai'd into Walmart Gundam."
Part of the general monomyth is a change from normalcy into the world of the Unknown, the protagonist changing over the course of the adventure into the unknown, and then deciding whether to remain in their current existence or return to their previous life. Traditional Isekai tend to focus on the culture shock of finding yourself in a world vastly different from your own (vast being a keyword) and often uses isolation to examine if the idea of living in a fantastical world is worth abandoning your previous life over if you have to deal with these new challenges.
It is strange that we don't have an english term to distinguish the "normal person placed in different world" genre that has popularized in modern time thanks to series like Harry Potter. People tend to not view time travel as Isekai because it tends to fall into Historical or Sci-fi depending on the setting. But if you want to measure it, the bigger the difference between the normal/modern world and the "other world" tends to make something more isekai than other genres.
btw Samurai Jack best isekai
>It is strange that we don't have an english term to distinguish the "normal person placed in different world" genre that has popularized in modern time thanks to series like Harry Potter
Portal Fantasy. Even relatively "modern" examples go back to the 1800's, but there are also examples from Greek Mythology.
Finally, I’ll find out if I was right when I posted on Reddit saying “Back to the Future is an Isekai”
Fingers crossed I’m right
Loved this essay, Geoff. Thanks for the awesome content, I really enjoy watching your videos and discussing these topics with my friends :)
Most of those criteria would also apply to stories where the character doesn't change worlds OR time but simply ends up discovering a parallel Magical Society like most magical girl shows or even Harry Potter...
Going from living under a staircase to a magical charter school in a castle in rural Scotland seems like it more than qualifies.
Harry Potter is an isekai. The literal plot of the story is about his adventures in a new world.
I see you. If I had a nickel for every CZcamsr who references Phineas and Ferb while crafting a video essay I'd have two nickels. Which isn't much but I love that it's happened twice.
Wait, when???
Just 2?
If I had a nickel for every CZcamsr who references Doraemon when talking about time travel in anime, I'd have none.
Which is saddening.
@@Nelsito99 just the two nickels sentence alone i heard at least 30 times
Nah, the two nickel reference has become a pretty popular saying in the last few years to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people saying it don't even realize it came from Phineas and Ferb.
I'd say Inuyasha counts as Kagome doesn't just travel to the Sengoku period, she travels to a Sengoku period full of Youkai and has to fight a Demon Lord.
if she was thrown into the world of samurai champloo or kenshin it would still not feel like her own world.
Yeah, like if in the present (where Kagome born) yokais and magic exist and she go to Sengoku period where yokais rule ghe world ok it is nog Isekai, but Kagome come from a world without Yokais and magic to a world full of them.
@@gamongames Maybe, but those would still be pretty believable as the past of Japan. Especially Kenshin as the characters of that series more or less operated in the shadows and were based on people from that era of history.
@@MWhaleK kenshin is basically just alt history, it isn't trying to be a differet world it is just the past with absurdly powerful samurai, but a lot of it is based on actual history
And the well is a portal. Portal fantasy is just the old isekai stories before reincarnation became the new way to get to the other world.
I'm here for every Discussion of Genre you can toss out. More please! I love it when people take the idea of genre classifications seriously. I know they are made up and ultimately unimportant to the enjoyment of a work, but they still have value and it's worth having these discussions.
Isekai isn't about the journey, it's about the destination. Is the place you end up completely different, Another World? Congratulations, you got Isekai.
Stargate is an Isekai
inuyasha is both an isekai and a reverse-isekai and it is the best one of both genres, no i will not be taking questions at this time
@@Grasslander not all isekai are in the mmo world, youjo senki is anything but mmo, but it's still considered an 100% isekai
This man is out here answering the real questions that all weebs need.
No I still don't know if I need a shower
Did anyone ask this though? Did anyone fail to just respond "no" out of the gate if someone did ask? If words still have meaning, then the answer is just no.
@@ChrisMorray Well ... considering that there are people who will call any show that has a fantasy setting with a "generic mc" a Isekai. I think is a good question to respond to, even if no one asked!
Also, I saw people, un-ironically, saying that stories with "reincarnation", "time travel" and even "banned from the hero party", are close enough to be a Isekai.
@@VivioSaf Well every single one of those people you mentioned are idiots who saw one isekai with those traits and assume everything that shares one of those traits is an isekai. Reincarnation is only an isekai if it's in another world (I assume they saw the Slime one), time travel is also only another world if they change both world and time (I assume they saw Drifters), and banned from the party has nothing to do with isekai and is just an unrelated plot point (I assume they saw Rising of Shield Hero).
Why waste time on these idiotic questions? They have easy, short answers that require less than 10 seconds to google.
@@ChrisMorray The post I saw was on one of those were "The OP mc dies and reincarnates thousands of years later, when the magic got degraded" ... so I don't think was Slime!
On the "Why waste time on these idiotic questions?"
I could go philosophical with something like "Is discussing the impossible, that we find the possible", but it's better to just say:
While Idiots will always be Idiots, you could, at least, give it a chance to save the uninformed.
6:20 loved the Phineas and Ferb Reference ngl
Banger video Geoff!!! Very interesting! REally gets you thinking...
But now, I'm gonna go relax and watch one of my favorite Isekais:
Futurama!
Holy crap! I've never been this early for one of your vids! If you're reading this, you rock!
I will say that any time that you take a character and transplant them into a world that is fundamentally different in some way, it is Isekai.
In the barest sense Isekai is a fish out of water story where your character has to deal with having a safety net of some kind stripped away.
You are so good at making videos like this. Thank you for a great laugh this morning.
this video is extremely insightful
a conversation to hopefully delve more into in the future
That time I die and got reincarnated in my mothers basement
Oh this is a fun one and I’ve been thinking about it too, but not specifically about isekai. As in, I watch and read a lot of donghua and manhua now, where “isekai”’s equivalent is 穿越 (chuanyue), which is commonly translated as “transmigration.”
And while there are a _lot_ of transmigration stories into different worlds, whether the setting be a xianxia novel like in _Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System,_ a game like in _Kiss the Abyss,_ or just simply another (fantasy) world like in _How’d I Get a Heroine’s Script_ and _You Yao._ But beyond that, time travel stories in their original Chinese language also use the term “transmigration,” as seen with _The Warrior from Qin_ and _Don’t Say You Love Me_ (and maybe _Link Click,_ at least temporarily??).
It’s pretty interesting since transmigration is equivalent to isekai, but I guess both the Chinese and English of 穿越/transmigration suggests “travel” and “passing through” rather than “another world.”
So…basically it can feel odd to equate the two, but as this video does show, there’s actually a lot of correlation between them. 😆
I do hope that we're gonna get a full video on Army of Darkness sooner rather than later.
The title already makes me think of a section of the "isekai survival guide"
i do miss Public service anime, and wish you'd do more
What a coincidence, just watching through Inuyasha in its entirety since I only ever caught episodes here and there the rare times kid me woke up at 3am 😂
Maybe as much as VR isekai? Both Have characters kind of going to a different world but not really. And how fantastical/close to real history the different time is matters. Like in the case of Inuyasha, how is it determined that it's the past and not a different world?.
@@Grasslander Isekai is a name invented for the fantasy of going to a different world. They often have MMO/RPG-like elements, but those are not required for it to be isekai. And the setting can be scifi instead of medievalesque. Are you seriously saying Bookworm isn't isekai because it doesn't have exp and Myne doesn't call up a status screen to check out her skills?
Clicked as soon as I saw Inuyasha in the thumbnail. Sorry, didnt make it to the end of the vid, but fully enjoyed your summary of the series, and the verbal wink to Ranma 1/2.
I can't believe you mentioned Buddy Complex in a video. No one has ever done that before.
Zipang has effectively the same plot as the 1980 American film “The Final Countdown”. In the film the uss Nimitz is sent to Pearl Harbor the day of the attack and have to decide what to do.
0:10
"How much of the avatar movi-"
*There's no movie in ba sing se*
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"...the BEST isekai, Army of Darkness."
All I can say is... hail to the king, baby!
Silver Spoon video?! You must! I swear nobody wants to talk about it but it is one of my favorites. So now you have to make that video!
Interesting he brought up Wolf Children as a possible Isekai and not Hosoda's adaptation of Girl who Leapt Through Time.
I always wondered about the concept of 2 people who are from a fantasy world who gets isekai to this world where one sees the more peaceful aspects of this world and the other in a more dangerous place. So that the 2 get different perspectives of our world and react differently towards it.
That's kind of Cop Craft.
@@DKNguyen3.1415 Not quite what I had in mind. I am talking about more of a perspective of outsiders seeing the good and ugly of our world and how Earth's influence affects both of them. Basically it explores nature vs nurture and the impact of the 2 people.
The silver spoon analysis sounds great! Can't wait for next week
I tend to consider genres based on clones and similarity to pivotal works rather than conceptual rulesets so this is a very interesting case study to me. Thanks
The fact that anybody other than me remembers buddy complex still surprises me.
Yeah, I got weirdly hyped when he brought it up in the video.
Same ... I was almost saying "way that Anime wasn't a hallucination I had?"
Always kinda feels like there is what isekai means as a particular moment/movement in which texts are more actively responding to each other, and what isekai means as something purely conceptual. Like, if something like Inuyasha counts as isekai, it's a bit hard to say that SAO "popularized" it - we would have to say it was always already extremely popular. But clearly SAO did something, and I think its what follows in its wake that will always be the representative works of isekai in people's mind, even if we could fit other massively influential works of fiction (like idk, Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland) into the same conceptual category
I generally draw the line at any story where a character travels to another time within their own lifetime. At that point, their getting a different perspective on their own context and experiences, whereas I feel like the essential element of isekai is moving to a completely removed context.
Not particularly pertinent to the video, but the moment gate of steiner kicked in while talking about zipangu, I had significant emotions throttle through me.
Question: would you call Digimon an isekai? Like obviously the digital world is very different and the show involves adapting to it, but the shows main draw is the creature battling, and after the first series the gate back to the real world becomes a revolving door with a hand stamp so you can get back in.
Pretty sure he called Digimon in an old videos a few years ago Isekai
I do not consider ALL Time Travel to be Isekai, however I will say that if you traveled to an “alternate history/future” it’s the same as “Another World”.
Even if it's not alterate history/future i think time travel is still isekai not all mind you time traveling a year is not isekai imo. Just our history is a great example already almost all fantasy is just the medival age plus magic
What about realistic hero which is a traditional isekai but then also a type of time travel? That ending was crazy, didn't see that coming at all.
love how gate of steiner started playing leading up to him talking about steins;gate
I would've disagreed...but Inuyasha ❤ is a great example. Although it's the feudal era Kagome really does go to another world from what we know.
Inyuyasha counts because magic, Dr. Stone doesn't count because sci-fi
I once argued with someone for twenty minutes that Black Lagoon was an isekai. lol
It’s not but it’s interesting to view it that way. An MC leaving his life behind for a cruel world so different from his own.
No.
@@Samm815 Po
Tato
That's basically any adventure story
It just means Rock moved to a bad neighborhood in a different country. No different than immigration.
Well if you put it that way, then every story that falls under the "Heroes Journey" template is an isekai
I've never heard anyone mention Thermae Romae in any anime essay. Thanks for mentioning it!
Thank you for reminding me about Silver Spoon. I need to read this.
Time travel isn't an isekai. There is however a sub-genre of alternate history: Isot that it matches a lot better. The premise for an isot story is that a chunk of territory is tossed back in time. A couple of the more famous examples are what gave the genre its name: Island in the Sea of Time, and Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series.
Futurama's my favorite isekai
edit: wasnt expecting an Army of Darkness reference (or just anything relating to Evil Dead in general), but consider me pleasantly surprised, Ash Williams is one of my favorite horror characters
So glad you brought up Connecticut Yankee. It fits so many modern Isekai tropes
if it is a changing of the world to the person ( main protagonist ) than yes thy are Isekai . "different world" or "otherworld" as pur
One interesting detail you forgot to add is that there are a bunch of other stories in which the protagonist does partake in a world of swords, magic, and multiflavoured anime babes and rips it apart with cheat abilities that are as video gamey as they get.
But here's the kicker: They're not Isekai, the protagonist at no point leave their own society, they just exploit the ever living crap out of it with their newfound powers. They're what you'd call "I can't believe it's not Isekai".
and some of them go one step further, where the reasson for the newfound power they gain is that they WHERE part of an isekai that we just never got to see
Came into this with an open mind and then I saw steins;gate and my heart sank as I realized how deep this could go.
Groundhog Day is my favorite isekai where the ahole dude learns about life and love through a relentless resetting of the same 24 hours in some small town he learns to love.
I'm so glad you brought up Occult Academy because I love it and I feel like no EVER talks about it!
I remember starting it and being intrigued by the premise, but I really disliked the main male character to the point I lost interest. I was a teenager when I started it so maybe I would like it more as an adult.
@@toddclawson3619 I've always loved conspiracy/creepy pasta type stuff, so it really worked for me as a satire of that type fo stuff.
It literally has to be, Distant places in time and space can be just as if not more different than a totally made up world, HG Wells' Time Machine has many hallmarks of the genre and so does 1632a book where a whole town is transported to the HRE. I would also argue that "in a foreign land" narratives are also VERY similar dating back to ancient Greece the foreign travelogue has been more or less Isekai in their set up and Gulliver's Travels is straight up an isekai despite the main character never being more than a boat ride from their home. Even exploring a land that is definitely in the real world can read like an isekai, like visiting the truly alien land of Alberta
Literally just got to the greed island arc of hunter x hunter and I was wondering if this even counted as an isekai because of the island's secret. I really like how they blurred the lines.
I wouldstill argue it is, even if its a created pocket world,itsitsown pocetworld
@@Grasslander who are you to be the gatekeeper and authority on isekai exactly? like you can say these things all you want, but that doesn't make it mean anything.
@Maro Cat the secret of the island is that it's literally just an island in the real world. Not a pocket dimension, not another world, just an island east of York New City where someone set it up to be like a video game using nen. They weren't transported to another world, just to an island in the same world
Loved this video, can't wait for cult anime part 3!
I am surprisd you didn't inculde examples like Samurai Jak, or How a Realist Hero rebuilt the Kingdom.
ESPECIALLY the latter, as that one is later revealed to be a case of "Earth thousands of year into the future"
This is a fantastic video essay! It’s at once fun and very informative. Btw, I can’t wait to see what y’all do with the Happy Science Part Three video!!
if you truly want to do a mega isekai episode you should do everything in you power to do a collab with Gigguk... it would be epic!
Y'all have collectively retconned the definition of an isekai so much that it likely encapsulates more than half of fantasy media at this point
6:21 Boy, that joke from Phineas and Ferb REALLY caught on
I would say it depends on the environment, like how you could consider vr an Isekai. If it is a really big change from the environment before like say massive technological advances or going back to a primitive age, I would consider it an Isekai. But if it's something like meeting yourself in the past then no i would say it isn't an Isekai.
Yes, because usually when time travel is used, the world might as well be a completely different one with how unfamiliar it is for the protagonist.
Isekai is about being placed into another world. Time travel is just the same world in different time eras. I don't know what you're smoking but I can say that time travel ain't considered isekai no matter what angle you look at it.
@@stamariagerardjimelsolano8146 It's a fine line to draw, though, isn't it? If I have protag-kun the astronaut get yoinked out of his space mission, across dimensions, to a different version of Earth that is about to be attacked by an alien force, and he joins forces with the defenders to fight the invaders off, that's an isekai, right? But if I have the same character get frozen while on that space mission, then thawed out 500 years later, to the same situation, well, then it isn't? All that changed is that I used different technobabble to explain why modern day astronaut is now fighting alien invaders. Well, that and I didn't quite as blatantly rip off Buck Rogers with the first ;)
Mind you, I'd agree that the former would be an isekai, and the latter wouldn't, simply on the basis of the main protagonist's belief that he is in his world's future, rather than in a different world.
But even for that, my own standards don't hold up, as I would consider Inuyasha an isekai due to how its past doesn't match our own, as well as how the laws of reality change, even though the protagonist believes it to be time travel.
So what someone from america going to a country they arent familiiar with is isekai?
omg i can't believe zipang will be mentioned here! I love the opening of that anime
Did not expect Thermae to make an appearance. That anime is awesome.
They don't time travel, they just go into a new world line that is different from the original world line.
That depends on which theory of time travel they are using.
To take this even further in a stranger direction, would a story about someone moving to a new city or country with a different culture also be isekai? Especially in a setting where they can't quickly or easily communicate with or return to their old homes.
if they just get on a plane and go there, no.
if theyre mysteriously transported there against their will and need to find their bearings, understand where they are and how to get back while dealing with a fundamentally different world logic from their own, it suddenly starts feeling a lot like one.
@@gamongames Soooo ... Kidnaping is Isekai!
@@Grasslander That might be how it started (and I don't know enough about the history to say for sure), but that's definitely not what it means in practice these days. There are plenty of anime and manga that are indisputably isekai stories, but that take place in generic fantasy worlds, otome game worlds, sci-fi worlds, and so on.
ok, this video does provide some good arguments in either direction, and the point of "escapist fantasy" being a key does make sense
When I heard the announcement about cult anime number 3 I reflexively screamed it joy and excitement for a split second before I caught myself so I wouldn’t annoy the whole house.