47857


There are and have been so many stories of that type being released,
especially in the light novel or manga section, and I noticed that these
stories often follow a similar pattern and have a similar setting:

  * the "other world" mostly has a medieval setting and is often constructed as an RPG with a leveling system.
  * That world normally contains different fictional species (humans, elves, demons etc.) who are usually capable of using magic.

If the protagonist isn't born into that fictional world he's either being
transported there or reincarnated. And these two ways also mostly follow a
similar pattern, aside from the fact that the original world is Japan in the
21st century:

  * if he's being reincarnated he'd usually died in his original world, normally due to an accident with a truck.
  * If he's being transported there it's often due to a summoning by a royal family. They want the summoned "heroes" (it's often not only the protagonist who's been summoned) to help them to defeat the demon king who's invading the country or at least is a threat to the people. If the protagonist wasn't summoned by anyone he often becomes an adventurer.

Where did those "clichés" come from and what makes these types of stories so
popular?


CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-15T20:06:30.507
47849
2018-07-16T00:35:50.383
15475
question
anime-history manga-history light-novel-history
How did "other world" or "isekai" stories gain so much popularity and where do they have their roots?


[Isekai: The genre that took over modern anime](https://youtu.be/uFR2nvw19h4)
is a video by Gigguk that, while amusing, also covers a lot of the actual
history. Essentially, the idea of being pulled into another world is at least
as old as "Alice in Wonderland" (although you could probably find some proto-
isekai in works like Dante's Inferno or even folk tales of the land of
Faerie). What's more interesting is that there was a lot of isekai anime
around the 80s and 90s, but it was mostly aimed at a female audience; it's
only more recently that it flipped to being targeted at the male audience.

Isekai is essentially based in wish-fulfilment, or the desire to insert
oneself into a story, so it's a combination of that with the popularity of
JRPGs (since that's what most modern isekai are based on). The rise of self-
published light novels and manga has then resulted in a lot of source works
with self inserts and isekai concepts, which then become popular and get made
into anime.

After the genre starts to become popular and develops its tropes, you then
start getting the usual response of works that deconstruct and otherwise play
with those tropes - things like "What would it actually be like to be pulled
into a video game world where you actually die and then respawn at the last
save point?" (Re:Zero), or "What would a typical video game player actually be
like in a video game world?" (KonoSuba).


CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-16T00:35:50.383
47857
2018-07-16T00:35:50.383
8843
47849
answer