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Kobold

2019-09-23T10:38:52Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:BC03:1AE0:C2A5:E2D: /* Western-style Monstergirls */

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[[File:Kobold commando.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A [[/k/]]obold.]]
'''Kobolds''' are a race of creatures originating from Germanic folklore, where they were [[goblin]]-like malevolent spirits who were believed to haunt mines, occasionally leaving nasty surprises in the form of worthless, poisonous metal - the element we now know as "cobalt". The ore is naturally found as sharp shards, bonded with arsenic oxide. The shards are sharp enough to penetrate boots and feet, hurting miners and making them sick just as if they were poisoned caltrop traps left by kobolds. A "cobalt bomb" is a proposed nuclear weapon designed to poison a large territory with super-radioactive cobalt dust, making the target area uninhabitable for 105 years. The (relatively) short half-life makes it especially deadly, but possible for your great-grandchildren to recover the empty territory. So watch out for "kobold bombs" or "magic missiles".

They shot to fame in /tg/ circles in [[Dungeons & Dragons]] where, ever since the very first edition, they have been small, weak creatures, generally serving in most campaigns as low-level cannon fodder for the adventurers to mow down, much like [[goblins]] and [[orcs]].

Despite being physically weak, however, kobolds are also described as capable trapsmiths, and are known for creating traps to protect their lairs and dungeons (a habit that is usually ignored or underplayed by most [[DM]]s). This habit - combined with a penchant for lethal tunnel design and group tactics - were famously used in the tale of [[Tucker's Kobolds]] to illustrate that kobolds - and, indeed, any intelligent creature - can remain dangerous to high-level adventurers despite being statistically inferior in just about every way.

If played with the intention of being dangerous, kobolds are far and away the hardest throwaway monsters to fight. It could be likened to a sort of sick, hardcore version of Home Alone, with the kobolds taking the part of a severely deranged and sadistic Kevin McCallister and the PCs taking the part of hopelessly underprepared thugs walking into a situation they cannot have possibly foreseen. If treated like cannon fodder, they are the absolute hands-down easiest things in any edition to kill, including [[cat|housecats]] and electric iguanas.

Kobolds are often used as "weakling" monsters in games, particularly video games based on the pen-and-paper variety. Their actual versatility depends on the system, but like D&D runs the gamut of [[Dawww|harmless]] to [[Dwarf Fortress#Cats|devastating in numbers]] to [[Anal circumference|downright impossible]]. They are sometimes portayed as reptilian creatures, sometimes as either wolf/dog-like or [[Warcraft| rat-like]]; D&D has actually been in both camps in different editions, and in fact [[5e]] (presumably as part of its attempt to be the "Greatest Hits" edition) actually decided to split the difference and made them dragonkin with some reptilian and some canine features.

There is a market in [[Dungeons_%26_Dragons_3rd_Edition | 3.5]] for kobold [[PC]]s, since their draconian/reptilian ancestry make them one of the only +0 Level Adjustment races capable of qualifying for much of the additional material in [[splatbook]]s like the Draconomicon and the Book of Dragons. [[Pun-Pun]], for example, is a rather famous [[CharOp]] design that allows a kobold wizard to attain theoretically unlimited abilities and attributes, using material from splatbooks and the [[Forgotten Realms]] [[Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Campaign_Settings | campaign setting]].

While [[4e]] technically does allow for 0LA characters using the "racial features" rules in the Monster Manual, they effectively play like reptilian halflings, which get better bonuses. The lack of splat and reptilian-based bonuses makes them less appealing than 3e, but their inherent trap skills make them excellent [[Bloody Path|rogues]].

5th edition's Volo Guide to Monsters reintroduced them as an option, and while they're not a ''bad'' choice per se (Small, +2 to Dex and Darkvision make Kobolds quite effective rogues), their sensitivity to daylight proves to be a real disadvantage in campaigns that aren't extensive dungeon crawls.

The patron god of the kobolds is [[Kurtulmak]].

Kobolds are very popular with [[Furry|Scalies]].

==The Many Faces of Kobolds==
[[File:Kobold_Art_History.jpg|200px|thumb|right|A basic summary of the kobold look from 1st to 4th edition.]]
D&D Kobolds have undergone a long history of revision. When they first appeared in basic/AD&D 1e, they were considered kin to goblinoids, but also had distinctly beast-man type appearances - of course, these were the days in which [[bullywug]]s and [[gnolls]] were considered humanoids and thus could interbreed with humans, so not that weird. The result was a scaly-skinned rat or dog-like humanoid with small horns and a distinct barking voice. The version first depicted in the [[Monster Manual]] was clearly a scaly dog-man, but versions by other artists were more rat-like.

When AD&D 2e was launched, the first Monstrous Compendium presented an alternative version that was more visibly [[goblin]]-like; a small, ugly but fundamentally man-shaped creature with big, saucer-like eyes, a puggish face and small horns. This version was not very well received, and the artwork quickly went back to the more rodent-like visages of editions past. The iconic depiction of this was by [[Tony DiTerlizzi]], in the AD&D Monstrous Manual.

Finally, in 3rd edition, kobolds became stunted, draconic humanoids; little reptile men with dragon-like snouts and stubby horns, and this interpretation, which made them claim kinship to true dragons, became their iconic face for all editions afterwards. Even Pathfinder reused this. The 5th edition version somewhat combined the reptilian and canine features, keeping them little reptile men with stubby horns on their heads, but giving them a more canine head with a black dog-like nose at the end of their snout, as well as a pair of longer horns that somewhat resemble dog ears at a glance.

Because the "dragonbolds" or "lizardbolds" are so associated with D&D, when kobolds reappear in other media, their appearance often changes. Because the goblinoid form is too confusing, most kobolds tend to be either [[ratfolk]] or dog-people. [[Warcraft]] has long used the ratfolk interpretation, with its kobolds being humanoid rats who are obsessed with finding candles to help them in their eternal mining. In Japanese media, kobolds as digging dog-people as popular for much the same reason why pig-men [[orc]]s are popular: [[Old School Roleplaying]] [[neckbeard]]s have a huge influence on /tg/ related animes & mangas, and they retain fond memories of the original quasi-dog-like appearance of kobolds from AD&D 2e. This is why, for example, Polt of [[Life With Monstergirls]] appears as a dog-girl.

{{clear}}

==D&D Stats==
Kobolds have long been one of the playable monstrous races of Dungeons & Dragons, although their precise mechanical crunch has been... kind of hit and miss. Pathfinder and 5th edition's versions in particular have often been angrily derided for actually being weaker than [[Goblin]]s, who are supposed to be on roughly the same level of inferiority on the totem pole.

===BECMI===
Kobolds were amongst the many "humanoid" races to debut in the [[Known World Gazetteers|Known World Gazetteer #10: The Orcs of Thar]], alongside [[orc]]s, [[goblinoid]]s, [[ogre]]s, [[troll]]s and [[gnoll]]s.

::Kobold Ability Modifiers: -4 Strength, +3 Dexterity
::Note: Like all Humanoids from "The Orcs of Thar", a Kobold has racial ability score caps of 18 in all scores bar [[Intelligence]] and [[Wisdom]], which are capped at 16.
::Note: Like all Humanoids from "The Orcs of Thar", a Kobold determines its [[Charisma]] score for interacting with [[human]]s and [[demihuman]]s by dividing its Charisma score by 3 (rounding down) and subtacting the result from 9.
::Kobold Natural Armor Class: 7
::Can become [[Shaman]]s (6th level) and [[Wokani]] (4th level).

{| class=wikitable
!Kobold's's level || XP Required || Kobold's hit dice
|-
|0||0||1d4
|-
|1||500X||2d4
|-
|2||1,000||3d4
|-
|3||2,000||4d4
|-
|4||4,000||5d4
|-
|5||8,000||6d4
|-
|6||16,000||7d4
|-
|7||30,000||8d4
|-
|8||60,000||9d4
|-
|9||120,000||+2 Hit Points
|-
|Subsequent||100,000||+2 Hit Points
|}

===AD&D/2nd Edition===
From the Complete Book of Humanoids. Before these, kobold PC rules (alongside [[xvart]], [[goblin]] and [[orc] rules) had appeared for AD&D 1e in the article "Hey, Wanna Be a Kobold?" by Joseph Clay in [[Dragon Magazine]] #141 (January 1989).

::Ability Score Modifiers: -1 Strength, -1 Constitution
::Altered Ability Scores: Minimum Dexterity and Constitution of 4, Maximum Strength of 15, Maximum Constitution of 16, Maximum Intelligence of 17, Maximum Charisma of 14
::Class & Level Restrictions: Fighter (8), Cleric (9), Shaman (7), Witch Doctor (7), Thief (12)
::Size: Small
::Special Advantages: Infravision 60 feet, Intelligent or Powerful creatures will attack a kobold last unless it is obviously a threat
::Special Disadvantages: Light Aversion (-1 penalty to attack rolls in equivalent of direct sunlight), gnomes receive a +1 to attack rolls against kobolds
::Weapon Proficiencies: Club (spiked), hand axe, javelin, short sword, spear
::Non-Weapon Proficiencies: Animal noise, animal training (giant weasel), animal training (wild boar), begging, close-quarter fighting, danger sense, fast-talking, gem cutting, hiding, looting, mining, set snares, wild fighting

===3rd Edition===
From Races of the Dragon.

*Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dexterity, -4 Strength, -2 Constitution
*Size: Small
*Type: Humanoid (Dragonblood, Reptilian)
*Base Speed 30 feet
::This is faster than almost any other Small humanoid can get, making kobolds actually better for certain mobility builds than gnomes or halflings can ever be.
*Darkvision 60 ft.
*+1 natural bonus to AC
*+2 racial bonus to Craft (Trapmaking), Profession (Miner) and Search checks; Craft (trapmaking) is always considered a class skill.
::Later on in Chapter 6: Character Options, the skill listing for Profession says that kobolds also get some unusual perks to use Profession (miner). One kobold counts as a Medium creature to determine how much digging it can do, and up to 4 of the Small-sized fuckers can fit into a single square at one time. That means that they can actually dig four times as fast as dwarves and certain other underground races. In the book, it actually says that dwarves respect their mining skills.
*Light Sensitivity: Dazzled when exposed to bright sunlight or a daylight spell (which can be negated by buying some goggle-shades later on in the same book)
*Favored Class: Sorcerer

Additionally, Races of the Dragon has the Draconic Rite of Passage, where allows kobolds to endure a 9-day fasting, the permanent loss of 1 hp, and sacrifice a 100 gp gem to gain any 1st-level spell as a spell-like ability, usable once a day.

It should be noted that these basic stats were still considered a little weak compared to other races, so a web enhancement for Races of the Dragon beefed them up a tiny bit. While this didn't really make them all that "powerful", the update did actually make them a very interesting race. The additional abilities are:
* Natural Weapons: It's just a little 2 claws / 1 bite set that does 1d3 for them all, but it does mean a kobold is never unarmed, as well as explaining how they are so fucking ridiculous at digging.
* Slight Build: The opposite of the goliath advantage, you get to count as one size category smaller when it's advantageous, such as for size modifiers or when squeezing through a tight space.
* Weapon Proficiency/Familiarity: Kobolds get Martial Weapon Proficiency in light pick and heavy pick (kind of the way elves and others get bonus profs), and treat greatpicks from that web supplement as martial instead of exotic.
* Kobold cleric domain: Gives the cleric trapfinding, adds Disable Device and Search to class skills, gives some pretty fucking spiffy domain spells.
* The Greater Draconic Rite of Passage: This awesome addition allows a kobold sorcerer who already did the lesser Draconic Rite of Passage to get a free fucking level of sorcerer that doesn't alter their ECL or anything. No shit; all you have to do is another 9-day fast, give up 3 hp permanently (which is the only reason you might hesitate to do it), and a 1,000 gp gem. Enjoy being overpowered, you asshole...
* Draconic Reservoir feat: Your SLA from Draconic Rite of Passage is now 3/day instead of 1/day. Make it count.

====Why D&D 3.5 Kobolds Kick Ass====
It may not seem like it, but despite what a bunch of dipshts may say, 3.5 was the time when kobolds ascend to godlike fucking power.

First and foremost, this was the era of [[Pun-Pun]], the kobold who literally broke the 3.5 game. Sure, it took some pretty strange rules interpretations, and sure they found a few ways to counter this threat. But Pun-Pun was there before a lot of other builds, and he remains a bit of a benchmark for how far you can munchkin the shit out of 3.5.

Okay, sure, Pun-Pun is excessive. Let's look at some other aspects of kobold greatness from this era.

Remember all those bonus skills and little trick abilities? How kobolds can apparently dig through a mountain faster than that chump John Henry (look it up, you illiterate fuckwits), and lay out enough traps to make the Tomb of Horrors look like a fucking carnival ride?

Now go back and look a the overpoweredness of the Leadership feat for giving you literally an extra guy to play. Make all your followers kobold experts and warriors, and make that cohort a kobold artificer. As you go on adventures, collecting huge piles of fabulous treasure, your little minions are busy as fucking bees, crafting you an immense stronghold and dungeon to protect you and your buddies' swag between adventures, filled with traps of every kind. Your kobold artificer makes it worse: you bring him spare magic loot to break down for XP to manufacture even better stuff, some of which goes into the home base to protect it. Meanwhile, your little expert guys are busy just manufacturing better weapons and armor, and manufacturing so many ways they can take shots at invaders that even if the DM wanted to, he'd probably have to concede that short of some asshole wizard just teleporting into the place, your base isn't going to be taken by anything less than a kingdom's entire armed forces converging on the place. The best part? Kobolds in warm climates actually eat less. No shit; long as the average temp is above 40 degrees Fahrenheit (fuck you, Celsius), your kobold minions only have to eat every three or four days. (FYI, they also eat goddamn anything. Vermin, animals, other humanoids, some of that beholder meat you left after blowing one up, whatever can go into the pot and cooked into something edible gets eaten.)

Lastly, kobolds basically outsmarted their enemies. They know they are small and weak and can't do much about it. They're good at mining and trapmaking, though, so what other creature could use a legion of little minions who do nothing but dig out precious minerals and make traps to defend it all day? Fucking dragons, of course. Right there in Races of the Dragon, there's a blue dragon who actually tells her hatchlings that only kobolds are more reliable than family and the most diehard friends. Because kobolds don't sit on their treasure; they hand it over to a neighborhood dragon and ask for nothing but protection and a little help with enemies once in a while. For a dragon, the return on that investment is just too good: fabulous wealth, dozens of lethal traps to help protect it, and a nice little army of sneaky, smart little ranged attackers who won't hesitate to pin-cushion intruders with dozens of crossbow bolts. For the most part, everyone wins in that arrangement.

Kobolds may not be as elegant as elves, as sturdy as dwarves, or have the adaptability of humans. What they have is moxie and the smarts to play up their strengths, making them the "underdogs" you can't help but root for a little bit.

===Pathfinder===
In addition to appearing in the Advanced Race Guide and Inner Sea Races, Kobolds got their own mini-booklet specifically aimed at Kobolds of Golarion, with a bunch of new traits - including special "bonus" traits based on what color their scales were.

::Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dexterity, -4 Strength, -2 Constitution
::Size: Small
::Type: Humanoid (Reptilian)
::Speed: 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::Armor: +1 natural armor
::Crafty: +2 racial bonus to Craft (Traps), Perception, and Profession (Miner), Craft (Traps) and Stealth are always Class Skills
::Weakness: Light Sensitivity

''Alternate Racial Traits:''
* '''Beast Bond:''' Replace '''Crafty''' with +2 racial bonus to Handle Animal and Ride checks, with Handle Animal and Ride always being Class Skills.
* '''Dragon-Scaled:''' Replace '''Armor''' with Resistance 5 to either Acid, Cold, Electricity or Fire Damage.
* '''Gliding Wings:''' Replace '''Crafty''' with the ability to Glide; when falling, a kobold can make a DC 15 Fly check to land without injury as if using the ''Feather Fall'' spell, and if it succeeds on this check, can then make a second DC 15 Fly check to move 5 feet laterally for every 20 feet fallen.
* '''Jester:''' Replace '''Crafty''' with +2 racial bonus to Diplomacy and Perform checks, with Diplomacy and Perform always being Class Skills.
* '''Dayrider:''' Downgrades a kobold's Darkvision to Low-Light Vision, but removes its Light Sensitivity.
* '''Dragonmaw:''' Replaces '''Armor''' with a D4 damage bite attack that can also deal a bonus +1d6 fire/acid/cold/lightning damage (chosen and set at character creation) 1/day.
* '''Echo Whistler:''' Replaces '''Crafty''' with the ability to try and make a Bluff check with just a bit of vocal mimicry 3/day, gaining a +2 bonus to the check in any place that would generate an echo.
* '''Frightener:''' Replaces '''Armor''' with a +1 DC boost to any Fear spell that the kobold casts.
* '''Prehensile Tail:''' Replaces '''Armor''' with a +2 bonus to Acrobatics & Climb checks and the ability to draw a hidden weapon as a move action.
* '''Secret Strider:''' Replaces '''Crafty''' with the ability to, twice per day, enter a super-sneaky mode for 1 minute. During this time, the kobold leaves no trail when moving through natural surroundings, increasing the DC of Survival checks to track it by +10.
* '''Shoulder To Shoulder:''' Replaces '''Crafty''' with a +1 bonus to Aid Another checks, the ability to occupy the same space as another Small creature without penalty, and the ability to gain a +1 AC bonus when sharing a space with another kobold with this trait.
* '''Spellcaster Sneak:''' Replaces '''Crafty''' with a +2 bonus to Stealth checks. A kobold spellcaster with this trait can also freely apply Silent Spell to a spell 1/day.
* '''Wild Forest Kobold:''' Replaces ''Crafty'' with a +2 bonus to Perception and Survival checks. Additionally, Stealth and Survival are always class skills for this kobold.
* '''Wyrmcrowned:''' Replaces ''Crafty'' with a +2 bonus to either Diplomacy or Intimidate and the ability to count the chosen skill as always being a class skill.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition doesn't have playable kobolds yet (they're coming in the Advanced Player's Guide releasing at GenCon 2020) but artwork of them so far shows a notable redesign in appearance, now looking more like salamanders or other lizards, with wider heads and a relatively thicker body (no, not ''that'' sort of thick). If nothing else, the wider and flatter heads do make the "three kobolds in a trenchcoat" trick a little more structurally-stable.

===4th Edition===
In this edition, kobolds received their first writeup in the Monster Manual 1.
::Ability Score Modifier: +2 Dexterity +2 Constitution,
::Size: Small
::Vision: Normal
::Speed: 6 squares
::Skill Bonus: +2 Stealth, +2 Thievery
::Trap Sense: +2 to all defenses against traps
::Racial Power - Shifty: At-Will power. You can spend a minor action to Shift 1 square

They later got beefed up in the Dungeon Survival Guide. This gave them the Reptile type, traded Stealth bonus for Dungeoneering, gave them Darkvision, let them swap their Dex boost for +2 Charisma instead, and replaced Shifty with Shifty Manuever, an Encounter power that lets the kobold and all allies within Close Burst 2 shift 1 square as a free action.

It also gave them five new racial utility powers; Flee! (level 2 Daily; kobold and all allies in Close Burst 2 get +2 to all defenses for 1 turn and shift their full speed), Load Slingpot (level 2 Encounter; kobold with a sling can fling a randomly enchanted projectile that will either give the target a turn-long attack penalty, set the target on fire, or immobilize them for a turn), Tunnel Scuttle (level 6 Encounter; free move action that can go up walls and through tight spaces without issue), Frantic Shift (level 10 Encounter; shift 1 square as a minor action, recharges if you get Bloodied) and Trap-Gang Method (level 10 At-Will; if you take trap/hazard damage with a non-minion creature adjacent to you, you can shift over half the damage you take to that creature).

On top of that, it also provided them with five empowering feats; Dragon's Indomitability (roll two dice and choose the result you want when saving vs. Fear and Stun), Kobold in a Corner (+1 per tier bonus damage against creatures that have combat advantage against you), and Shiftier Maneuver (when you use Shifty Maneuver, one target can shift +2 extra squares) for every'bold, Trapbuster (roll two dice and pick your preference when making Perception checks to detect traps, you don't ever trigger a trap if you fail a Thievery check to disable it) for those with training in Thievery, and Eldritch Momentum (if you move at least 3 squares away from where you started your turn, you gain combat advantage against all creatures under your Warlock's Curse until the end of your next turn) for the kobold [[warlock]].

Truly, 4th edition was a glorious time to play a kobold.

===5th Edition===
[[File:Looting_Kobolds.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Kobolds are a bit more silly in 5e.]]
From Volo's Guide to Monsters.

::Ability Score Modifier: +2 Dexterity, -2 Strength
::Size: Small
::Speed: 30 feet
::Darkvision
::Grovel: Once per encounter, can use an action on your turn to beg, plead, snivel and otherwise humiliate yourself; until the end of your next turn, all of your allies gain Advantage on attack rolls made against enemies within 10 feet of you and who can see your pathetic display.
::Pack Tactics: If at least one non-incapacitated ally is within 5 feet of a creature you are attacking, you gain Advantage on attack rolls against that creature.
::Sunlight Sensitivity: You suffer Disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks made when you or your target are in direct sunlight.

The Grovel power is ridiculously useful, allowing you to grant Advantage to ALL attack rolls made by ALL your allies against a sizable number of enemies. That said, it's also the source of a great deal of [[skub]]; those who like their kobolds to be viewed as "truly pathetic" feel it's fitting, whilst players who want to play a kobold in order to fight ''against'' the perception of kobolds as weak, cowardly, stupid cannon fodder find it infuriating, because it's a racial trait that goes directly against their character plan AND it means you're inherently contributing less to the party. In fairness, it can easily be reskinned into a more heroic or warlike act, a comedy skit if you're going for something goofier, or even an elaborate and [[Pun-Pun|truly cunning]] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XfkZlcG8KU| deception.]

Likewise, the Pack Tactics power is seen as extremely powerful. This is offset by your Sunlight Sensitivity, meaning that you yourself are less able to contribute in a fight. Especially since, being Small and having a Strength penalty, you're not likely to be in melee range in the first place, as you're far better suited for a bow-based [[rogue]]/[[ranger]] or a spellcaster.

In a nutshell, the 5e Kobold looks like an attempt at directly converting the 5e Monster Manual version into a PC race, for good or ill.

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==Cutebolds==
[[File:Cutebold adventure party.gif|250px|thumb|right|Aw, they think they're people!]]
Cutebolds are like Kobolds only incredibly cute.

They are pitiful and childish in everything they do, and are innocent enough to not know how to procreate. All they know is that rubbing their noses gives them a guilty pleasure. They are no less "harmless" when played properly, though. They tend toward the dog-like for extra D'aww.

This interpretation of the Kobold is thought to have been inspired by their depiction in [[Dwarf Fortress]], where they steal your supplies, but seem to do it in the most endearingly stupid manner possible.

Cutebold stats:
: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Int
: Charm person once per day as a spell like ability
: Low light vision and scent

==Kobold Commandos==
A popular way to portray kobolds in a more contemporary fashion, kobold commandos portray kobolds as being part of the military, especially special forces. Other anons point out that the fact that they don't hold up in a one-on-on fight with other low level monsters, attack in large numbers and from ambush, have a predisposition towards traps and dig big underground tunnels, they're kind of like the Viet Cong. This probably rooted in the old story about [[Tucker's Kobolds]] and there are similarity into the two depictions. Of the various 'cannon fodder' enemies, Kobolds seem like the most organized, and with that organization a DM has a lot of leeway to look into all the ways one can use fortifications to fuck with an attacker, and turn them onto unsuspecting players.

==Kobold Models==
Despite being a part of D&D since the very beginning, kobold tabletop models are rather rare. For the longest time, [[Reaper Miniatures]] has been pretty much the ''only'' company that made them in squad/mob size numbers, and even then the sculpts... aren't that spectacular. However, as of May 2017 Westfalia Miniatures has Kickstarted their new tabletop wargame Strongsword, and included with it are models (damn good ones, too) for an entire kobold army! What's more, in the Strongsword lore the little bastards apparently cause enough mayhem to be responsible for a conflict called (I shit you not) the [[Tucker's Kobolds|''Kobold Wars'']].

==Monstergirls==
{{Monstergirls}}
[[File:MGE Kobold.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The MGE Kobold, one of the two most iconic depictions of the kobold as a cute doggie-girl.]]
[[File:Koboldette.jpg|thumb|300px|left|The basic approach the West takes to sexy kobolds.]]

Given the popularity of kobolds, there are also a lot of people who like them In That Way. The two most popular kobold monstergirl depictions are the dogbold and the little dragonbold: Goblinoid kobolds are pretty much immune to this treatment, mostly because at that point you just end up with a monstergirl [[goblin]] and maybe a few special kinks, at which point you're usually asking yourself "why is this not just called a goblin?".

Dogbolds are mostly seen in Japanese media like [[Life With Monstergirls]] and the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], where they are humanoid dogs to some degree. In the former they have small snouts instead of noses, fur covering their bodies and [[Power_Fist|massive hands]]. Polt is the only kobold seen so far, the owner of a gym and creator of the "kobolds are all hyperactive dogs who'll drag you along if you take them for walkies" stereotype. In the latter they are humans with dog-like disposion; submissive, eager to please, excitable and won't stop doing something until you tell them to.

In the west, meanwhile, the small dragon type kobold is massive bait for the [[furry]] subgroup known as scalies: those with an interested in scaled rather than furred animals. Dragons are by far the most popular animal in the group, which kobolds are a smaller version of. Humanization is rarely done because that would ruin their small dragon appeal. While in some cases they are drawn with humanoid penises or breasts, often they are depicted as they are in the books (except, you know, naked). This includes very minute sexual dimorphism, meaning that any kobold could be a [[trap]]. Often included is them having a cloaca, meaning that their pelvic region is reduced to a single nondescript opening that they piss, jizz, and crap out of (....hot?). These kobolds are often portrayed with wide, egg-laying hips in order to give them some [[shortstack]] appeal.

{{clear}}

===Canonical Kobold Deviance===
In what has to be the weirdest of coincidences, ever since kobolds got their [[dragon]]-linked makeover in 3rd edition, there's been some really weird sexual elements snuck into their lore, although what that element is depends on the edition.

[[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]]: [[Races of X|Races of the Dragon]] states that kobolds go into heat and are compelled to breed, like animals, but they're also sapient beings, so they also form permanent pair-bondings. They reconcile these different facts with the statement that extra-marital sex and breeding is considered "no biggie" in kobold society, because the urge hits when it hits, and they can't control themselves when it happens, so there's no point getting jealous about it.

[[Pathfinder]]: Kobolds of [[Golarion]] has become somewhat memetically infamous for its presentation of kobold biology. Classic Monsters Revisited also established kobolds as being super-breeders, with females producing eggs throughout their lives and producing bigger and bigger clutches as they get older.

[[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]]: The Dungeon Survival Handbook states that kobolds worship [[dragon]]s to the extent of willing committing suicide by feeding themselves to hungry dragons because they view it was a way to transcend their kobold natures and become one with their devourer. While they are not stated to get any ''sexual'' pleasure from this act of getting eaten, you just know that pointing as much out will fall on deaf ears with many voraphiles.

[[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]]: Volo's Guide to Monsters states that, like certain frogs and fish, kobolds are environmentally triggered gender-benders, switching between male and female in response to the overabundance of one gender in order to facilitate breeding. So theoretically, if you want kobolds, you just stick two kobolds in a cage and it doesn't matter what sexes they started out as, they'll become a breeding pair and start making eggs soon enough.

==Gallery==
===Cutebolds===
<center>
<gallery>
File:Koboldthief.png
File:Id give you the moon.gif
File:Grifli.gif|There's no word in kobold for "[[just as planned|keikaku]]".
File:Koboldhouse.gif|[[Kobold Camp]] now with 3D rendering.
File:Loveakobold.gif|Love can bloom under a battlefield.
Image:Cutebold_fantasies.jpg|Someone's got a widdle crush!
File:CuteboldMindflayer.jpg|No one messes with a [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
</gallery>
</center>

===D&D Kobolds through the ages===
<center>
<gallery>
Image:Original_Kobold.png|The very first kobold in D&D, the foundation of them all.
Image:Goblinoid_Kobold.jpg|The one time when "goblin" and "kobold" became interchangeable.
Image:DiTerlizzi_Kobold.jpg|The iconic AD&D Kobold artwork; you can actually see similarities to 3e if you squint.
Image:3e_Kobold.jpg|The definitive species change-over.
Image:4e_Kobolds.jpg
Image:4e_Kobolds_2.jpg
Image:5e_Kobold.jpg|New swolbolds, the pinnacle of kobold design!
Image:Pathfinder_Kobold.jpg|Pathfinder did buff kobolds first.
Image:Pathfinder_Kobold_Warrior.jpg
Image:Pathfinder_Kobold_Shaman.jpg
</gallery>
</center>

===Western-style Monstergirls===
<center>
<gallery>
Image:Koboldette_2.jpg|Now in flat-chested variety.
Image:Kobold_Maiden.jpg
Image:Kobold_Maiden_2.jpg
Image:Embarrassed_Kobold.png|Some kobold-gals are very shy about being approached by human adventurers.
Image:Presenting_Kobold.png|Others, not so much.
Image:Then_and_now_1.png|Kobolds have changed a lot over the years.
Image:Nubile_Kobold_Savage.jpg
Image:Kobold_Worker.png
Image:Kobold_Traveler.jpg
Image:Kobold_Warrior.jpg
Image:Kobold_Dancer.png
Image:Kobold_White_Mage.jpg
Image:Kobold_Wizard_1.png
Image:Kobold_Wizard_2.jpg
File:Feathered Aztec Kobold Spirit Shaman.png
Image:Koboldwater.jpg|<s>Dont fucking ask.</s> What is there to ask? Seems clear to me.
</gallery>
</center>

==See also==
*[[Tucker's Kobolds]]
*[[Kobold Camp]]
*[[Kobolds Ate My Baby!]]
*[[Unified Setting/Kobolds]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80BWVkKd_Cw The cutebold theme]

[[Category:Dragons]]

Isekai

2019-09-23T10:34:07Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:BC03:1AE0:C2A5:E2D: /* List of Isekai */ Reverse isekai go here.

{{topquote|1=Hey guys, today I wanted to talk about the newest, hottest anime to come out this season. All right, get this: It's about a completely normal shut-in Otaku with a very specific skill set that makes him useless in the real world, who is suddenly transported to a fantasy world kinda similar to any JRPG you've ever seen where he suddenly becomes the hottest shit, and he has two jobs: Messing up any poor soul who looks at him the wrong way and getting some 2D bitches. Wait, doesn't this sound oddly familiar?|2=Gigguk, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFR2nvw19h4 "Isekai: The Genre that Took Over Anime"]}}

Proof that Japan has no publishing standards or quality control. '''Isekai''' is a Japanese word assimilated into the /tg/ lexicon from the [[weeaboo]] faggots at /a/ and /jp/. Literally meaning "another world" or "parallel world", it refers to a genre in which the main characters are from "our" world and taken to a foreign world resembling [[RPG|some form of fantasy game]], where they proceed to become [[adventurers]]. Usually, plot reasons prevent them from heading home until something is taken care of—typically whatever big bad evil guy is threatening everything—but sometimes they're stuck there forever and have to adapt as best they can. Methods of transportation are vast and varied, including but not limited to: stumbling into a portal, activating a magical McGuffin, getting run over by [[Meme|Truck-kun]] and reincarnated (''Tensei'' in weeb, a genre isekai ate), being summoned by the denizens of the world, or the ever-popular getting your brain downloaded into your favorite [[MMORPG]].

The term (and to a lesser extent the genre) have been kicking around the weeaboosphere for a while, but around 2015 publishers started flooding the market with insufferably awful series (with insufferably long titles) that sell both in Japan and internationally like hotcakes, no matter how bland and generic they get. This once again proves that no matter which side of the planet you're on, otaku are autistic retards with no taste. As of 2018 this seems to be tapering off: Kadokawa has banned isekai stories from their light novel competitions, fewer and fewer isekai light novels get adapted into anime each season, and parodies are becoming more and more common, making it only a matter of time before the genre hits [[Zombie|"even the parodies are stale" levels of played out.]]

==Why do people hate it so much?==

As noted below, stories of people entering other worlds are nothing new, and speaks to a common desire to experience strange and exotic lands. Yet Isekai stories still get a lot of flak for many reasons. Besides there being way too many anime/manga that are all basically the same story with slightly different premises, it boils down to a number of common gripes:

* The biggest one is that rather than trying to tell a compelling and interesting story, too many Isekai stories are just the basest wish fulfillment fantasies for the lonely basement-dwelling neckbeard. Most of the other complaints are derived from this one.
* The hallmark of isekai stories is defining of the world in terms of RPG mechanics. People in isekai worlds speak of levels, classes, and experience as real and tangible things as opposed to the mechanical abstractions fa/tg/uys normally recognize them as. Outside of Isekai stories that actually take place inside of RPGs or videogame RPGs, this is pretty much inexcusable.
* Isekai protagonists tend to be [[Neckbeard|big fucking nerds]] who immediately recognize what's all about and exploit it, often aided by [[Plot armor|unreasonably high stats relative to their abilities in real life.]] The unstated implication is that the overweight slimeball watching/reading the isekai story would be just as successful as the protagonist because of his [[Trivial Pursuit|valuable and hard-earned RPG knowledge]].
* The protagonist frequently is overpowered in a way that puts him way ahead of his peers, despite lacking any useful combat, intellectual, or even social skills from his homeworld. Rarely does the protagonist have to put that much effort in overcoming his obstacles.
* Even more offensive protagonists will be actively unlikable or even outright repulsive, despite not suffering any consequences for it.
* And on top of that, 99.9% of the time, the protaganist has an all-female <s>harem</s> party who hang on his every word. [[Mary Sue|Is this starting to sound familiar?]]
** Also most of the time these girls will getting their clothes stripped, humiliated and having the MC barged in their room while they are changing. These lewd scene can be shown in a few page art for the LN and well as panels in the manga version. To summarize, the fan services it featured made the genre into a collection of softcore porn and it is why people are still reading these crap. So why not just read porn then?
* For more Isekai-specific gripes, while many stories are just copycats of one another, some will ''attempt'' to put an "original spin" on the genre, usually by adding a gimmick. If done well, then the story still has some value in being interesting and explore otherwise ignored facets of an overused genre. Done poorly, and it comes across as just plain tiresome, especially if the gimmick is the only thing keeping the story afloat when the characters and plot fail to impress.
* Almost all the protagonists in isekai stories have tragic background. Not saying that this is a bad thing, but it is almost as if the author is trying to push the bill, forcing the reader to go through 1 or 2 chapters of flash backs. This gets worse when they are all generic manga cliches. But some tragic backgrounds are so well detailed it's almost as if the author self inserted their past there. Here is a few examples:
** Daddy/Mommy issues - According to various manga, Japanese parents are some of the worst in all of Asia since their working conditions over there have a very high demand and busy schedule that the parents are too busy at work to spend any time with their children (a situation that is a genuine issue, but not something the MC bothers with explaining). Other than that, the parents can be highly demanding, overfocusing on academic performance at the cost of any other development in that edgy way that teenagers rebel against mom & dad. Sometimes, parents can also be drunken scumbags who either abandon their children of the next high or just straight up mistreat them. Protagonists with tragic background like these often has low self-esteem and edginess but have it all fixed up in the other world since now they are popular with bitches.
** School problems - Way too many isekai protagonists have school-centric tragic backgrounds where they are either bullied in school or have no friends. Probably that's why they become nerds and are able to develop their very own hobbies alone, which just happen to be the cheat key in the other world.
** [[Neckbeards|NEET]] - Oh baby, don't even get me started. NEET is an acronym for "Not in Education, Employment, or Training," typically including [[Grognard|basement-dwelling adult virgins, unemployed nerds]] who live alone which makes them the definition of a loser. It is no surprise such a failure could get cheat powers in the other world compared to how piss poor they did in real life.
* [[weeaboo|O MY GLORIOUS NIPPON STEEL FOLDED OVER 9000 TIMES]]. Basically just to show how superior the Japanese are compared to the other world. GATE is the worst example of this, where the Japanese military in a medieval fantasy world is wreaking havoc with their modern weaponry (which is not unreasonable to imagine, even for the decidedly modest Japanese Self Defense Force, but it’s taken to the point where it comes across like a cheesy recruitment ad targeting otaku: "Want to be a real hero? We kill more orcs before 9AM than most Paladins do all day!"). Other than that, various Japanese food and their favorite [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|katana blade are also introduced in the other world to prove their superiority]]. It's almost if these mass produced Isekai stories and manga are just to advertise Japan's superiority to compensate for something...
* The worlds traveled to are generally bland and unoriginal: usually, it's just the JRPG version of the [[standard fantasy setting]], with actual in-universe RPG mechanics. The distancing effect of the latter is rather bad, and the oversaturation of the former only makes things worse.

== Isekai and /tg/ ==

Although most isekai stories get panned on /tg/ for [[TVTropes|annoying meta-humor]], [[Double Cross|generic shonen bullshit]], [[Maid RPG|generic fanservice bullshit]], or [[Extra Heresy|a combination thereof]] (if not the characters being blatantly Mary Sues, or presenting something even more absurd), a handful of series are decent enough to merit genuine approval. Or they're tolerated because they have [[monstergirls]]. Check our [[Approved anime|anime]] and [[manga]] pages for the current scoop.

While isekai is a distinctly Japanese form of [[Skub|cancer]], the basic idea of people from our world getting chucked into a fantastic world and forced to fend for themselves is practically universal and turns up moderately often in Western fantasy with the earliest example perhaps being ''"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"'' by Mark Twain which was published in 1889. Oddly, when this happens it tends to be rather less shit perhaps due to it being less common. L. Frank Baum's ''Oz'' series, ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' by Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' ''Barsoom'' (a.k.a., John Carter of Mars) novels are iconic examples of the core premise that predate cliche fantasy, and C.S. Lewis ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' uses the plot for Christian allegory. ''The NeverEnding Story'' is the flagship modern western example, and right in the heart of the fantasy cliche storm, yet it is the purest anti-shit, either despite or because of this. Or at least, it avoids being the self-indulgent wish-fulfillment for irredeemably unlikable losers that makes Isekai so widely hated. One could make the case that ''The Matrix'' is an isekai story (it basically reverses a couple of the key tropes), though classifying it as "less shit" may not be accurate for some people. Tangential to these are stories about modern militaries (or, in one odd series of novels, part of the US East Coast) being sent back in time—although it's possible that a movie from '79 called G.I. Samurai, where a JSDF unit accidentally travels back in time and fights their own Samurai ancestors, is secretly the true forgotten granddaddy of the isekai genre, or at least dreck like GATE.

Isekai also has its influence on [[Old School Roleplaying]]; as stated above, there are plenty of pulp fantasy novels involving ordinary souls getting sucked into a strange, alien world and becoming heroic [[adventurer]]s as a result. A /tg/ example that (in hindsight anyway) fits the isekai mold well is [[GURPS]]' flagship fantasy setting, which revolves around people from across the universe getting isekai'd to the planet of Yrth by an extradimensional "Banestorm" and proposes that players could [[Stat me|stat themselves]] and then play as themselves on Yrth after getting deposited there by the Banestorm. Hell, [[Greyhawk]] has several deities who actually originated on other worlds - [[Murlynd]], [[Saint Cuthbert]] and [[Mayaheine‎‎]] have all been implied to have come to Oerth from "real" Earth - whilst the [[Forgotten Realms]] was, once upon a time, hinted as being connected to Earth by various portals to different times and places; the not!Egyptian race was actually supposed to be peopled by real ancient Egyptians who had been summoned to the Realms en-masse by evil sorcerers as slave labor, only to break free of them. Then there's the [[D%26D_Cartoon|D&D Cartoon]], whose plot ''was'' D&D by way of Isekai. That being said, unless your DM was being really lazy, if you tried to talk in-universe about stats or levels or other meta game content like they do in Isekai stories, NPCs would and should treat you like a madman.

==Reverse Isekai==
Occasionally, reverse isekai plots, where supernatural elements from other dimensions have invaded the "real" world, have appeared in /tg/. [[D20 Modern]]'s default for supernatural entities is that they a dropped onto Earth from another plane, "The Shadow", and can't go home (though their corpses vanish upon death). The [[Adventure Path]] ''Reign of Winter'' has a trip to World War I era Russia where the party fights Mosin-Nagants and machine gun wielding Russian soldiers, tear gas elementals and actual Grigori Rasputin.

One odd feature in Japanese Reverse-Isekais is an emphasis on how Japanese food is so much more awesome than whatever bland, flavorless food the peasants of the fantasy world have to eat. In fact, there actually is more than one anime about people from a fantasy world visiting a restaurant in modern Japan. Which in fairness: the modern world wide food distribution networks that can ship sun ripened lemons and meat to any point in the world within 24 hours is likely going to compare favorable to all but the highest fantasy fare. Even so, even the lowliest peasant would put ''some'' effort in using what they had to make food taste good; even if they couldn't afford spices, herbs were still easy enough to get a hold of, and rural cooks knew enough about how to prepare meats to make them taste good. Whereas fantasy peasants may as well be eating dry, stringy meat with a side of boiled, unseasoned vegetables and mud for dessert.

==List of Isekai==

Note: This list currently focuses on mainly isekai that started as an anime or have had an anime adaption. There is a huge number of isekai manga, web novels, and light novels that have yet to have an anime adaption, which for many of them is a good thing.

===Good Ones===
* '''Aura Battler Dunbine''': The first classic, pre-SAO isekai anime, or at least the earliest one worth remembering, which at its most basic can be described as Isekai Fantasy Gundam (apt, considering that both were made by the same guy). Sho Zama, a dissatisfied japanese youth about to get himself killed in reckless motorcycle stunt on a busy highway, is suddenly summoned into an alternate medieval fantasy world, Byston Well (implied both in-show and in its spiritual sequel ''Wings of Rean'' to be an actual lost world far beneath the Earth), where a local duke by the name of Drake Luft forcibly recruits him and others summoned into his army. Drake Luft was gradually jumpstarting an industrial revolution with a help from other "Upper Earthers" he summoned via a captive fey to give him an edge in his plans to conquer Byston Well while he holds the first adopter advantage, and one of these advantages are the titular mechas, the Aura Battlers, that are powered and enhanced by the pilot's Aura (which the summoned Upper Earthers have more powerful ones compared to the locals) with one called Dunbine to be piloted by Sho, who later steals it to join the resistance. The show can be divided into two halves: The first with gradual escalation from guerilla warfare with medieval weaponry supported by Aura Machines to open warfare between kingdoms fielding 100% Aura Machine Armies led by huge Battlecarriers, while the second half starts with the Fey Queen deciding that all Aura Machines were evil, and, at the cost of her own life, chucks them all (pilots and armies included) back to Upper Earth, which is in the middle of the Cold War. Infamous for having a near 100% fatality rate among all named characters (protagonists AND antagonists alike), with only the ''fairy sidekick'' surviving to the end.
* '''Overlord''': A gamer gets trapped in the body of his max level Lich avatar and sent to another world, bringing with him all of his treasures and minions (who are now real people) and guild base. He even has a shitton of [[EA|cash shop items]] that he pulls out once in a while during the few encounters that his OP powers aren't enough. He starts out trying to be a good guy in the new world, but he ends up turning into a villain on a path to conquer the new world due to a combination of losing a lot of his ability to feel emotions and his minions expecting him to play the role of a villain.
* '''That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime''': A man dies and wakes up in the body of a super powerful [[Slime]] creature with the ability to copy the powers of whatever they eat. They end up becoming the chief of a goblin village and expanding it into a new nation. Something interesting about this series is that it plays with the idea of how most monsters in games are just nameless mooks and only named monsters are an actual threat: here, nearly all monsters are born without a name, but a more powerful entity (usually a demon, or, in our slime's case, his elder dragon BFF) can lend a monster some of their power simply by naming them. The protagonist abuses the shit out of this and names every monster tribe in his confederation, giving them all a newfound sense of purpose and identity along with it. While being on good terms with the human & dwarf nations, the demon-controlled nations are not too happy about this upstart slime and scheme to bring him down.
* '''Kiba''': What happens when you combine Pokémon with Game of Thrones and a bit of 1985, and then give everyone lightsabers. An obscure but definitely worth watching show about two friends named Zed and Noah who separately end up in another world where some people have the ability to pull marble like objects out of one part of their body which are used to cast spells, power up lightsaber-like weapons, and summon powerful monsters called spirits. Each of them ends up possessing one of the six most powerful spirits in the world which the nations of the new world are fighting for control of. Zed, who is kind of an egdelord at first but gets better over time, ends up in the only good nation, while Noah ends in a country that at first seems nice but turns out to be a horrible dystopia where the population is so brainwashed that they are willing to accept capital punishment with a smile for minor crimes even if they committed them accident.
* '''MÄR''': A boy named Ginta gets summoned to another world populated by people based on characters from fairytales and popular classic fantasy books who fight using magical items called ÄRMs. He gets a hold of an intelligent ÄRM named Babbo who can turn into anything he can image. He and several characters including Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk team up for a tournament to decide the fate of the world against a villainous organization called the Chess Pieces.
* '''Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?''': A parody of typical trapped-in-a-video-game wish fulfillment stories. A boy's wish to go into a video game and form a party with a bunch of hot girls is granted, but his dream is ruined because he is forced to bring his extremely attractive and clingy mother with him, who is a lot more powerful than him in the game world, and thus takes all the challenge out of the game for him, and also wrecks his chances of starting any romance with his party members. The show also parodies the incest themes popular in a lot of anime and light novels, as the main character finds his own mother attractive but is entirely disgusted by those feelings, and his mom is too oblivious to realize how uncomfortable her age-inappropriate behavior makes him, while her feelings for him really aren't sexual at all.
* '''Spirited Away''': A [[Loli|girl]] and her parents accidentally wander into the world of spirits and the parents get turned into pigs by a witch as punishment for stealing food. With the help of a mysterious boy who can turn into a dragon, she gets herself a job working for the witch at her bathhouse for spirits until she can find a way to set her parents free. Arguably owes more to classic "fairy stories" than to anything in the modern isekai genre, but may have unintentionally contributed to its rise in popularity. This one is by Hayao Miyazaki and has all of the Studio Ghibli flare that weebs constantly point to to say that anime is more than just stupid cartoons.
* '''Those Who Hunt Elves''': A comedy about a group of people who are summoned to another world and can't go back until they can find 5 tattoos placed on 5 random elves somewhere in the world. To find them they strip every elf they meet naked.
* '''Youjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil''': A sociopathic atheist is murdered by somebody he sacked because corporatism, and meets a being who claims to be God. He refuses to believe it really is God (and even instead labels them 'Being X', sort of like how [[Star Trek]] treats a number of hyper-advanced beings with god-like powers), and as punishment gets reincarnated as a female child soldier in a world resembling WWI Europe, only with magic. Said female child ends up duckfacing her way up the ranks of not!Germany and acquiring a number of hangers-on who either fear or respect her. Her main problem is that she keeps getting assigned to incredibly dangerous missions despite desperately wanting nothing more than a desk job away from the front lines so as not to die again and face Being X or his lackeys (i.e., all the deities from other faiths). Also includes such unbelievable amounts of memetic material and jokes about the cynical life of soldier one can hardly imagine what drugs did the author indulge in. Also: making fun of russians and french, in dubious amounts.
* '''Drifters''': Written and drawn by the author of [[Hellsing|HELLSING]]. This is a story about fighting against fate where historic heroes, wise men and generals from the real world (mostly those who suffered ambiguous or "missing in action/no body was found" ends) are intercepted at the point where they ''should'' have died by a rather mundane-looking-but-apparently divine office worker named '''Murasaki''', and given a choice: to either meet their fates and die, or to live on but get transported to another world—one that happens to be in the middle of a massive fight for survival. Needless to say, many choose the latter, including the main viewpoint character, Shimazu Toyohisa of the Shimazu clan. Called '''Drifters''', this group includes a variety of historical badasses (including Oda Nobunaga, Butch Cassidy, Abe no Senmei, Scipio Africanus and Hannibal Barca), and he whips up an alliance made of demihumans and other peoples into a force that ''might'' be able to stand up to the enemy that's threatening to overwhelm the "civilized" peoples: the forces of the '''Ends'''. Unlike the Drifters, these are people who in the real world had unambiguously nasty ends—like Joan of Arc, Rasputin, and Anastasia Romanov—and are given nasty powers as a result. Led by someone implied to be Joshua bar Joseph (a.k.a., '''Jesus Christ'''), the Ends want to wipe the slate clean, and let the so-called monstrous races (Orcs, Goblins, etc.) inherit the world (because apparently "the meek" was a hell of a mistranslation). Compared to other Isekai, the series is themed around second chances (i.e., don't die the same way you did before), which was heavily reinforced in the first encounter with the black king. By the way, [[Berserk|this series is being released at a snail's pace and is on hiatus for unknown reasons, since it is kind of the fashion nowadays for good mangaka to pull a J.R.R. Martin and not actually do their fucking jobs, even if their work starts being adapted to other mediums faster than they're making it]].
* '''Konosuba''': A comedy series, and one of the first to take the piss out of the Isekai genre. It begins with a NEET shut-in dying to save a girl from being hit by a truck, whereupon he's met by a goddess in the afterlife. She reveals that the girl was actually not in danger (it was actually a tractor moving at around 2 miles an hour) and he died of a heart attack, followed by pissing himself, which she mocks him relentlessly over. She then offers him to reincarnate in another world and defeat the devil king, and in return he can have any powerful item he wants. Out of revenge for her mocking him, he picks her and the two end up trapped in a fantasy world. The goddess turns out to be pretty damn useless 90% of the time and a huge bitch, and later they are joined by two other girls (a bratty pyromaniac wizard [[Loli|loli]] who can only cast one [[Deathstrike_Missile_Launcher|spell]] a day, and a [[/d/|masochistic]] knight who can't hit anything for shit and makes both enemies and allies alike uncomfortable) to form one of the most dysfunctional parties in existence. It manages to be both a clever deconstruction of isekai and a pretty hilarious fantasy-themed sitcom all at once.
* '''Escaflowne''': A Japanese high school girl is teleported to a magical world (one that can see the Earth but Earth can't see it due to magical stuff or something) where the weapon of choice are "Guymelefs": [[magitek]] [[mecha]] that resemble fantastical giant [[knight]]s powered by the crystalline hearts of [[dragon]]s. She gets caught up in a whole slew of crazy as the evil empire shows up and starts conquering the world while the male lead (the heir to one of the conquered kingdoms) and a ragtag group of rebels struggle to overthrow the empire and restore things to a semblance of normalcy. Had a very pretty anime movie made of it but the movie mashed a lot of plot elements and characters together while also cutting a huge chunk of the story as well.
* '''Inuyasha''': A rarity in that the teleported protagonist is female, and travel between the fantasy world and the real world happens frequently. Ordinary school-girl Kagome Higurashi learns that her crazy grampa's ramblings about the ancient, magical well in the shrine her family lives at really are true when a [[monstergirl|many-armed big-tittied centipede woman]] pulls her into the well and transports her to Feudal Japan, ranting about killing her and taking a magical "Shikon Jewel" that can make demons into gods. To not be killed, she reluctantly releases Inuyasha, a bad-tempered [[Half-Fiend|half-inugami (dog demon)]] who looks like a bishie boy with long, flowing white hair, claws, and a pair of cute dog-like ears. During the struggle, the Shikon Jewel is shattered, forcing her to reluctantly team up with Inuyasha (who used to be in love with her previous incarnation, the shrine maiden Kikyo) to track down the shards before they can wreak havoc across the land. Their party grows to incorporate Shippo (a baby [[kitsune]] boy), Sango (a badass warrior-woman who uses a giant boomerang made of demon bones), and Miroku (a perverted but handsome young monk who sports a miniature black-hole in his right hand... [[grimdark|that will ultimately devour him whole, as it has his entire family]]), and their mission expands to tracking down and destroying Naraku, a bandit turned [[Demon Prince]] who has his own evil plans for the Shikon Jewel and who was responsible for the misery that befell Inuyasha and Kikyo.
* '''Rising of the Shield Hero''': Four heroes are summoned to another world that partially runs on RPG rules (it has classes, levels, and experience, but some of the heroes make mistakes based on expecting the world to work like an RPG in places where it doesn't) to defend it against a phenomenon called the Waves of Catastrophe, where the sky turns red and armies of monsters appear. Each of them is assigned a powerful holy weapon (sword, spear, bow, and shield) and forms their own party to help them level up. However, the hero assigned to the shield immediately gets robbed and falsely accused of attempted rape by his only party member, who seemingly did it just so they could give his stuff to the spear hero as a present. With that horrible start, the shield hero loses interest in saving the world and only cares about going home or getting revenge. To survive, he is forced to build up his reputation, wealth, and power from nothing while all of the other heroes (who turn out to all be be idiots) soar ahead of him. And since nobody wants to ally with him and his shield keeps him from wielding any other weapons, he's forced to buy a [[Monstergirl]] slave to help him fight and builds himself up as a hero for the common man rather than the uncaring and snobbish elite. On a side note, when it first came out, [[SJW]]s threw an absolute [[rage|hissy fit]] over how "problematic" they perceived this show to be, because [[skub|it hinges on a false rape accusation and depicts the slaver protagonist as a populist hero]]. Y'see, the shield gives substantial experience bonuses to the shield hero's companions, '''but only if they're also his slaves'''. In short, ''every one of his friends have to be slave-branded, and placed legally under his ownership as his thralls to take advantage of this exp buff''. In practice the shield hero treats this as a necessary evil, and his "slaves" are treated more as a large extended family than anything else.
* '''.hack''': One of the earliest isekai to make big waves in the US, .hack is a franchise made up of several anime, manga lines, and video games that take place in the near future (at the time they started, the year being 2009) where VR video games are not only wildly popular but one (simply called "The World") is the most popular game in existence. People the world over play the game and form guilds and play together. The main character from .hack//Sign, Tsukasa, does ''not'' want to play with others, though. Due to some deep-seated weirdness, it's quickly discovered that they cannot log out of the game. Oh, and some weird floating slime monster attacks and kills other player's avatars, and those so attacked fall into comas in the real world. And there is some sort of floating [[Loli|loli]] that Tsukasa communicates with as well. Fairly quickly a group of people begin to hunt Tsukasa while another group tries to helm him (later to find out "he" is actually a "she"). Series ends kind of meh but kicked off a major franchise that then pretty collapsed under its own weight (multiple games within a handful of years, multiple manga stories, spin-off anime and more that, in the end, couldn't pay for themselves).
* '''[[Log Horizon]]''': A new update of old-school PC MMORPG '''Elder Tale''' ends up dragging its entire logged-in player base into the world it portrayed. Veteran player Shiroe and a few of his friends try to figure out what to do with their new existence, before finally deciding to take an active stance in influencing their current reality for the better. This, on top on trying to find out just WHY everyone got dragged into Elder Tale, or at the very least, a world that seems to look like the game world.
* '''Re:Zero''':

===Bad Ones===
* '''Sword Art Online''': One of shows responsible for the explosion in the popularity of Isekai. Was very popular when it came out, but as Reki Kawahara continued the series, the quality of the story degraded slowly over the years, along with the general fanbase's opinion. It still has it's fans, along with a sizable amount of detractors (as most feel SAO's popularity is undeserved, and taking the spotlight off other shows worth the praise, [[skub|or because its just popular]]). The initial premise of SAO is that true VR is achieved through a VR helmet called the "NerveGear", which transports the mind of the wearer into virtual space in a process called "Full Dive". However, Akihiko Kayaba, the inventor of the device sabotaged it and instead: he traps everyone in SAO by removing the log-out feature, and secretly installs a kill-switch onto the helmets that will fry the user's brain if they forcefully yank out the helmet or if they run out of HP in the game. The only way to log out is to clear a tower-like dungeon in the middle of the game, which is filled with high-level mobs and boss-creatures, so the trapped players band together to clear the tower and get out, while some just fuck around and exploit the situation to their benefit. The plot itself has interesting ideas on how teens and young adults cope with the threat of actual death while in a video game (or wanton disregard for it), but has plenty of glossed-over plot holes that, if you look too far into it, makes the entire story nonsensical (such as factoring human physiology into account—most people inside SAO would have died in less than a week due to IRL dehydration and malnutrition). It also doesn’t help that the protagonist, Kirito, is an unabashed [[edgy]] [[Mary Sue|Marty Sue]] (although the edgy part eventually mellows down, he's still a Marty Sue in all depictions). On a side note, Kirito is also responsible for the painful influx of [[Drizzt Do'Urden|terribly written edgy teenage dual sword-wielding OCs]] in the early 2010s, to the point there's now a slight stigma with using dual-swords for your character in RPGs. To cap it off, the first season ended on a nonsensical conclusion. The female characters that make up Kirito's not-harem are [[waifu]] material though, if that's any consolation, and SAO at the very least has the decency to write them as their own relatable characters, instead of being orbiting cumdumpsters for the protag to cockblock at will (and as bad as his character is written, Kirito still has a wholesome relationship with his in-game waifu, turned IRL waifu Asuna.).
*'''GATE: Thus the JSDF Went There''': This was a series that had some potential as the premise was somewhat similar to Stargate; A gateway to another world suddenly appears right in the middle of Tokyo, and almost immediately a bunch of monsters and medieval soldiers start pouring out and attacking anyone in sight. Naturally, the modern Japanese military beats them back, then decides to invade the other world to hold those responsible for the attack accountable. This could've been a good story as there's some actual political intrigue on both sides of the gate, but besides the usual Isekai problems (the protagonist is a lazy underachiever and yet has specops credentials, and has a harem of girls who are or look half his age), it's also in-your-face nationalistic, to the point where the Japanese Self-Defense Force effortlessly curbstomps any enemy they go up against, including three different spy agencies and the capital of the enemy empire. Besides removing any tension from the story, it's also pretty much transparent pro-military propaganda, where all of the military's more pacifistic political opponents are portrayed as self-centered opportunists. Nevermind that the JSDF basically claimed the other world as their sovereign territory by virtue of being connected to Japan and are seeking to exploit its resources. [[The_World_Wars#The_Second_World_War|This should set off alarm bells for those of you who know history]], especially as the story as a whole seems aligned with the [[/pol/|far-right, ultra-nationalist, Imperial-apologist movement in Japanese politics]] (note that this appears to be a trend in the genre, as you'll see below).
As a sidenote, manga is pretty good. Anime is so watered down it looks like a propaganda pamphlet. And it has a 961 year old gothic maid loli, whose very name is a gig at Japanese pronunciation of loli.
* '''In Another World With My Smartphone''': The protag gets accidentally offed by God, and as an apology resurrects him with god-tier stats and a smartphone with several, mostly unfair features. He is, without a doubt, the most unironically-blatant [[Mary Sue|Marty Sue]] to grace recent times. Also its a romance-less harem animu on the side, so they're clearly not even trying to aim above the 13-year old demographic.
* '''The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar''': Even worse than Smartphone. Possibly the worst isakai ever. Take everything people hate about isekai and turn it up to eleven. Lazy animation, a harem that includes disturbingly young girls, and an unwatchably boring plot. Also has a guy with a smartphone, oddly enough, but that may just be because the target audience can't imagine life without one.
* '''Garzey's Wing''': 1996 release, widely hailed as one of the worst anime ever made; particularly, the Central Park Media dub made an already incoherent plot even more nonsensical. For example, one notorious line goes "We have to circle quickly. We need a stirrup to do this. But don't be unduly concerned. We can use our spears to stand our ground firmly."
* '''[New Life+] Young Again in Another World''': This is just another generic isekai about a main character that was killed and sent to another world by God. But what's so bad about this one that it deserves to be mentioned here? Well, it turns out that the MC, in his original life, was a soldier who participated the Second Sino-Japanese War in China, where he used his [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|GLORIOUS KATANA FOLDED 9000 TIMES]] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre killed over 3000+ people]. You still with me? Good. After the anime was announced, controversy obviously started and China threw its weight around, forcing the publishing company to not only cancel the anime, but halting the publishing of the novels as well. Every product relating to this piece of trash was stopped. To make matters worse, many anons also found old tweets from the author on Twitter made before the first volume of his isekai was published, [[/pol/|where he demeans both Chinese and Koreans, calling them inhuman and lacking morality]]. This and other incidents suggest that a good chunk of Japanese isekai authors not only suck at writing, but can be some of the worst scumbags in Japan as well as the overall world.

===Weird Ones===
Or at least the "good" weird ones (that is, of sufficient quality to qualify as "Good Ones", above), or those otherwise of some significance.

* '''Isekai Quartet''': Take the main casts of "Overlord", "Konosuba", "Saga of Tanya" and "Re: Zero" find themselves in a middle school. Most of them want to return "home". The result? A somewhat interesting gag series about an Isekai squared situation. Weird because it blurs the line between Isekai, Reverse Isekai, and Not Isekai. Funny, but only if you have some awareness of at least one (and preferably more) of the four series, and are willing to tolerate "HILARITY ENSUES" grade "hi-jinks".
*'''Restaurant to Another World''': One of the few Reverse Isekai stories. There's no overarching plot or villains, just a bunch of fantasy folk visiting a restaurant in Japan. Each patron has their own quirks and favorite dish, as well as their story of how they came to discover the restaurant and the friends they make inside.
*'''Plus-Sized Elf''': Another reverse Isekai featuring a cast of [[Monstergirl]]s in Japan who can't return home because they all got fat from eating too much delicious but unhealthy food. They're being helped by a health and fitness expert to lose weight, but each girl's obsessions and constant infighting keeps them from making too much progress. The manga has some actual fitness tips sprinkled throughout, but it's also pretty lewd at times.
*'''Kyoryu Wakusei'''　('''Dinosaur Planet'''): A fairly old (1993) blend of live action (for the "real world" parts) and anime (for the virtual parts) for kids. The adventures of a girl in a (highly inaccurate) virtual simulation of dinosaur times with her navigator in the real world. Strangely contains a fanservice scene of the girl's virtual avatar (who admittedly looks nothing like her real self, with different hair style and color plus a different actor). The reason this even mentioned is it's one of the primary theories of where the hell the term 萌 (Moe) comes from: The girl's avatar is named that (and, unlike the other major theory, Hotaru To'''moe''' of Sailor Moon, uses the same kanji) and said fanservice scene greeted with a very enthusiastic statement of "萌～...".
*'''Thermae Romae''': A comedy about a Roman Thermae (public bath) architect who accidentally traveled to modern Japan after he slipped into his bath water. There, he learns a great deal of knowledge from the flat-faces (what he calls the Japanese), and uses this knowledge to improve Roman Thermae when he gets back. Later chapters turn into [[/tv/|the time traveler's wife]], where he meets this Roman-obsessed Japanese girl (who is also the only "flat-face" he can communicate with in Latin) and falls in love with her.
* '''Re:Creators''': A reverse Isekai, where characters, called creations, of popular created worlds get transported to a real world by a creation that has broken the fourth wall. The idea that their worlds are fruit of imagination and the concept of creator and the act of creation is not something you usually encounter in an anime. It does spiral downwards into a clusterfuck and trope bashing, but hey, if you can have a redhead piloting a mecha, why not? Extra points for filler episode making fun of all the reasons filler episodes exist.
[[Category: Gamer Slang]]
[[Category: Weeaboo]]

Isekai

2019-09-23T04:06:06Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:BC03:1AE0:C2A5:E2D: /* Good Ones */

{{topquote|1=Hey guys, today I wanted to talk about the newest, hottest anime to come out this season. All right, get this: It's about a completely normal shut-in Otaku with a very specific skill set that makes him useless in the real world, who is suddenly transported to a fantasy world kinda similar to any JRPG you've ever seen where he suddenly becomes the hottest shit, and he has two jobs: Messing up any poor soul who looks at him the wrong way and getting some 2D bitches. Wait, doesn't this sound oddly familiar?|2=Gigguk, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFR2nvw19h4 "Isekai: The Genre that Took Over Anime"]}}

Proof that Japan has no publishing standards or quality control. '''Isekai''' is a Japanese word assimilated into the /tg/ lexicon from the [[weeaboo]] faggots at /a/ and /jp/. Literally meaning "another world" or "parallel world", it refers to a genre in which the main characters are from "our" world and taken to a foreign world resembling [[RPG|some form of fantasy game]], where they proceed to become [[adventurers]]. Usually, plot reasons prevent them from heading home until something is taken care of—typically whatever big bad evil guy is threatening everything—but sometimes they're stuck there forever and have to adapt as best they can. Methods of transportation are vast and varied, including but not limited to: stumbling into a portal, activating a magical McGuffin, getting run over by [[Meme|Truck-kun]] and reincarnated (''Tensei'' in weeb, a genre isekai ate), being summoned by the denizens of the world, or the ever-popular getting your brain downloaded into your favorite [[MMORPG]].

The term (and to a lesser extent the genre) have been kicking around the weeaboosphere for a while, but around 2015 publishers started flooding the market with insufferably awful series (with insufferably long titles) that sell both in Japan and internationally like hotcakes, no matter how bland and generic they get. This once again proves that no matter which side of the planet you're on, otaku are autistic retards with no taste. As of 2018 this seems to be tapering off: Kadokawa has banned isekai stories from their light novel competitions, fewer and fewer isekai light novels get adapted into anime each season, and parodies are becoming more and more common, making it only a matter of time before the genre hits [[Zombie|"even the parodies are stale" levels of played out.]]

==Why do people hate it so much?==

As noted below, stories of people entering other worlds are nothing new, and speaks to a common desire to experience strange and exotic lands. Yet Isekai stories still get a lot of flak for many reasons. Besides there being way too many anime/manga that are all basically the same story with slightly different premises, it boils down to a number of common gripes:

* The biggest one is that rather than trying to tell a compelling and interesting story, too many Isekai stories are just the basest wish fulfillment fantasies for the lonely basement-dwelling neckbeard. Most of the other complaints are derived from this one.
* The hallmark of isekai stories is defining of the world in terms of RPG mechanics. People in isekai worlds speak of levels, classes, and experience as real and tangible things as opposed to the mechanical abstractions fa/tg/uys normally recognize them as. Outside of Isekai stories that actually take place inside of RPGs or videogame RPGs, this is pretty much inexcusable.
* Isekai protagonists tend to be [[Neckbeard|big fucking nerds]] who immediately recognize what's all about and exploit it, often aided by [[Plot armor|unreasonably high stats relative to their abilities in real life.]] The unstated implication is that the overweight slimeball watching/reading the isekai story would be just as successful as the protagonist because of his [[Trivial Pursuit|valuable and hard-earned RPG knowledge]].
* The protagonist frequently is overpowered in a way that puts him way ahead of his peers, despite lacking any useful combat, intellectual, or even social skills from his homeworld. Rarely does the protagonist have to put that much effort in overcoming his obstacles.
* Even more offensive protagonists will be actively unlikable or even outright repulsive, despite not suffering any consequences for it.
* And on top of that, 99.9% of the time, the protaganist has an all-female <s>harem</s> party who hang on his every word. [[Mary Sue|Is this starting to sound familiar?]]
** Also most of the time these girls will getting their clothes stripped, humiliated and having the MC barged in their room while they are changing. These lewd scene can be shown in a few page art for the LN and well as panels in the manga version. To summarize, the fan services it featured made the genre into a collection of softcore porn and it is why people are still reading these crap. So why not just read porn then?
* For more Isekai-specific gripes, while many stories are just copycats of one another, some will ''attempt'' to put an "original spin" on the genre, usually by adding a gimmick. If done well, then the story still has some value in being interesting and explore otherwise ignored facets of an overused genre. Done poorly, and it comes across as just plain tiresome, especially if the gimmick is the only thing keeping the story afloat when the characters and plot fail to impress.
* Almost all the protagonists in isekai stories have tragic background. Not saying that this is a bad thing, but it is almost as if the author is trying to push the bill, forcing the reader to go through 1 or 2 chapters of flash backs. This gets worse when they are all generic manga cliches. But some tragic backgrounds are so well detailed it's almost as if the author self inserted their past there. Here is a few examples:
** Daddy/Mommy issues - According to various manga, Japanese parents are some of the worst in all of Asia since their working conditions over there have a very high demand and busy schedule that the parents are too busy at work to spend any time with their children (a situation that is a genuine issue, but not something the MC bothers with explaining). Other than that, the parents can be highly demanding, overfocusing on academic performance at the cost of any other development in that edgy way that teenagers rebel against mom & dad. Sometimes, parents can also be drunken scumbags who either abandon their children of the next high or just straight up mistreat them. Protagonists with tragic background like these often has low self-esteem and edginess but have it all fixed up in the other world since now they are popular with bitches.
** School problems - Way too many isekai protagonists have school-centric tragic backgrounds where they are either bullied in school or have no friends. Probably that's why they become nerds and are able to develop their very own hobbies alone, which just happen to be the cheat key in the other world.
** [[Neckbeards|NEET]] - Oh baby, don't even get me started. NEET is an acronym for "Not in Education, Employment, or Training," typically including [[Grognard|basement-dwelling adult virgins, unemployed nerds]] who live alone which makes them the definition of a loser. It is no surprise such a failure could get cheat powers in the other world compared to how piss poor they did in real life.
* [[weeaboo|O MY GLORIOUS NIPPON STEEL FOLDED OVER 9000 TIMES]]. Basically just to show how superior the Japanese are compared to the other world. GATE is the worst example of this, where the Japanese military in a medieval fantasy world is wreaking havoc with their modern weaponry (which is not unreasonable to imagine, even for the decidedly modest Japanese Self Defense Force, but it’s taken to the point where it comes across like a cheesy recruitment ad targeting otaku: "Want to be a real hero? We kill more orcs before 9AM than most Paladins do all day!"). Other than that, various Japanese food and their favorite [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|katana blade are also introduced in the other world to prove their superiority]]. It's almost if these mass produced Isekai stories and manga are just to advertise Japan's superiority to compensate for something...
* The worlds traveled to are generally bland and unoriginal: usually, it's just the JRPG version of the [[standard fantasy setting]], with actual in-universe RPG mechanics. The distancing effect of the latter is rather bad, and the oversaturation of the former only makes things worse.

== Isekai and /tg/ ==

Although most isekai stories get panned on /tg/ for [[TVTropes|annoying meta-humor]], [[Double Cross|generic shonen bullshit]], [[Maid RPG|generic fanservice bullshit]], or [[Extra Heresy|a combination thereof]] (if not the characters being blatantly Mary Sues, or presenting something even more absurd), a handful of series are decent enough to merit genuine approval. Or they're tolerated because they have [[monstergirls]]. Check our [[Approved anime|anime]] and [[manga]] pages for the current scoop.

While isekai is a distinctly Japanese form of [[Skub|cancer]], the basic idea of people from our world getting chucked into a fantastic world and forced to fend for themselves is practically universal and turns up moderately often in Western fantasy with the earliest example perhaps being ''"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"'' by Mark Twain which was published in 1889. Oddly, when this happens it tends to be rather less shit perhaps due to it being less common. L. Frank Baum's ''Oz'' series, ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' by Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' ''Barsoom'' (a.k.a., John Carter of Mars) novels are iconic examples of the core premise that predate cliche fantasy, and C.S. Lewis ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' uses the plot for Christian allegory. ''The NeverEnding Story'' is the flagship modern western example, and right in the heart of the fantasy cliche storm, yet it is the purest anti-shit, either despite or because of this. Or at least, it avoids being the self-indulgent wish-fulfillment for irredeemably unlikable losers that makes Isekai so widely hated. One could make the case that ''The Matrix'' is an isekai story (it basically reverses a couple of the key tropes), though classifying it as "less shit" may not be accurate for some people. Tangential to these are stories about modern militaries (or, in one odd series of novels, part of the US East Coast) being sent back in time—although it's possible that a movie from '79 called G.I. Samurai, where a JSDF unit accidentally travels back in time and fights their own Samurai ancestors, is secretly the true forgotten granddaddy of the isekai genre, or at least dreck like GATE.

Isekai also has its influence on [[Old School Roleplaying]]; as stated above, there are plenty of pulp fantasy novels involving ordinary souls getting sucked into a strange, alien world and becoming heroic [[adventurer]]s as a result. A /tg/ example that (in hindsight anyway) fits the isekai mold well is [[GURPS]]' flagship fantasy setting, which revolves around people from across the universe getting isekai'd to the planet of Yrth by an extradimensional "Banestorm" and proposes that players could [[Stat me|stat themselves]] and then play as themselves on Yrth after getting deposited there by the Banestorm. Hell, [[Greyhawk]] has several deities who actually originated on other worlds - [[Murlynd]], [[Saint Cuthbert]] and [[Mayaheine‎‎]] have all been implied to have come to Oerth from "real" Earth - whilst the [[Forgotten Realms]] was, once upon a time, hinted as being connected to Earth by various portals to different times and places; the not!Egyptian race was actually supposed to be peopled by real ancient Egyptians who had been summoned to the Realms en-masse by evil sorcerers as slave labor, only to break free of them. Then there's the [[D%26D_Cartoon|D&D Cartoon]], whose plot ''was'' D&D by way of Isekai. That being said, unless your DM was being really lazy, if you tried to talk in-universe about stats or levels or other meta game content like they do in Isekai stories, NPCs would and should treat you like a madman.

==Reverse Isekai==
Occasionally, reverse isekai plots, where supernatural elements from other dimensions have invaded the "real" world, have appeared in /tg/. [[D20 Modern]]'s default for supernatural entities is that they a dropped onto Earth from another plane, "The Shadow", and can't go home (though their corpses vanish upon death). The [[Adventure Path]] ''Reign of Winter'' has a trip to World War I era Russia where the party fights Mosin-Nagants and machine gun wielding Russian soldiers, tear gas elementals and actual Grigori Rasputin.

One odd feature in Japanese Reverse-Isekais is an emphasis on how Japanese food is so much more awesome than whatever bland, flavorless food the peasants of the fantasy world have to eat. In fact, there actually is more than one anime about people from a fantasy world visiting a restaurant in modern Japan. Which in fairness: the modern world wide food distribution networks that can ship sun ripened lemons and meat to any point in the world within 24 hours is likely going to compare favorable to all but the highest fantasy fare. Even so, even the lowliest peasant would put ''some'' effort in using what they had to make food taste good; even if they couldn't afford spices, herbs were still easy enough to get a hold of, and rural cooks knew enough about how to prepare meats to make them taste good. Whereas fantasy peasants may as well be eating dry, stringy meat with a side of boiled, unseasoned vegetables and mud for dessert.

==List of Isekai==

Note: This list currently focuses on mainly isekai that started as an anime or have had an anime adaption. There is a huge number of isekai manga, web novels, and light novels that have yet to have an anime adaption, which for many of them is a good thing.

===Good Ones===
* '''Aura Battler Dunbine''': The first classic, pre-SAO isekai anime, or at least the earliest one worth remembering, which at its most basic can be described as Isekai Fantasy Gundam (apt, considering that both were made by the same guy). Sho Zama, a dissatisfied japanese youth about to get himself killed in reckless motorcycle stunt on a busy highway, is suddenly summoned into an alternate medieval fantasy world, Byston Well (implied both in-show and in its spiritual sequel ''Wings of Rean'' to be an actual lost world far beneath the Earth), where a local duke by the name of Drake Luft forcibly recruits him and others summoned into his army. Drake Luft was gradually jumpstarting an industrial revolution with a help from other "Upper Earthers" he summoned via a captive fey to give him an edge in his plans to conquer Byston Well while he holds the first adopter advantage, and one of these advantages are the titular mechas, the Aura Battlers, that are powered and enhanced by the pilot's Aura (which the summoned Upper Earthers have more powerful ones compared to the locals) with one called Dunbine to be piloted by Sho, who later steals it to join the resistance. The show can be divided into two halves: The first with gradual escalation from guerilla warfare with medieval weaponry supported by Aura Machines to open warfare between kingdoms fielding 100% Aura Machine Armies led by huge Battlecarriers, while the second half starts with the Fey Queen deciding that all Aura Machines were evil, and, at the cost of her own life, chucks them all (pilots and armies included) back to Upper Earth, which is in the middle of the Cold War. Infamous for having a near 100% fatality rate among all named characters (protagonists AND antagonists alike), with only the ''fairy sidekick'' surviving to the end.
* '''Overlord''': A gamer gets trapped in the body of his max level Lich avatar and sent to another world, bringing with him all of his treasures and minions (who are now real people) and guild base. He even has a shitton of [[EA|cash shop items]] that he pulls out once in a while during the few encounters that his OP powers aren't enough. He starts out trying to be a good guy in the new world, but he ends up turning into a villain on a path to conquer the new world due to a combination of losing a lot of his ability to feel emotions and his minions expecting him to play the role of a villain.
* '''That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime''': A man dies and wakes up in the body of a super powerful [[Slime]] creature with the ability to copy the powers of whatever they eat. They end up becoming the chief of a goblin village and expanding it into a new nation. Something interesting about this series is that it plays with the idea of how most monsters in games are just nameless mooks and only named monsters are an actual threat: here, nearly all monsters are born without a name, but a more powerful entity (usually a demon, or, in our slime's case, his elder dragon BFF) can lend a monster some of their power simply by naming them. The protagonist abuses the shit out of this and names every monster tribe in his confederation, giving them all a newfound sense of purpose and identity along with it. While being on good terms with the human & dwarf nations, the demon-controlled nations are not too happy about this upstart slime and scheme to bring him down.
* '''Kiba''': What happens when you combine Pokémon with Game of Thrones and a bit of 1985, and then give everyone lightsabers. An obscure but definitely worth watching show about two friends named Zed and Noah who separately end up in another world where some people have the ability to pull marble like objects out of one part of their body which are used to cast spells, power up lightsaber-like weapons, and summon powerful monsters called spirits. Each of them ends up possessing one of the six most powerful spirits in the world which the nations of the new world are fighting for control of. Zed, who is kind of an egdelord at first but gets better over time, ends up in the only good nation, while Noah ends in a country that at first seems nice but turns out to be a horrible dystopia where the population is so brainwashed that they are willing to accept capital punishment with a smile for minor crimes even if they committed them accident.
* '''MÄR''': A boy named Ginta gets summoned to another world populated by people based on characters from fairytales and popular classic fantasy books who fight using magical items called ÄRMs. He gets a hold of an intelligent ÄRM named Babbo who can turn into anything he can image. He and several characters including Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk team up for a tournament to decide the fate of the world against a villainous organization called the Chess Pieces.
* '''Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?''': A parody of typical trapped-in-a-video-game wish fulfillment stories. A boy's wish to go into a video game and form a party with a bunch of hot girls is granted, but his dream is ruined because he is forced to bring his extremely attractive and clingy mother with him, who is a lot more powerful than him in the game world, and thus takes all the challenge out of the game for him, and also wrecks his chances of starting any romance with his party members. The show also parodies the incest themes popular in a lot of anime and light novels, as the main character finds his own mother attractive but is entirely disgusted by those feelings, and his mom is too oblivious to realize how uncomfortable her age-inappropriate behavior makes him, while her feelings for him really aren't sexual at all.
* '''Spirited Away''': A [[Loli|girl]] and her parents accidentally wander into the world of spirits and the parents get turned into pigs by a witch as punishment for stealing food. With the help of a mysterious boy who can turn into a dragon, she gets herself a job working for the witch at her bathhouse for spirits until she can find a way to set her parents free. Arguably owes more to classic "fairy stories" than to anything in the modern isekai genre, but may have unintentionally contributed to its rise in popularity. This one is by Hayao Miyazaki and has all of the Studio Ghibli flare that weebs constantly point to to say that anime is more than just stupid cartoons.
* '''Those Who Hunt Elves''': A comedy about a group of people who are summoned to another world and can't go back until they can find 5 tattoos placed on 5 random elves somewhere in the world. To find them they strip every elf they meet naked.
* '''Youjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil''': A sociopathic atheist is murdered by somebody he sacked because corporatism, and meets a being who claims to be God. He refuses to believe it really is God (and even instead labels them 'Being X', sort of like how [[Star Trek]] treats a number of hyper-advanced beings with god-like powers), and as punishment gets reincarnated as a female child soldier in a world resembling WWI Europe, only with magic. Said female child ends up duckfacing her way up the ranks of not!Germany and acquiring a number of hangers-on who either fear or respect her. Her main problem is that she keeps getting assigned to incredibly dangerous missions despite desperately wanting nothing more than a desk job away from the front lines so as not to die again and face Being X or his lackeys (i.e., all the deities from other faiths).
* '''Drifters''': Written and drawn by the author of [[Hellsing|HELLSING]]. This is a story about fighting against fate where historic heroes, wise men and generals from the real world (mostly those who suffered ambiguous or "missing in action/no body was found" ends) are intercepted at the point where they ''should'' have died by a rather mundane-looking-but-apparently divine office worker named '''Murasaki''', and given a choice: to either meet their fates and die, or to live on but get transported to another world—one that happens to be in the middle of a massive fight for survival. Needless to say, many choose the latter, including the main viewpoint character, Shimazu Toyohisa of the Shimazu clan. Called '''Drifters''', this group includes a variety of historical badasses (including Oda Nobunaga, Butch Cassidy, Abe no Senmei, Scipio Africanus and Hannibal Barca), and he whips up an alliance made of demihumans and other peoples into a force that ''might'' be able to stand up to the enemy that's threatening to overwhelm the "civilized" peoples: the forces of the '''Ends'''. Unlike the Drifters, these are people who in the real world had unambiguously nasty ends—like Joan of Arc, Rasputin, and Anastasia Romanov—and are given nasty powers as a result. Led by someone implied to be Joshua bar Joseph (a.k.a., '''Jesus Christ'''), the Ends want to wipe the slate clean, and let the so-called monstrous races (Orcs, Goblins, etc.) inherit the world (because apparently "the meek" was a hell of a mistranslation). Compared to other Isekai, the series is themed around second chances (i.e., don't die the same way you did before), which was heavily reinforced in the first encounter with the black king. By the way, [[Berserk|this series is being released at a snail's pace and is on hiatus for unknown reasons, since it is kind of the fashion nowadays for good mangaka to pull a J.R.R. Martin and not actually do their fucking jobs, even if their work starts being adapted to other mediums faster than they're making it]].
* '''Konosuba''': A comedy series, and one of the first to take the piss out of the Isekai genre. It begins with a NEET shut-in dying to save a girl from being hit by a truck, whereupon he's met by a goddess in the afterlife. She reveals that the girl was actually not in danger (it was actually a tractor moving at around 2 miles an hour) and he died of a heart attack, followed by pissing himself, which she mocks him relentlessly over. She then offers him to reincarnate in another world and defeat the devil king, and in return he can have any powerful item he wants. Out of revenge for her mocking him, he picks her and the two end up trapped in a fantasy world. The goddess turns out to be pretty damn useless 90% of the time and a huge bitch, and later they are joined by two other girls (a bratty pyromaniac wizard [[Loli|loli]] who can only cast one [[Deathstrike_Missile_Launcher|spell]] a day, and a [[/d/|masochistic]] knight who can't hit anything for shit and makes both enemies and allies alike uncomfortable) to form one of the most dysfunctional parties in existence. It manages to be both a clever deconstruction of isekai and a pretty hilarious fantasy-themed sitcom all at once.
* '''Escaflowne''': A Japanese high school girl is teleported to a magical world (one that can see the Earth but Earth can't see it due to magical stuff or something) where the weapon of choice are "Guymelefs": [[magitek]] [[mecha]] that resemble fantastical giant [[knight]]s powered by the crystalline hearts of [[dragon]]s. She gets caught up in a whole slew of crazy as the evil empire shows up and starts conquering the world while the male lead (the heir to one of the conquered kingdoms) and a ragtag group of rebels struggle to overthrow the empire and restore things to a semblance of normalcy. Had a very pretty anime movie made of it but the movie mashed a lot of plot elements and characters together while also cutting a huge chunk of the story as well.
* '''Inuyasha''': A rarity in that the teleported protagonist is female, and travel between the fantasy world and the real world happens frequently. Ordinary school-girl Kagome Higurashi learns that her crazy grampa's ramblings about the ancient, magical well in the shrine her family lives at really are true when a [[monstergirl|many-armed big-tittied centipede woman]] pulls her into the well and transports her to Feudal Japan, ranting about killing her and taking a magical "Shikon Jewel" that can make demons into gods. To not be killed, she reluctantly releases Inuyasha, a bad-tempered [[Half-Fiend|half-inugami (dog demon)]] who looks like a bishie boy with long, flowing white hair, claws, and a pair of cute dog-like ears. During the struggle, the Shikon Jewel is shattered, forcing her to reluctantly team up with Inuyasha (who used to be in love with her previous incarnation, the shrine maiden Kikyo) to track down the shards before they can wreak havoc across the land. Their party grows to incorporate Shippo (a baby [[kitsune]] boy), Sango (a badass warrior-woman who uses a giant boomerang made of demon bones), and Miroku (a perverted but handsome young monk who sports a miniature black-hole in his right hand... [[grimdark|that will ultimately devour him whole, as it has his entire family]]), and their mission expands to tracking down and destroying Naraku, a bandit turned [[Demon Prince]] who has his own evil plans for the Shikon Jewel and who was responsible for the misery that befell Inuyasha and Kikyo.
* '''Rising of the Shield Hero''': Four heroes are summoned to another world that partially runs on RPG rules (it has classes, levels, and experience, but some of the heroes make mistakes based on expecting the world to work like an RPG in places where it doesn't) to defend it against a phenomenon called the Waves of Catastrophe, where the sky turns red and armies of monsters appear. Each of them is assigned a powerful holy weapon (sword, spear, bow, and shield) and forms their own party to help them level up. However, the hero assigned to the shield immediately gets robbed and falsely accused of attempted rape by his only party member, who seemingly did it just so they could give his stuff to the spear hero as a present. With that horrible start, the shield hero loses interest in saving the world and only cares about going home or getting revenge. To survive, he is forced to build up his reputation, wealth, and power from nothing while all of the other heroes (who turn out to all be be idiots) soar ahead of him. And since nobody wants to ally with him and his shield keeps him from wielding any other weapons, he's forced to buy a [[Monstergirl]] slave to help him fight and builds himself up as a hero for the common man rather than the uncaring and snobbish elite. On a side note, when it first came out, [[SJW]]s threw an absolute [[rage|hissy fit]] over how "problematic" they perceived this show to be, because [[skub|it hinges on a false rape accusation and depicts the slaver protagonist as a populist hero]]. Y'see, the shield gives substantial experience bonuses to the shield hero's companions, '''but only if they're also his slaves'''. In short, ''every one of his friends have to be slave-branded, and placed legally under his ownership as his thralls to take advantage of this exp buff''. In practice the shield hero treats this as a necessary evil, and his "slaves" are treated more as a large extended family than anything else.
* '''.hack''': One of the earliest isekai to make big waves in the US, .hack is a franchise made up of several anime, manga lines, and video games that take place in the near future (at the time they started, the year being 2009) where VR video games are not only wildly popular but one (simply called "The World") is the most popular game in existence. People the world over play the game and form guilds and play together. The main character from .hack//Sign, Tsukasa, does ''not'' want to play with others, though. Due to some deep-seated weirdness, it's quickly discovered that they cannot log out of the game. Oh, and some weird floating slime monster attacks and kills other player's avatars, and those so attacked fall into comas in the real world. And there is some sort of floating [[Loli|loli]] that Tsukasa communicates with as well. Fairly quickly a group of people begin to hunt Tsukasa while another group tries to helm him (later to find out "he" is actually a "she"). Series ends kind of meh but kicked off a major franchise that then pretty collapsed under its own weight (multiple games within a handful of years, multiple manga stories, spin-off anime and more that, in the end, couldn't pay for themselves).
* '''[[Log Horizon]]''': A new update of old-school PC MMORPG '''Elder Tale''' ends up dragging its entire logged-in player base into the world it portrayed. Veteran player Shiroe and a few of his friends try to figure out what to do with their new existence, before finally deciding to take an active stance in influencing their current reality for the better. This, on top on trying to find out just WHY everyone got dragged into Elder Tale, or at the very least, a world that seems to look like the game world.
* '''Re:Zero''':

===Bad Ones===
* '''Sword Art Online''': One of shows responsible for the explosion in the popularity of Isekai. Was very popular when it came out, but as Reki Kawahara continued the series, the quality of the story degraded slowly over the years, along with the general fanbase's opinion. It still has it's fans, along with a sizable amount of detractors (as most feel SAO's popularity is undeserved, and taking the spotlight off other shows worth the praise, [[skub|or because its just popular]]). The initial premise of SAO is that true VR is achieved through a VR helmet called the "NerveGear", which transports the mind of the wearer into virtual space in a process called "Full Dive". However, Akihiko Kayaba, the inventor of the device sabotaged it and instead: he traps everyone in SAO by removing the log-out feature, and secretly installs a kill-switch onto the helmets that will fry the user's brain if they forcefully yank out the helmet or if they run out of HP in the game. The only way to log out is to clear a tower-like dungeon in the middle of the game, which is filled with high-level mobs and boss-creatures, so the trapped players band together to clear the tower and get out, while some just fuck around and exploit the situation to their benefit. The plot itself has interesting ideas on how teens and young adults cope with the threat of actual death while in a video game (or wanton disregard for it), but has plenty of glossed-over plot holes that, if you look too far into it, makes the entire story nonsensical (such as factoring human physiology into account—most people inside SAO would have died in less than a week due to IRL dehydration and malnutrition). It also doesn’t help that the protagonist, Kirito, is an unabashed [[edgy]] [[Mary Sue|Marty Sue]] (although the edgy part eventually mellows down, he's still a Marty Sue in all depictions). On a side note, Kirito is also responsible for the painful influx of [[Drizzt Do'Urden|terribly written edgy teenage dual sword-wielding OCs]] in the early 2010s, to the point there's now a slight stigma with using dual-swords for your character in RPGs. To cap it off, the first season ended on a nonsensical conclusion. The female characters that make up Kirito's not-harem are [[waifu]] material though, if that's any consolation, and SAO at the very least has the decency to write them as their own relatable characters, instead of being orbiting cumdumpsters for the protag to cockblock at will (and as bad as his character is written, Kirito still has a wholesome relationship with his in-game waifu, turned IRL waifu Asuna.).
*'''GATE: Thus the JSDF Went There''': This was a series that had some potential as the premise was somewhat similar to Stargate; A gateway to another world suddenly appears right in the middle of Tokyo, and almost immediately a bunch of monsters and medieval soldiers start pouring out and attacking anyone in sight. Naturally, the modern Japanese military beats them back, then decides to invade the other world to hold those responsible for the attack accountable. This could've been a good story as there's some actual political intrigue on both sides of the gate, but besides the usual Isekai problems (the protagonist is a lazy underachiever and yet has specops credentials, and has a harem of girls who are or look half his age), it's also in-your-face nationalistic, to the point where the Japanese Self-Defense Force effortlessly curbstomps any enemy they go up against, including three different spy agencies and the capital of the enemy empire. Besides removing any tension from the story, it's also pretty much transparent pro-military propaganda, where all of the military's more pacifistic political opponents are portrayed as self-centered opportunists. Nevermind that the JSDF basically claimed the other world as their sovereign territory by virtue of being connected to Japan and are seeking to exploit its resources. [[The_World_Wars#The_Second_World_War|This should set off alarm bells for those of you who know history]], especially as the story as a whole seems aligned with the [[/pol/|far-right, ultra-nationalist, Imperial-apologist movement in Japanese politics]] (note that this appears to be a trend in the genre, as you'll see below).
* '''In Another World With My Smartphone''': The protag gets accidentally offed by God, and as an apology resurrects him with god-tier stats and a smartphone with several, mostly unfair features. He is, without a doubt, the most unironically-blatant [[Mary Sue|Marty Sue]] to grace recent times. Also its a romance-less harem animu on the side, so they're clearly not even trying to aim above the 13-year old demographic.
* '''The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar''': Even worse than Smartphone. Possibly the worst isakai ever. Take everything people hate about isekai and turn it up to eleven. Lazy animation, a harem that includes disturbingly young girls, and an unwatchably boring plot. Also has a guy with a smartphone, oddly enough, but that may just be because the target audience can't imagine life without one.
* '''Garzey's Wing''': 1996 release, widely hailed as one of the worst anime ever made; particularly, the Central Park Media dub made an already incoherent plot even more nonsensical. For example, one notorious line goes "We have to circle quickly. We need a stirrup to do this. But don't be unduly concerned. We can use our spears to stand our ground firmly."
* '''[New Life+] Young Again in Another World''': This is just another generic isekai about a main character that was killed and sent to another world by God. But what's so bad about this one that it deserves to be mentioned here? Well, it turns out that the MC, in his original life, was a soldier who participated the Second Sino-Japanese War in China, where he used his [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|GLORIOUS KATANA FOLDED 9000 TIMES]] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre killed over 3000+ people]. You still with me? Good. After the anime was announced, controversy obviously started and China threw its weight around, forcing the publishing company to not only cancel the anime, but halting the publishing of the novels as well. Every product relating to this piece of trash was stopped. To make matters worse, many anons also found old tweets from the author on Twitter made before the first volume of his isekai was published, [[/pol/|where he demeans both Chinese and Koreans, calling them inhuman and lacking morality]]. This and other incidents suggest that a good chunk of Japanese isekai authors not only suck at writing, but can be some of the worst scumbags in Japan as well as the overall world.

===Weird Ones===
Or at least the "good" weird ones (that is, of sufficient quality to qualify as "Good Ones", above), or those otherwise of some significance.

* '''Isekai Quartet''': Take the main casts of "Overlord", "Konosuba", "Saga of Tanya" and "Re: Zero" find themselves in a middle school. Most of them want to return "home". The result? A somewhat interesting gag series about an Isekai squared situation. Weird because it blurs the line between Isekai, Reverse Isekai, and Not Isekai. Funny, but only if you have some awareness of at least one (and preferably more) of the four series, and are willing to tolerate "HILARITY ENSUES" grade "hi-jinks".
*'''Restaurant to Another World''': One of the few Reverse Isekai stories. There's no overarching plot or villains, just a bunch of fantasy folk visiting a restaurant in Japan. Each patron has their own quirks and favorite dish, as well as their story of how they came to discover the restaurant and the friends they make inside.
*'''Plus-Sized Elf''': Another reverse Isekai featuring a cast of [[Monstergirl]]s in Japan who can't return home because they all got fat from eating too much delicious but unhealthy food. They're being helped by a health and fitness expert to lose weight, but each girl's obsessions and constant infighting keeps them from making too much progress. The manga has some actual fitness tips sprinkled throughout, but it's also pretty lewd at times.
*'''Kyoryu Wakusei'''　('''Dinosaur Planet'''): A fairly old (1993) blend of live action (for the "real world" parts) and anime (for the virtual parts) for kids. The adventures of a girl in a (highly inaccurate) virtual simulation of dinosaur times with her navigator in the real world. Strangely contains a fanservice scene of the girl's virtual avatar (who admittedly looks nothing like her real self, with different hair style and color plus a different actor). The reason this even mentioned is it's one of the primary theories of where the hell the term 萌 (Moe) comes from: The girl's avatar is named that (and, unlike the other major theory, Hotaru To'''moe''' of Sailor Moon, uses the same kanji) and said fanservice scene greeted with a very enthusiastic statement of "萌～...".
*'''Thermae Romae''': A comedy about a Roman Thermae (public bath) architect who accidentally traveled to modern Japan after he slipped into his bath water. There, he learns a great deal of knowledge from the flat-faces (what he calls the Japanese), and uses this knowledge to improve Roman Thermae when he gets back. Later chapters turn into [[/tv/|the time traveler's wife]], where he meets this Roman-obsessed Japanese girl (who is also the only "flat-face" he can communicate with in Latin) and falls in love with her.
[[Category: Gamer Slang]]
[[Category: Weeaboo]]

Isekai

2019-09-23T04:05:38Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:BC03:1AE0:C2A5:E2D: /* Good Ones */

{{topquote|1=Hey guys, today I wanted to talk about the newest, hottest anime to come out this season. All right, get this: It's about a completely normal shut-in Otaku with a very specific skill set that makes him useless in the real world, who is suddenly transported to a fantasy world kinda similar to any JRPG you've ever seen where he suddenly becomes the hottest shit, and he has two jobs: Messing up any poor soul who looks at him the wrong way and getting some 2D bitches. Wait, doesn't this sound oddly familiar?|2=Gigguk, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFR2nvw19h4 "Isekai: The Genre that Took Over Anime"]}}

Proof that Japan has no publishing standards or quality control. '''Isekai''' is a Japanese word assimilated into the /tg/ lexicon from the [[weeaboo]] faggots at /a/ and /jp/. Literally meaning "another world" or "parallel world", it refers to a genre in which the main characters are from "our" world and taken to a foreign world resembling [[RPG|some form of fantasy game]], where they proceed to become [[adventurers]]. Usually, plot reasons prevent them from heading home until something is taken care of—typically whatever big bad evil guy is threatening everything—but sometimes they're stuck there forever and have to adapt as best they can. Methods of transportation are vast and varied, including but not limited to: stumbling into a portal, activating a magical McGuffin, getting run over by [[Meme|Truck-kun]] and reincarnated (''Tensei'' in weeb, a genre isekai ate), being summoned by the denizens of the world, or the ever-popular getting your brain downloaded into your favorite [[MMORPG]].

The term (and to a lesser extent the genre) have been kicking around the weeaboosphere for a while, but around 2015 publishers started flooding the market with insufferably awful series (with insufferably long titles) that sell both in Japan and internationally like hotcakes, no matter how bland and generic they get. This once again proves that no matter which side of the planet you're on, otaku are autistic retards with no taste. As of 2018 this seems to be tapering off: Kadokawa has banned isekai stories from their light novel competitions, fewer and fewer isekai light novels get adapted into anime each season, and parodies are becoming more and more common, making it only a matter of time before the genre hits [[Zombie|"even the parodies are stale" levels of played out.]]

==Why do people hate it so much?==

As noted below, stories of people entering other worlds are nothing new, and speaks to a common desire to experience strange and exotic lands. Yet Isekai stories still get a lot of flak for many reasons. Besides there being way too many anime/manga that are all basically the same story with slightly different premises, it boils down to a number of common gripes:

* The biggest one is that rather than trying to tell a compelling and interesting story, too many Isekai stories are just the basest wish fulfillment fantasies for the lonely basement-dwelling neckbeard. Most of the other complaints are derived from this one.
* The hallmark of isekai stories is defining of the world in terms of RPG mechanics. People in isekai worlds speak of levels, classes, and experience as real and tangible things as opposed to the mechanical abstractions fa/tg/uys normally recognize them as. Outside of Isekai stories that actually take place inside of RPGs or videogame RPGs, this is pretty much inexcusable.
* Isekai protagonists tend to be [[Neckbeard|big fucking nerds]] who immediately recognize what's all about and exploit it, often aided by [[Plot armor|unreasonably high stats relative to their abilities in real life.]] The unstated implication is that the overweight slimeball watching/reading the isekai story would be just as successful as the protagonist because of his [[Trivial Pursuit|valuable and hard-earned RPG knowledge]].
* The protagonist frequently is overpowered in a way that puts him way ahead of his peers, despite lacking any useful combat, intellectual, or even social skills from his homeworld. Rarely does the protagonist have to put that much effort in overcoming his obstacles.
* Even more offensive protagonists will be actively unlikable or even outright repulsive, despite not suffering any consequences for it.
* And on top of that, 99.9% of the time, the protaganist has an all-female <s>harem</s> party who hang on his every word. [[Mary Sue|Is this starting to sound familiar?]]
** Also most of the time these girls will getting their clothes stripped, humiliated and having the MC barged in their room while they are changing. These lewd scene can be shown in a few page art for the LN and well as panels in the manga version. To summarize, the fan services it featured made the genre into a collection of softcore porn and it is why people are still reading these crap. So why not just read porn then?
* For more Isekai-specific gripes, while many stories are just copycats of one another, some will ''attempt'' to put an "original spin" on the genre, usually by adding a gimmick. If done well, then the story still has some value in being interesting and explore otherwise ignored facets of an overused genre. Done poorly, and it comes across as just plain tiresome, especially if the gimmick is the only thing keeping the story afloat when the characters and plot fail to impress.
* Almost all the protagonists in isekai stories have tragic background. Not saying that this is a bad thing, but it is almost as if the author is trying to push the bill, forcing the reader to go through 1 or 2 chapters of flash backs. This gets worse when they are all generic manga cliches. But some tragic backgrounds are so well detailed it's almost as if the author self inserted their past there. Here is a few examples:
** Daddy/Mommy issues - According to various manga, Japanese parents are some of the worst in all of Asia since their working conditions over there have a very high demand and busy schedule that the parents are too busy at work to spend any time with their children (a situation that is a genuine issue, but not something the MC bothers with explaining). Other than that, the parents can be highly demanding, overfocusing on academic performance at the cost of any other development in that edgy way that teenagers rebel against mom & dad. Sometimes, parents can also be drunken scumbags who either abandon their children of the next high or just straight up mistreat them. Protagonists with tragic background like these often has low self-esteem and edginess but have it all fixed up in the other world since now they are popular with bitches.
** School problems - Way too many isekai protagonists have school-centric tragic backgrounds where they are either bullied in school or have no friends. Probably that's why they become nerds and are able to develop their very own hobbies alone, which just happen to be the cheat key in the other world.
** [[Neckbeards|NEET]] - Oh baby, don't even get me started. NEET is an acronym for "Not in Education, Employment, or Training," typically including [[Grognard|basement-dwelling adult virgins, unemployed nerds]] who live alone which makes them the definition of a loser. It is no surprise such a failure could get cheat powers in the other world compared to how piss poor they did in real life.
* [[weeaboo|O MY GLORIOUS NIPPON STEEL FOLDED OVER 9000 TIMES]]. Basically just to show how superior the Japanese are compared to the other world. GATE is the worst example of this, where the Japanese military in a medieval fantasy world is wreaking havoc with their modern weaponry (which is not unreasonable to imagine, even for the decidedly modest Japanese Self Defense Force, but it’s taken to the point where it comes across like a cheesy recruitment ad targeting otaku: "Want to be a real hero? We kill more orcs before 9AM than most Paladins do all day!"). Other than that, various Japanese food and their favorite [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|katana blade are also introduced in the other world to prove their superiority]]. It's almost if these mass produced Isekai stories and manga are just to advertise Japan's superiority to compensate for something...
* The worlds traveled to are generally bland and unoriginal: usually, it's just the JRPG version of the [[standard fantasy setting]], with actual in-universe RPG mechanics. The distancing effect of the latter is rather bad, and the oversaturation of the former only makes things worse.

== Isekai and /tg/ ==

Although most isekai stories get panned on /tg/ for [[TVTropes|annoying meta-humor]], [[Double Cross|generic shonen bullshit]], [[Maid RPG|generic fanservice bullshit]], or [[Extra Heresy|a combination thereof]] (if not the characters being blatantly Mary Sues, or presenting something even more absurd), a handful of series are decent enough to merit genuine approval. Or they're tolerated because they have [[monstergirls]]. Check our [[Approved anime|anime]] and [[manga]] pages for the current scoop.

While isekai is a distinctly Japanese form of [[Skub|cancer]], the basic idea of people from our world getting chucked into a fantastic world and forced to fend for themselves is practically universal and turns up moderately often in Western fantasy with the earliest example perhaps being ''"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"'' by Mark Twain which was published in 1889. Oddly, when this happens it tends to be rather less shit perhaps due to it being less common. L. Frank Baum's ''Oz'' series, ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' by Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' ''Barsoom'' (a.k.a., John Carter of Mars) novels are iconic examples of the core premise that predate cliche fantasy, and C.S. Lewis ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' uses the plot for Christian allegory. ''The NeverEnding Story'' is the flagship modern western example, and right in the heart of the fantasy cliche storm, yet it is the purest anti-shit, either despite or because of this. Or at least, it avoids being the self-indulgent wish-fulfillment for irredeemably unlikable losers that makes Isekai so widely hated. One could make the case that ''The Matrix'' is an isekai story (it basically reverses a couple of the key tropes), though classifying it as "less shit" may not be accurate for some people. Tangential to these are stories about modern militaries (or, in one odd series of novels, part of the US East Coast) being sent back in time—although it's possible that a movie from '79 called G.I. Samurai, where a JSDF unit accidentally travels back in time and fights their own Samurai ancestors, is secretly the true forgotten granddaddy of the isekai genre, or at least dreck like GATE.

Isekai also has its influence on [[Old School Roleplaying]]; as stated above, there are plenty of pulp fantasy novels involving ordinary souls getting sucked into a strange, alien world and becoming heroic [[adventurer]]s as a result. A /tg/ example that (in hindsight anyway) fits the isekai mold well is [[GURPS]]' flagship fantasy setting, which revolves around people from across the universe getting isekai'd to the planet of Yrth by an extradimensional "Banestorm" and proposes that players could [[Stat me|stat themselves]] and then play as themselves on Yrth after getting deposited there by the Banestorm. Hell, [[Greyhawk]] has several deities who actually originated on other worlds - [[Murlynd]], [[Saint Cuthbert]] and [[Mayaheine‎‎]] have all been implied to have come to Oerth from "real" Earth - whilst the [[Forgotten Realms]] was, once upon a time, hinted as being connected to Earth by various portals to different times and places; the not!Egyptian race was actually supposed to be peopled by real ancient Egyptians who had been summoned to the Realms en-masse by evil sorcerers as slave labor, only to break free of them. Then there's the [[D%26D_Cartoon|D&D Cartoon]], whose plot ''was'' D&D by way of Isekai. That being said, unless your DM was being really lazy, if you tried to talk in-universe about stats or levels or other meta game content like they do in Isekai stories, NPCs would and should treat you like a madman.

==Reverse Isekai==
Occasionally, reverse isekai plots, where supernatural elements from other dimensions have invaded the "real" world, have appeared in /tg/. [[D20 Modern]]'s default for supernatural entities is that they a dropped onto Earth from another plane, "The Shadow", and can't go home (though their corpses vanish upon death). The [[Adventure Path]] ''Reign of Winter'' has a trip to World War I era Russia where the party fights Mosin-Nagants and machine gun wielding Russian soldiers, tear gas elementals and actual Grigori Rasputin.

One odd feature in Japanese Reverse-Isekais is an emphasis on how Japanese food is so much more awesome than whatever bland, flavorless food the peasants of the fantasy world have to eat. In fact, there actually is more than one anime about people from a fantasy world visiting a restaurant in modern Japan. Which in fairness: the modern world wide food distribution networks that can ship sun ripened lemons and meat to any point in the world within 24 hours is likely going to compare favorable to all but the highest fantasy fare. Even so, even the lowliest peasant would put ''some'' effort in using what they had to make food taste good; even if they couldn't afford spices, herbs were still easy enough to get a hold of, and rural cooks knew enough about how to prepare meats to make them taste good. Whereas fantasy peasants may as well be eating dry, stringy meat with a side of boiled, unseasoned vegetables and mud for dessert.

==List of Isekai==

Note: This list currently focuses on mainly isekai that started as an anime or have had an anime adaption. There is a huge number of isekai manga, web novels, and light novels that have yet to have an anime adaption, which for many of them is a good thing.

===Good Ones===
* '''Aura Battler Dunbine''': The first classic, pre-SAO isekai anime, or at least the earliest one worth remembering, which at its most basic can be described as Isekai Fantasy Gundam (apt, considering that both were made by the same guy). Sho Zama, a dissatisfied japanese youth about to get himself killed in reckless motorcycle stunt on a busy highway, is suddenly summoned into an alternate medieval fantasy world, Byston Well (implied both in-show and in its spiritual sequel ''Wings of Rean'' to be an actual lost world far beneath the Earth), where a local duke by the name of Drake Luft forcibly recruits him and others summoned into his army. Drake Luft was gradually jumpstarting an industrial revolution with a help from other "Upper Earthers" he summoned via a captive fey to give him an edge in his plans to conquer Byston Well while he holds the first adopter advantage, and one of these advantages are the titular mechas, the Aura Battlers, that are powered and enhanced by the pilot's Aura (which the summoned Upper Earthers have more powerful ones compared to the locals) with one called Dunbine to be piloted by Sho, who later steals it to join the resistance. The show can be divided into two halves: The first with gradual escalation from guerilla warfare with medieval weaponry supported by Aura Machines to open warfare between kingdoms fielding 100% Aura Machine Armies led by huge Battlecarriers, while the second half starts with the Fey Queen deciding that all Aura Machines were evil, and, at the cost of her own life, chucks them all (pilots and armies included) back to Upper Earth, which is in the middle of the Cold War. Infamous for having a near 100% fatality rate among all named characters (protagonists AND antagonists alike), with only the ''fairy sidekick'' surviving to the end.
* '''Overlord''': A gamer gets trapped in the body of his max level Lich avatar and sent to another world, bringing with him all of his treasures and minions (who are now real people) and guild base. He even has a shitton of [[EA|cash shop items]] that he pulls out once in a while during the few encounters that his OP powers aren't enough. He starts out trying to be a good guy in the new world, but he ends up turning into a villain on a path to conquer the new world due to a combination of losing a lot of his ability to feel emotions and his minions expecting him to play the role of a villain.
* '''That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime''': A man dies and wakes up in the body of a super powerful [[Slime]] creature with the ability to copy the powers of whatever they eat. They end up becoming the chief of a goblin village and expanding it into a new nation. Something interesting about this series is that it plays with the idea of how most monsters in games are just nameless mooks and only named monsters are an actual threat: here, nearly all monsters are born without a name, but a more powerful entity (usually a demon, or, in our slime's case, his elder dragon BFF) can lend a monster some of their power simply by naming them. The protagonist abuses the shit out of this and names every monster tribe in his confederation, giving them all a newfound sense of purpose and identity along with it. While being on good terms with the human & dwarf nations, the demon-controlled nations are not too happy about this upstart slime and scheme to bring him down.
* '''Kiba''': What happens when you combine Pokémon with Game of Thrones and a bit of 1985, and then give everyone lightsabers. An obscure but definitely worth watching show about two friends named Zed and Noah who separately end up in another world where some people have the ability to pull marble like objects out of one part of their body which are used to cast spells, power up lightsaber-like weapons, and summon powerful monsters called spirits. Each of them ends up possessing one of the six most powerful spirits in the world which the nations of the new world are fighting for control of. Zed, who is kind of an egdelord at first but gets better over time, ends up in the only good nation, while Noah in a country that at first seems nice but turns out to be a horrible dystopia where the population is so brainwashed that they are willing to accept capital punishment with a smile for minor crimes even if they committed them accident.
* '''MÄR''': A boy named Ginta gets summoned to another world populated by people based on characters from fairytales and popular classic fantasy books who fight using magical items called ÄRMs. He gets a hold of an intelligent ÄRM named Babbo who can turn into anything he can image. He and several characters including Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk team up for a tournament to decide the fate of the world against a villainous organization called the Chess Pieces.
* '''Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?''': A parody of typical trapped-in-a-video-game wish fulfillment stories. A boy's wish to go into a video game and form a party with a bunch of hot girls is granted, but his dream is ruined because he is forced to bring his extremely attractive and clingy mother with him, who is a lot more powerful than him in the game world, and thus takes all the challenge out of the game for him, and also wrecks his chances of starting any romance with his party members. The show also parodies the incest themes popular in a lot of anime and light novels, as the main character finds his own mother attractive but is entirely disgusted by those feelings, and his mom is too oblivious to realize how uncomfortable her age-inappropriate behavior makes him, while her feelings for him really aren't sexual at all.
* '''Spirited Away''': A [[Loli|girl]] and her parents accidentally wander into the world of spirits and the parents get turned into pigs by a witch as punishment for stealing food. With the help of a mysterious boy who can turn into a dragon, she gets herself a job working for the witch at her bathhouse for spirits until she can find a way to set her parents free. Arguably owes more to classic "fairy stories" than to anything in the modern isekai genre, but may have unintentionally contributed to its rise in popularity. This one is by Hayao Miyazaki and has all of the Studio Ghibli flare that weebs constantly point to to say that anime is more than just stupid cartoons.
* '''Those Who Hunt Elves''': A comedy about a group of people who are summoned to another world and can't go back until they can find 5 tattoos placed on 5 random elves somewhere in the world. To find them they strip every elf they meet naked.
* '''Youjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil''': A sociopathic atheist is murdered by somebody he sacked because corporatism, and meets a being who claims to be God. He refuses to believe it really is God (and even instead labels them 'Being X', sort of like how [[Star Trek]] treats a number of hyper-advanced beings with god-like powers), and as punishment gets reincarnated as a female child soldier in a world resembling WWI Europe, only with magic. Said female child ends up duckfacing her way up the ranks of not!Germany and acquiring a number of hangers-on who either fear or respect her. Her main problem is that she keeps getting assigned to incredibly dangerous missions despite desperately wanting nothing more than a desk job away from the front lines so as not to die again and face Being X or his lackeys (i.e., all the deities from other faiths).
* '''Drifters''': Written and drawn by the author of [[Hellsing|HELLSING]]. This is a story about fighting against fate where historic heroes, wise men and generals from the real world (mostly those who suffered ambiguous or "missing in action/no body was found" ends) are intercepted at the point where they ''should'' have died by a rather mundane-looking-but-apparently divine office worker named '''Murasaki''', and given a choice: to either meet their fates and die, or to live on but get transported to another world—one that happens to be in the middle of a massive fight for survival. Needless to say, many choose the latter, including the main viewpoint character, Shimazu Toyohisa of the Shimazu clan. Called '''Drifters''', this group includes a variety of historical badasses (including Oda Nobunaga, Butch Cassidy, Abe no Senmei, Scipio Africanus and Hannibal Barca), and he whips up an alliance made of demihumans and other peoples into a force that ''might'' be able to stand up to the enemy that's threatening to overwhelm the "civilized" peoples: the forces of the '''Ends'''. Unlike the Drifters, these are people who in the real world had unambiguously nasty ends—like Joan of Arc, Rasputin, and Anastasia Romanov—and are given nasty powers as a result. Led by someone implied to be Joshua bar Joseph (a.k.a., '''Jesus Christ'''), the Ends want to wipe the slate clean, and let the so-called monstrous races (Orcs, Goblins, etc.) inherit the world (because apparently "the meek" was a hell of a mistranslation). Compared to other Isekai, the series is themed around second chances (i.e., don't die the same way you did before), which was heavily reinforced in the first encounter with the black king. By the way, [[Berserk|this series is being released at a snail's pace and is on hiatus for unknown reasons, since it is kind of the fashion nowadays for good mangaka to pull a J.R.R. Martin and not actually do their fucking jobs, even if their work starts being adapted to other mediums faster than they're making it]].
* '''Konosuba''': A comedy series, and one of the first to take the piss out of the Isekai genre. It begins with a NEET shut-in dying to save a girl from being hit by a truck, whereupon he's met by a goddess in the afterlife. She reveals that the girl was actually not in danger (it was actually a tractor moving at around 2 miles an hour) and he died of a heart attack, followed by pissing himself, which she mocks him relentlessly over. She then offers him to reincarnate in another world and defeat the devil king, and in return he can have any powerful item he wants. Out of revenge for her mocking him, he picks her and the two end up trapped in a fantasy world. The goddess turns out to be pretty damn useless 90% of the time and a huge bitch, and later they are joined by two other girls (a bratty pyromaniac wizard [[Loli|loli]] who can only cast one [[Deathstrike_Missile_Launcher|spell]] a day, and a [[/d/|masochistic]] knight who can't hit anything for shit and makes both enemies and allies alike uncomfortable) to form one of the most dysfunctional parties in existence. It manages to be both a clever deconstruction of isekai and a pretty hilarious fantasy-themed sitcom all at once.
* '''Escaflowne''': A Japanese high school girl is teleported to a magical world (one that can see the Earth but Earth can't see it due to magical stuff or something) where the weapon of choice are "Guymelefs": [[magitek]] [[mecha]] that resemble fantastical giant [[knight]]s powered by the crystalline hearts of [[dragon]]s. She gets caught up in a whole slew of crazy as the evil empire shows up and starts conquering the world while the male lead (the heir to one of the conquered kingdoms) and a ragtag group of rebels struggle to overthrow the empire and restore things to a semblance of normalcy. Had a very pretty anime movie made of it but the movie mashed a lot of plot elements and characters together while also cutting a huge chunk of the story as well.
* '''Inuyasha''': A rarity in that the teleported protagonist is female, and travel between the fantasy world and the real world happens frequently. Ordinary school-girl Kagome Higurashi learns that her crazy grampa's ramblings about the ancient, magical well in the shrine her family lives at really are true when a [[monstergirl|many-armed big-tittied centipede woman]] pulls her into the well and transports her to Feudal Japan, ranting about killing her and taking a magical "Shikon Jewel" that can make demons into gods. To not be killed, she reluctantly releases Inuyasha, a bad-tempered [[Half-Fiend|half-inugami (dog demon)]] who looks like a bishie boy with long, flowing white hair, claws, and a pair of cute dog-like ears. During the struggle, the Shikon Jewel is shattered, forcing her to reluctantly team up with Inuyasha (who used to be in love with her previous incarnation, the shrine maiden Kikyo) to track down the shards before they can wreak havoc across the land. Their party grows to incorporate Shippo (a baby [[kitsune]] boy), Sango (a badass warrior-woman who uses a giant boomerang made of demon bones), and Miroku (a perverted but handsome young monk who sports a miniature black-hole in his right hand... [[grimdark|that will ultimately devour him whole, as it has his entire family]]), and their mission expands to tracking down and destroying Naraku, a bandit turned [[Demon Prince]] who has his own evil plans for the Shikon Jewel and who was responsible for the misery that befell Inuyasha and Kikyo.
* '''Rising of the Shield Hero''': Four heroes are summoned to another world that partially runs on RPG rules (it has classes, levels, and experience, but some of the heroes make mistakes based on expecting the world to work like an RPG in places where it doesn't) to defend it against a phenomenon called the Waves of Catastrophe, where the sky turns red and armies of monsters appear. Each of them is assigned a powerful holy weapon (sword, spear, bow, and shield) and forms their own party to help them level up. However, the hero assigned to the shield immediately gets robbed and falsely accused of attempted rape by his only party member, who seemingly did it just so they could give his stuff to the spear hero as a present. With that horrible start, the shield hero loses interest in saving the world and only cares about going home or getting revenge. To survive, he is forced to build up his reputation, wealth, and power from nothing while all of the other heroes (who turn out to all be be idiots) soar ahead of him. And since nobody wants to ally with him and his shield keeps him from wielding any other weapons, he's forced to buy a [[Monstergirl]] slave to help him fight and builds himself up as a hero for the common man rather than the uncaring and snobbish elite. On a side note, when it first came out, [[SJW]]s threw an absolute [[rage|hissy fit]] over how "problematic" they perceived this show to be, because [[skub|it hinges on a false rape accusation and depicts the slaver protagonist as a populist hero]]. Y'see, the shield gives substantial experience bonuses to the shield hero's companions, '''but only if they're also his slaves'''. In short, ''every one of his friends have to be slave-branded, and placed legally under his ownership as his thralls to take advantage of this exp buff''. In practice the shield hero treats this as a necessary evil, and his "slaves" are treated more as a large extended family than anything else.
* '''.hack''': One of the earliest isekai to make big waves in the US, .hack is a franchise made up of several anime, manga lines, and video games that take place in the near future (at the time they started, the year being 2009) where VR video games are not only wildly popular but one (simply called "The World") is the most popular game in existence. People the world over play the game and form guilds and play together. The main character from .hack//Sign, Tsukasa, does ''not'' want to play with others, though. Due to some deep-seated weirdness, it's quickly discovered that they cannot log out of the game. Oh, and some weird floating slime monster attacks and kills other player's avatars, and those so attacked fall into comas in the real world. And there is some sort of floating [[Loli|loli]] that Tsukasa communicates with as well. Fairly quickly a group of people begin to hunt Tsukasa while another group tries to helm him (later to find out "he" is actually a "she"). Series ends kind of meh but kicked off a major franchise that then pretty collapsed under its own weight (multiple games within a handful of years, multiple manga stories, spin-off anime and more that, in the end, couldn't pay for themselves).
* '''[[Log Horizon]]''': A new update of old-school PC MMORPG '''Elder Tale''' ends up dragging its entire logged-in player base into the world it portrayed. Veteran player Shiroe and a few of his friends try to figure out what to do with their new existence, before finally deciding to take an active stance in influencing their current reality for the better. This, on top on trying to find out just WHY everyone got dragged into Elder Tale, or at the very least, a world that seems to look like the game world.
* '''Re:Zero''':

===Bad Ones===
* '''Sword Art Online''': One of shows responsible for the explosion in the popularity of Isekai. Was very popular when it came out, but as Reki Kawahara continued the series, the quality of the story degraded slowly over the years, along with the general fanbase's opinion. It still has it's fans, along with a sizable amount of detractors (as most feel SAO's popularity is undeserved, and taking the spotlight off other shows worth the praise, [[skub|or because its just popular]]). The initial premise of SAO is that true VR is achieved through a VR helmet called the "NerveGear", which transports the mind of the wearer into virtual space in a process called "Full Dive". However, Akihiko Kayaba, the inventor of the device sabotaged it and instead: he traps everyone in SAO by removing the log-out feature, and secretly installs a kill-switch onto the helmets that will fry the user's brain if they forcefully yank out the helmet or if they run out of HP in the game. The only way to log out is to clear a tower-like dungeon in the middle of the game, which is filled with high-level mobs and boss-creatures, so the trapped players band together to clear the tower and get out, while some just fuck around and exploit the situation to their benefit. The plot itself has interesting ideas on how teens and young adults cope with the threat of actual death while in a video game (or wanton disregard for it), but has plenty of glossed-over plot holes that, if you look too far into it, makes the entire story nonsensical (such as factoring human physiology into account—most people inside SAO would have died in less than a week due to IRL dehydration and malnutrition). It also doesn’t help that the protagonist, Kirito, is an unabashed [[edgy]] [[Mary Sue|Marty Sue]] (although the edgy part eventually mellows down, he's still a Marty Sue in all depictions). On a side note, Kirito is also responsible for the painful influx of [[Drizzt Do'Urden|terribly written edgy teenage dual sword-wielding OCs]] in the early 2010s, to the point there's now a slight stigma with using dual-swords for your character in RPGs. To cap it off, the first season ended on a nonsensical conclusion. The female characters that make up Kirito's not-harem are [[waifu]] material though, if that's any consolation, and SAO at the very least has the decency to write them as their own relatable characters, instead of being orbiting cumdumpsters for the protag to cockblock at will (and as bad as his character is written, Kirito still has a wholesome relationship with his in-game waifu, turned IRL waifu Asuna.).
*'''GATE: Thus the JSDF Went There''': This was a series that had some potential as the premise was somewhat similar to Stargate; A gateway to another world suddenly appears right in the middle of Tokyo, and almost immediately a bunch of monsters and medieval soldiers start pouring out and attacking anyone in sight. Naturally, the modern Japanese military beats them back, then decides to invade the other world to hold those responsible for the attack accountable. This could've been a good story as there's some actual political intrigue on both sides of the gate, but besides the usual Isekai problems (the protagonist is a lazy underachiever and yet has specops credentials, and has a harem of girls who are or look half his age), it's also in-your-face nationalistic, to the point where the Japanese Self-Defense Force effortlessly curbstomps any enemy they go up against, including three different spy agencies and the capital of the enemy empire. Besides removing any tension from the story, it's also pretty much transparent pro-military propaganda, where all of the military's more pacifistic political opponents are portrayed as self-centered opportunists. Nevermind that the JSDF basically claimed the other world as their sovereign territory by virtue of being connected to Japan and are seeking to exploit its resources. [[The_World_Wars#The_Second_World_War|This should set off alarm bells for those of you who know history]], especially as the story as a whole seems aligned with the [[/pol/|far-right, ultra-nationalist, Imperial-apologist movement in Japanese politics]] (note that this appears to be a trend in the genre, as you'll see below).
* '''In Another World With My Smartphone''': The protag gets accidentally offed by God, and as an apology resurrects him with god-tier stats and a smartphone with several, mostly unfair features. He is, without a doubt, the most unironically-blatant [[Mary Sue|Marty Sue]] to grace recent times. Also its a romance-less harem animu on the side, so they're clearly not even trying to aim above the 13-year old demographic.
* '''The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar''': Even worse than Smartphone. Possibly the worst isakai ever. Take everything people hate about isekai and turn it up to eleven. Lazy animation, a harem that includes disturbingly young girls, and an unwatchably boring plot. Also has a guy with a smartphone, oddly enough, but that may just be because the target audience can't imagine life without one.
* '''Garzey's Wing''': 1996 release, widely hailed as one of the worst anime ever made; particularly, the Central Park Media dub made an already incoherent plot even more nonsensical. For example, one notorious line goes "We have to circle quickly. We need a stirrup to do this. But don't be unduly concerned. We can use our spears to stand our ground firmly."
* '''[New Life+] Young Again in Another World''': This is just another generic isekai about a main character that was killed and sent to another world by God. But what's so bad about this one that it deserves to be mentioned here? Well, it turns out that the MC, in his original life, was a soldier who participated the Second Sino-Japanese War in China, where he used his [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|GLORIOUS KATANA FOLDED 9000 TIMES]] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre killed over 3000+ people]. You still with me? Good. After the anime was announced, controversy obviously started and China threw its weight around, forcing the publishing company to not only cancel the anime, but halting the publishing of the novels as well. Every product relating to this piece of trash was stopped. To make matters worse, many anons also found old tweets from the author on Twitter made before the first volume of his isekai was published, [[/pol/|where he demeans both Chinese and Koreans, calling them inhuman and lacking morality]]. This and other incidents suggest that a good chunk of Japanese isekai authors not only suck at writing, but can be some of the worst scumbags in Japan as well as the overall world.

===Weird Ones===
Or at least the "good" weird ones (that is, of sufficient quality to qualify as "Good Ones", above), or those otherwise of some significance.

* '''Isekai Quartet''': Take the main casts of "Overlord", "Konosuba", "Saga of Tanya" and "Re: Zero" find themselves in a middle school. Most of them want to return "home". The result? A somewhat interesting gag series about an Isekai squared situation. Weird because it blurs the line between Isekai, Reverse Isekai, and Not Isekai. Funny, but only if you have some awareness of at least one (and preferably more) of the four series, and are willing to tolerate "HILARITY ENSUES" grade "hi-jinks".
*'''Restaurant to Another World''': One of the few Reverse Isekai stories. There's no overarching plot or villains, just a bunch of fantasy folk visiting a restaurant in Japan. Each patron has their own quirks and favorite dish, as well as their story of how they came to discover the restaurant and the friends they make inside.
*'''Plus-Sized Elf''': Another reverse Isekai featuring a cast of [[Monstergirl]]s in Japan who can't return home because they all got fat from eating too much delicious but unhealthy food. They're being helped by a health and fitness expert to lose weight, but each girl's obsessions and constant infighting keeps them from making too much progress. The manga has some actual fitness tips sprinkled throughout, but it's also pretty lewd at times.
*'''Kyoryu Wakusei'''　('''Dinosaur Planet'''): A fairly old (1993) blend of live action (for the "real world" parts) and anime (for the virtual parts) for kids. The adventures of a girl in a (highly inaccurate) virtual simulation of dinosaur times with her navigator in the real world. Strangely contains a fanservice scene of the girl's virtual avatar (who admittedly looks nothing like her real self, with different hair style and color plus a different actor). The reason this even mentioned is it's one of the primary theories of where the hell the term 萌 (Moe) comes from: The girl's avatar is named that (and, unlike the other major theory, Hotaru To'''moe''' of Sailor Moon, uses the same kanji) and said fanservice scene greeted with a very enthusiastic statement of "萌～...".
*'''Thermae Romae''': A comedy about a Roman Thermae (public bath) architect who accidentally traveled to modern Japan after he slipped into his bath water. There, he learns a great deal of knowledge from the flat-faces (what he calls the Japanese), and uses this knowledge to improve Roman Thermae when he gets back. Later chapters turn into [[/tv/|the time traveler's wife]], where he meets this Roman-obsessed Japanese girl (who is also the only "flat-face" he can communicate with in Latin) and falls in love with her.
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