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Isekai

2020-11-28T17:54:14Z

2604:6000:B185:8A00:C472:9B8F:7E50:C671: /* More General Gripes */

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{{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.]] There are also deconstructive stories being written about the genre-- ''Re:Zero'' is a particularly notable example where the main character actually has a big self-aware rant about what a loser he is.

== 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(with Barsoom being the closest of what can be described as "Western Isekai Wankfest" with Carter being ''very'' overpowered due to Earth's gravity he grew up with and his combat training), 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<ref>The second half of the book, at least, reads like a full on deconstruction of Isekai, before Isekai was a thing.</ref>. 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==
[[File:Ork isekai.jpg|400px|thumb|left|A more /tg/-related example of reverse isekai]]
Occasionally, reverse isekai plots, where supernatural elements from other dimensions have invaded the "real" world, have appeared in /tg/. In [[Masque of the Red Death]], the Red Death's corruption of magic means planar travel only works one way and anything inbound is stuck. [[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, being "reclaimed" by The Shadow). 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(to be fair, modern food in general, if made well, would indeed be better than most medieval fare, especially the stuff serfs ate). In fact, there actually is '''more than one''' anime about people from a fantasy world visiting a restaurant in modern Japan, just as an excuse to show off food porn with no real plot. 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.

==Otome Isekai==
As if to prove women can also be otaku, this distinct type of isekai was born. '''Otome Isekai''' (a term used by the author of this section) is, for all intents and purposes, the female variant of regular isekai but done in a rather misogynistic manner. Apparently, women are only interested in otome visual novels/dating sims with a lot of high nobility hot guys, Mary Sue commoner protagonists, petty villains and formulaic plots flatter than a [[Repulsor Tank|Repulsor]]'s roadkill. The main character of this variation of isekai will typically reincarnate in the body of one of the characters of the VN in question and, from there, take part in a proverbial adventure in a [[Colleges of Magic|magic/nobility academy]] where the protagonist will win the hearts of a veritable harem of hot guys (usually the original romanceable characters), the original protagonist, the villains and any other unwitting NPCs by being an EVEN BIGGER Mary Sue than the original character.

A common variant that became the main type of otome isekai for a time and that freed itself from it, is the '''villainess genre'''. As the name implies, this sub-genre follows the scheme told above but in the protagonist becomes the villainess character of the plot, fated to meet a grisly end by whatever means. It's usually up to the protagonist to change their fate and survive. While the premise is more interesting at first, it falls to the same tropes and endings as the others: harem of hot guys, befriending anyone and generally being a Mary Sue, BUT IN THE BODY OF A VILLAIN! As mentioned, the villainess genre has become its own thing now and you can find villainess stories without a speck of isekai anywhere.

Otome isekai is no less awful than regular isekai, but due to it being based on different genres of videogames (visual novels vs. RPGs) the plot is more often focused on the relationships of the protagonist within the VN cast along with the VN's original plot that the protagonist invariably knows from start to end, even sub-routes and obscure events that makes her know beforehand everything that's going to happen. Or that's how it should be, according to the protagonist herself. Because the most infuriating part of otome isekai is the complete denial of the protagonist to admit that the characters they are now interacting with are people with their own wills and decisions and the most basic understanding of "cause and effect". They believe that the plot of the original VN ''will play like in the VN regardless of whatever she does''. The events will play the same, the characters will think and react the same, everything will be the same (unless they are the villainess, in which case they will survive). And no matter if proof of this not being the case is waved in her face with neon lights or people don't act in ways that they're "supposed to", she will continue to think that everything will play out the same.

==Why do people hate it so much?==
As noted above, 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.

===Gripes about the worlds===
* 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.
* The worlds traveled to are generally bland and unoriginal: usually, it's just the JRPG version of the [[standard fantasy setting]], and the oversaturation of the Standard Fantasy Setting cannot be overstated, to the point that many Isekai even feature ''video game interfaces'' for characters.
* In addition to the two above, a frequent gripe about Isekai is that the worlds frequently have a problem with what's known as a "Second Order Idiot Plot". An Idiot Plot is, of course, a plot that only happens because everyone involved is an idiot (and it can be done well; see, for example, ''Burn After Reading''); but a Second Order Idiot Plot is a plot that only happens because ''everybody in the world'' is an idiot--frequently, either some obvious solution is overlooked for dumb reasons, some obvious phenomena is ignored, or some baldly obvious lie is widely accepted.
* Since some Isekai protagonists are so powerful, no one in the new world is capable of opposing them; that includes the cliche "great demon king" who had terrorized the world for centuries only to get one-shotted by the MC in one chapter, thus erasing any conflict and tension and making the story even duller. Other type of villains like high-status types (king, nobles) or anyone in the world whom had grudge or a bone to pick with the protagonist may be introduced, but due to how the human civilization of the other world [[Medieval Stasis|are incapable of advancing their technology]] in most isekai, these villains are arrogant, ignorant and often underestimate the MC and their otherworldly knowledge (see the Emperor from GATE). Therefore they get their asses handed to them by the MC and their modern Japanese knowledge + JRPG cheat stats when they tried to sabotage or kill the MC's party and fail again and again. In short, Isekai lacks proper and inspiring villains.
* Badly-done racism. This one is especially unforgivable considering that racism has been a way of life in Japan for hundreds of years and you'd think they would understand something about it by now. Having the humans hate the elves or the beastfolk is fine. The part that so many series forget is setting up an actual reason that so much bad blood exists. They even fail to consider that maybe some of the characters might have different opinions on the other races, because God forbid there be any dimensions to the cast. Of course, setting up the world to be full of people who are spiteful for absolutely no reason means that your main character gets to show off how ''accepting'' and ''benevolent'' he is compared to the backwards fantasy peasants. Which brings us to...

===Gripes about the protagonists===
* 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, and is often "The Chosen One" or "Special Blooded". Just like a unique snowflake.
* 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?]] (Note, in particular, that usually these female party members exist purely to provide fanservice and be [[waifu]]ed.) And this is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are countless examples of lazy writers going way to far with it and turning the characters into caricatures, or pulling the rug out from under the readers and going from harem to vanilla romance.
* Almost all the protagonists in isekai stories have either a tragic or "NEET" 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 specific it's almost as if the author self inserted their past there.
* As if the above wasn't enough, too many isekai MC are [[edgy|edgelords]]. For most of them, their reason for being edgy is how they were abused, betrayed, NTR'ed or disowned by either the MC's school classmate, other isekai'ed people, or the society as a whole. Some really awful isekai have their MC doing really edgy shit like mass murder, owning/buying slaves and rape.

===More General 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, such as the protagonist being a LITERAL VENDING MACHINE or a slime that can absorb powers. If done well, then the story still has some value in being interesting and exploring otherwise ignored facets of an overused genre. Done poorly, 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.
*"Japanese" language or Japanese traits (black hair, white skin) being something sacred or ancient or special in the isekai world. Usually used to mean that some "undecipherable script of the Ancients" is just 21st-century Japanese carved on a plaque somewhere without any further development. If the author is going for cheap [[Edgy|edge]] boosts, anything related to the Japanese is a symptom of a curse or a demonic heritage.
* Some of the edgier Isekai have a tendency to deal with such serious issues as rape, [[slavery]], racism and genocide... The westerners want their [[Elf Slave, Wat Do|Harem shit]], not actual commentary dammit.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
image:Isekei WHF.png|<center>Not all worlds are ones where you would want to end up.
image:WHF isekai alt.jpg|<center>Or not.
</gallery>

[[Category:Gamer Slang]][[Category:Weeaboo]]

Fur Heresy

2020-11-28T13:09:14Z

2604:6000:B185:8A00:C472:9B8F:7E50:C671:

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{{Heresy}}
== Fur Heresy ==
'''A Dark heresy tale from /tg/'''

From a thread about DM smackdowns and other such shenanigans:

Our DM smote us. He smote all of us. Dark Heresy, we're in the depths of the Hive after ten sessions of tracking down a temple tendency operation to destroy the hive in order to replace every single person of leadership or importance with their seconds, who were temple supporters. We've apparently been listed as dead by the inquisition and someone has been remotely saving our bacon or doing us favors, all the while leaving us a trail to the temple's operations. We are a six-strong force of former Arbites hot on the heels of some heresy and level five to boot. We have all opted for power mauls, shields, bigass shotguns with exterminator (flame projecting single shot) modules mounted. Out from the darkness steps a furry. He is described by the DM as being regal looking and like a dog but a man yet, and muscular, and wearing a bodyglove, and armed with two wicked looking weapons. He explains in a voice that is described as 'noble, strong-hearted but weary' that he is the person behind us being saved, placed as MIA, as well as the string of clues. He explains he has been hunting the temple tendency and hates the cult for what they did to his race eons ago. He explains he is the last of his race, and that he is slowly dying. Chief arbite says "Correction, DEAD" and we all open up. We murder him with fire. The DM ragequits.

The next week we find out the DM was a closet furry and this was his way of coming out to us, and that DMPC was his avatar. I guess we should have realized it was important when he described every detail of his musclebound dog man for about 5 minutes. Oh well. Suffer not the mutant. . .

'''Round 2'''

DM of the above who ragequit kinda got upset for a while but eventually found 'his people' and by his people I mean the store's contingent of faux tailed wearing fat people. I have nothing against fat people, but I do have something against people who claim to be 'fursecuted' for their lifestyle choice when their lifestyle choice involves being a gigantic douche to anyone who doesn't share their love of really weird shit. Anyhow, he manages to dry his eyes and decides to start all over with a 'more professionally minded and more serious inquisitorial party'. And here I thought I was doing my job, right? I have a gun, a gun that shoots fire, there are things I don't like, I shoot them with gun. Problem solved. His new game that is 'super serious' is closed to people who are not 'serious role-players' which means people who are furries are welcome whereas the rest of us must enjoy being normal people who enjoy goofing off.

Just when you thought all dorks were united, right? So he says we can join his game if we make serious characters. His party is full of furries playing furries. He explains this as they are from an ancient alien race (NOT KAYOSS) that once helped humans but humans turned on them, blah-de-blah-de-blah. They have an ancient, secret agreement with the Inquisition per their super secret squirrel arrangement with the Emperor at the start of the Imperium. I realized this could not stand. No furries in my 40k. Chaos abominations are fine, sure, they're okay. They exist to be burned. Furry race of furries that retcon the whole setting? Not a fucking chance. Not from this guy. When I wore a badge and a gun I had a copy of the Uplifting primer in the glovebox of my cruiser, and damnit all nobody is going to ruin my 40k. Begin operation: Ruin dark heresy for furfags at local gamestore and also pick up nachos (We are bad at naming things).

We infiltrate the game in pieces, each member playing something the party doesn't have (Normal humans played by non-brain-damaged members of society that actually have jobs and don't live off mommy and daddy as they go to art school which they then use as an excuse to draw as much furry porn as possible/end mini rant). We rolled up 'open minded' Mechanicus monkeys, explaining to the DM that we would honor any ancient treaty no matter what so long as we got first crack at archaeotech and shiny bits. He allows us to join. First gaming session is on a table with two of those long bench seats, I'm sure your game store has those. On one side is the 'coalition of the willing' made up of the trio of tech priests, all level 5. On the other side is a bunch of smelly people with fake fur trappings. Their broken characters rolled up and ready (by the by, each stat of theirs due to racial bonuses is made up of the following formula: 30+3d12) and include special classes such as 'Dark Reaver' and 'harvester of sorrow' and other crap that is epic level equipment, best quality that destroys all armor and has impossible ranges. For example, there's a sword that he invented that is only usable by their race due to their close relationship with nature. This nature alignment allowed them to wield a sword made of what appears to be black, ever-shifting tar that when it strikes you, you take 1d10 damage with no armor or toughness save, per turn, until one of their kind heal you. Its called the sword of forgiveness or some other weeaboo shit as they have to forgive you for you to not die.

Thanksgiving-dinner-poop-sword notwithstanding, we are ready. Our once awesome now failtastic DM tells the party that we were responsible for the destruction of his last game. They stare at us. One growls. One of them actually fucking growled and took his fake tail in his fat sausage fingers and waved it. If people did shit like this a hundred years ago they would be in a place called Wellsville and they would be exploring a land of electro-shock-therapy, salt baths and colonic irrigation with yogurt. The DM says we will begin our story and that he introduces a rule for everyone at the table. He says "Anyone who dies in this session is dead for the remainder of the game, no new characters, you just have to watch, all agreed?" The furries nod, this fat chick with a kinda furry mask thing's chin moves like a sack of cream gravy. It's obvious he told them separately that if they wanted to try to kill us with the uncontrollable tar like stool wand we would stay dead and they could get broken xp. Not so fast, furfags.

I looked at the DM and realized my once friend was now just a freaking nutcase, and it was up to me to bring him back to normalcy. Or just break his game like a little kid and be a jackass. We are level 5, he has allowed us to take one piece of equipment from the book and 3 reloads. Any piece of equipment, as standard quality, and 3 reloads. What about cyber implants or anything else? No, its broken, we have to earn it he says. Yet furries have an armor, I shit you not, that is '16 armor on all locations' and is made of a silk like substance that changes color based on mood. Yiffweave coat, eh? We all chose multi-meltas. I'm sure you know where this is going. Ten minutes into our first adventure, on their spaceship that is waaaaay better than any imperial spaceship and is also made out of organic space-plants, ten minutes into inane roleplaying about how beautiful and unique all of their characters are, ten minutes into cursing humans and wondering why they have to work with us mechanical men, we decide to gather them all into a room.

They gather into this room , a room with a huge armor plated piece of 'crystal-glass', and they offer to tell us the history of their people. The DM beams. He hands a sheaf of papers to the speaker. The speaker of truth apparently, an honored position amongst her 'clan', tells us of this bizarro 40k history where they are behind everything from the rise of the Emperor, the dark age of technology, giving the Adeptus Mechanicus their tech and keeping all of this a big huge secret. Then they were betrayed! We listen. This goes on for 30 minutes. It is painful. But the moment of glory is at hand. I make the sign of the cog and offer to tell them a history. They call us liars, but we try to tell the real history of 40k as far as human reckoning is. They interrupt us a dozen times over with chants of 'lies, lies' and howling. Yes, they howled. At the very end I say "There is one part to your history you forgot, humanimaleritics' and they seem puzzled. The DM seems puzzled. We say "The part where you die".

We opened up with multi-meltas, all 3 of us, overlapping our fields of fire at point blank range. The DM starts screaming at us immediately. The store owner tries to calm him down but he keeps screaming, he turns red, his hands shake. He is furious. We work out damage to the max, as we cannot miss at this range.

DM returns 10 minutes later, swearing at us and saying [[Rocks_fall,_everyone_dies|"You're all fucking dead, you die, get out of my game, you are fucking vermin"]] so on and so forth. But as we leave he explains that we cant kill them due to the special abilities they all have from their belts that allows them to soak the first 50 points of damage, something they created to prevent backstabs from imperial assassins sent to cull the last of their numbers. We left and had beer. The end.

'''Epilogue:''' We started going to the other game store in town, we hear they have their own Dark Heresy setting called 'revenge of the scattered' which the game store owner called 'revenge of the scat-herd', all based on the above fluff."

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Stories/Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Furry]][[Category:Mary Sue]]