In Another World: Isekai Story Creative Discussion and Idea Thread

[The Name of Love]

I just watched an excellent video today by Gigguk (link here) which talked about the roots of the genre we now called isekai, why it's popular, and where the genre can evolve from there.

In short, isekai can be summed up with this sentence: a completely normal guy (usually a shut-in otaku/gamer) that gets transported to a world that looks like every JRPG you've ever seen and becomes the hottest shit. He has two jobs: messing up anybody who gets in his way, and collecting waifus.

In spite of this premise being a very obvious power fantasy that barely hides the self-insert elements, I feel that this basic premise alone has a LOT of promise even with the glut of fiction coming out with this genre. You can change the setting to not be a JRPG, for instance. Not many people know about it, but Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars and its sequels are thoroughly isekai except taking place on a pulpy sci-fi setting rather than a generic JRPG world, and the main character is a manly gunslinger from the Wild West rather than an otaku shut-in.

There are a LOT of directions we can go with this, but I'd like to hear some of your ideas before I share mine.

 

[StellarSeeker]

I'm writing what would be an Isekai story if not for the fact that it's fanfiction and therefore an SI by default.

The main thing I did to try and make something not power fantasy trash, aside from not having an OP hero, is to have Earth play a central role in the overarching plot of the story, which is something I don't think I've ever seen in an Isekai story, or any portal fantasy/Yankee in King Arthur's Court-style story, for that matter.

 

[giodan]

It all go down to the main character: the world can be the best one but if the protagonist is boring the story will be too.

 

[The Name of Love]

I'm writing what would be an Isekai story if not for the fact that it's fanfiction and therefore an SI by default.

The main thing I did to try and make something not power fantasy trash, aside from not having an OP hero, is to have Earth play a central role in the overarching plot of the story, which is something I don't think I've ever seen in an Isekai story, or any portal fantasy/Yankee in King Arthur's Court-style story, for that matter.

Click to shrink...

What role would earth play?

It all go down to the main character: the world can be the best one but if the protagonist is boring the story will be too.

Click to shrink...

Likable characters are a must, but I also think that the story must be put first.

 

[giodan]

What role would earth play?



Likable characters are a must, but I also think that the story must be put first.

Click to shrink...

true but is still the same problem! the problem is to be original! instead or a classic protagonist we colud get a poor orphan thief who been asked to lead a war whit royals and he try to hide is past , or if we use a classic protagonist make so he is forced to become a slave or a monster or other shock like this one!

two of the isekai story i like more as ideas: are overlord and -link edited-.

why? is not just the original idea(but is a big part of it) but because the protagonist is not a hero but somebody who make his own way!

and as my personal idea for a story is a guy who becove a demon lord and try to use diplomacy or economy to expand is kingdom because he is a halfdemon.

 

[The Name of Love]

true but is still the same problem! the problem is to be original! instead or a classic protagonist we colud get a poor orphan thief who been asked to lead a war whit royals and he try to hide is past , or if we use a classic protagonist make so he is forced to become a slave or a monster or other shock like this one!

two of the isekai story i like more as ideas: are overlord and Kumo desu ga, nani ka? - Scanlations - Comic - Comic Directory - Batoto - Batoto

why? is not just the original idea(but is a big part of it) but because the protagonist is not a hero but somebody who make his own way!

and as my personal idea for a story is a guy who becove a demon lord and try to use diplomacy or economy to expand is kingdom because he is a halfdemon.

Click to shrink...

Oh, I love this! This times one hundred! Thank you for recommending Kumo desu ga, nani ka?

My favorite isekai story is probably Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari, which involve your otaku hero going to an isekai world, only to get betrayed and used by the people there. He ends up becoming a bitter anti-hero who finds it hard to trust others as a result of that traumatic betrayal. It's definitely a darker take on the genre, though I don't think it counts as a subversion, since they play pretty much all the isekai tropes straight, albeit with a dark twist to it (like our hero getting a new companion by buying a slave in the black market).

One idea would be to have our protagonist be a kid who lived a hard life on the street before being transported the fantasy world, and he just wants to get money and live in the luxury that he never had before. He's a relatable character who nonetheless breaks the stereotype of isekai main characters being selfless nice guys with no real goal.

 

[StreamingViking]

I had idea like the Smartphone one and playing actually straight without the add superpowers. I would do it so that MC had google in his head instead.

 

[giodan]

Oh, I love this! This times one hundred! Thank you for recommending Kumo desu ga, nani ka?

My favorite isekai story is probably Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari, which involve your otaku hero going to an isekai world, only to get betrayed and used by the people there. He ends up becoming a bitter anti-hero who finds it hard to trust others as a result of that traumatic betrayal. It's definitely a darker take on the genre, though I don't think it counts as a subversion, since they play pretty much all the isekai tropes straight, albeit with a dark twist to it (like our hero getting a new companion by buying a slave in the black market).

One idea would be to have our protagonist be a kid who lived a hard life on the street before being transported the fantasy world, and he just wants to get money and live in the luxury that he never had before. He's a relatable character who nonetheless breaks the stereotype of isekai main characters being selfless nice guys with no real goal.

Click to shrink...

Alredy fav that manga. So....

Don't link to copyright infringing sites. -Staff

Anoter good site.

 

[The Name of Love]

Alredy fav that manga. So....

Reigokai: Isekai Translations

Anoter good site.

Click to shrink...

This has all the different Isekai fan-made stories, correct?

 

[mithril-blade]

I just watched an excellent video today by Gigguk (link here) which talked about the roots of the genre we now called isekai, why it's popular, and where the genre can evolve from there.

In short, isekai can be summed up with this sentence: a completely normal guy (usually a shut-in otaku/gamer) that gets transported to a world that looks like every JRPG you've ever seen and becomes the hottest shit. He has two jobs: messing up anybody who gets in his way, and collecting waifus.

In spite of this premise being a very obvious power fantasy that barely hides the self-insert elements, I feel that this basic premise alone has a LOT of promise even with the glut of fiction coming out with this genre. You can change the setting to not be a JRPG, for instance. Not many people know about it, but Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars and its sequels are thoroughly isekai except taking place on a pulpy sci-fi setting rather than a generic JRPG world, and the main character is a manly gunslinger from the Wild West rather than an otaku shut-in.

There are a LOT of directions we can go with this, but I'd like to hear some of your ideas before I share mine.

Click to shrink...

You will find that the glut of Isakai that we are currently seeing is mostly a "follow the leader" of sorts, with no other goal then to cashing in on the popularity. Which, more often then not, translates into screwing up very badly. And that's because the Isekai formula is VERY easy to fuck up.

The reason, then, why most Isekai are trash is because the MC in most if not all them is shallowly overpowered and the socially hollow. Why is that a problem? Because it takes away the physical and social stakes.

Slaves girls are about to be killed by a bunch of Orcs so the Hero is going to rescue them? Boo-fucking-hoo; Isekais, for the most part, don't go out of their way to give MCs credible threats. The Orcs then were never a danger to the MC or the slave girls. Their plight is ineffectual and unrelatable.

That leaves one single thing for the audience to be invested in: Social conflict. As One Punchman has shown us, If the social conflict is good, you don't need a good physical one*. And in that area...the waifuing more then not ends up fucking things hard. Meaningful relationships are composed of many things, mutual attraction being but one of them. The way the Isekai formula approaches it, however, love interests end up being nothing more then "trophies" for the MC. So you end up with a lot of characters in the story, most of which end up centering AND defining themselves around the MC. And this, in turn, eats the "screen time" of any other character who might have problems and conflicts that the audience cares about.

What's my point? That for an Isekai to be good it shouldn't prioritize the corner stones of it's formula but, rather, that of good literature. Meaningful conflict, meaningful social interactions and discard anything that gets in the way of that.

Take Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari for example. It starts out as a fantastic story because the MC DOESN'T start overpowered and starts as low as you can get from a social point. However, half way through the story, the queen comes back aaaaand...pretty much resolves all his issues. His character arc never comes to a resolution, the problem is simply fixed for him. And once he starts getting waifus, his social interactions become effortless; He doesn't have to trade, fight or bargain to get things he wants from people anymore, his girls are perfectly happy to give him everything he wants. The more girls he gets the less interaction with people who actually behave like human beings he has.

Premises and ideas is why we are here, but before we start anything, I would just like people to keep this in mind so that they don't end up confusing what makes an Isekai story good.

*I mean, Saitama doesn't have meaningful physical conflict. Yes, yes, yes, the story still manages to have some kickass physical conflict through the secondary and tertiary characters but One Punchman cheats by stacking the deck.

 

[The Name of Love]

You will find that the glut of Isakai that we are currently seeing is mostly a "follow the leader" of sorts, with no other goal then to cashing in on the popularity. Which, more often then not, translates into screwing up very badly. And that's because the Isekai formula is VERY easy to fuck up.

The reason, then, why most Isekai are trash is because the MC in most if not all them is shallowly overpowered and the socially hollow. Why is that a problem? Because it takes away the physical and social stakes.

Slaves girls are about to be killed by a bunch of Orcs so the Hero is going to rescue them? Boo-fucking-hoo; Isekais, for the most part, don't go out of their way to give MCs credible threats. The Orcs then were never a danger to the MC or the slave girls. Their plight is ineffectual and unrelatable.

That leaves one single thing for the audience to be invested in: Social conflict. As One Punchman has shown us, If the social conflict is good, you don't need a good physical one*. And in that area...the waifuing more then not ends up fucking things hard. Meaningful relationships are composed of many things, mutual attraction being but one of them. The way the Isekai formula approaches it, however, love interests end up being nothing more then "trophies" for the MC. So you end up with a lot of characters in the story, most of which end up centering AND defining themselves around the MC. And this, in turn, eats the "screen time" of any other character who might have problems and conflicts that the audience cares about.

What's my point? That for an Isekai to be good it shouldn't prioritize the corner stones of it's formula but, rather, that of good literature. Meaningful conflict, meaningful social interactions and discard anything that gets in the way of that.

Take Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari for example. It starts out as a fantastic story because the MC DOESN'T start overpowered and starts as low as you can get from a social point. However, half way through the story, the queen comes back aaaaand...pretty much resolves all his issues. His character arc never comes to a resolution, the problem is simply fixed for him. And once he starts getting waifus, his social interactions become effortless; He doesn't have to trade, fight or bargain to get things he wants from people anymore, his girls are perfectly happy to give him everything he wants. The more girls he gets the less interaction with people who actually behave like human beings he has.

Premises and ideas is why we are here, but before we start anything, I would just like people to keep this in mind so that they don't end up confusing what makes an Isekai story good.

*I mean, Saitama doesn't have meaningful physical conflict. Yes, yes, yes, the story still manages to have some kickass physical conflict through the secondary and tertiary characters but One Punchman cheats by stacking the deck.

Click to shrink...

Yes, that's a huge problem with a lot of Isekai. Admittedly, the two best Isekai to come out in recent years, Konosuba and Re:Zero, have a decidedly not-OP protagonist with character flaws besides "he's too nice." Neither one plays the premise straight.

Furthermore, like Gigguk says, the Isekai could give way to a straight-up fantasy rather than a video game world. Things like Escaflowne, Rayearth, and Twelve Kingdoms are good examples.

 

[giodan]

This has all the different Isekai fan-made stories, correct?

Click to shrink...

No, one of those even become a manga!

 

[aattss]

Some problems I've seen,

Same protagonist. You know, everyone's a bland teenager. Not that I haven't seen a bland teenager or otaku used in interesting ways as protagonists, but 90% of the time.... And I've seen characters who aren't bland teenagers, like alternate world magic users and 100 year old martial arts masters, except the magic users are 15 years old and the martial arts masters get deaged to 15 years old.

Useless cliche villains, such as monarchs in the summoned hero/betrayal WN. They're basically Dumbledore. As a villain, Dumbledore has potential as an antagonist. He's influential, old, powerful, has his fingerprints all over the plot. In fics, the only times he succeeds is when it's a peggy sue fic, where everything he does is undone and it does what every other fic does where the protagonist effortlessly bypasses all his plots and becomes untouchable while cartoonvillain!Dumbledore shakes his fist in the air or ironically does a Gendo pose despite being unable to succeed in everything. These villains can be so forgettable I'll forget Xianxia doesn't have a monopoly on the Antagonist narrating in dramatic irony how powerless and weak the MC is.

 

[iwvs]

My favorite isekai story is probably Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari, which involve your otaku hero going to an isekai world, only to get betrayed and used by the people there. He ends up becoming a bitter anti-hero who finds it hard to trust others as a result of that traumatic betrayal. It's definitely a darker take on the genre, though I don't think it counts as a subversion, since they play pretty much all the isekai tropes straight, albeit with a dark twist to it (like our hero getting a new companion by buying a slave in the black market)

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't say rise of the shield hero is particularly dark, to be honest. It sets the protagonist against the status quo, sure, and his first waifu is a slave, but no-one suffers horribly and he's not actually that morally ambiguous either.

I think my favourite Isekai is Mordant's Need (Mirror of Her Dreams/A Man Rides Through) by Stephen Donaldson. I'll admit that this is mostly down to me being an impressionable teen when I first read them, but the books still have some points in their favour when you stack them up against this season's mediocre isekai fare.

Namely-

• The protagonist takes most of a book to actually work out what her special power is and how to leverage it. I know this might sound like a trivial point, but I really appreciate how much more I'm able to relate to a protagonist when they're not instantly amazing. Subaru from RE:Zero and to a lesser extent the shield hero are also examples of this
• The magic system is really well-defined and never feels arbitrary. Many other isekai pretend to have well-defined magic systems, but don't, ending up with "hey, there's this power, and the protagonist has it at level 9000".
• There's actually a meaningful conflict for the protagonist to face, rather than "here's a problem, now it's gone!" as seen in Knight's And Magic [sic] and the smartphone one.

That said, I really like Konosuba (it showed us a world without bras, what's not to love?) and RE:Zero was good even though Subaru was so socially incompetent that I had to grit my teeth through that scene in the court.

If I had a say in the creation of a new isekai, I'd put it in a setting where the magic system is well-defined, with costs and limitations to what magic can accomplish. I'm thinking something like Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, where you have to snort a load of tin to get supersenses, or Brent Weeks' Black Prism series, where you can make stuff out of your colour of light and then you eventually go mad and get murdered by the rainbow police. Then, even if the protagonist has the power to have all the powers, they still have set-in-stone limitations and ways they can be countered.

 

[DezoPenguin]

@mithril-blade sums it up perfectly.

You don't even need to break the cliched elements of the genre ("Thinly veiled audience surrogate is transported to JRPG gameworld where he acquires power and waifus") in order to have a good story. Consider, for example, the romance genre. That's basically "thinly veiled audience surrogate acquires husbando out of her league," but has succeeded as a genre by--in the examples of good writing--providing meaningful conflict, inevitably social and sometimes physical, on the way to said heroine acquiring her HEA. Often this is seasoned with humor and/or porn, but the point is that there's actually a story there. If the otaku surrogate has to fight for their benefits, suffer meaningful risks and losses, and earns their power and waifus fairly, the story can be compelling and engaging. If the story is just "wooo, SI goes to fantasyland and gets everything they ever dreamed of having," it's dull and stupid.

@iwvs mentions Mordant's Need, and that's an excellent example of what I mean (albeit with a tasteless helping of sexual violence subtext and short-of-rape text, as well as a certain measure of sexism whose level is variable): the first book bounces the heroine from bad situation to bad situation while engaging in significant worldbuilding, developing the magic system and the characters and the conflicts. In the second book she begins to act on her own, coming into her power and finding her agency in a hostile world, while simultaneously the meticulously-set-up plots start to act. The last three hundred or so pages of the second book (basically, I'd argue, starting with Lebbick's fight against Gart) are a series of Moments of Awesome by different characters, broken up by instances of meaningful conflict and genuine loss (including death), culminating in a relentless series of final triumphs that feel, well, triumphant because they'd been painstakingly earned by the characters. It's remained on my shelf as I moved from home to college to grad school to small apartment specifically because better than any other book I've read it successfully conveys, even on multiple readings, that fist-pumping of emotion of this is how you make your characters meaningfully win.

 

[bluepencil]

Some problems I've seen,

Same protagonist. You know, everyone's a bland teenager. Not that I haven't seen a bland teenager or otaku used in interesting ways as protagonists, but 90% of the time.... And I've seen characters who aren't bland teenagers, like alternate world magic users and 100 year old martial arts masters, except the magic users are 15 years old and the martial arts masters get deaged to 15 years old.

Useless cliche villains, such as monarchs in the summoned hero/betrayal WN. They're basically Dumbledore. As a villain, Dumbledore has potential as an antagonist. He's influential, old, powerful, has his fingerprints all over the plot. In fics, the only times he succeeds is when it's a peggy sue fic, where everything he does is undone and it does what every other fic does where the protagonist effortlessly bypasses all his plots and becomes untouchable while cartoonvillain!Dumbledore shakes his fist in the air or ironically does a Gendo pose despite being unable to succeed in everything. These villains can be so forgettable I'll forget Xianxia doesn't have a monopoly on the Antagonist narrating in dramatic irony how powerless and weak the MC is.

Click to shrink...

All shitty Isekai and shitty xianxia can be improved by exchanging its stupid-ass main character with Ryoga Hibiki.

I actually remember some of the fanfics of 90s wherein Ranma was being inserted into the everywhere. Even then I felt tired "I don't want to read anymore about this smug jerkass just going around winning everywhere" while there's someone who had a perfect goddamn excuse for isekai, and with clear character flaws that can torpedo social interaction while still remaining heroic enough on reflex.



*Like, seriously, who needs a goddamn ROB or reincarnation or Truck-san, if you can get epically lost on your own?



We had this problem before with the harem genre that preceded this one, with Tenchi Masaki and Keitaro Urashima being boring leads and creating a followup surge of bland audience surrogates. Writers don't dare to write protagonists with obvious defining character flaws anymore. That is, other than outright perversion and celebrated otakuism.

This is part of why I liked Mushuku Tensei. Rudeus Greyrat fully accepted that in his previous life he was a shitty worthless person, and decided to be a better person in the new one, and experiences character growth through it all. He falls on occasion, but in the end he's one of the few characters that I feel can meaningfully deserve his harem. And it actually works like a harem, I mean not as a romantic circlejerk used as an excuse for hijinks, but as a household with members that try to contribute to the safety and common good of their children.

Okay technically main wife and concubines, but there's plenty of historical reasons why this can be stable, instead of modern haremu dynamics that somehow pretends the girls need to be social equals even though there's one the MC clearly favors.

 

[The Name of Love]

I wouldn't say rise of the shield hero is particularly dark, to be honest. It sets the protagonist against the status quo, sure, and his first waifu is a slave, but no-one suffers horribly and he's not actually that morally ambiguous either.

I think my favourite Isekai is Mordant's Need (Mirror of Her Dreams/A Man Rides Through) by Stephen Donaldson. I'll admit that this is mostly down to me being an impressionable teen when I first read them, but the books still have some points in their favour when you stack them up against this season's mediocre isekai fare.

Namely-

• The protagonist takes most of a book to actually work out what her special power is and how to leverage it. I know this might sound like a trivial point, but I really appreciate how much more I'm able to relate to a protagonist when they're not instantly amazing. Subaru from RE:Zero and to a lesser extent the shield hero are also examples of this
• The magic system is really well-defined and never feels arbitrary. Many other isekai pretend to have well-defined magic systems, but don't, ending up with "hey, there's this power, and the protagonist has it at level 9000".
• There's actually a meaningful conflict for the protagonist to face, rather than "here's a problem, now it's gone!" as seen in Knight's And Magic [sic] and the smartphone one.

That said, I really like Konosuba (it showed us a world without bras, what's not to love?) and RE:Zero was good even though Subaru was so socially incompetent that I had to grit my teeth through that scene in the court.

If I had a say in the creation of a new isekai, I'd put it in a setting where the magic system is well-defined, with costs and limitations to what magic can accomplish. I'm thinking something like Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, where you have to snort a load of tin to get supersenses, or Brent Weeks' Black Prism series, where you can make stuff out of your colour of light and then you eventually go mad and get murdered by the rainbow police. Then, even if the protagonist has the power to have all the powers, they still have set-in-stone limitations and ways they can be countered.

Click to shrink...

Yes, I did lose interest after the queen magically resolved all the story arcs. The story makes up for it by killing the queen later on though. I wish that the queen seemingly resolves the character problems, only immediately get killed a few chapters later. That would've been a bit more interesting, eh?

All shitty Isekai and shitty xianxia can be improved by exchanging its stupid-ass main character with Ryoga Hibiki.

I actually remember some of the fanfics of 90s wherein Ranma was being inserted into the everywhere. Even then I felt tired "I don't want to read anymore about this smug jerkass just going around winning everywhere" while there's someone who had a perfect goddamn excuse for isekai, and with clear character flaws that can torpedo social interaction while still remaining heroic enough on reflex.



We had this problem before with the harem genre that preceded this one, with Tenchi and Keitaro Urashima being boring leads. Writers don't dare to write protagonists with obvious defining character flaws anymore. That is, other than outright perversion and celebrated otakuism.

This is part of why I liked Mushuku Tensei. Rudeus Greyrat fully accepted that in his previous life he was a shitty worthless person, and decided to be a better person in the new one, and experiences character growth through it all. He falls on occasion, but in the end he's one of the few characters that I feel can meaningfully deserve his harem. And it actually works like a harem, I mean as a romantic circlejerk used as an excuse for hijinks, but as a household with members that try to contribute to the safety and common good of their children.

Okay technically main wife and concubines, but there's plenty of historical reasons why this can be stable, instead of modern haremu dynamics that somehow pretends the girls need to be social equals even though there's one the MC clearly favors.


*Like, who needs a goddamn ROB or reincarnation or Truck-san, if you can get epically lost on your own?

Click to shrink...

Ryoga in Isekai?

Hmmm...

I can see him being a good character for it. He's hypocritical, stubborn, kind of stupid (though he has an animal-like cleverness to his fighting style), and vindictive while still have a heroic and honorable core to his personality. The only thing is that I don't really like him as a character. Note, that I don't dislike him either, he just was never really the appeal of Ranma 1/2 by himself. He was better when he and Ranma were playing off each other.

Do you know what I want to do? Take a more classic fantasy show and make it into an Isekai by adding a person in there. Maybe Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho? I loved that show.

 

[Trent01]

Posting a rough idea of mine as a alternative take on isekai and making a sci-fi one that hopefully avoids most of the worst cliches.

Protag is a shy, nerdy girl who is generally more comfortable playing space-sim games than interacting with other people (Triple-bad no-no's for Japanese girls) that ends up getting dragged into the far-future of the very space MMORPG game she was playing beforehand. And it is not a pretty future.


The major galactic powers have collapsed, technology has regressed and the infrastructure to maintain what is left is breaking down, and the human elite that ruled over their biosynthetic servants (all of them kemonomimi style) is long-dead. All except her, and the cruiser she brought with her right into a battle between the remnant biosynths and a hostile alien race.

In panic mode at A) getting dumped into a video game, B) getting dumped into a space battle, and C) HOLY FRAK I'M GETTING SHOT AT WHILE IN MY PAJAMAS, our heroine hastily defaults to her video-gaming instincts and fires off the first weapons she can before even locking on while plotting a hasty escape with the friendly ships with cat and dog people that are not shooting her in the hopes they can provide some answers.

From the biosynth perspective: A actual true-blooded human arrived in a shiny dreadnought-class starship, fired off sixty antimatter bombs as a frakking warning shot, then instantly planned and downloaded a maneuvering order that got them out of a utter deathtrap of a battlespace against a ruthless alien species that had been kicking their ass for years with most of their ships still intact. We need this tactical genius, and it just so happens to be a highly attractive human female to boot.

Thus the various factions of the combined biosynth armada begin to plot for the affections and knowledge of this curious human who is really confused and scared at ending up in a leadership position by dint of being a inspirational genius at virtually every situation she's thrown into. (Read: hastily trying to apply video-game knowledge to leading a space fleet and keeping it running).

Oh, and there is still a alien menace out there that got bloodied in that initial fight but is still not out for the count yet.


So a little bit of Lost Fleet, a little bit of Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and a alternative take on the usual harem of isekai stories with a reverse-harem born of deeper ambitions than random spontaneous protag magnetism. Certainly would make for a lot better story than most on the market right now in my opinion.

 

[The Name of Love]

Posting a rough idea of mine as a alternative take on isekai and making a sci-fi one that hopefully avoids most of the worst cliches.

Protag is a shy, nerdy girl who is generally more comfortable playing space-sim games than interacting with other people (Triple-bad no-no's for Japanese girls) that ends up getting dragged into the far-future of the very space MMORPG game she was playing beforehand. And it is not a pretty future.


The major galactic powers have collapsed, technology has regressed and the infrastructure to maintain what is left is breaking down, and the human elite that ruled over their biosynthetic servants (all of them kemonomimi style) is long-dead. All except her, and the cruiser she brought with her right into a battle between the remnant biosynths and a hostile alien race.

In panic mode at A) getting dumped into a video game, B) getting dumped into a space battle, and C) HOLY FRAK I'M GETTING SHOT AT WHILE IN MY PAJAMAS, our heroine hastily defaults to her video-gaming instincts and fires off the first weapons she can before even locking on while plotting a hasty escape with the friendly ships with cat and dog people that are not shooting her in the hopes they can provide some answers.

From the biosynth perspective: A actual true-blooded human arrived in a shiny dreadnought-class starship, fired off sixty antimatter bombs as a frakking warning shot, then instantly planned and downloaded a maneuvering order that got them out of a utter deathtrap of a battlespace against a ruthless alien species that had been kicking their ass for years with most of their ships still intact. We need this tactical genius, and it just so happens to be a highly attractive human female to boot.

Thus the various factions of the combined biosynth armada begin to plot for the affections and knowledge of this curious human who is really confused and scared at ending up in a leadership position by dint of being a inspirational genius at virtually every situation she's thrown into. (Read: hastily trying to apply video-game knowledge to leading a space fleet and keeping it running).

Oh, and there is still a alien menace out there that got bloodied in that initial fight but is still not out for the count yet.


So a little bit of Lost Fleet, a little bit of Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and a alternative take on the usual harem of isekai stories with a reverse-harem born of deeper ambitions than random spontaneous protag magnetism. Certainly would make for a lot better story than most on the market right now in my opinion.

Click to shrink...

All of this, I love.

Honestly, having a male hero attract the harem through a similar circumstance would not be that bad. It reminds me of this from TV Tropes.

Why not make your story set around a literal harem? Powerful Kings, Khans and Emperors across the centuries have been noted in keeping several (or more) concubines or wives, spawning a massive dynasty. Take a break from the Strictly Formula setting of modern day High School and have yourserlf a story set in such a historical (or High Fantasy inspired) empire, and your protagonist is/was the Spare to the Thronewho has suddenly found himself an only child, and needs to pick a bride from one of the families in court, or at least spawn an heir or three. Suddenly, you have a justified reason for the Protagonist to have been unlucky-in-love before now and suddenly have to deal with all these women, and suddenly, instead of the heroines being somewhat bratty teenagers who start of Tug Lover War at the drop of a hat, the heroines are darker, more schemy-er versions of the typical Harem Genre Archetypes, with a reason to be so fixated on the same man. Comedy may (or may not) still be apart of the feel of the story, but the audience suddenly finds it balanced with court politics and nasty schemes and temporary alliances.

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[Trent01]

Honestly, having a male hero attract the harem through a similar circumstance would not be that bad. It reminds me of this from TV Tropes.

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Yep, that is something I think is under-represented too. Harems and relationships born of political betrothals and social status gains instead of random magnetism are so much more interesting to me, irrespective of how much they like eachother in the first place. A unwanted harem on both ends that has to stick together for a very serious reason and is treated equally seriously by all parties involved would be really cool story in the midst of so many recycled isekais.

A prince to a powerful kingdom suddenly ends up with a dozen betrothals due to the deaths of his older brothers and no rules against polygamy in his realm could be a plot that goes many ways, funny or serious. (Like Shiina Dark, one of my other favorites). But so far it just seems to mostly be a western story thing at most.

 

[The Name of Love]

Yep, that is something I think is under-represented too. Harems and relationships born of political betrothals and social status gains instead of random magnetism are so much more interesting to me, irrespective of how much they like eachother in the first place. A unwanted harem on both ends that has to stick together for a very serious reason and is treated equally seriously by all parties involved would be really cool story in the midst of so many recycled isekais.

A prince to a powerful kingdom suddenly ends up with a dozen betrothals due to the deaths of his older brothers and no rules against polygamy in his realm could be a plot that goes many ways, funny or serious. (Like Shiina Dark, one of my other favorites)

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Old stories have heroes gaining the hand of the princess as a reward for defeating some monster on behalf of the king (see: Standard Hero Reward). Alternatively, the hero could have defeated some corrupt prince, and gains his property (including the concubines) as the reward. Hilarity ensues when the concubines decide to compete for the title of head wife, especially since our hapless protagonist grew up in our world and desired a monogamous relationship.

 

[giodan]

here a good story who take this idea! Don't link to copyright infringing sites. -Staff

a manga were the protagonist got to marry to obitain the power to defeat the villian! also a story were the protagonist chose to go anoter world!

 

[Sarissa]

I just want to see an isekai where the MC accidentally starts a pandemic by introducing his germs to the unexposed, completely unimmune population. Or at least touches on the idea. Maybe have a magic system that revolves around bacteria and disease, with them being known as "tiny demons".

 

[TreeFrogSoup]

I think we all understand that Isekai as it is is essentially fanfiction copypaste, right?

But we also should note that there are variant subgenres here.

• Otome/Story Insertion Isekai. The protagonist is inserted into a Dating Sim/Otome game/Story as a character in the story. Usually as a woman regardless whether the protagonist is male or female. Notably, the story has a plot predetermined so characters have invested interest in avoiding bad situations, especially when they possess antagonist characters. (Burikko Princess, Otome game villainess with only Destruction Flags)
• Hero Isekai. Main character is summoned by Divine Beings or a curch of some kind into the world to do battle with monsters and demons. Sometimes alone, sometimes not alone. (Tate no Yusha, Arefureta, Konosuba)
• VRMMO. The world is a VRMMO or based on one and the protagonist is either trapped in some form or isn't trapped at all and the story slides between in-game antics and outside the game drama. (SAO, 1/2 Prince, Overlord)
• Wildcard Isekai. MC is transported to another world but the reasons why are left vague and revealed as the plot progresses. (Re: Zero, Kumo wa?, Manowa: Kill Steal Grow)
• Non-isekai. Isekai leanings only. (Is it okay to pick up girls in the dungeon?, Kansutoppu!)
• Reincarnation non-isekai. Fantasy character reincarnates within their own world. (Re: Monster)

There's a lot one can easily do with these basic elements.

Burikko Princess turned Magic Otaku is a great example, as the character is given conflict immediately, and as the story continues more conflict arises as things go off the rails from how the story is supposed to go.


A simple change to the formula we may see is the addition of Battle Royale elements, with the success of Magical Girl Raising Project and that recent anime that involves people with powers and themed after the Chinese zodiac fighting each other. Check it; Entire classroom transported to fantasyland, given OP abilites and all are now princes/princesses of differet nations/races. Gods claim there can be only one. Cue massive armies, political backstabbery and assassins.

 

[The Name of Love]

here a good story who take this idea! http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Kekkon-Yubiwa-Monogatari

a manga were the protagonist got to marry to obitain the power to defeat the villian! also a story were the protagonist chose to go anoter world!

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Interesting Manga.

I just want to see an isekai where the MC accidentally starts a pandemic by introducing his germs to the unexposed, completely unimmune population. Or at least touches on the idea. Maybe have a magic system that revolves around bacteria and disease, with them being known as "tiny demons".

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Sounds like a dark idea. Not my cup of tea, but go for it! If it creates a good story, I'll read it.

I think we all understand that Isekai as it is is essentially fanfiction copypaste, right?

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What's fanfiction copypaste?

But we also should note that there are variant subgenres here.

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You forgot anime like Magical Knight Rayearth or Vision of Escalflowne (as well as older novels like Alice in Wonderland or A Princess of Mars) which send a protagonist from our world to a fantasy world, but they have no JRPG elements.

A simple change to the formula we may see is the addition of Battle Royale elements, with the success of Magical Girl Raising Project and that recent anime that involves people with powers and themed after the Chinese zodiac fighting each other. Check it; Entire classroom transported to fantasyland, given OP abilites and all are now princes/princesses of differet nations/races. Gods claim there can be only one. Cue massive armies, political backstabbery and assassins.

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The Zodiac anime is Juuni Taisan. In any case, that sounds pretty cool! I would personally like that story.