Getting hit by a truck does not sound like anyone’s favorite fantasy, but it is an idea central to an escapist type of anime exploding in popularity.
“Isekai” or “alternative world” anime covers a broad range of storylines in which a character is transported into a new life.
However, one form of isekai often starts with a bang: A struggling protagonist, sometimes depicted as a loser, dies a violent death and is reincarnated as a hero with unique powers.
Photo: AFP
It has found new popularity in Japan and beyond, with US speciality streaming service Crunchyroll reporting “great appetite” for the genre that includes titles such as That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
“We’ve seen very strong performance of these titles worldwide,” Crunchyroll chief content officer Asa Suehira told reporters.
In 2021, five of the top 10 most-watched Japanese anime on Chinese video platform Bilibili featured isekai storylines.
The genre is so popular that “isekaied” even features in the online lexicon guide Urban Dictionary, defined as “the act of being run over by a truck and reborn.”
Experts and fans alike say that the genre taps into the pent-up frustrations of people who feel undervalued and dissatisfied with modern life.
While traditional anime franchises tend to showcase heroes navigating hostile worlds, isekai focuses instead on a chance at a do-over of life.
“The prevailing mindset in isekai is that ‘I’m better off just being transported into a world where I can excel,’” said Satoshi Arima, an editor with publishing giant Kadokawa.
Over the years, the publishing house has released a plethora of isekai-themed light novels, many of which have then inspired manga and anime adaptations. The current iteration of isekai began to take off in about 2012 and the rise of platforms from Crunchyroll to Netflix has helped make them a mainstay among anime fans.
Arima said that a core audience for Kadokawa’s novels is “salarymen” — Japanese office workers — in their 30s and 40s.
They might be dreaming of “just switching to jobs that recognize them better,” in defiance of Japan’s ingrained lifetime employment system, he said.
“Since this kind of way of living is not always possible, they might be fulfilling that desire vicariously through these novels,” he added.
The escapism has broad appeal, though, and is increasingly winning over female fans, who recognize themselves in previously underappreciated heroines “living their lives the way they want to,” he said.
Popular series include Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation — the tale of a 34-year-old “jobless male virgin” who is hit by a truck and reincarnated as an infant with magical powers.
At this year’s AnimeJapan convention, a long line of mostly male fans of the series formed at a booth promoting the show and other works.
“Japan isn’t at its best anymore, so stories like this make me think people might be looking for ways to vent their stress and escape,” said 50-year-old Shinya Yamada, who was among those in the line.
Such escapism “serves a therapeutic purpose, although I think it’s kind of sad,” Yamada said.
Still, isekai’s popularity appears to be growing in Japan and abroad.
A search on a major manga-curating site turns up more than 4,000 works with “isekai” in their titles.
Over the years, the genre has spawned so many works that it risked being “overcrowded,” but the subgenres it has generated have helped keep it fresh, Suehira said.
While some isekai narratives start with protagonists escaping their current lives by dying, others are transported into alternate universes in a less violent fashion.
Some iterations see heroes put through grueling battles for survival featuring outlandish transfigurations into a spider monster or slime.
However, the increasingly popular “slow life” isekai showcases characters whose new life is stress-free and tranquil.
The variety means that isekai can tap into a broad fanbase — from those fantasizing about a more leisurely lifestyle to those imagining a bit more excitement, Suehira said.
The genre offers a fresh start, “free from the regrets or mistakes every person experiences in life,” he added.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS