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^^^ One of my gripes about the "reincarnated as villainess in an otome game" genre (which I otherwise generally find pretty fun) is that it seems very common for the protagonists to keep being concerned about experiencing the game's (or manga or whatever) bad ending long after it's already been made super clear that the events of the game have been completely derailed and everyone likes the protagonist now. I actually kinda wish those titles did more with the "villainess" angle. They're kinda similar to "normal" isekai where the protagonist starts out weak and quickly becomes over-powered, in the sense that the "disliked villainess" phase is often very short and they quickly just develop their own harems, etc. Kenkyo Kenjitsu is one of the few that actually keeps her background as a part of the way others perceive here for a long time. Tabletops posted:is re:zero cool or whack these days It is better than the vast majority of stuff listed in the OP, simply by virtue of meeting the standard of "doesn't read like something a complete amateur wrote while making things up as they go along." I'm not completely caught up with the translated WN, though I've finished the really long arc that occurs after the events of the anime (it's a really good arc with some stuff that would be great animated, which makes it a shame that it's never going to be). Stairmaster posted:why does she keep refering to male love interests as capture targets The male love interests in otome games are referred to as "capture targets" because the goal of the game is to hook up with one of them. It's basically a way of saying they're one of the "route" options. khy posted:I would recommend it. It hits a lot of the usual Isekai tropes (MC 'invents' sugar beet farming, mayonnaise, conditioner, hand pumps, etc) and the harem part is strong with almost every major female lead throwing themselves at him almost from the start, it also hits a LOT of wacky and enjoyable poo poo like the MC doing a Scrooge McDuck until, as the manga puts it, 'the young master's... it's lifting its trunk and trumpeting'. It has some pretty serious parts to break up the humor which is welcome; but anytime poo poo gets really serious in a fight the samurai personality comes out to gently caress people up, and it's a joy to read. This post confused me because I thought you were making fun of it and then suddenly said "it's a joy to read" out of nowhere. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 2, 2019 20:56
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Dragon one is better than slime one so far, largely because it hasn't yet revealed any completely bullshit abilities on the part of the protagonist. Hard to say how it compares with Kumoko this early, since Kumoko had a period early on before it reached the "OP to the point where it hurts my enjoyment of the story" level (I would say that things started going downhill around when she got the ability to split her mind, though even then it managed to stay entertaining by splitting its focus among other characters).
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Feb 14, 2019 06:10
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RatHat posted:Speaking of Kumoko I’m not really a fan of how quickly she justifies killing humans, when her goal for a while now was to evolve to a form that she can communicate with. edit: Edited out post since I was under the impression the web novel was being discussed (which was pretty understandable since most isekai originate from web novels and this thread doesn't specify manga, but I don't want to spoil anyone who isn't aware that the manga is based off a WN/LN). edit2: I'll add back in the stuff about (these aren't WN-specific spoilers)the protagonist not really being lonely and wanting to communicate for the sake of convenience and protecting themselves from human adventurers, though. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Feb 15, 2019 |
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Feb 14, 2019 23:57
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Compendium posted:Yeah, Inuyasha is definitely an isekai and for that matter, Fushigi Yuugi too. There must be some sort of deep sociological reason why "fantasies of traveling to or being reborn in a fantasy world" transitioned from a thing character of female-oriented media to being mostly aimed at men. (it's probably just a coincidence that it became a popular thing in some shoujo manga in the 90s, though the prevalence and popularity of isekai web novels in the present is definitely indicative of the collective Japanese young adult psyche in some way)
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Feb 17, 2019 07:24
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doomrider7 posted:I've been wondering that too since there were quite a few that were famous like Anatolia Story, Crest of the Royal Family, Inuyasha, Escaflowne, etc. A theory of mine I think is the combined popularity of stuff like SAO and maybe even Fairy Tail or at least fantasy anime like it that seem to take some heavy leads from stuff like Dragon Quest or other famous games of that nature. I'm not saying that Fairy Tail is like Dragon Quest, but it was one of the earlier fantasy manga/anime that got REALLY big that had a similar vibe and people saw that there was an easy market to exploit for easy sales while also peddling out their fetishes and whatnot. As for why we don't get as many female oriented ones or at least ones or at least ones that aren't all villain otome ones, I don't exactly know or have any theories. I don't think a business decision caused it in this case, because the modern isekai genre primarily developed through self-published web novels. I think the appeal is pretty easy to understand - it basically takes a lot of the stuff that appeals to people in "normal" anime and manga (like shounen battle manga or harem manga) and distills it into its most pure essence. It's easy to understand why "traveling to a fantasy world where you're super powerful and well-liked" has wide appeal; if anything I'm curious why the genre (in its specific modern form) didn't become popular until recent years. There's a decent chance that it's because the platform for making self-published stories of this nature easily accessible (websites like Narou and widespread use of the internet and smart phones) just didn't exist previously. And a big part of these stories' appeal is that, in their original medium (of web novels), they're published extremely frequently. At a rate even higher than shounen manga; many of these web novels would update several times a week. But all of this still leaves the question of why you didn't previously see shounen manga published where the plot was "being reincarnated and becoming excessively powerful in a world where everyone loves you," and that's where the answer might actually have something to do with what readers demand. My completely baseless and unprovable hypothesis is that these isekai stories - which are usually hyper-escapist media - are at least partly a response to an increasingly depressing adult reality for the people who consume them (who are largely, if not mostly, adults - as opposed to the younger primary audience for shounen manga/anime). Maybe teenagers and children still prefer stories with plots, threatening villains, and the typical things the characterize action/fantasy stories, but the adults who read isekai want nothing but the escape of living a pleasant life in a fantasy world. These stories basically give them what even MMOs can't - after all, in MMOs you can't exactly make everyone like and respect you, and you're forced to play by the same rules as other players. edit: I think Mushoku Tensei might be one of earliest (if not the earliest) web novels of the specific mold that tends to define isekai stories today. I believe it started either before or around the same time as the original Sword Art Online.
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Feb 17, 2019 08:24
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khy posted:Mushoku Tensei creeped me out more than a bit. The MC was a fat japanese neet with a loli fetish before he got reincarnated, and he so some of the stuff he does is kinda out there. Hahaha jesus christ. I've never actually read it, aside from being generally aware that it's an early isekai that defines a lot of the tropes of the genre. Onean posted:Seems like Mushoku Tensei is probably not up my alley then. Harems will usually kill most of my interest in a series and it doesn't sound like there's much that would make me want to look past it. That ED arc would've probably been the point I'd finish the volume and just set the series aside and forget about it. Yeah, harems in isekai WNs - which tend to be even worse than their "normal" shounen romcom counterparts - always make things unreadable, because they never really let you forget that you're reading a power fantasy/wish fulfillment story. The most tragic example of this was the WN Sevens, which had the potential to be good but just couldn't resistant adding girls to the protagonist's harem in pretty much every arc. It's a big reason why I could tolerate I'm a Spider So What; the protagonist may be "OP," but she occupies a different sort of role than the protagonists in most other isekai stories. The Slime series falls into a sort of middle area where it isn't quite the same as the series with "direct" harems, but there's still a clear element of "people/women adoring the protagonist" that isn't present as much in something like I'm a Spider So What.
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Feb 17, 2019 21:04
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Bremen posted:LN spoilers, feel free to avoid but I couldn't resist: You have no idea. She eventually realizes she can cure cancer by teleporting people and leaving the tumor behind and she bribes everyone that finds out to secrecy because she doesn't want millions of people begging her to cure them. She also pretty shamelessly lies and cons people for her own benefit, though that's pretty much a FUNA MC thing. So yeah, though it never drove me off or became outright villainous, she's just a bit ruthlessly pragmatic. Wouldn't this method not be reliable at all for any sort of advanced cancer due to the cancer metasticizing? There's a reason why you can't reliably just cure all cancers by cutting out the tumor in real life.
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Feb 23, 2019 22:05
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KittyEmpress posted:I like the isekai about the guy being reborn as a godly pharmacy owner in a fantasy world, because he is just pretty nice. The reason is because the main purpose of the stories is as a power fantasy (just....a really lame one where the fantasy is "being strong in a video game"). Having them become strong through using some uncommon skill is just an attempt to make it seem more "fair" than outright giving the MC powers that no one else has, though in practice it's basically the same thing.
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Feb 23, 2019 23:51
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Captain Invictus posted:I'm reading the Re:Zero manga, on the "second" series now(just a continuation of the first 12-chapter series it seems, albeit with a different artist) and it seems good as hell. I remember hearing about the anime of it and how it's an isekai where the protagonist is just a schlub with no superpowers or typical isekai protagonist benefits, and that seems to be true, outside of being Anime Groundhog Day. It's a rather eccentric and weird series but charming too, all the characters introduced in the first series are pretty likeable(barring the villain, obviously). The anime adaptation is good and probably preferable to the manga, at least for the 3 arcs the anime covers. Re:Zero is good and probably my favorite isekai series. It has some dumb stuff (primarily related to romance), but the good parts are *really* good. Once you finish the 3 arcs covered in the anime/manga you should dig up the WN translations (they're floating around somewhere). The 4th arc is even better than the first 3, though it's really long (if adapted "faithfully" it would probably be at least as long as the first three arcs combined). The whole gimmick of the protagonist having to figure out an "answer" to dealing with opponents/situations far beyond his ability to directly confront is a good one, and serves as a motivation for him to learn about and connect with other characters (since he generally needs their assistance to deal with the enemies he faces). The author has a really strong knack for crafting exciting/memorable situations and creating characters with very distinct voices/designs. Even during post-anime content I find myself having a very easy time imagining the way the characters look and sound, despite having not actually seen them animated.
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Mar 6, 2019 19:07
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drilldo squirt posted:That website set off my antivirus. Yeah, my work blocked it.
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Mar 7, 2019 04:15
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Captain Invictus posted:Holy poo poo. I'd occasionally seen the "~best girl~" meme reference Rem but figured it was just oh she's the cutesy maid character, the typical moeblob type. I was proven wrong pretty quickly after her being introduced, but boy howdy, she's a hell of a character in her own right, maybe, indeed, the best girl. I'm in the rejection chapter right now, and drat it's good and painful. The fourth arc goes in a kind of interesting direction with how it deals with Subaru's whole mindset. The third arc is sort of about (broad/vague spoilers)him gaining the willpower to be willing to go through terrible experiences to ~protect what he loves~, but the fourth arc (similarly vague spoilers that don't reference any actual events) instead addresses the downside to him willingly subjecting himself to repeated suffering without any concern for his own mental and physical well-being. Arc 4 also reveals a lot about the broader setting compared with the previous arcs, with some pretty huge twists, though even after it there are still a bunch of huge mysteries. The mysteries are probably one of the most compelling things about the story; for whatever reason the author gives me confidence that the mysteries will have satisfying answers (partly because what answers have been doled out have been satisfying). I would recommend the WNs just because both 1. the manga will likely takes ages to finish arc 4 and 2. it will likely cut out a bunch (I believe some "lives" were even cut from arc 3?). The trimming isn't necessary bad from a story-telling perspective, but I'm kind of biased in favor of seeing every "run-through" because they all contribute a bunch in the 4th arc. The translation is sort of simultaneously bad and good. It's bad in the sense of having semi-frequent minor grammar mistakes and being kind of "overly literal," but it does a strangely good job of capturing characters' voices. Overall I liked it, but other people have had trouble with it so YMMV. Controversial opinion - I actually don't really like Rem much, even though her role in the story is fine. Largely because I'm not really a fan of (these aren't spoilers for Captain Invictus) love interests who are totally fine with the protagonist being in love with someone else and being "loyal" to them regardless. The way the story deals with the romance(s) with Rem and Emilia is probably the one thing I don't really like about Re:Zero, even if it's nothing particularly bad compared with other WNs (it just stands out in comparison with how good everything else is). doomrider7 posted:Not gonna lie, that just sounds like torture porn. Reasonably well written it seems, but torture porn nonetheless. Like yeah sure I get that the author wants to write a series seemingly to critique how soft writers are with Isekai MC's and what not or whatever it was, but this just sounds like grody, cruel, and mean spirited torture. Nah, it's good. Unless you're specifically averse to having any sort of bad events or tension, I can pretty unequivocally say it's significantly better than pretty much every other WN-derived isekai series (except arguably Bookworm). Any bad things that happen are also usually followed by some sort of "triumph," so the overall tone isn't really depressing even if specific events are.
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Mar 8, 2019 19:03
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Captain Invictus posted:I asked before but nobody answered, what chapter of the Re:Zero webnovel does this chapter of the manga take place? I started trying to find it myself but kept getting chapters that both seemed unrelated and also had character names I don't recognize and I don't want to accidentally spoil myself on something a ways ahead. edit: I first replied to this when the link wasn't working for some reason, but now it is. You're still in Arc 3, and Arc 3 of the WN mostly isn't translated (because it's covered by the anime there isn't much demand to translate it, I imagine). So you'll want to watch the anime. It shouldn't be too hard to locate the anime episode corresponding to the whale fight. Once you finish the anime you can start the translated WN content. This link gives links to translated WN material: https://www.reddit.com/r/Re_Zero/wiki/translation Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 23:06
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SpartanIvy posted:A second season of Re:Zero is in the works, so that's kind of fun Oh, awesome! I'm guessing the entire season will be Arc 4. It's a really great arc with some stuff that is going to be really good animated. They might be able to avoid trimming much material if they just devote the entire season to the arc.
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Mar 24, 2019 05:52
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My only issue with a lot of the "otome villainess" WNs is that they often don't really make use of the premise much and have the protagonist just go off and do their own thing. I like the idea of the protagonist sort of interacting with the original game/manga story and characters.
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Apr 5, 2019 18:03
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Bloody Pancreas posted:Crunchyroll, out of the blue, just put up The Twelve Kingdoms in its entirety. This was my first foray into Isekai before I even knew what that meant. Also it's really, really good and I'd recommend it to anyone (who likes anime). Twelve Kingdoms not having more books written in its setting is one of the top two depressing LN things (with the other being the likelihood that Rokka no Yuusha will never end). It is very good and has one of the most interesting fantasy settings I've ever encountered. It's Actually Good, as opposed to "we know it's bad but it's still entertaining" (which applies to most of the stuff we discuss in this thread). I actually like the addition of the two classmates into the anime, though (from what I understand, the LN didn't have anyone travel to the 12 Kingdoms world with her). Asano's whole arc was particularly interesting (it's probably one of the few "accurate" depictions of what would actually happen if someone was randomly transported into some fantasy world, without knowing the language or anything).
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May 20, 2019 21:24
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korrandark posted:Considering all she wants is to sit in the backlines and live the good life, making her become the focal point of the army is a pretty spiteful from Being X This is the same excuse a number isekai WNs use to be like "but it's not REALLY wish fulfillment," though. I'm pretty sure I've encountered at least like 5+ with a premise of "I just wanted to relax and be normal, but I was OP?!"
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May 22, 2019 23:58
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vedicardi posted:there's a lot of good lists of manga in this thread but anyone have any anime in the genre worth checking out in particular? namely stuff that may have flown under the radar, but then again maybe not. didnt really enjoy re:zero, the humor of kono subarashii goes from impeccable comedic timing to "here's the same joke the 100th time". that's really my only experience with the genre. Someone mentioned Grimgar, and I might try it if I were you, since your opinions about Re:Zero/Konosuba mean you probably wouldn't like most "typical" isekai stories. Grimgar has a different sort of tone to it. You still might not like it, but there's probably a higher chance of you liking it than stuff like Overlord or the Slime isekai. Log Horizon isn't really "shounen," but I didn't like it much so I wouldn't exactly recommend it either (though I know a bunch of other people liked it, so YMMV). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:08 on May 27, 2019 |
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May 27, 2019 22:06
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I'm the person who gets a chance to go 10 years back in time after playing a bunch of WoW and decides "I know how I will use this amazing, unprecedented opportunity - I will play WoW again." There's something deeply depressing about that being a person's fantasy. Like, even the "going back in time and owning my school bullies" fantasies are easier to understand.
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Jun 5, 2019 06:59
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Nihilarian posted:Faraway Paladin being an escapist fantasy for losers isn't subtext, its text. there's nothing cynical about it, thats 100% the point, and the impact of the story would change massively if his previous life was in the same world, even if he was still a loser I think the thing that bugs me about isekai is that I actually really love escapism, but excessive power fantasy elements utterly ruin it, at least if taken to anywhere near the level most of these stories do. The English-language Xianxia web novel (or rather "quest") Forge of Destiny is basically what I wish all of these stories were actually like; a story about a character gradually becoming stronger and meeting people/having fun adventures in a fantasy world. The main character is strong, but within reason and to an extent that doesn't exceed other very talented characters in the same setting. Other characters don't just exist for the sake of massaging the protagonist's ego or being comically evil foils (well, except for Huang Da I guess). The Cradle books are also a good example. I like the whole "very long story with a super extended and dramatic power progression" element, but in practice most stories that include that involve the protagonist becoming ludicrously overpowered very fast. Yinlock posted:yeah the absolute dumbest webnovel genre isn't the power fantasy ones, it's the MMO power fantasy ones The thing that gets me about the MMO ones is....why not just make it a regular isekai? Like, they usually spend all their time in the game, so why not have them actually go to a fantasy world? Argas posted:Worse yet, none of them are even remotely near launch WoW in terms of accessibility. Yeah; I didn't play a lot of MMOs when I was younger, but I did WoW as it was released in college and a couple friends and I had one cool experience where we figured out how to glitch into an area and were apparently one of the only people to do so (because you couldn't find any information or pictures online about it, so it wasn't some publicly discovered thing). Specifically, we found a path that you could walk through/up mountains to reach Ahn'Qiraj a while before it was actually released. We were able to walk through the empty temple and stuff (which was not actually populated with any mobs), and it was actually pretty fun.
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Jun 6, 2019 02:29
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I'm reading Sekai Game, and the part with the staring nun is hilarious. This series is kinda like a funnier Konosuba so far.
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Jun 13, 2019 21:11
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Captain Invictus posted:New The Eminence in Shadow. I like the core joke of this where the protagonist thinks his organization is just adlibbing everything.
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Jun 30, 2019 22:04
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Bremen posted:Yeah, it's still an Isekai, though it has a bit of the one punch man thing going since the protagonist doesn't really seem to realize how broken he is. Most of the comedy is him playing chuunibyou while not realizing everyone else is taking it completely straight, and I agree that it doesn't seem like that joke can last forever. Yeah, part of why I find it tolerable is that it's focusing more on comedy than the power fantasy so far. There's not really any detail about the protagonist's abilities other than "he's stronger than everyone," and the "protagonist doesn't realize the stuff he ad-libs is apparently real" joke still hasn't become old yet (for me, at least). His life pre-reincarnation is also not the typical "everyman" one, where he was instead some absolute lunatic who became swole (it was funny how it actually showed the result of all his training being him becoming huge) and trained in the mountains. I think my favorite part is when he saves up a bunch of money specifically to set up a scene where he's sipping wine in a luxurious room and says something mysterious/profound. sunken fleet posted:I've seen a few Chinese novels with a similar premise of some guy waking up in Alt-Earth where things are slightly different and they go on to become rich/famous on the back of plagiarized work. I'm always sort of skeptical though, would someone really be able to get rich and famous purely on knowing a bunch of "good" songs no one else knows in 2019? Would songs by The Beatles really even blow up in 2019? I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to making it big in the entertainment industry than just creating "good" art. Boku wa Beatles has the advantage of them traveling back in time, so it's at least during a time period where it makes sense for the music to take off. Though it also introduces some interesting stuff like "the actual Beatles still existing" and "there being multiple band members who disagree about this idea." Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jul 2, 2019 |
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Jul 2, 2019 02:53
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Captain Invictus posted:The entire gimmick of the series is he's the biggest chuuni in the universe and the world he isekais into conforms to whatever chuuni bullshit he whips up on the spot, and his inner monologue of normalcy is just constantly like "WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON", it's very good. Yeah, it generally doesn't give me nearly the same "power fantasy/wish fulfillment" vibe that most isekais do, even though the protagonist is technically really strong.
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Jul 2, 2019 06:10
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My one gripe about the villainess otome WNs is that they rarely seem to actually engage with the concept of the game or the existence of the original protagonist. Like there's at least one where the protagonist just leaves and goes somewhere else to do typical isekai Earth-tech/ideas-sharing shenanigans, and it leaves me wondering what the point was of having them be a villainess in an otome to begin with.
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Jul 3, 2019 07:17
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:and somehow, the 'heroine' was the villain because she didn't like the noble class living in opulence (including the mc and every member of her male harem) while the peasants starved. the story tried to gussy it up so the heroine would seem monstrous and delusional, but it didn't really work that well. A lot of manga/anime (and I guess WNs) seem to just sort of treat as a given that nobility is generally legitimate, up to and including nobles being more attractive, etc. Nobles who "abuse" that are treated as bad, but ones who demonstrate "noblesse oblige" or whatever are seen as good and legitimate.
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Jul 3, 2019 17:43
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Nalin posted:I really liked this one (it was abandoned by the TL, a common happening for WNs it seems): Is this the one where he dates the villainess and there are other reincarnators or something?
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Jul 3, 2019 21:58
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I got around to catching up with the Slime manga and I just don't get it. The manga has a good artist, but everything happens in a way that is somehow even duller than I expected. It seems to just sort of abruptly jump from each plot point to the next. It has some of the issues Kumoko has with regards to an uninspired setting (both have these bizarre "fantasy potluck" settings with all sorts of random things from Tolkien and Japanese folklore), but Kumoko compensates somewhat by having more of a clear narrative and lots of content from the perspective of side characters (Slime does this some, but not to the same extent, and everyone still worships the slime).
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Jul 11, 2019 23:55
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Speaking of Re:Zero, I think probably the biggest thing I like about it that makes it stand out from other isekai (or similar) WNs is how each arc centers around the protagonist having to enlist the aid/cooperation of other characters. It serves as a really effective way of involving other characters in the story and using them to flesh out the setting. Each arc is less about Subaru himself having to figure out how to defeat his adversaries, but rather about him having to learn about other characters and persuade them to help him (often through resolving some issues they have).
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Jul 15, 2019 07:12
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Darth Walrus posted:Will Wight's Cradle series has what you want. Yeah, it has the best balance of "MC with some big advantages, but nothing that really constitutes a 'cheat'" Though it's not really isekai, and if he's also going with isekai-tangential stuff Forge of Destiny also fits the bill (and Forge of Destiny is closer to the "gradually watching a character progress" standard of other WNs).
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Jul 17, 2019 05:41
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Galvanik posted:There's a josei (shojou?) time travel series I've been enjoying. It's about a girl who goes to an agricultural college getting zapped back to 1560s warring states era Japan and getting dragooned by Oda Nobunaga into being a village chief. She uses her modern farming knowledge to increase crop yields. That's it. The title is Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan: Noukou Giga This reminds me of the best pseudo-isekai josei manga, 7 Seeds (I figure if people are willing to include stuff like VRMMO stories, something like that should also count). I forget if the nature of the setting is a spoiler or not, so leaving it out just in case. Everyone should read 7 Seeds. The art style can take some getting used to, and it takes a bit for it to get going (I'd read until the second group is introduced, at least), but it's super good and has an amazing cast. It has a very unique feeling to it, because it's far more character-focused than most sci-fi/fantasy manga, but also has more "broader plot" stuff than most josei/shoujo stuff.
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Jul 18, 2019 21:43
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ninjewtsu posted:Something I liked about grimgar was the little background commentary it was doing on the role of goblins in games/isekai stories. Being a low level enemy, "hero(s) kills a bunch of goblins to get stronger and also pay the bills" is a pretty expected direction for things to go, but grimgar made a point of showing that the goblins weren't mindless monsters. They clearly were sapient with a civilization and could communicate with one another (not sure if their weird screams were actual language, they seemed to mostly communicate with each other nonverbally) and later on several goblins got pretty well humanized, showing them playing chess with one another and even feeding animals in an eyecatch image. The main characters were clearly aware of this too: even 6v1 in a fight they were obviously going to win they're all incredibly awkward about attacking and make a personal note that the goblin was fighting for its life, one of them even gets freaked out by the feeling of his sword going through flesh the first time the goblin gets wounded. And at the end of the fight, as they're walking home, the protagonist notes that they didn't even make enough off of it to pay for their living expenses for the day - essentially, they just ambushed and gangstabbed a hobo for pocket change. And while its subtext, the next episode or so has them dealing with the emotional fallout of having killed an intelligent creature. All in all, I found the overall theme of "hey, this 'low level hero runs around killing goblins for cash' is essentially a horrifying act of genocide" really fascinating. I also like that, even much later in Grimgar after the party has improved a bunch, things still stay grounded and the main characters get owned if they gently caress up and let themselves get attacked by more enemies than they can handle (which, for small enemies, is a pretty strictly limited number that is usually something like "2 on the tank, 1 on Haruhiro, Yume, Ranta, and maybe Merry, but no more than that, so more than ~6 enemies at once is always Bad News). It also strongly sticks to the premise that the protagonist and his party are very average and will never be as talented as the top people (but can still get good through experience and practice). The interpersonal relationships are also pretty well done, at least up until the point I've read to. The protagonist doesn't end up with any sort of harem; as far as I can tell he only has one potential character who seems romantically interested in him (and I'm pretty sure is the romantic "end game"), and his reaction to things is pretty realistic. Usually male protagonists in these stories are either completely oblivious or are morally reprehensible horndogs, but Haruhiro actually wonders if the character he's interested in reciprocates his feelings and stresses out about it like a normal teenager/young adult. Ranta is the main problem on this front, though the other characters are pretty consistent about not just treating his unacceptable behavior as a joke. There's also an unstated acceptance that the work they're doing is pretty hosed up, but that they don't really have a choice if they want to survive. The orcs were probably the most "morally acceptable" of the enemies I've seen them fight, but the kobold situation was arguably even worse than the goblin one, since they were just walking into their town and mass murdering them. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 03:06
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ninjewtsu posted:I'm so disappointed that another season of grimgar will never come, and as far as I can tell there's very little else out there like it. I imagine it's pretty well resolved by the point the anime ends at, but I also really appreciated that their driving goal wasn't a desire for adventure or a need to kill the evil demon king or whatever, but just plain the fact that they're living in poverty and if they don't go out on this goblin-slaughter expedition and it doesn't go well, they are going to just flat out starve, or won't be able to replace their hole-riddled clothes, and when an expedition does go well their big celebration is "we finally bought our tank a helmet." I enjoy seeing a struggle for survival that isn't, like, some kind of stranded in the wilderness scenario, but just plain living in civilization as poor people. It starts to tie into some sort of greater plot later (like the 5th LN the party gets roped into some effort by the top dude to deal with some greater threat). The characters are alright; the protagonist, Shihoru, and Merry are probably the least stereotypical (Shihoru might sound strange there, but she's actually fairly unusual in terms of being a shy character who isn't super nice/kind and definitely doesn't have any romantic interest in the protagonist). One interesting thing is that it's revealed later (I think LN3 or 4 spoilers, believe it's beyond the anime's content) that basically the only reason the protagonist's party managed to survive as long as they did is because they had Moguzo, who was actually very talented and ended up carrying the party in a similar way to Manato earlier (and with the same result in the end).
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Jul 20, 2019 19:42
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i don't mind titties, but the magical breast feeding is too weird for me. It's a shame because I like the general idea of the setting (and the relatively limited nature of the protagonist's powers), but the fetish stuff is a bit much.
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Jul 21, 2019 18:29
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Bakanogami posted:Probably taking cues from Japanese TV, of which like 2/3 of which is some sort of cooking or food-related program at any given time. Reminds me of this J-drama I watched in high school called Lunch Queen - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunch_no_Jo%C5%8D I remember it made a loving huge deal out of demiglace sauce.
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Jul 22, 2019 18:40
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Yeah be prepared for how lame all of the characters on the shun side of the story are. Its to break up the pacing, but those chapters are so bad. Shun chapters are better than Kumoko chapters IMO, which mostly just consist of a ludicrously overpowered spider gaining fake game stats and killing monsters (after the brief-ish period early on when she's actually weak). The Shun chapters actually depart the most from typical isekai tropes in that, while they're occurring, we're aware that the characters involved are not that strong compared with the big players in the setting. Also Shun is an actually good guy, which is unusual for an isekai protagonist.
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Oct 1, 2019 19:32
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I think that one's perception of each part is heavily dependent on familiarity with isekai tropes. I've frequently seen the opinion that the Shun chapters are "stereotypical isekai," and I'm pretty sure those opinions are ironically coming from people who haven't read other contemporary isekai WNs. Similarly, someone unfamiliar with said tropes might not notice them in the way the main protagonist is kind of callous and overpowered (though the twist with her is a good one, and Kumoko benefits from distributing its focus among a bigger cast). I should add that I'm only speaking for the WNs. I don't know how or if the Shun stuff was changed in the LNs.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:04
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:An overworked mangaka dies and is reincarnated as a member of the 1930s Warner Brothers animation studio. A member of AKB48 dies and is reincarnated in the mid 20th century in the UK. She takes the world by storm with 21st century jpop tunes. One of the early scenes consists of her singing an AKB song on the street, and a huge crowd forms, in awe at this beautiful music unlike anything they have ever heard. Among them is a record producer, en route to meet with the Beatles. They change their plans.
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Oct 3, 2019 02:17
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doomrider7 posted:https://twitter.com/pkjd8I8/status/1181156349406658560?s=09 lmao the protagonist looks like someone tried to comically create a chuuni character design. I remember Arifureta being one of the sorta mean-spirited isekai in a similar vein to Shield Hero. Like it had a short "main character is weak and lame" period at the beginning just so he could become stronger than all his classmates later. There's something uniquely pathetic about the isekai that have "becoming stronger than all the popular kids in my class, who seem strong at first but are actually weak, unlike me who is so fuckin strong" as part of their premise.
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Oct 8, 2019 07:41
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The issue with the slime thing is that it's just kinda boring to read about someone enforcing goodness on the world solely due to possessing "cheats" that give them overwhelming martial power. Rimuru is effectively a benevolent dictator in a setting that has "and everyone in his country likes him" as a contrived circumstance to justify this. He doesn't need to actually take any drastic measures to maintain his own position and influence, because everyone conveniently adores him. And he's only able to do any of this, and win peoples' adoration, because of the overwhelming power he was granted by lucky chance. The actual process of creating their utopian society is also mostly glossed over. It's just "stuff was invented and after a few brief misunderstandings everyone (in Tempest) lived harmoniously." It's the same thing that makes harem romances kinda cringey, except instead of just a handful of love interests it's an entire country. "No one but bad people or misunderstood people will dislike the protagonist" is not very interesting. And even stuff like this recent thing just read like "our savior was sadly forced to stain his hands because the bad people were too greedy." edit: A decent comparison with a vaguely similar premise that is done much better is Maoyuu Maou Yuusha. I don't even like Maoyuu very much, but it at least deals more with the details from a perspective that can't effectively cheat their way to success. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Dec 3, 2019 |
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Dec 3, 2019 21:32
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 00:07 |
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khy posted:With Isekai that's always the best attitude to have. For every good one, there's at least two terrible ones out there. But this one has AN AMAZING TALKING CATGOD and I love cats. Honestly I started reading it solely because of the cat. Jesus, that's way too optimistic. I'd put it more like "for every good one, there's at least 23 terrible ones."
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Dec 15, 2019 02:35
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