The isekai genre is definitely overused at this point, just as slice of life got done to death before it.
Lately, I've been having more luck w/ manhwa (Korean manga). If steampunk sci-fi with social commentary plot is your cup of tea, I've been finding Leviathan enjoyable.
Yet somehow we can't get enough of it!
I mean, I know I'm a sucker for isekai. Some of it is poorly animated with terrible stereotypes (for anime) and far too much fan service but it's not isekai that's cliche it's the story that's being told inside of it that could be.
I'd argue that isekai is one of the best and truest forms of sci-fi: Instead of just "drama, in space!" or "drama, in the future!" isekais are (normally) answering the question, "what if?"
Like, what if you were reincarnated in another world but you weren't human? What if you were a monster? Or a machine? Or immortal? Overpowered because of nature or overpowered because of nurture (i.e. the ability to carry forward knowledge from this world)? The possibilities are endless!
There's so many great isekai anime that explore these and other questions. Some get quite detailed and realistic (in terms of emotions or the sorts of problems one might run into) while others are more about comedy or relationships (again, "drama, in <another world>!").
Some of the more interesting aspects/concepts of isekai anime that I've watched:
- Main character is not the only one that was brought to another world *but the others who also came are from completely different alternate universes* (Shield Hero).
- An *entire group of people* get sent to another world (Arifureta, So I'm A Spider, So What?, Grimgar)
- The other world is *super early* feudal-ish (so primitive they don't know how to make paper or even crochet... yet) and the main character remembers all the arts & crafts stuff her mother and grandmother taught her (Ascendance of a Bookworm). Hehe: How well do *you* understand the process of making paper (think you could figure it out in that situation? =)
- What if your mom came to the other world with you? (this one is actually so over the top and ridiculous but the question itself is kind of interesting: Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?)
Another example: the orc arc of moonlight sculptor was an absolutely epic read in text format; I don't think the cartoon format can really do it justice.
Shield Hero was good but FFF-Class Trashero probably tops the lot for me. Really good storytelling and incredible character development.
If you start digging into Isekai manga, there at least one order of magnitude more works to choose from. Then if you look into light novels, there is even more stuff, again with just a fraction getting manga adaptations.
But the real breath of Isekai are web novels - that's where most of the current hit novels started, on websites like "I'll become a novelist" (https://syosetu.com/) where people just type away their fantasies with minimal friction, one chapter at a time and often with lots of direct feedback from the community.
That can result in even more original/crazy ideas being explored, such as:
- What if you were transported to a fantasy world with your solar powered camping vehicle ? (Himekishi to Camping Car)
- What if you became your game character in a fantasy world that has a different gender (female) and is a total glass cannon ? (Alice Tale)
- Whats more fun than raiding dungeons ? Running them! (Lazy Dungeon Master)
- What if there is stable gateway between the other and the modern world and you can go back and forth ? (quite a few series actually, even some mainstream ones like Gate or Isekai Shokudo)
- Fantasy is nice but steampunk and heavy industry is even better! There are quite a few rather non-mainstream series that introduce robots and guns into an Isekai setting. Yet there are others that set out to industrialize the whole thing as including building stuff like railroads.
- What if magic was just a foreign language or alphabet the locals aren't good at but you are, as it's your native language ?
- What if you are the only one who can see the GUI in an Isekai world ? Nothing better than meeting a famous aristocrat with "class: vampire" blinking above his head telling you about mysterious kidnapping cases in the vicinity. Or "goblin shaman [invisible]" floating in the air of dark cave. (Skill Takers World Domination")
- What if due to some mistake no one person gets reincarnated as a son of poor aristocrat but 3 - a high school student, a salaryman and Nobunaga ?
- What if you actually got reincarnated to the buggy mess of an MMO you helped to develop (Death March) ?
- What if a modern Aegis cruiser or even the full Japanese archipelago (including some disputed islands, no less ;-) ) gets transported to an Isekai ?
Really the possibilities are endless. There is definitely a lot of repetition and series that frankly are not any good (especially between web novels, thanks to the same zero entry barriers that enable so much creativity in the first place) but there are many gems to be found if you search a bit. :)
Destroyer! But thanks, I laughed really hard at the realization that Zipang is indeed an isekai of sorts.
Thanks to that show, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daqing_Oil_Field is one of my favorite historical counterfactuals.
Yes, that's an elf, an Aegis class destroyer and a dragon on the picture. ;-)
I haven't read this series yet but it seems to be doing good with 10 light novel volumes out so far. :)
While I haven't seen that that yet but an Isekai series based around a nuclear submarine would be cool. Being nuclear powered it could be rather independent from the now missing modern infrastructure. They could also include dramatic elements such as the submarine hiding underwater during a nuclear Armageddon only to surface later to find out they have been somehow transported into a world of swords and magic instead of the radioactive wasteland they have expected. Not that it would make it any less dangerous and their adventures any less epic. ;-)
BTW, tracked down the Japanese-island-chain-in-Isekai as well: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/nihonkoku-shoukan/
"Basically, the Japanese version of Island in the Sea of Time.
For clarity: The summoned area of Japan are the four disputed Kuril Islands, Japan Home Islands, and Ryuku Islands"