Hit Japanese anime genre offers escape, second chances

Arima said a core audience for Kadokawa's novels is "salarymen" -- Japanese office workers -- in their 30s and 40s.

They may 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."

Plain sad.

This is the age range you were supposed to be living your life to the fullest, enjoying your new family, travelling the world solo/with your partner. Instead, you're reading comics in your train home daydreaming about a reset button in your life.

This is the age range you were supposed to be living your life to the fullest, enjoying your new family, travelling the world solo/with your partner. Instead, you're reading comics in your train home daydreaming about a reset button in your life.

There’s always a reason for a person living their life different than you and not being happy about it, you know. Rather than judging arrogantly as ‘know it all how to live in a right way’ you really should delve into some psychology and culture studies first, and then appeal to your humanistic inner self that can expand to empathy and kindness towards imperfect people’s vulnerabilities. That would be much effecient and useful for both sides I think.

Instead, you're reading comics in your train home daydreaming about a reset button in your life.

Is it a worse life than all the people who spend their 30s and 40s drinking in pubs as a form of escapism? Or watching reality TV?

Another reason from author's point of view is easiness. You don't have to do preliminary research that usually requires a lot of effort. All you need to write this gene would be just playing online games.

Since publishers happily accept this kind of works a lot, more and more would-be artists are slacking off. I believe this is the beginning of the fall of the Japanese manga brand.

Japan is big on Isekai escapism because of the miserable condition of life in Japan.

If people in Japan were happy, people wouldn't be dreaming of another life by reading Isekai manga and light novels.

Another reason from author's point of view is easiness. You don't have to do preliminary research that usually requires a lot of effort. All you need to write this gene would be just playing online games.

There is another things that add to the genre being easier, the author don't need to imagine how to describe new things or make the other world perfectly congruent by itself, since the main character is a normal Japanese person everything can just be "translated" into normal things to make the description easier (tastes like the fried chicken from the convenience store) and the ocassional incongruencies can be explained by magic.

That's bad news... I was hoping this trend would fade soon. :P Most Isekai is plain boring and one after another is just copies of earlier popular ones. The "heroes" always have some special power or some sort of bad computer game... Very natural. If I wanted that I rather PLAY a game instead of watching it.

In my opinion only one Isekai in ten is worth the time. Those are the ones with an original and well written story and characters. The slow life-versions is more my kind of Isekai I think. But money talks and this is an easy way of making money fast without big effort or demand for quality.