I feel like isekai is an interesting concept, but it is very poorly explored by the countless attempts at it (mostly because most of those attempts are low quality).

Why does the MC rarely miss anything important from the previous world? I mean, even if the MC was such a loner as they always are, wouldn’t they miss a parent, a sibling, an old friend they no longer talked much with? If you reincarnated in another world, would you immediately forget everything that came before that? And wouldn’t the thoughts about the world you came from come back, even if you tried avoiding them?

Also, why does the MC always become immediately overpowered? Like, other than being an overused comedy trope that is barely funny anymore, I know it’s fun to see a character hiding their own trump cards from everyone else and carefully choosing when to reveal them, but why would we root for a generic-ass stranger that got immediately cool because of some abilities they gained out of nowhere?

I now understand why so many people like Solo Leveling, which I’m bringing to this conversation because I feel like has an isekai-esque setting. Other than being a really good story, it does a better job than most isekai at making you care about the protagonist, because the main character actually struggles to get the OP abilities, putting his everything on the line to become stronger, even in situations in which he wasn’t supposed to, and not just for himself, but for his family too. This means that the character walks down a path of trials and tribulation to become a hero, he doesn’t just arrive and say “hello, I’m OP now, dw I’ll singlehandedly destroy the villains, just did it, bye”, or instead say “sssh, I’m secretly OP and I want to siglehandedly defeat the bad guys without anyone thinking I did it because otherwise I get pestered by people who would want to use me for my OP abilities”. That makes him way more likable than most other MCs, you see him struggle. Not just that, but his job just becomes harder once he becomes OP, and there’s an actual good reason why he gets the abilities (won’t spoil much more, just read the manhwa or watch the anime, you won’t regret it). I think it should be tried to make an MC that doesn’t want to live forever in another world, but instead wants to come back to his world, and it should be possible for it to happen, but extremely hard. In Ascendance of a Bookworm, the MC wishes they could do that, but just can’t because they died and then reincarnated. But afaik there isn’t an anime/manga where the MC sets on a quest, or has the ultimate goal to go back to their world, and I think it would be interesting. lmk if there are already stories like that.

tl;dr why are isekai MCs always extremely strong from the get go, and they never miss anything from Earth, and never want to come back, that should happen more times, and be more like Solo Leveling smh

(Also, IseGure is a funny anti-isekai manga you might want to read)

You forgot to add “I’m also in love with my sister AND I’m a vending machine”

“I am the worst, but actually the greatest because of macguffin.”

I’m getting real tired of these open-faced and very uninspired power fantasies.

I hate isekai, because they often remind the viewer it’s not a fantasy world, but supposed to be a game. Many isekai would have been so much better if they were just straight up non-isekai fantasy anime.

The isekai idea is supposed to make it more relatable and easier to start, but people don’t really need that to pretend a mechanic different from our reality exists in that world and someone got cast into it somehow.

I’m looking forward to “That Time I Got Reincarnated In The Backrooms.”