What exactly IS an isekai?

Valanduin

@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:

@holatuwol Eh. Don't worry about it too much. You clarified what you meant very well in this message.

My biggest "sticking point" on the definition of what costumes an isekai is the "magic is effective" bit. I find that being the deciding factor to be highly problematic. As both myself and @Geezer-Weasalopes have pointed out, with differing opinions, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court meets the definition of an isekai except that there is no "effective magic". He also mentioned Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom (John Carter) series, but discounts it because it's science, not magic. I also remembered John Norman's Gor series is also an isekai but for the lack of magic. Confusingly, Lord of the Rings is not considered an isekai in spite of having effective magic.

Now here's something to ponder. Invaders of the Rokujouma has magic, time travel, and alien worlds. Does anyone think that it's an isekai? I certainly don't. Diabetic coma inducing fantasy, yeah, but nowhere near an isekai.

Discounting the magic requirement means Star Trek qualifies as an isekai. Is there anyone out there who believes Star Trek is an isekai? I still think the only useful definition of isekai is a subset of fantasy where a major charater is transported to a world dramatically different from their own through means that are in some way abnormal in the setting (the means have to be abnormal or every sci fi story that involves space travel is an isekai).

Paul Nebeling

@Valanduin I'll scratch Star Trek, but will throw Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the Planet of the Apes series into the ring. We could go on and on ad nauseum.

I'd like to make a few points:

Isekai is a predominantly (but not exclusively) Japanese genre of fiction.
The Japanese definition of isekai is (overly?) broad enough to overlap several English genres.
We are never going to reach a consensus on exactly what continues an isekai from a non-Japanese perspective.
The distinctions between English genres can be confusing.

sorvani

@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:

My biggest "sticking point" on the definition of what costumes an isekai is the "magic is effective" bit. I find that being the deciding factor to be highly problematic.

Reincarnated as a space mercenary is an isekai with basically no magic. Just fun sci-fi.

Specifically isekai into a game universe. I like how it dumped the MC into his game ship, but not into any part of the game universe that he knows about.

jpwong

I personally don't ascribe to the magic requirement. I believe there's at least a couple of stories where the ultimate reveal is that all the so called magic everyone uses ends up being some sort of lost high technology that existed before society collapsed leading to the current world.

Geezer Weasalopes

@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:

@Valanduin I'll scratch Star Trek, but will throw Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the Planet of the Apes series into the ring. We could go on and on ad nauseum.

I'd like to make a few points:

Isekai is a predominantly (but not exclusively) Japanese genre of fiction.

The Japanese definition of isekai is (overly?) broad enough to overlap several English genres.

This.
Point 2 has a lot to do with point 1; we seem a lot more ~~picky~~ precise in how we divide forms of literature, and while the US divisions are generally recognized as being closely related we get nitpicky concerning the details. And there are differences between how British and US fans look at genre definitions...never mind the other European-descended cultures.

We are never going to reach a consensus on exactly what ~~continues~~ [constitutes] an isekai from a non-Japanese perspective.

Heh.
Not even from a US perspective.

The distinctions between English genres can be confusing.

Um, yeah.
See my above comment concerning points 1 & 2...
The differences between LitRPG and GameLit are clear at the extremes but blurry near the border; which way certain works would fall is very much a matter of personal preferences.

Looking at various series &c, a wishy-washy constant would be that the means of transference to the other culture is unusual/rare/not-easily-reversed kinda maybe sorta.

Round trips are unusual within the genre.
The method of transference isn't easily set up; it's a non-trivial action on the part of the one causing it to happen if deliberate, and unusual if a 'natural' occurrence. You don't hop in your car and get there via the Interstate and nothing else.
(Leaving the option open for works such as Zelazny's Amber series.)

There are meaningful differences between the cultures; nothing so minor as 'Culture A' uses an A440 and 'Culture B' uses an A441 and everything else is identical; the differences drive the story.
(How would C. J. Cherryh's various Alliance/Union/&c works fall into this? The time dilation effects result in a number of different cultures arising, interstellar travel is not a casual thing but in many ways a "when we return it'll be a foreign culture and we won't fit in" type thing.)

Technology tends to differ.
Whether it be magic, or a sufficiently different tech level, it tends to not be the same between cultures.
'Tends to' isn't the same as always if there are things in place causing other differences between the cultures that make life interesting for the transferee, but it's not a true Isekai if you can't lament the lack of ~~rice~~ something common in your place of origin and wow the locals once you acquire/create it. /s
Technology differing is the easiest explanation for there being differences in culture...maybe?

If A Connecticut Yankee counts, then I'd toss out Lest Darkness Fall as an example of a Western Isekai as well.

Looking at different aspects I'm finding myself thinking of various stories I've not read in decades...how they fit into different aspects of the discussion.
One could do a lot of Reader's Advisory if one chose to do so.
Sometimes reining in the Inner Librarian gets hard.

Maybe the topic needs renaming at this point: "What's an Isekai anyway?" or something like that?

Paul Nebeling

@jpwong Gotta mention... (Major series spoiler)

spoiler

Wait a second. That same logic makes the John Carter (Barsoom) series an isekai. No wait. It can't be because Edgar Rice Burroughs didn't set the series in Japan. (Ducking for cover)

Paul Nebeling

@Geezer-Weasalopes said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:

Maybe the topic needs renaming at this point: "What's an Isekai anyway?" or something like that?

I'm game, but don't know how to do it.

Geezer Weasalopes

@Paul-Nebeling
Go back to the opening post, select edit, and you can then change the Discussion Topic Title.
That's also how you can add tags if you think of useful ones after posting.

Only works for the original poster, or forum admins.

Paul Nebeling

@Geezer-Weasalopes Done.

ETA: Can't think of any tags though.

Arcene

I personally felt tricked by "Chillin’ in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers". It does meet the requirements, the guy does gets summoned to another world, the thing is... he already started off in a similar fantasy world to begin with!

I can't remember if I read past V1, but t hey don't even touch on any differences between those worlds or anything, the only apparent reason that I could come up with is to establish that he wasn't racist to demi-humans before he got isekai'd, which isn't nothing, I guess, but I still feel tricked.

sorvani

@Paul-Nebeling said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

@jpwong Gotta mention... (Major series spoiler)

Actually, once that is revealed it makes that series

spoiler

sorvani

@Paul-Nebeling said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

@Geezer-Weasalopes Done.

The core definition of the word is another world / different world. I think everyone agrees on that.
To me a fantasy series is not isekai just because it is set on another world. Because basically 100% of them are. I do count parallel earth as another world.
Just playing in an VRMMO is not an isekai, but transferred completely into or stuck in game I do think qualify.
The point of a story that makes it an isekai in the common vernacular is that someone, typically the protagonist but not always, gets moved from their original world to another.
Neither the original world nor the destination world need to be similar to modern earth, but many stories do use that.
Magic does not need to be involved. The method/cause of the transfer never needs to be explained. It just needs to be a clear fact.
Same world reincarnation/time travel/summoning is simply fantasy or sci-fi and not isekai because there is not another world.

Some examples and my opinions based on the above criteria:

Standing on a million lives: Isekai because it is parallel earth. even though it is still earth.
Bookworm: isekai, reverse isekai, or possibly even double reverse isekai at this point depending on how it all pans out counting info in the extra fan books and author posts.
Tearmoon: Not an isekai, she is reincarnated with the same world. Fantasy yes, reincarnation yes. Another world? Not from the protagonists point view
Shangri-La Frontier: Not an isekai, it is simply a story in a game.
SAO: Not an isekai after the Aincrad arc as they are no longer stuck.
Log Horizon: Isekai as they were completely sent into the game world and stuck there.

jpwong

@sorvani Yeah, that adjunct data dump kinda changed things up there, though it is still another world, just not a different universe. But based on some of the discussion I've seen, JNC actually has a second series where this occurs, though I haven't personally read it.

@sorvani said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

Just playing in an VRMMO is not an isekai, but transferred completely into or stuck in game I do think qualify.

I don't even consider stuck to really be isekai, though there are death game series that use that as the backstory for the isekai (The New Gate), but I also consider VRMMO to be it's own main genre when it's an actual game series that may or may not show anything outside of the game itself (SAO, Toaru Ossan no VRMMO Katsudouki, Late Start Tamer), it's too bad most of the unlicensed VRMMO series I want to read are published under AlphaPolis...

Otherwise I agree with your post. It's kind of interesting when you have series that look and feel like isekais, and then you get a curve ball and it turns out it's actually time travel in some fashion.

saidahgilbert

For me, an isekai doesn't have to be a portal fantasy. I like using the literal meaning of the world- another world. So Western stories like Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Throne of Glass can be called isekai but in practice, I'd usually only refer to Japanese fantasy novels that take place in another world as isekai. It's like the difference between manga and comics and anime and cartoons. They're both the same thing but it's handy to have a shorthand word to refer to the Japanese version in particular.

Geezer Weasalopes

@saidahgilbert said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

For me, an isekai doesn't have to be a portal fantasy. I like using the literal meaning of the word- another world. So Western stories like Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Throne of Glass can be called isekai but in practice, I'd usually only refer to Japanese fantasy novels that take place in another world as isekai. It's like the difference between manga and comics and anime and cartoons. They're both the same thing but it's handy to have a shorthand word to refer to the Japanese version in particular.

There are times you don't localize terminology because there isn't a term that encompasses the core meaning, that which has to be conveyed.

Anime and Manga, while similar to US comic books and cartoons, have a very different place within Japanese culture when looking at how they came to be.
The mainstream attitudes toward them don't match, although the US perception of comic books has changed a great deal in my lifetime it still differs greatly from the place of manga in Japanese culture (or at least that's my impression.)
There's also that in the US comic books predominantly are slim, one installment of a single serial, while in Japan you have the thick monthly magazines comprised of a number of ongoing serials.

Our use of "Isekai" doesn't match what the source culture uses it for; we've borrowed the term but changed its meaning.

One might think of "Isekai" as a modifier to use with recognized genres?

Quag Keep was not only the first LitRPG but also the first Isekai LitRPG...provided you use a definition of LitRPG which says it's the heavy RPG game mechanics that matter and it need not be a computer RPG, that TTRPGs qualify.
It's inarguably GameLit, but in my mind it falls in the sub-genre of LitRPG within GameLit.
It hits a great many aspects of the Japanese definition of Isekai while falling within the "physically transported to another world for realz" criteria that many of us are more comfortable with in conjunction with the term Isekai.

But even if using it as a modifier to works falling within existing recognized sub-genres there needs to be an agreement on what it means, what is being said concerning the work when declaring it an Isekai within that sub-genre.

Any more editing and revising will just make this more confusing, plus I'm hungry.

sorvani

@jpwong said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

but I also consider VRMMO to be it's own main genre

VRMMO is certainly a genre, I agree. I simply classify being stuck in one no different than another world, thus isekai. Becoming unstuck (SAO) makes it lose that tag though. Log Horizon on the other hand, never did to my knowledge. Actually never followed it far enough to know if it was truly stuck in game or actually another world. Once I heard it was dropped/ hiatus/cancelled, I stopped reading. Around LN voume 8 or something.

Geezer Weasalopes

@sorvani said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

@jpwong said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

but I also consider VRMMO to be it's own main genre

VRMMO is certainly a genre, I agree. I simply classify being stuck in one no different than another world, thus isekai. Becoming unstuck (SAO) makes it lose that tag though.

That's where a looser definition comes in handy.

Log Horizon on the other hand, never did to my knowledge. Actually never followed it far enough to know if it was truly stuck in game or actually another world. Once I heard it was dropped/ hiatus/cancelled, I stopped reading. Around LN volume 8 or something.

With Log Horizon it's pretty solid that it is a distinct separate world/reality from that of their origins.
Classic Isekai by any definition.

As to the status of publication...
Up in the air still, although it's looking more and more iffy as time goes by.
The author being convicted of tax evasion, of all things, seems to have marked the end of any new publications on their part; ten months prison, three year suspended sentence prior to serving time, should have finished up in 2020 or so. Born in 1973, so fiftyish at this time.
The third season of the anime was arranged after their release, and is all post-volume 11 materials.
The WN has nothing post Volume 11. Their Narou account has nothing posted since 2015.
The author's website and twitter are focusing...on not much of anything, just enough that you know they're still alive. And into tasty food. And maybe stuff concerning the Log Horizon RPG.

ANN said Season 3 was using the same name as Volume 12 of the LN, which indicates that at that time there was some expectation that there would be a Volume 12 by that name. Season 3 was a Winter 2021 release, so three years ago.

Paul Nebeling

@sorvani Being somewhat of an SAO fan, I've got to comment on the VRMMO genre. Thru at least five different "worlds" SAO has consistently been deserving of the VRMMO tag as the preeminent title in the genre. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Reki Kawahara should feel quite flattered.

sorvani

@Paul-Nebeling said in What exactly IS an isekai?:

Reki Kawahara should feel quite flattered.

If he didn't have so much of a George Lucas complex with the series I would agree. I can rant on that subject so i'll skip it in this topic since it is a Yen Press title.

jpwong

@sorvani The biggest problem with VRMMO "stuck" series is that the reward for clearing the death game tends to be let out, so unless the series is a bad end series where everyone dies, the tag will never stick. The ones where it's a death game due to some otherworldly power tends to use the setup for the series to be true isekai though.