What exactly IS an isekai?
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While not prompted to do so, I'm spinning this off into a separate topic as I feel like it will distract from the discussion of the actual volumes (and it also may go on for more than one volume).
I've seen some folks say yes. I've seen some say no. I've seen some sitting on the fence. I'm going to give my observations and then my opinion, Be warned! There may be information some consider to be spoilers.
Reasons that I would call it an isekai:
- The protagonist has clearly jumped bodies. This isn't isn't unheard of in an isekai. Bakarina is a good example of the protagonist not starting off as either an infant or as a version of him/herself.
- The protagonist seems to have "other worldly" information, such as instant noodles.
Reasons I would not call is an isekai:
- The protagonist seems to be from the current world. This is evidenced by his knowledge of local materials such as "white charcoal".
- There is no clear indication of how or why he's in this new body. He does not appear to have been "portaled" (Record of the Wortina War, Realist Kingdom, Arifuretta), died (Smartphone, Konasuba, Bookworm), or reincarnated (New Life +, Tearmoon Empire). The closest comparison I can think of is the previously mentioned Bakarina.
*Both the author and possibly the publisher are a bit imprecise with the words they choose to describe things. For the author, I'm referring to the use of the word "clone" to describe a magically summoned copy of himself. Technically, calling that a clone is imprecise. I'll cite the publisher for self-describing this series as an isekai.
I think from that last sentence, I've made it pretty obvious that I do NOT consider this series to be an isekai. I'm leaving the door open, because it only the first volume, after all.
Looking forward to a lively discussion.
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@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
"white charcoal".
I disagree
Is an Isekai
- White Charcoal - A commoner in this setting would have little reason to have experience with this outside of a few industries because of the cost to manufacture. Sure we can claim he knew it as a commoner before becoming a same world reincarnator, but then why would he know about desalination.
- Desalination - Salt Water desalination was simply not a thing outside of specific sailing cultures. It cost more in fuel than the benefit, so I highly doubt he would know of it.
- Bookwalker.jp literally calls it one
Is not an Isekai
- White Charcoal - The author have Liam did state
I was instead on my way to use some knowledge I’d always had from the start but simply never had the ability to make use of.
Also, i want to raise the point that the term Isekai is being used super generically in various places. In this instance, it means the reincarnator was originally from a different world than the current incarnation.
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Just a friendly reminder that "isekai" simply means "another world" in Japanese, so any story that takes place somewhere other than the real world, Earth, can technically be considered "isekai." That means Bookwalker's use of it as a tag isn't really indicative of much, but it also means there's a need to properly define what is meant by the question "is it an isekai?" Do you mean "isekai" as a LN genre or as a general descriptive tag?
The "isekai as a genre" description I believe most people could agree on is "a story in which modern-day Earth exists alongside this other world in some parallel world fashion, and characters and/or knowledge from Earth end up in the other world somehow."
Just my two cents!
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
Just a friendly reminder that "isekai" simply means "another world" in Japanese, so any story that takes place somewhere other than the real world, Earth, can technically be considered "isekai."
Noted, and I intend to keep things civil, but the language difference had me curious, so I went and pulled up the Wikipedia entry for Isekai from the Japanese Wikipedia. It was interesting.
One of the very first things I noticed was that there is a Japanese literary genre that Google translated as "High Fantasy" which is distinct and different from the Isekai genre. The High Fantasy article mentioned Lord of the Rings as an example. No argument with that, I assume.
Anyways, the Wikipedia article for Isekai describes the Isekai genre as "a genre of Japanese fiction that tells stories set in a world different from modern times, where magic is effective." It then goes on to say that "Derivative genres include transference from the present day to another world, reincarnation in another world (summoning), and possession in another world (substitution)." I would not call these "Derivative genres" an all inclusive list, but they do seem to set some expectations for what belongs in this genre.
Applying these definitions to this series does tilt the scales somewhat because:
- Magic is definitely effective in this world.
- Liam's body was definitely possessed by another being, albeit seemingly from the existing (and discounting that McGuffin spell) only known world.
Now just about every example mentioned in the article involves one of those conditions moving someone between "our" modern world and the series setting, either in time or world in one direction or the other. Believe me, they mention a bunch of series in the article. They don't mention this one, but I would call that arguing from silence.
That being said, I will shift my position to that this series technically meets the definition of the isekai genre, but I will also say that it's not in any of the mainstreams of the genre. The sticking point for me is that this guy seems to be just some unlucky schmoe that got stuck into a 12 year old's body with no real transfer to "another world or time".
I can't bring myself to call it High Fantasy either. Altina the Sword Princess fits into that category, as do several other JNC translations, even if they do have magic in them. LOTR has effective magic, but the Japanese consider it to be High Fantasy, not Isekai.
Call me stubborn, but I want a smoking gun.
PS
What would everyone call Tearmoon Empire? -
@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
What would everyone call Tearmoon Empire?
Isekai.
It's another world and she was reincarnated into her past self. Magic may not exist in this world but it could just be that the present denizens haven't discovered it yet. After all, time travel exists with no technological explanation.
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@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
One of the very first things I noticed was that there is a Japanese literary genre that Google translated as "High Fantasy" which is distinct and different from the Isekai genre. [...] LOTR has effective magic, but the Japanese consider it to be High Fantasy, not Isekai.
Nah, that's not a separate Japanese literary genre.
High fantasy is a western concept, and as such, the wikipedia article only has examples from western literature, with commentaries from Japanese sources trying to explain what the western world defines as high fantasy.
If you go to the fantasy wikipedia article, which was also linked from the isekai (genre) page:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ファンタジー
And you scroll down to the section titled ファンタジーの舞台, you'll see this part at the beginning of the first paragraph:
ファンタジーのうち、地球とは異なる異世界を舞台とするものを異世界ファンタジーあるいはハイ・ファンタジー [...]と呼ぶ
To loosely translate the above, it says that within the fantasy genre, those set in another world are called "isekai fantasy" (Japanese term) or "high fantasy" (western term, written in katakana).
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@holatuwol Well, at least we are singing off the same sheet of music, so to speak...
Even you seem to admit that the Japanese make a distinction between Isekai (Japanese origin fantasy) and "High Fantasy" (Western origin fantasy). Is this to say that every piece of fantasy literature written by a Japanese author is automatically considered an Isekai? That would seem to exclude the possibility that a Japanese author could ever write a fantasy story that would not...
- Be set in or even mention modern-day Japan
- Have any characters that appear to be Japanese
- Does not have any magic used in the story
without it being classified as an Isekai.
That being said, I would ask if you would consider Altina the Sword Princess to be Isekai outside of the fact that it is written by a Japanese author. Would you consider The Crown of Rutile Quartz, Cave King or Hell Mode Isekai just because they include magic? I'm sure there are other examples.
As a closing note, I would like to point out that the Japanese Wikipedia article on Isekai cites Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Authur's Court as an early example of an Isekai story. While I will say that Isekai is a predominantly Japanese genre, and I can not think of any examples to disprove this, I will firmly say that it is not an exclusively Japanese genre. I will also say, with the backing of the Japanese Wikipedia articles, that every piece of Japanese fantasy literature is not Isekai.
PS I'm having issues logging on to the forums from my phone. Am I the only one?
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@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
Even you seem to admit that the Japanese make a distinction between Isekai (Japanese origin fantasy) and "High Fantasy" (Western origin fantasy).
I apologize for adding the parenthetical clarifications for isekai and high fantasy.
I added them so you'd see where the word "isekai" was if you used Google translate on the whole paragraph (it is translated automatically), and so you'd see that "high fantasy" was a loan word and not a translated word.
I did not intend to imply that, to a Japanese person, the two are mutually exclusive. After all, "high fantasy" is handled as the disambiguation for "isekai fantasy", outside of light novels, anime, and manga.
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@holatuwol I first read your reply after you added the parenthetical information. Every language on the planet has borrow words. They are generally used for things that do not have adequate words in the native language. The word borrowed and the concept expressed are both foreign to the language doing the borrowing, but they are a valid part of the language. Unless you're French. The French hate borrow words. (That's for humor more than a fact of life.)
FWIW, Google Translate did translate the Japanese word "isekai" as "another world". I don't read Japanese, so I would never have noticed that the "Japanese" for "High Fantasy" was just phoentic using Japanese characters. Then again, that's pretty much how all languages incorporate borrow words.
Regardless of it being a borrow word, the concept of high fantasy does exist in the Japanese culture as a distinct and separate genre from the isekai. Now would a Japanese person ever consider a piece of Japanese fantasy anything but Isekai? I don't know. I'm not Japanese. I think it's a safe assumption that the Japanese do recognize some fantasy works from outside Japan as isekai.
I think this is analogous to the question "Can a non-Japanese animation studio make an anime?" Answer that question and you sort of answer the question "Can a Japanese person write a fantasy story that isn't an isekai?"
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@myskaros said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
Just a friendly reminder that "isekai" simply means "another world" in Japanese, so any story that takes place somewhere other than the real world, Earth, can technically be considered "isekai." That means Bookwalker's use of it as a tag isn't really indicative of much, but it also means there's a need to properly define what is meant by the question "is it an isekai?" Do you mean "isekai" as a LN genre or as a general descriptive tag?
That was why I specifically defined the usage in my post. Definition aside, the vernacular use by the English speaking audience is what generally matters. That generally means the MC crossed to another world.
People can, and will, arguing exact definitions and meanings all they want. Fandom's are especially prone toward that. That is also why I defined the term as I was using it.
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@sorvani said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
Definition aside, the vernacular use by the English speaking audience is what generally matters. That generally means the MC crossed to another world.
Well, I hadn't really considered the cultural differences between what the Japanese consider an isekai and what an English speaker would consider an isekai. That was what got me looking at the Japanese Wikipedia. Honestly, I just didn't buy the argument that every Japanese fantasy work was considered an isekai, and I feel like I am correct.
I'm going to go with a kind of blended definition between what I think the Japanese call an isekai and what an English speaker would call an isekai. There should be a change of setting between the moden world and "someplace else". There should also be a transference of characters between the settings, either by direct transfer, death and resurrection\reincarnation, or possession\substitution. If the second element is missing, I would lean towards calling it fantasy rather than isekai.
Since "Liam" was clearly possessed by someone else, I would provisionally call this title an isekai. This could change in either direction based on what is revealed in the future. The only reference to "another world", and I'm betting that reads "isekai" in the original Japanese, is that McGuffin spell that Liam has acquired. If some explanation of how the MC wound up in Liam's body is given, it would go a long way towards answering the question.
In short, the jury is still out for the moment.
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@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
The only reference to "another world", and I'm betting that reads "isekai" in the original Japanese
Kind of interestingly, that another world spell seems to behave almost exactly like the Dimension Home spell that's in By the Grace of the Gods.
This doesn't really fit what I consider isekai personally. Flat reincarnation doesn't meet my threshold. Right now this fits closer to that Strongest Sage series which is also only reincarnation, the main difference being that this one seems to have been both unintentional, and reincarnation via possession instead of suddenly regaining memories.
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Magic ✔
Possession of a different body ✔In a world differing from their world of origin ??
...This would explain a number of the things various of us have commented upon, if he were a thirty-something commoner from a different world.
Another option is that he's from someplace way far away in the same world, sufficiently so that one can look upon it as a different culture such that his social knowledge wouldn't be relevant even when dealing with commoners.
Because his ignorance of things the commoners know is unbelievable if he's supposed to be from around the same time and geographic region.The call of "Isekai/Not Isekai" hinges upon whether one requires one of the realities involved be ours.
There is the term "Reverse Isekai" for works where the origin is elsewhere and the destination is our world, so if you buy into that term then I suspect this story wouldn't count as an Iseaki given our world not being involved at all.
Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom novels are among those held up as possible Isekais from Western Lit, despite everything on Barsoom (Mars) being credited to "Alien Science" rather than magic.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on the other hand...simple time transference in our own world.All your libraries are belong to us. | Aub Rozemyne | Those who do not read shall not eat.
Help me, Satomi-san. You're my only hope. | Fight! Yurika! | WW[R|S]D
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@Paul-Nebeling said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
Honestly, I just didn't buy the argument that every Japanese fantasy work was considered an isekai, and I feel like I am correct.
As I was trying to say earlier, you completely misinterpreted the parentheses in a way that made you think that I was making that argument, when I said no such thing at all.
What I actually said with those parentheses:
(1) an "isekai fantasy" is a Japanese way of describing fantasy story that takes place in an "other world"
(2) a "high fantasy" is a western way of describing a fantasy story that takes place in an "other world," but with additional other restrictions put in place by western academics
(3) to say that "high fantasy" is a separate genre from "isekai fantasy" is weird; it's like saying that 1 isn't a whole number because it's a positive integer
(4) all of this to say that if you accept that Lord of the Rings is an "other world" fantasy (which it necessarily would be, if you feel it fit the definition of "high fantasy"), it is necessarily also an "isekai fantasy"
I'm pretty sure you would have understood what I was saying, as I had intended, had I just not added any parentheses. Thus, I apologized for having added them at all.
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@Geezer-Weasalopes said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
The call of "Isekai/Not Isekai" hinges upon whether one requires one of the realities involved be ours.
It does not have to be ours. It simply means that the character moves from their world to another via reincarnation/rebirth/summon/transference/truck-kun.
I vaguely recall a story where a merchant (maybe?) in a low tech world of some kind was summoned/transferred to the setting of the story. That is an isekai in the current English vernacular.
A straight reincarnation within the same world is not. Yes, that can meet the definition of the word as argued by all the Tearmoon Empire discussions. But that is not the typical vernacular usage of the word.
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@Geezer-Weasalopes said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
The call of "Isekai/Not Isekai" hinges upon whether one requires one of the realities involved be ours.
There is the term "Reverse Isekai" for works where the origin is elsewhere and the destination is our world, so if you buy into that term then I suspect this story wouldn't count as an Iseaki given our world not being involved at all.I'm willing to consider it isekai as long as the user moves from their original world to another world through some mechanism. So I consider Chillin in Another World an isekai story even though the MC doesn't come from Earth. I do consider the reverse isekai to be how you've listed it, someone from another world comes to an Earth that's at least reasonably close to our society. Not sure how I classify isekai returns (where the back story is the user is/was supposed to be isekaied, and the transfer either failed, or they came back and they have whatever super powers they got) since I've only seen maybe 3 series where that's the story.
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@jpwong said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
Chillin in Another World
That was the one I was thinking of. Only read V1.
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@Geezer-Weasalopes said in Is I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin an isekai?:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on the other hand...simple time transference in our own world.
Cited in the Japanese Wikipedia article as an early example of an isekai.
Mark Twain 's `` A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' is an early example of a story in which a modern person travels back in time or is transported to a medieval or similar fantasy world and brings knowledge from his own time with him . (https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/異世界_(ジャンル))
I'm agreeing that this could be an isekai at the moment, but that opinion could change as the story unfold.
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@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.
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@sorvani Most people consider Tearmoon Empire to be isekai, and it only involves the MC "reincarnating" into her earlier self. Thinking about it, that's a lot like the "power" that Liscia's mother (Too lazy to look it up.) has in Realist Kingdom. Not "actual" reincarnation, but people count is as enough to call it an isekai.
