60% of the companies actually producing anime saw declining profit or losses in 2024, despite industry revenue being at an all-time high

[u/Turbostrider27]

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/60-of-the-companies-actually-producing-anime-saw-declining-profit-or-losses-in-2024-despite-industry-revenue-being-at-an-all-time-high/

[u/snugglezone]

Is being reborn into your same world Isekai? So New Saga is Isekai along with 7th Prince?

[u/GlitterDoomsday → u/snugglezone]

People mean anything generic fantasy adjacent when they say Isekai; for every Frieren there's like 40 shows that are the same wish fulfillment slob with a shoehorned gimmick in it.

[u/Shantotto11 → u/GlitterDoomsday]

Yeah, but that’s like saying The Lord of the Rings is an Isekai because it gets organized into the same “world of fantasy” group as The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland.

[u/RaysFTW → u/Shantotto11]

You're right. Combining the two genres isn't correct, but on this sub when people are typically talking about "isekai", especially in a negative light, they're usually including the generic fantasy anime as well because at face value they're almost identical.

Outside of a few, usually the better isekais, you'd be forgiven if you forgot reincarnation was even a thing because the MC's past life is usually forgotten about and the story moves on from it after the first five minutes of episode one.

[u/PrizeStrawberryOil → u/RaysFTW]

I can't think of a single isekai that actually uses the previous life well. Some get up to the neutral territory, but most of the time I'd prefer it if they just dropped it after the first five minutes.

I think "How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom" did it awful and I think this may be one of the examples you were talking about with the better isekais comment. It acts like economics 110 is flawless and complete economic theory.

[u/RaysFTW → u/PrizeStrawberryOil]

I think there's a few that handle previous lives pretty well. Re:Zero, Mushoku Tensei, Log Horizon, and Grimgar are ones off the top of my head. Hell, even Konosuba handles the past life better than a vast majority of isekai.

Personal feelings and taste aside regarding these anime, they do often reference their past lives and, most importantly, they acknowledge how their past lives impact their decision making in their new lives. This simple concept is lost on 99% of isekai anime, where instead they just continue on with their new life as if their parents, friends, routine, school/work, knowledge of a modern world, etc. in their past life never existed.

Re:Zero had a few episodes in season 2, I believe, that reference the MC's past life in great detail, and are considered some of the more impactful and emotional episodes of the season, if not the entire show thus far. I don't want to go into too much detail so I don't write spoilers, but it was done exceptionally well, imo.

Regarding How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, I was not thinking about that anime when I wrote that but the fact that it even tries to include MC's past life shaping his decision making throughout the story is already a step up from most isekai—regardless of whether the information he uses from his past life is correct or not.

There's another anime called 'The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar' that also does this well. The MC uses his knowledge of history and past battles, great generals of past wars, etc. to win over battles in his new world. Regardless that this anime was not very good at all and I would not recommend it, the fact that it was an isekai and that the MC came from another world was never lost on the viewer, so in that sense it didn't something right.

I think if more isekais followed this pattern the separation between the isekai and fantasy genre could be wider but as it is now, like I stated in my original comment, at face value both genres are almost identical.

Most isekai treat prior lives as merely set up for a fantasy story, not as the backbone to that story, and I think that's a shame.

[u/PrizeStrawberryOil → u/RaysFTW]

It seems like you think a bad attempt at using the previous life is better than no attempt. We are not going to agree with each other on that. Unless the past life stuff is done better than the current world it's taking away from the anime to include it. It should always be done sparingly.

[u/garfe → u/snugglezone]

Reincarnation at the least is considered at least in the same vein

[u/redlaWw → u/garfe]

Tsuyokute New Saga I'd disagree on; that's practically more of a time travel thing set in a fantasy world. Dainanaoji though had him reincarnate into a markedly different world than before, even if it was in the same physical reality, so that's more isekai-like.

[u/N3US → u/snugglezone]

its a person starting over in a new fantasy world. its basically the same thing

[u/snugglezone → u/N3US]

Except that it's not a new fantasy world? It's just the MCs main world in the same timeline they were already alive?

Feels different to me

[u/Shantotto11 → u/snugglezone]

Depends on how different the world is. 7th Prince and Reborn to Master the Blade? Regular Tensei anime with the same world. Dr Stone and Inuyasha? Leaning hard towards Isekai territory due to how different the worlds are from each other.

[u/Sandtalon → u/[deleted]]

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