Sep 13, 2025
To:Bubbles
Hello. Thanks for leaving a review. I don’t know what you mean by: “essentialise what isekai as a genre means.” No matter how much people insist ‘Isekai’ is not a genre, not even a subgenre. What is commonly referred to as isekai, the Japanese word for ‘another world’ and in Western fantasy as ‘Portal fantasy’, is a narrative vehicle for transporting the protagonist to a different world than his own. The other world setting could be used in various genres, such as fantasy, sci-fi, romance, adventure, or mystery. The method of transport can be a summons, prevalent in older fantasy; Reborn or reincarnated after death, which is ‘tensei’ in Japanese; or in a dream, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. There are also instances where the MC wakes up or appears inside a video or RPG game, where they are an expert in the game mechanics, such as in Log Horizon, Maou-sama, Retry, and thru portals, as seen in Gate: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri, or Iseleve. Other erroneous interpretations of isekai include stories about redoing (I don’t mean Re:zero. Subaru was sent to another world) or appearing in the past. Those are time travel.
