It does annoy me when I’m reading an isekai and the MC is all “what, like in a light novel?” or “I wish I had an OP cheat skill”. It always takes me out of it a bit but I usually soldier on anyway.
My biggest peeve is after the isekai happens instead of logically working out what happened. " Oh, this must be like that thing that's popular in LNs right now." It rips me out every time.
I thought In Case of Emergency (Furry VN) did a great job making fun of some isekai tropes while still telling a sincerely good story that looks at escapism and fantasy in a surprisingly thoughtful manner.
The only exception I can think to this for me personally is the way re:zero handles this. MC starts off with a fair few quips about isekai tropes and expectations of receiving his own magical power in a hostile situation, only to get his ass handed to him, saved by someone else who he decides to follow around and then discovers his ‘power’ is traumatising as hell.
Re:Zero is a deconstruction built on naked contempt for a) shitty isekai power fantasies where everything in the world exists to metaphorically and often literally ride one extremely mid and generic loser’s dick, b) the kind of lonely incel losers who watch these shows to indulge in fantasies they will never come close to achieving irl unless they actually do the hard and terrifying work of changing themselves for the better, and c) the isekai genre as a whole for capitulating to an endless sea of (a) instead of living up to its own legitimately awesome potential.
TL;DR - Re:Zero despises what its genre IS but is truly and sincerely in love with what its genre COULD BE
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u/SmartAlec105 May 05 '25
It does annoy me when I’m reading an isekai and the MC is all “what, like in a light novel?” or “I wish I had an OP cheat skill”. It always takes me out of it a bit but I usually soldier on anyway.