At this hour of life–how late? The sun moves strangely through the sky–I find myself deep in regret: I have been reading isekai. Ah, if only to be reincarnated! At times one longs to live in a carefree world, in others to embark on a power fantasy, and during yet other moments the desire wells for a do-over. Comradery. Fulfilling work. Obligation only to oneself. Indulgence. Isekai offers all these things, a multipronged approach to escapism not achieved in any other genre nearly so clearly. Nowhere else are escapism and fulfillment bound so close, and I contend forming and making plain this union (something less clearly done in more traditional fantasy) is one of the great achievements of isekai.

In living we are confronted with thoughts such as 'keeping your feet on the ground' and 'down to earth.' This slavish approach to reality is counterproductive–look around! Humanity was formed by heads in the sky, experimenting and dreaming. So even if isekai poisons the water somewhat with indulgent conceit, there is a pure source too. Life flits by, regrets compound and the past becomes a place of misery. Pick yourself up and grit your teeth and dream! "Pride does not befit the needy." That is the hard toil for those of us who were not hit by a truck.

Perhaps someday we'll be able to say "starting today, I've been reincarnated." After all, we have our own demon kings and marvels–but here the yoke of reality comes on too harsh and we are repelled! Doesn't this talk feel slimy? That that which is light is beautiful...

Repetition is scorned in art (contemporarily, at least), and yet why reinvent the wheel each day? All things are rooted in others, and by adhering to basic formulas shamelessly isekai generates a startling amount of variety and complexity from, almost definitionally, 'generic fantasy.' Reincarnated as hero, loser, prodigy, prostitute, royalty, servant, farmer, bartender, sword, slime, goblin, dungeon, hot spring, person with cellphone and etceteretera. Isekai shows a profusion of different tones and scenarios. Isekai has also found a sister in modern fantasy–things like Goblin Slayer which follows the isekai form in everything except reincarnation, and whose innovations isekai liberally borrows from.

Moreover, Isekai does not shy from topics–its indulgent, even depraved sensibilities give the genre no qualms about openly catering to desires. I'd suggest the vast amount of repetition isekai gets away with hinges on the effective appeal to basic desires. Sexual fantasy, power fantasy, power progression fantasy, care-free fantasy and comradery fantasy types (among others–I would not presume anything approaching definitiveness) are all executed time and again to great retentive effect. The tropes of isekai are so incredibly solid that anybody could easily make a story without an original thought. On the other hand, the solid ground makes isekai an equally incredible launching point for new ideas: so much can be taken for granted that authors can focus on what matters to them without detriment to the story. It's a powerful templatization of story-telling. Templates always have facilitative and destructive aspects: see how I've again called isekai both innovative and repetitive.

But ultimately, that no topic is off-bounds, that the barrier to entry is low, and that appeal is highly valued, are easily attractive traits for There is no pretension within the genre, except perhaps a self-victimization of otaku, and so I think it would not be surprising if in the coming decade isekai generates a real masterpiece. That is the hope, and the expectation is that the genre is fetishized and recycled into the ground, and that the people who read and write it will meet similarly useless fates.

All too often the process of learning obfuscates the meaning of doing so. Memorize, practice, make connections and ahhhhhh! It becomes dull and pointless. Information is never an end in itself, same way words aren't the crux of the concepts they represent. I guess life is like that too, there has to be an underlying meaning or it becomes miseries and trivialities, which really don't matter when you've got a fire going in you because then the small things can easily be dealt with or seen through. Without that fire, we run the danger of going in endless circles: so search for the spark, that's really all there is, one reckons.