Isekai gripes

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Haak

One thing I liked about Outbreak Company was that whilst the main character did have moments of imparting superior 21st century values to the world he travelled to, there were also occasions where his attempts went horribly awry and even moments where he had to protect that world from the machinations of his own supposedly superior society. And this was specifically an isekai about a guy who is as close to the "21st Century Everyman" trope that you could possibly get.

That's part of what I like about the "instigator of change" motif. You can and frequently do have both positive and negative consequences. In Bookworm they kept it fairly mild (so far), partly by having the girl be a kid who has to work through adults who keep a tight leash on her and prevent her from just throwing stuff out there with no concern for the consequences. However, others seem to take note that there's good and bad consequences. OC has lots of modern ideas brought into a medieval world, but while that brings improvements it also brings conflict, and the introduction of levels and forms of entertainment previously unknown creates a lot of potential for manipulation and economic control, as was seen near the end of the anime. Heck, there's an adult manhwa I skimmed through once in which the main character basically destroys an idyllic Eden-like world by bringing concepts of death, jealousy, hate and violence to them.

That said, I can understand some degree of "superiority" just from the fact that you're sending someone with modern concepts of equality and modern understanding of science to a world that lacks these things. That's not saying that they can get somewhat inane, just that a certain degree is acceptable.

[AnimeFan188]

How (not) to write Isekai:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/CbRxeJXpNOE

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[Garr]

My gripe with Isekai is that it is not as immersive when the character comes from Earth rather than being born in that world.

When the character is born in the world where the story takes place, the story feels much more real because you are made to identify with a person who is from that world rather than identify with a person from Earth so it makes you think that you are the character from that world and immerses you more effectively in the process.

[Sheba]

That's the point of isekai tho, a random shmuck being brought into fantasyland, since Narnya, at least. In my eyes, what is not played enough is the shock of cultures and values. Where middle age people are quick on accepting the more liberal values. Altho a time travel story, Poul Anderson's The Man Who Came Early conveyed such clash of cultures the best.

[Garr]

Originally Posted by Sheba

That's the point of isekai tho, a random shmuck being brought into fantasyland, since Narnya, at least. In my eyes, what is not played enough is the shock of cultures and values. Where middle age people are quick on accepting the more liberal values. Altho a time travel story, Poul Anderson's The Man Who Came Early conveyed such clash of cultures the best.

Truth to be told, the empires of Europe and Asia were already industrialized in ancient times and built complex structures such as the Stonehenge astronomical calendar, farms, ranches, agricultural terraces, aquaculture centers, cisterns, apartment blocks, animal mill, watermill, and windmill factories, blast furnaces, oil refineries, roads, highways, cantilever bridges, drawbridges, suspension bridges, causeways, mass transit in the form of chariots, rickshaws, hand carts, carts, carriages, wagons, ferry rafts, ferry boats, and ocean going ships, telecommunications in the form of signal horns, signal trumpets, smoke signals, zoetropes, bells, and semaphore flags, computers such as the suanpan, also known as the abacus, siege machines such as the battering ram, mobile siege ladder, mobile moat crossing bridge, armored siege tower, ballista, and catapult, oar powered battleships armed with catapults, incendiary bombs such as the fire jar, fire pot, and fire stone, and even artificial islands that were used as commercial and naval relay stations for ships.

If there is any culture clash, it should be between someone from the present time and a world with tribal societies like the ones found in the other continents outside of the Eurasian landmass.

I have an article about the clash between the industrialized Japanese Empire and the primitive Mishihase tribes in Hokkaido:

https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=155521

In this thread that I created, you will see images of Japanese water scoop mills along with animal mills, watermills, and windmills used in the other empires of Eurasia and this is proof that these empires were already using machines to mass produce goods while the people in other continents had no machinery and not even draft animals: all of their work was performed manually using only stone tools so they were literally stuck in the stone age while Eurasia had advanced to the industrial age as early as 500 BCE and even before that the Chinese already had manufacturing tools like the quern stone as early as 8000 BCE.

Below is an image of the quern stone, invented in 8000 BCE, it is the 1st manufacturing tool used to mass produce grains and other powdered products and it began Eurasia's long march towards industrialization:

[Nachtwandler]

BTW I was always wondering. Isekai is as popular amoung Russian-speking pulp-fiction writers as amoung Japanese ones also but is it any popular in the West (not counting Japanese LN translations)?