Klok Blogs: I love Isekais! (Pt 2: Soft Isekais)
Added 2021-04-30 12:15:58 +0000 UTCHey guys, Klok here! I put off this month's Patreon post in the hopes that Mangadex, the site I use to source my lists for manga reading, would come back online. It did not. I am sad. So, I will write this post while mostly relying on my memory.
This is part two in a three-part series focusing on Isekais. Check out Part 1 here!
I love Hard Isekais!
Returning to the definition from my previous post, there are three types of Isekai stories.
Hard Isekai: A character transports to another world, one unfamiliar to them. They often obtain new magical or technological powers, and as such, have to adapt to their surroundings, make new friends, and maybe even defeat a big bad villain. The method of travel to the new world varies. It can involve time travel, dimensional travel, reincarnation after death, a magical spell they cast or someone from the new world casts, a wish from a genie gone wrong, or any other fantastical element that yanks them from a familiar world to an unfamiliar one. Hard Isekais often focus on a single power fantasy character dealing with the unfamiliar new world and trying to return home. Side characters are often not very well-developed, and storylines can meander at random. Goals are, on occasion, nonexistent.
Soft Isekai: These are similar to Hard Isekais, but the rules become more flexible. For example, not just one character, but multiple characters might transport to the new world. In a Hard Isekai, characters are often trapped in the new world, but in a Soft Isekai, returning to their world might be possible, and even very easy to accomplish. Often, Soft Isekais focus on having the main cast of characters subjugate or otherwise take over the new world in some way.
Abstract Isekai: These are stories about people going to strange new lands, often in small or large parties, to do magical, fantasy, or sci-fi related stuff. They don't transport to a new world, but they do 'adventure' to a new world, metaphorically speaking. As an example, Frodo goes on an Abstract Isekai adventure along with Sam, Merry, and Pippin, by leaving their comfortable Shire and traveling across dangerous and unknown lands. They don't magically transport to a new world, but their own existing world is already pretty abstract enough to count as a new world to them (and the reader). These stories often feature characters who are ignorant of the 'bigger picture' surrounding their world.
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Today, I'll be talking about Soft Isekais, as I have already discussed Hard Isekais in Part 1. Wait until Part 3 for my post on Abstract Isekais!
Worth mentioning: Cryopod is a Soft Isekai. The Last Precursor is a Hard Isekai. TLP's prequel, which I'll be writing after TLP, will be a Soft Isekai.
Do with that information what you will.
Soft Isekais are stories many people are familiar with, yet few consider the profound differences between their method of telling a story versus that of a Hard Isekai. Because these stories place less emphasis on being 'trapped' in an alternate world, while oftentimes having multiple characters transported, they typically feel far less like bland laissez-faire power fantasies, and more like actual stories about other worlds with likable and interesting characters.
Soft Isekais have many storytelling methods that separate them from Hard Isekais.
First off, there are typically multiple main characters: Instead of a single lone-wolf summoned to this alternate world to kill a bunch of monsters, or to save the day, we often get two, three, or sometimes even more characters who all join in on the fun. This typically results in two, three, or five-man-bands getting together to achieve their ends.
Another difference comes in the method used to transmigrate worlds: While most Hard Isekai do things like "Character dies and reincarnates" or "Character trips and falls into a black hole" (yes that has actually happened), you will often have totally different transmigration methods suitable for multiple characters. I remember a story where a nuclear bomb went off and transported a whole city of people to another world. There was also a story where a submarine dove too deep and traveled through a wormhole with all its occupants to another world. (I have googled for hours and cannot find that damned story, it kind of irks me too!)
A big difference between hard and soft isekai comes in the themes they use: While Hard Isekai often rely on a singular hero killing or plundering to save the world, many Soft Isekai sometimes don't even have 'traditional' plotlines because the multitude of characters allows them to tell a more multifaceted story.
Having multiple characters also prevents you from falling into a limited perspective: Sometimes in a Hard Isekai, you become shackled to the lone MC's viewpoint, preventing the author from effectively spelling out the villain's motivations. This almost always results in the dreaded Exposition Dump. Man, do I hate that.
Finally, instead of focusing on super strong worldbuilding (although some writers, like me, do do that), Soft Isekais tend to heavily focus on developing their characters: This probably sounds obvious based on everything else I've said, but I do need to drill that point home. Having well-rounded characters is a big must for any Soft Isekai writer. If you miss out, you're doing your reader a disservice.
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Soft Isekais generally avoid many of the awful pitfalls associated with Hard Isekais. However, they do tend to run into their own problems.
A big problem with Soft Isekais comes when the author sucks at character development. With a Hard Isekai, you either tend to immediately like or dislike the MC. If you dislike them, you stop reading. If you like them, or even just tolerate them, you can at least enjoy some brainless power fantasy and tune out the rest. With Soft Isekais, if you have two good characters in a five man band, one mediocre one, and two badly-written ones, just those two poorly written characters can severely drag down a reader's enjoyment. Yes, I'm referring to the Comic Relief. Shudder.
Speaking of other characters, another issue Soft Isekai often face is unfulfilled promises. Have you ever read a story that seemed okay at first, but then as you read you found that the characters got worse over time, or the story meandered? This is a problem Soft Isekai runs into more than Hard Isekai because with so many main characters to balance, an author can run out of duties for them to fulfill or things to do, leading to weirdly grating and stagnant arcs. Game of Thrones is not -exactly- an Isekai, but it ran into this issue when certain fan favorite characters ran out of things to do. Suddenly, they became a lot less interesting.
With a Hard Isekai, you often end up with harems and love triangles. With a Soft Isekai, these also happen, but sometimes they're even worse. Unlike in a Hard Isekai where you expect the non-MC characters to be somewhat underdeveloped, it can quickly become a knife in your foot when characters you like spend more time pussyfooting around and blabbering about their love issues rather than continuing the plot. At least with a Hard Isekai, the MC often will simply bed the opposite sex and then immediately get back to business. It's not ideal, but at least it's quick.
Let's take a look at several good, middling, and awful Soft Isekais for further examples.
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Top Tier Soft Isekais:
In this tier, you will find Soft Isekai that have countless good points and very few bad points. In my judgment, the number of top-tier Soft Isekai vastly outnumbers those in the Hard Isekai category. Simply put, Hard Isekai have a lower barrier to entry, but also a fairly hard ceiling on how good the stories can get, while Soft Isekais are harder to write, but have a much higher ceiling for quality.
In this story, Japan stumbles upon a gate to another world. They decide to improve relations by outputting manga and anime to this new, high fantasy world with magic and wolf-girls and other such cute things. This is a harem story, and the main character is a generic loser with a slightly above average IQ.
Despite the bad things I hinted at in that paragraph, this story is amazing. When it comes to Soft Isekai, this sits at the top of my list. Not only does the story not suffer from the "protagonist can't return to his world" syndrome, it also features a gate anyone can pass through. The characters are well-rounded and memorable. I highly recommend the anime if you guys feel like watching something fun.
There are even some seriously dark undertones about what society values, and how insidious corporations can be. Kind of reminds me of The Boys in that way...
GATE: Thus the JSDF Fought There:
Neck and neck with the previous entry, GATE is a fantastic and brutal story about the horrors of war. Cryopod readers may also recall that I based Amelia's design off one of the girls in GATE, Rory Mercury.
In this story, a magical gate opens right in the center of Japan, and a huge flood of Roman Legion-esque armies comes pouring out, brutally slaughtering all of the civilians in their path. They cut down anyone, be they men, women, or children alike. Japan responds by blasting the absolute fuck out of these technologically-insignificant ants, and then the story takes off with Japan storming into the gate to lay waste to their world.
Truly a horrific story, the manga is ten times bloodier than the anime of the same name, which got drastically censored and cut back in comparison. The main character, Itami, is a pretty cool soldier dude. Just a normal guy, nothing special about him, but relatively buff, well-built, and competent at his job. He joins a whole cast of other characters in exploring this new magical world, with much of the story focusing on diplomacy and the lengths people will go to in order to sate their ambitions.
Also, it has a princess named Pina Colada.
So. That's cute.
If you like brutal violence, fun characters, a well-developed plotline with lots of intrigue, and lots of re-readability (there are all kinds of surprises later in the story), then you will definitely want to read GATE.
In an interesting twist, this is actually a reverse-isekai! A group of demons and other beings from a magical world travel to Earth during a furious battle, escaping with their lives. They arrive to find that Earth actively inhibits their magical abilities, forcing them to obtain menial jobs at Mc'Ronalds just to survive! Will the Devil and his cronies ever be able to return to their world to take revenge against those who destroyed them?!
Nah.
This story is mostly about working a shitty job while keeping a smile on your face. I love the MC's attitude toward work and how he loves every minute of his day. He kind of reminds me of Spongebob, in a way. The story is comedic in tone, though it does have some fantastic fight scenes and other fluff content. The art is quite good, too.
Additionally, the female lead, a human mage who seeks to murder the Devil, finds herself magically powerless too, so she begrudgingly decides to stalk him and do wacky things to annoy him. It's great. They're both great. I love this show.
Sort of related, another series in that similar vein, though not an isekai: I had to Reluctantly Get a Job.
A young boy gets sucked into a magical world along with a girl and they find themselves in a hellscape where water is scarce and terrifying entities are hunting them.
A truly horrific tale about the horrors of war and its impact on child soldiers forced to fight for their lives. Watch if you want to cry. I'll say nothing else, because I don't want to spoil anything. Definitely worth your time!
I wasn't sure if this belonged in Soft or Abstract Isekais. Either way, this story is great, though still VERY incomplete.
In the year 20XX, a magical tower appears on Earth. Anyone who touches the tower gets transported to a magical world where they can level up, fight battles, get equipment, etc. If you die in the game, you die for real.
This magical world possesses unimaginable profits and peril, empowering humanity to new heights. The protagonist, a teenage guy (naturally) gets born in this world and lives there his whole young life. One day, through a certain set of circumstances, he obtains a powerful S-rank skill which, when combined with other things, allows him to revive from death 24 hours previously.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Klok, this sounds incredibly generic. It's not. Not only does this story feature an entire planet of transmigrators, thus nerfing the MC's power levels, he ends up having to use his time-rewinding ability more to solve problems intellectually, rather than simply powering his way through things. Of course, he DOES also become super strong, but that's beside the point.
This story has top-tier art, highly memorable characters, and a lot more going on under the surface than first meets the eye. The author does an excellent job avoiding the pitfalls of your typical generic power fantasy MC, and for that, I respect them.
The MC of this story may have even resulted in my creation of a similar character in Cryopod! HMMM!
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Mid Tier Soft Isekais:
In the Mid-Tier, we find Isekai that are best described as 'perfectly fine.' They have extreme highs and extreme lows. The quality can be excellent in some areas, but quite poor in others.
The worst part about this show is that it is incomplete and probably will never get finished, either. That sucks, but what are you gonna do?
In this series, a brother and sister, two of the best online gamers in the world, both get sucked into their computers and end up in a fantasy world where all conflicts are solved with elaborate games. Full of humor, incredible visuals, and some seriously fun character dynamics, this story is a fantastic example of the two-man-group in action. While the brother and sister cannot return to their world, the fact that two of them both came makes this a Soft Isekai.
Honestly, if NGNL were finished, I would put it in the top tier. Unfortunately, the artist got caught tracing other people's artwork and thus got kicked out of publishing. I don't think they will ever return to finish the story. Such sadness :(
The worst thing about this show is the author's weird fascination with having the little sister sit on her brother's lap and the time and give him loving puppy-dog eyes. It gets really unnerving at certain points. Fucking Japan...
Problem Children Are Coming From Another World, Aren't They?
Why is this show's title so long? Dunno. It reminds me a lot of NGNL in that multiple overpowered characters end up in a world that solves its conflicts through games. I think it's a bit better than NGNL in some ways, but inferior in others. Overall, it's about the same level of quality, so I feel it belongs in the middle-section.
The main group of characters aren't quite as complex as NGNL's brother-sister duo, but I feel the plot itself is significantly better, leading to a lot of cool situations that feel unique out of the sea of isekai I've watched.
One of the cooler aspects of this show involves how its protagonists have to build an empire from a failing city. The impoverished people look up to and follow them, resulting in a story where the heroes accomplish more than just using their crazily overpowered abilities to punch things. I'm a sucker for mindgames and intellectual badasses.
In this story, a guy, his ex-girlfriend, and several bullies from his school all get transported to a magical world through a summoning ritual. They arrive in the middle of nowhere, but the MC decides to just forgive the bullies for all they've done to him.
Bad choice. Things go wrong. The bullies turn on him and absolutely torture our MC half to death. They betray him and leave him for dead, leading to what I consider a fairly middling revenge story. The MC does some stuff, gets super overpowered, yadda yadda.
This story isn't garbage. I put it in the Mid-section because it has several cool points, including the MC's general style of fighting once he, ahem, evolves. The extremely dark tone also appeals to me, though it sometimes loses itself in ridiculous edginess that leaves the reader scratching their heads.
Basically, if over the top edginess appeals to you, you'll probably love the story. If it doesn't bother you, you'll probably enjoy this story's other aspects. It it does bother you, you'll probably want to pass.
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Low Tier Soft Isekais:
When it came to Hard Isekais, I mentioned that even the lowest entries on my list would not be too bad. They would have at least momentary upsides that elevated them to the middle tier, if only for a while.
NOT SO for Soft Isekais. These stories show what can happen in the bottom end of a Soft Isekai. You can get some seriously poor storytelling, bland characters, and so on. What few moments of brilliance shine through are made all the more depressing by their rarity.
Sigh.
Guys. Do I even need to say anything?
Do I?
In SAO, many of Earth's VR players join the new virtual game Sword Art Online, only for the creator to lock them out of leaving. If someone removes their nerve-gear helmets, they die in real life. If they die in the game, they die in real life. It sounds exciting, but the execution is so poor that all deaths lose any impact. You don't give a damn about any of the characters, even if they do die.
Featuring: A generic and boring MC. A love interest who starts out surprisingly strong, then becomes a damsel in distress... multiple times... and gets sexually violated... multiple times...
The side characters are one-note, even if their designs are quite striking and memorable. The game system, supposedly the main pull of the story, is quite poorly constructed, etc.
Do yourself a favor. Watch Sword Art Online's parody, which actually ends up fixing SAO and making it a GOOD piece of media. Not top tier, but pretty funny and with likable characters.
And if you're curious about how badly SAO fucked up, there are lots of videos you can watch discussing its piss-poor quality.
What a bizarre series. As one of the Soft Isekai in the low-rank section, it certainly fails to satisfy! If I can say one good thing about this series, it's that it has BEAUTIFUL artwork. While not quite at the level of something like 'Solo Leveling,' this manga truly has some fantastic artwork.
And that's where my compliments end. This series is about a teenage guy who goes to bed one day and wakes up to find that he has somehow arrived inside a parallel reality. It's the same Earth he left behind, with the same friends, enemies, and celebrities he once knew. His father is there, as is everyone else, but in this timeline, humanity possesses magic. The MC, naturally, possesses an S-Rank God-Tier bloodline with ultimate limiter-breaking abilities and all the elements and bla bla bla...
One of the most interesting parts of its story is also the thing that absolutely breaks it. All the people the MC once knew still know him, and he knows them... but his past life has changed so much that everyone acts mostly unrecognizably, like Marty Mcfly's family after he returns Back to the Future. It leads to a lot of moments where you, the reader, just can't tell who knows what and who doesn't. What could have been a really interesting premise quickly just morphs into something wholly confusing and unsatisfying to read.
High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!
Have you ever watched a show and been so bored you forgot what happened the instant you shut it off?
I watched this whole series. It had seven main characters, and I can't remember a thing about any of them. Generic. Cliche. Pointless. Meandering.
This show felt like someone watched a bunch of isekai, drew images of their favorite characters, and then told a five year old to write a story about these characters doing things.
So yeah. Soft Isekai can have the highest highs, but also the LOWEST lows...
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Soft Isekais vary in quality from insanely amazing to insanely excruciating. The best Soft Isekai stands head and shoulders above the best Hard Isekai, but the worst ones fall far short of even the most generic and shlocky Hard Isekai, too. It's a game of extremes.
I highly recommend every story in the High-tier. I definitely recommend the stories in the middle tier too, if you have lots of time on your hands, but I absolutely DON'T recommend you read anything in the low-tier section.
A few weeks in the future, I will write the next post in this series, focusing on what I call 'Abstract Isekais.' I hope you guys will read it when I post it!
Thank you!
