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distress

The world's most notorious "talker" runs the world's greatest clan

Should've known from the light novel ass title dead-dove-1 dead-dove-2 dead-dove-3

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[-] Bloobish@hexbear.net 31 points 3 days ago

Once again One Piece with the best take regarding slavery, that any institution that supports it is evil and deserves destruction.

Also don't know if you've gotten recommended these but Dungeon Meshi as well as Frieren Journey's End are some good new bangers that aren't more isekai shlock

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[-] Alisu@hexbear.net 28 points 3 days ago

There are so many isekai that are just slaves, or the authors fetish, or both. It's so hard to find a good one, they exist, but holy shit is it rare

[-] Bakzik@hexbear.net 29 points 3 days ago

Reject japanese isekai, embrace russian isekai.

[-] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 14 points 3 days ago

Okay this goes hard

[-] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago

This looks like something Warlockracy would bring up in the middle of an episode.

[-] WizardOfLoneliness@hexbear.net 30 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

so many just throw it in unnecessarily too like i was watching the world's greatest alchemist or whatever the title and like,

He needs help making magical toilets, or help with other shit so he has time to make the magical toilets

His production methods are chefs-kiss and liable to be stolen so obviously he needs A SLAVE WITH A MAGIC CONTRACT THAT FORCES THEM TO BEHAVE

Because there's like idk no other way of giving the guy a monopoly or whatever.

And then they suckered me in with the MC going "slavery? that's fucked, fuck that, I'd rather do all the work myself" only to almost immediately go "actually you're right slave me up baby"

It's to appeal to lonely decrepit old men. My coworker in his 60s loves this harem bullshit.

I hate it, I just want fantasy shit, magic and wiz biz, fight scenes and shit. I just want the power fantasy without all the fucking harem waifu collecting or slavery nonsense!

The same show had him get a spider as a pet. It evolved, and im like, don't you turn into a little girl! it's okay for a spider to just be a spider! And it stayed a spider. It evolved again and turned into a little girl

[-] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 26 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The same show had him get a spider as a pet. It evolved, and im like, don't you turn into a little girl! it's okay for a spider to just be a spider! And it stayed a spider. It evolved again and turned into a little girl

Classic Mikey's curse right there

Explaining my Incredibly niche reference....

Basically this comment

On a chapter of one of the comics I was reading (player who returned 10,000 years later) at the time, Mikey and all of us immediately got fucked over in the next chapter when the cute mascot dragon did indeed turn into a loli, as seen below

Mikey, the poor fucker, immediately became a legend in the commenting community and became synonymous with the collective general exasperation with manga/manhwa/manhua artists turning random shit into little girls for no necessary reason. (I'll still say the Japanese are worse because they're like disproportionately more pedophilic in their comic and cartoon depictions of little girls, but let's be honest its still pretty fucking bleak all around.)

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[-] GeneralSwitch2Boycott@hexbear.net 33 points 3 days ago

Don't accept anime recommendations. I know so many good anime, but I keep it to myself like an embarrassing secret.

[-] Lochat@hexbear.net 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Thank you sir. You're the kind of anime-watcher I respect. I personally play video games. I'm ashamed about it. I don't talk about them with friends. I know my place.

[-] bloubz@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 3 days ago
[-] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 6 points 3 days ago

Dragon beeball obama-spike

[-] LupineTroubles@hexbear.net 22 points 3 days ago

Are there even any good isekai anime? They all seem tasteless and disgraceful wish fulfilment with zero actual examination of its own premise. I suppose anime like Spirited Away and Inayusha are technically isekai, but obviously when anyone says Isekai it is more a modern Japanese young person being transported into a RPG setting, so the genre is more about nondescript young adult deep in alienation exercising power and agency over others in the most generic euro-fantasy with absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever.

It's not even that you can't make a story out of power bringing worst out of someone or circumstances driving people into exercising their agency to harm of others or even the simple idea of how people can do bad with good intentions, no. It's just they have slaves and a harem of girls while they had nothing back in their "old" life, that's all. Even character development as much as it exists seems to just come down to them moving past insecurity and inaction to become a go-getter in a way that reminds of hustle culture except fantasy.

[-] CriticalOtaku@hexbear.net 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Everyone who replied already with an anime from the 80's/90's is correct, in that isekai back then were typically adventure stories about young adults growing up, ironically mostly aimed at teen girls with stories centering young female protagonists with maybe a hot guy love interest (Fushigi Yuugi is kinda the problematic template for that.) The characters usually go into the other world and have a character arc overcoming their weaknesses before returning having saved the world and/or bagging the hot boyfriend. Y'know typical heroes journey type stuff, the original template was more Never-ending Story or Chronicles of Narnia than... Ready Player One I guess.

Buuuuuut post-Sword Art Online that all changed and most of it's all lowest common denominator escapist fantasy. Having said that, it's been done to death so much that there are subgenres within it now (Reincarnating as the Villainess of a Visual Novel, Retiring to the countryside with my middle-aged busty wife, Guillotining the aristocracy with my lesbian polycule) that aren't icky apologia for slavery power fantasies, but sifting through all the trash for half decent (or rather, a different flavour of trashy) doesn't seem worth it to me. Admittedly, lately I've become a media snob who'll never admit in public to watching the Minecraft movie, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Anyway, more recent recs that stretch the definition of "good"-

  • Log Horizon is a probably the best "trapped in a videogame" story just based on the sheer amount of worldbuilding that goes into imagining how a MMO-ized fantasy world would even work, even if all that worldbuilding is in service to making the point that Free Market Capitalism coupled with Keynesian economics is the be-all-end-all ideology. The author got got for tax evasion irl. Stop after S1 tho, the next two seasons try to cram too much of the novels into too short a runtime.

  • Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash you could say is the forerunner of shows like Frieren or Dungeon Meshi, where the focus is on the harshness of the fantasy world and the logistics of trying to survive- ironically these things seem to have fallen into the purview of straight fantasy as opposed to isekai, but hey at least this show was trying something different at the time. Has a gorgeous art style. Sadly only got 1 season. Also those other two straight fantasy shows are much better that anything else on this list. Dungeon Meshi especially.

  • My Next Life as a Villainess is a thrashy fun comedy about a proletarian inadvertently averting the death of the aristocrat whose body she is inhabiting by dint of acting distinctly un-aristocratic. Most of the comedy comes from watching our heroine unknowingly make everyone fall in love with her, regardless of their gender... by simply not acting on the privilege her position in society grants her. It's really dumb but I honestly enjoyed it a lot.

  • I know a bunch of Hexbears enjoyed The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady even if it wasn't for me. I liked how aggressively and un-apologetically gay it is tho.

  • I hear good things about Ascendance of a Bookworm from people I trust but I haven't seen it myself so I can't say for sure. Including it cos why not.

There's probably other show's that are borderline "good"-ish that I just didn't bother rec here like Re: Zero or Slime Reincarnation, but imo the shows I gave a synopsis of are what I'd actually recommend to people on this board.

edited for clarity

[-] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Grimgar was okay. It definitely avoided a lot of the problematic isekai tropes and is really well animated. I think it's because it drops the isekai premise almost immediately and plays as traditional fantasy. It was kinda mid, though, plotwise. The characters are basically the same as when they started and questions about the world they're in don't get resolved.

Re:Zero sucks and Reincarnated as a Slime is okay buy could seriously use some volcel policing.

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[-] LupineTroubles@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

I am not a media snob, opposite really I don't really watch many movies or series except things that seem to specifically appeal to me or if someone asks to watch something with me so indeed shifting through that much of a genre to wade through its various subgenres for the love of the game is not something I imagine myself doing. However I did watch both Frieren and Dungeon Meshi as both of those appealed to me, as I do like fantasy with focus on the human element. So I'll keep these recommendations in mind if I end up watching something similar in future. Genre deconstruction comedy is also something I like, so that may be something I watch with someone if that happens. Thank you for recommendations.

[-] CriticalOtaku@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

Becoming a film snob in 2025 mostly just means drunkenly binge watching David Lynch films while crying yourself to sleep so yeah don't worry about it, glad I could help. doggirl-thumbsup

Genre deconstruction comedy

If this is up your alley, KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! is just a straight parody of wish-fulfillment fantasy isekai. Unfortunately later on the jokes start to dip into problematic homophobic/transphobic territory which is why I didn't recommend it initially, but it mostly works as a comedy show barring that.

[-] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

Catarina Claes wass the peak of the otome isekai protagonist.

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[-] Lochat@hexbear.net 14 points 3 days ago

Anime is like "gaming." Sure, enjoying it doesn't inherently make you a chud, but it means enough to you that you in any way see it as a personality trait, you need to accept that you're going to be (rightfully) written off by society.

[-] LupineTroubles@hexbear.net 15 points 3 days ago

I agree somewhat, in the sense that association with anime as a personality trait seems to be basically a political statement but I also don't think being judgmental towards people who have been alienated by society is a productive or kind thing to do in itself, particularly because society has no qualms about not writing off some terrible people. Media is escapism to us all and anime in particular is a very varied medium. Ergo, we live in a society.

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[-] KobaCumTribute@hexbear.net 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Are there even any good isekai anime? ...

It's not even that you can't make a story out of power bringing worst out of someone or circumstances driving people into exercising their agency to harm of others or even the simple idea of how people can do bad with good intentions

I'm in Love With the Villainess is pure genre fiction slop (isekai slop, and generic magic school slop, and generic villainess slop), but with some redeeming qualities like being class-conscious yuri. I don't remember how much of the commentary on homophobia and repression and how unrequited love is toxic and unfair to both parties made it from the light novel to the anime though, and it's probably not going to get another season which means most of the best content is left unadapted. The protagonist is still a piece of shit in that, though, although she's at least somewhat aware that what she's doing is bad, actually.

Spoilers:Rae is basically grooming and gaslighting a straight teenage girl, and despite reflecting on how that's actually a very not-good thing to do a number of times she just keeps on doing it, justifying the whole scheme as just trying to save Claire regardless of whether she wins her as a prize for this good deed or not. And then instead of maturing as a person and giving up on this unrequited obsession and finding a more appropriate partner, she is in fact just rewarded with Claire's affections as a prize for doing enough good deeds.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life is actually pretty decent and is fairly creative despite also being more genre-mashup slop. Notably the protagonist is not* one of the isekaid characters and instead has an adversarial and comically yuri-bait relationship with one. This one also probably won't get any more seasons, but the novels are ok and are about to wrap up this year.

* Spoilers from the novels:She's actually the clone of one of them, specifically Hakua: the villain of the story who's so obsessed with Akari that she's been conspiring for a thousand years to sacrifice the entire world just so she can return home with her. You know, normal very good friend stuff. It's still up in the air whether it's bait or not, but at this point it's so absurd that if it is it's almost a pisstake on yuri-bait because of how egregious all the "flowery declarations of love, explicit horniness, and Menou and Akari literally merging their souls together so that they're one person split between two bodies - truly the very best of friends" shit is.

I cannot believe I'm saying this, but despite its author and series Sword Art Online: Alicization is ~~actually sort of halfway decent~~ ok on reflection it's not actually halfway decent because despite having more redeeming qualities than any other mainline SAO and also than basically all isekai series it has way more SA than I remembered at first: Kirito is depowered and/or in a coma for like 95% of it, the US and US-collaborators are the villains, the harem shit is replaced with yaoi-bait and later a bunch of characters arguing over Kirito's comatose, withered husk in something so egregious and dumb it circles back around to being very funny, and explicit humanization of the designated-ontologically-evil-by-the-simulation-devs peoples. I mean it's still SAO so it's still weird, gross, and incredibly dumb with shoddy worldbuilding, but unlike the rest of mainline SAO it actually manages to have fragments of an interesting core premise with the literal artificial human souls shit and its conclusion that they are, in fact, people too and killing or exploiting them is bad, actually. It really benefits from having Kirito in a coma so other characters get to move the plot and resolve things too.

[-] LupineTroubles@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

Thank you for the explanations. I watch few series, anime or not but at least knowing that there is a bit more to it than some of the more popular stuff that I hear about is good. Still I have to say the examples you give seem to be basically having all the same faults within category of its genre just shifted a bit more towards having bit of character exploration and a touch of self-awareness. However that's surprisingly optimistic still even if I don't watch those since it means it's not as static as I imagined even within its specific category but there are a lot of these things apparently much more than I thought especially when the novels are involved.

[-] KobaCumTribute@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

Still I have to say the examples you give seem to be basically having all the same faults within category of its genre just shifted a bit more towards having bit of character exploration and a touch of self-awareness.

In a lot of ways, yeah. Like I'm in Love with the Villainess is 100% still a wish-fulfillment fantasy about a depressed gay office worker getting to have a healthy, normal life with the video game character she developed a parasocial relationship with and also she has cheat powers and complete meta knowledge of the setting and everything that's going to happen to accomplish that goal with, but it's also self-aware and includes cogent commentary on real-life LGBT issues.

Honestly, I think the biggest trend I've noticed is that an isekai with a female protagonist (whether they're the isekaid hero or someone else) tends to be meaningfully better even when it's still horny trash or just fluffy slop, while isekai centered on male protagonists tends more towards the "incel loser gets a harem by redeeming special good boy points in another world, continues being awful" pattern. Though I will say that for all the scorn that SAO (deservedly) gets (seriously, it's a bad series from a mid author who just can't help but write bad and gross things even when he's earnestly trying to be better about it), it does get some credit for making Kirito end up a well-adjusted, sociable guy with a diverse friend group who just kind of ignores the harem shit because he's too earnest a wife guy to ever think about anyone other than Asuna.

[-] LupineTroubles@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

I have noticed also from what you have said and from what was written both here and elsewhere female protagonist, LGBT themes or both seem more commonly move past some of the worst impulses of anime, at least ones that aren't outright fanservice or queer-baiting. Not to say that there isn't any of this in any other LGBT-oriented media, but perhaps maybe it is has more of a baseline of self-examination and introspection. Sword Art Online just seems to be both ur-isekai for the category I have in mind and and also the ultimate slop of its own genre somehow, which is interesting.

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[-] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 12 points 3 days ago

The original isekai anime, Aura Battler Dunbine, is good. It's kinda cheating, though, since it's by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino and is based on some of his novels

[-] Edie@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy

[-] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago

Magic Knight Rayearth

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 8 points 3 days ago

The Vision of Escaflowne is another good old-school isekai.

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[-] WizardOfLoneliness@hexbear.net 21 points 3 days ago

My favorite part of this show was that he's like "i'm the weakest class" and then immediately pulls out his weapon- a gun

[-] WizardOfLoneliness@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago

I actually did like the MC's abilities because, yeah, you don't usually have what's basically a bard or skald as the protagonist, but yeah, if you're not into isekai/fantasy power fantasy slop with edgelord "slavery is okay if they like, stole all our money" type bullshit going on then yeah idk why this would be recommended, it's sloppy slop

[-] vegeta1@hexbear.net 19 points 3 days ago

Every fucking time with this genre i-cant

[-] Robert_Kennedy_Jr@hexbear.net 24 points 3 days ago

I was gonna ask if this was the Shield Hero anime but I think he just buys a slave in the first few episodes? Anyways you should read the John Brown isekai because he bashes in one of these characters skulls in the first chapter.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/57505/his-soul-is-marching-on-to-another-world-or-the/

[-] corvidenjoyer@hexbear.net 34 points 3 days ago

The fact that someone's first reaction to this title could be "which one?" Really says alot doesn't it? omori-miserable

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 20 points 3 days ago

visible-disgust disgoosting

[-] AntifaSuperWombat@hexbear.net 16 points 3 days ago

The world's most notorious "talker" runs the world's greatest clan

I think it’s best to just skip any anime with a title that’s longer than 5 words. Nothing good will come from watching those.

[-] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 19 points 3 days ago

[immediately opens my anime list and starts counting on fingers]

[-] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 18 points 3 days ago

Never watch Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex berdly-smug

[-] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 20 points 3 days ago

Or Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, et cetera et cetera.

[-] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 7 points 3 days ago

Giant Robo the Animation: the Day the Earth Stood Still but it's isekai LN adaptation slop

[-] AntifaSuperWombat@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago

Sure! I’ll watch the Hollywood movie instead. Only 4 words. catgirl-smug

[-] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 6 points 3 days ago

I kinda want to watch the Japanese dub of that movie now lol

[-] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 11 points 3 days ago

Especially if the title is also a question

[-] Lochat@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"I think it’s best to just skip any anime."

Fixed that for ya.

Not to write off everything that's animated just because but... yeah, "anime watchers" are on par with "gamers." There's a big difference between "being a gamer" and "I love Disco Elysium." Same with "I loved Grave of the Fireflies" and "I love anime."

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[-] WizardOfLoneliness@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago

i mean it's in the title it's not the world's most nice talker

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[-] Barabas@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago

Could be setting up him recongizing his mistakes and having a coming to the cross moment, but I really doubt it with that title. It is just that he is an edgy boy who does based morally grey stuff isn't it?

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this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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