Ryan Jonathan
The isekai-themed anime has been going around for a while and gaining some popularity from several good anime. Isekai is a term used when a person or character is transported into another world. There are different types of Isekai, but the common ones are Reincarnation Isekai and Transmigration Isekai. Reincarnation Isekai is the story where the character dies and is reincarnated with a new body in a whole new world. Whereas Transmigration Isekai is when the character is ‘transferred’ into another world, while maintaining their previous physical attributes, memories, and experiences. They can go to that another world by either traveling through a medium or using an avatar. This new world is usually very different compared to their original world.
In the world of Sword Art Online, the world was based on an online game. In this world, called Aincrad, players can feel and experience the game as reality, including death. The beautiful world of Aincrad is forgotten the moment everyone knew they were stuck in this game of life and death.
The world has 100 floors with various fields and dungeons on each. When someone finished all 100 floors, everyone who is currently ‘stuck’ will be able to leave the game. However, each floor features a strong dungeon boss monster that must be beaten in order to progress into the next floor. Despite being a game, the characters inside Aincrad have no magic and only allow physical martial arts, such as swordsmanship, to be its combat style. The world has game mechanics such as skill level and quests that give rewards upon completion.
In another popular anime called GATE, the isekai was set in the medieval era. The gate first appeared mysteriously in the middle of the modern city, and from this gatemythical creatures and warriors in medieval armor came out and suddenly start rampaging the city and killing people. Seeing that horror, Youji Itami is appointed to be the spokesperson of the modern world. He is able to travel freely between these two worlds through the gate, which is eventually called as ‘Special Region’. Youji Itami is tasked to explore and maintain a peaceful relationship with the kingdom from the special region. Despite the special region has mythical creatures and people with great combat skills, and even magic, they can still be assaulted by modern weaponries. With guns, tanks, and even missiles, conquering this special region is easy, but luckily the Youji Itami’s world does not want to conquer the special region and avoid war between the two worlds.
After the previous examples of Aincrad and Special Region, the world of Inuyasha tends to share similarity in terms of how beautiful the other world is. However, rather than showing a completely different world, the main character, Kagome, is dragged into a well and traveled to the past, sometime around the Sengoku period. Kagome comes from a modern era, where she lives as a typical Tokyo girl in her high school life. However, the Sengoku period was a bit different. It is full of demons and monsters with powerful strengths and skills. The monsters and demons share the same goal: to acquire a ‘true power’. In order to obtain it, they are willing to do anything, including destroying humanities. In the anime, the true power came from Shikon Jewel which was shattered into thousand pieces and was spread across the world.
The difference of the isekai world that these characters were in compared to their original world was seemingly obvious. Most of them have a very beautiful past environment in the isekai world they go to. Despite its beauty, the isekai world is usually more challenging, and the characters will face life and death situations on a daily basis. The near-death experience typically comes from all the monsters, demons or even mythical creatures that roam the isekai world. This experience makes them realize how ‘normal’ their lives were before. However, it does not stop certain characters from wanting to stay in their isekai world. Take Kagome as an example, after all the battles with ferocious demons and monsters, she decided to stay in that world to be with Inuyasha.
If you want to live in isekai stories, you can download Memories games here for iOS & here for Android.
