Isekai Ojisan is too good and it's how you write an isekai ! ( Even though it's an unconventional one...)
It's the story of Ojisan, a past NEET who got isekai'd into another magical world and actually got back. He got back for a good reason : he did not enjoy it one bit.
I HATE ISEKAI
huge bait on this section title, it's to keep you hooked
I have a problem with isekai. To explain it I must first ask and answer two questions :
- What is the point of an isekai ?
Escapism of course ! Forget about your trash boring life and embark on an amazing journey where you'll have everything you ever dreamed of : powers, 'em looks and even an harem ! Everything !
- Now, who is it aimed at ?
Otakus, NEET and hikikomori of course ! (all of them in their objective pejorative initial sense). It's for people who close themsleves off from real world and live in their own delusions. They blame everything around them but themselves, they have to, how could they accept their conditions otherwise ?
From there, you might see my problem with the genre. It helps justifying delusions and the trope setting is similar to the aimed viewers' lives, putting them even more under the illusion, creating a nasty self insertion where the viewer gets all the things he'd like to have in real life without actively working fo it. It's very much like porn. It also creates a dangerous mindset, think about it, why would you have to change if the world changes for you, Isn't it better to assume that it's the world's fault and that you're just misunderstood ? Obviously, society isn't perfect but it doesn't mean that you should cut any ties with the outside world.
I'm not even saying isekai animanga are bad or absolute trash. Tensura is one of the anime I enjoyed the most watching despite it not contradicting anything I said and there's great isekai like Mushoku Tensei that completely defies what I said about the genre. Plus, it's not an isekai-only prolem, slice of life animanga also share the same problem as I disscussed in my Yuugami-kun doesn't have any friends review. And to relativize, ANY piece of fiction can provide bad escapism depending on who's reading it. If I target isekai in particular it's because practically every single one of them PURPOSELY use their viewers loneliness against them just to sell.
Isekai Ojisan does not do that and excels at subversing it.
One misconception that people have about "a second chance in life" (involving time travel, isekai etc) is that they think they would suddenly be complete different persons and by result their whole life would become far better. We live our WHOLE lives trying to be better, struggling hard with our flaws and bad habbits and sometimes they never even fade yet we have the audacity to think we'd just completly change just like that. If you've been a procrastinator your whole life, how would that change if you went back in time? If you went in another world? You can't change yourself in the present so how the f"ck are you gonna do that elsewhere? It's so easy to blame the circumstances but ultimately they always change and that don't necessarily make you become a better individual.
Ojisan's ugliness is metaphor for his game addiction and "rotted" mindset. He gets despised and he's being outcasted just like in his original world. His ugliness follows him and it's that ugliness that cause people to react.
He didn't enjoy the magical world for two things :
The perceptions others have on him didn't change. As said previously, they see him as ugly. It disgusts them and he becomes once again an outcast. Society wasn't softer on him. He isn't excused for being an outsider and this in itself makes it an anti-isekai.
His worldview hasn't changed : Ojisan never was that interested in "real world", he always prefered video games. What happend when he gets into another world ? He only thinks about video games and tries to get back to Earth only to play them. He never socialized, what happend when he gets into another world ? He has trouble understanding the feelings of his friends and he can't believe someone genuinely likes him.
He is human, he isn't a self-insert mc who never talked to someone but suddenly becomes a great nation leader overnight. His internal issues don't magically disappear along with the world he's into, they follow him everywhere and HE has to fix them
CONCLUSION
Ojisan doesn't care about societal cases or superficial things, he treats everyone the same. He knows who he is and embrace it. He lives in his own world yes but that doesn't restrain him to be nice and caring and he doesn't hurt others. He's happy and it shows, despite what anyone thinks. His "ugliness" is only how others perceive him at first, when they get to know him, it becomes irrevelant.
I initially thought the overall message was "F#ck isekai ! This is real life, even if the world changes, you don't. You can escape your responsibilities, your family, your life but the one thing you'll never be able to escape is yourself."
But along the episodes I think this message would be more appropriate " F#ck isekai ! I don't need a perfect utopian world to be happy. Just because I don't fit in your standards doesn't means I'm a degenerate. Wherever I am, I'll alaways be me and that's not a cage but an opportunity."
In either cases...
F#ck Isekai !
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