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aspiring-holistic-otaku · 1 year

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Season 2 Ramble#1 - New Year New Worlds

This month's episode is about the isekai genre, isekai literally being a Japanese word that basically translates to "different world". Very self descriptive as what generally happens in these stories is someone gets sent to/from some other world.

Gotta be upfront right off the bat here and say that before this month I was never really a big fan of the genre, for a couple reasons I'll get into later. So heading into January I thought I'd be forcing myself through reads but I was pleasantly surprised at the number of things I liked and how much I found myself liking them.

Lastly before getting into it, for the most part I read stuff on manga4life.com, especially stuff that's not in any official app

top 5 Isekai read this month:

#5 Overlord (Original light novel by Kugane Maruyama with Fugin Miyama doing the Story & Art for the manga) [read 41/71 chapters | ongoing]

The story here is that a popular virtual reality game is closing down and the main character decides to stay logged in until the very last second, but after the scheduled time has passed, the mc finds he hasn't been and can't log out.

NPCS really coming to life is always cool, and in overlord after the mc did some investigating he realized he's not actually in the game, he's in a whole new world. It's got pretty neat characters and nice strong character designs.

It's been sort of predictable.. unless… something ever turns out poorly for the main character or something…. but I'm gonna add a grain of salt here and restate that I'm not up to date + buildup is something I can appreciate.. and tbh despite how OFTEN games are used as the gateway to some "other world, it will probably never get old for me,, but execution is key.. and so far overlord is just about average..

#4 latna saga: survival of a sword king (Gyeong-Bae Im did the Original Light novel Story while Sun-Gyu Gwon does the Story & Art in the manhwa/webtoon) [read 81/153 chapters | hiatus]

The MC just finished mandatory military service but hasn't been able to find the drive to do anything and so becomes a shut in. This ramble is all Isekai so as you can guess, he's inexplicably transported to another world and made to kill monsters and level up like a game, with the promise of a safe trip home if he completes his quests. He's even given a guide that tells him what level things are, identifies items and gives him a tutorial, but the catch is his guide has a glitch that trapped him in the tutorial for somewhere around 20 years..

Pros, he got strong as shit. Cons he's stuck at level 5 but nothing gives him enough experience to level up anymore.

A bit of a spoiler but the first thing I'd like to say is how much I loved the plot point that coming from another world was not welcomed by the residents. Not at all a fan of xenophobia but that sort of preset aggro situation tends to and did make for fun high paced kicks, with some nice hijinks sprinkled in.

Also the title and first few chapters led me to believe this would be a darker read but comedy was definitely it's strong point... 20+ years of solitude fighting demon dogs everyday definitely did unquestionable damage to this young man's mental health.

It admittedly has a certain pull, maybe because I really fuck with swords, and I'm definitely going to catch up outside this episode, but it didn't feel like reading it brought much surprises. just comfortable victories. But I'm still going to say to go support it by reading it's official release on the tapas app if you can.

#3 loner life in another world (again this started out as a light novel originally done by Goji Shoji, meanwhile the manga story & art is done by Bibi) [read 118/164 chapters | ongoing]

I think by now you can assume that the main character in this story gets transported to another world, they do put some effort into distincting themselves though as the MC's entire class actually gets isekai'd

and they were pretty meta with the mc actually not wanting to go to another world and get caught up in some grand quest, he was sort of alright just chilling and tbh I get it man.. I get it..

The art is pretty solid but again it's predictable and I know I've been saying that for everything but in this one they fr have the class split into jocks, nerds, girlbosses and etc. just like highschool musical… the characters and story was kinda cute… but just slightly more overbearing the more it went on… just like highschool musical...

I should also note that I really fucked with the mc's whole thing of just being a loner that likes to chill and not some loner edgelord that realizes we live in a society every few chapters.. that was definitely a factor in it's position on this list.

#2 murim login (Zero big on story, Cheol-byeok Jang on art)[I got 138/138 chapters | the story is ongoing]

In this fictional world, monsters come to earth and special awakened humans called hunters fight them. Our Mc is a low ranking hunter who happens upon a virtual reality game capsule that sends him to the martial heroes' world.

Off the bat i have to say it's hella predictable story progression wise, like he pretty much just gets quests and does them but it's just so funny, I think mainly because of how poorly the mc is hiding that he's not from there but idk I was having some pretty good laughs.

Also I have a huge bias towards martial arts which I think they illustrated pretty well so that's basically all I'm gonna say on that.

#1 omniscient reader (back to light novel source material here with Sing-Shong doing the original, then UMI doing the manhwa story and sleepy c on art)

This was my favourite for a few reasons, but my favourite reason was that, what i thought would make for a very predictable, fresh out the factory isekai, turned into a very engaging read.

The story is that creatures, monsters, catastrophes and etc are coming to earth, forcing humanity into survival scenarios and streaming it to audiences of beings called constellations for their entertainment. The thing is that as events start to play out, the MC realizes that what's happening follows the events of his favourite light novel, three ways to survive the apocalypse.

As I said it was surprisingly engaging for something that seems to have the solution embedded in the literal title, but even though the mc had a definitively clear advantage, things definitely did not play out smoothly.

Great art. That cannot be understated. Coloured and everything so big shout out to sleepy c the artist fr.

Pretty well written, solid and varied cast. Lots of moving parts with fun unique interactions and the pacing has been REALLY great so far. Really appreciated the nice post apocalyptic realism where shit is genuinely fucked and it's not like the mc and his crew move like they own the moral high horse or something.

There's some nice tongue in cheek meta and the story generally has the feeling that it takes itself seriously but not too seriously where it feels like characters only exist for a specific set of events.

Also there's a bunch of mythology references via the constellations and though I think mythological crossovers make for pretty easy points, omniscient reader's execution made me look forward to and enjoy almost every single one.

With this one I also definitely fucked with the main character as their whole thing was being an avid reader 😅

Really really good, maybe not really really really good but really really good especially for an isekai. Not that I think anyone should really care about anyone else's scores but I gave it an 8/10. Definitely the read that pulled me into it the most

top 5 Isekai before this month:

(again I'd like to note I wasn't a big fan of the genre before this month and never really purposely consumed any before so a few of these are half joke half technicalities)

#5 death note by Tsugumi Ooba on story and Takeshi Obata on art, the combination also known as Oh! Great (the manga has 108 chapters, the anime 37 episodes)

This series has been talked to death (lol), I've mentioned it and its spin offs a few times already in more than one episode last year, so I don't even want to get into it but the alleged purpose of this podcast is to get more people into more manga so to be short.

Dude gets a book that kills people if you write their name in it and tries to create a better world by killing criminals… It does NOT. all go according to plan.

You may be wondering where the Isekai comes in.. well there are shinigami aka death gods aka grim reapers involved who come to and fro from the shinigami realm

budum tss… technicality...

#4 no game no life (anime, 12 episodes)

Bored with life and considering the real world to be just a "crappy game," sibling shut-ins have withdrawn into their own fantasy world of video games. However, one day they find themselves summoned to another world by a boy who calls himself "God' and their abilities are put to the ultimate test.

watched this way way back and just remember really loving the games, action, animation and all that, the siblings have a… kind of a weird dynamic but man, especially those last few episodes.. and a good chunk of the show is forever engrained in my mind I'd say..

..still hopeful we get a S2 one day :')

Just gonna note here that this list is kinda more about how these things are as Isekai, I definitely think death note is better than no game no life 😅

#3 The Animatrix (9 piece short film anthology, no more than 15mins each)

Actually mentioned this before in season 1 ramble 8, A is for anime the solo reprise, and it was number 5 in terms of anime movies I watched that year, I'll say pretty much the same I said in that episode in that it's a very cool anthology adaptation with a lot of great new perspectives on the matrix, especially because it was an anthology and the different directors and their respective directions were allowed to come out

#2 Zatch Bell by Makoto Raiku (324 chapters in the manga, 150 episodes in the anime)

Ultra classic, Ultra culture and a series that I find too many folks have only know through hearsay.

To keep it simple, in the demon world, when it's time to pick a king, their ingenious process is to send the demon children to the human world for a no holds barred battle royale.

Put plainly, excellent cast, excellent story, excellent action, it's an excellent manga that I highly recommend.

Also for those who don't know there's a zatch bell 2!! that started last year with 9 chapters out.

#1 animal land by Makoto Raiku (same guy):

I ramble a bit but basically I thought zatch was his peak but I was sorely mistaken.

and that's it for top 5 Isekai consumed before this month,

also that's pretty much it for the episode, thanks again for listening in, hope you can get at least one good read out of this and maybe even something to share with a friend. until next time, try to enjoy the wonders of the world you're in right now. ✨

(then I do a small part 2 talking about some gripes I have with Isekai and some stuff that are probably maybe isekai or at least a little funny to think of that way like 2004 live action film fat albert starring kenan thompson... but you gotta listen in fer that 😗)

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