Isekai was a thing before the word was popularized and normalized in the west to describe the subgenre of fantasy. I'd argue The Neverending Story is clearly an isekai, for example. And there's been great conventional anime isekais in the past, such as Vision of Escaflowne.
What I'm sick of is the "oh this is like a video game and the NPCs can be manipulated because they're just programs susceptible to cheat codes" gimmick. It's gross and I find it intolerable to follow any "hero" that dehumanizes other characters under any excuse to build a virtual capitalist empire with an infinite harem. It's :epstein: tier :brainworms: to me.
I don't want to automatically reject something I hear about because I hear it's an "isekai" but all too often it means "another video game world with NPCs to exploit!" :capitalist-laugh:
What an empty sort of metagamey victory to fantasize about. How alienating and sad for such "heroes," even if they still deserve :gulag: in general.
Brave Story's the earliest one I can think of that operates explicitly on video game logic and it suffered for it. Wasn't terrible though. But video game logic is creeping into general narrative art more and more. I think Liz from TrueAnon was mentioning that, or maybe it was Matt Christman lately, I can't remember.
That saddens me because if done right "person the audience can identify with whisked away to a fantastical world" can be a great premise, but I have no interest in watching the magic being deconstructed into Game Genie codes for endless sexual conquests and capitalistic hegemony.
And don't get me started on the colonial bootlicky fascist nightmare that "Gate" was.
.hack//SIGN (2002) is pretty good.
It's by Patlabor writer Kazunori Ito and while it's a video game Isekai, it actually does not forget about the fact that the characters are real people and that it's a video game where there are odd mechanics, specific playerbase behaviors because it's a game (and not IRL) and no cheats.
Great soundtrack too.