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.
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Isnt CSM the one where the MC got groomed by a girlboss? at least that girlboss is potrayed as a villain.
Oh and there's also that eyepatch woman who SAed a teenage boy too.
Me when I'm curious about something anime I haven't watched or investigated yet.
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Contrary to what some think of me here, I really don't say a story can't have such elements. To me the difference is intention and presentation.
Lots of bad things can be talked about, even shown with some tact and sympathy for the afflicted, or it can instead focus on gratuitous fanservice and edge/shock value.
Thanks for the additional information.
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No no, you're fine here and I didn't pick up that tone. Rather, I was nodding to what you said and applying it to the wider context of what we were discussing. I do think it's possible to have bad people do bad things in fiction without it being crass and cynical hogfeed.
Noted.
chainsaw man is incredible. read the manga, which avoids most of the :awooga: in the anime
it's very much critical of its own horniness, and i think is actually a really cutting critique of the way shitty harem anime (among other things) treat sex and sexuality, and the aforementioned stuff is treated very critically and not for fanservice (in the manga. as mentioned the anime is a little :awooga:)
also: important to note that it is never horny for minors (even once it starts introducing high schoolers) and is only rarely horny for adults
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Denji is 16
Tbf most of the icky stuff are potrayed as traumatizing/bad.
That's good, as long as "this is bad actually" in the narration isn't accompanied by gratuitous :awooga: camera and cinematographic focus for entertainment purposes.
Goblin Slayer had a "the goblins did that in the first episode, which justifies genocide against them, but wasn't that hot, otakus?" :awooga:
CW for SA:
Hate how goblin slayer justify killing goblin children because all goblins are ontologically evil. Along with the whole "they are raping our women" (while showing :awooga: shots of women being raped) shtick goblin slayer seems to be really fascist as shit. Honestly as a guy with Muslim sounding name it's pretty disturbing considering how fascists often accuse POC of being rapists while somehow believing that women are just making false rape allegations whenever the accusations are against celebrities.
And that sounds a lot like the premise of Shield Hero :kombucha-disgust: