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.
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: