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.
How long will it be before one of those euphoric "why don't Trek captains just weaponize the transporters all the time?" types makes an isekai where the genius ego-insert uses transporter technology to dominate the universe and make infinite clones of himself? :warf-wtf:
I am pretty sure I already read one of those.
The aliens that did that just got weird with it though. They realized it was all pointless and watching them be silly little dudes made the humans get depressed and give up. The other races just got silly with it for fun as well and made fun of us for being all serious. It did explain how everything in star trek ToS was so dumb though. Most the aliens we met were larping, and we were good npcs for their games
Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement