We have no doubt that the fellow otaku out there have no doubt read quite a bit fantasy novels/books like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones but have you ever related to those strange worlds? Yes, you could consider yourself a grand master of all things fantasy but if you found yourself thrown into a world of dragons and magic—like Isekai Cheat Magician—would survival really be possible? Unless you’re lucky and born into that new world with tons of magic and instant knowledge, fighting toe to toe with dragons might spell a quick end to your new fantasy life.

That’s why in our minds, realistic themed isekai is easier to relate to. Yes, you might be in a world of magical abilities and half-humans like How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, but you’ll notice a setting that you can understand a bit more. Fantasy is just that, fantastical and that often makes it hard to imagine anyone being launched into a strange new land of oddities and somehow just being accustomed to everything overnight. Watching realistic isekai creates a better level of immersion as we can see the confusion on the main character’s expressions—since they are in a fantasy world—but equally see how this new land might not be so different than the world we’re so use to.

The whole point of any medium whether it be anime or video games is that we are trying to escape our current worlds for a new one. In our minds we hope to be whisked away to a world like Overlord where we can be meet busty beauties and be overpowered heroes! Entering a new world and doing paperwork to save a failing economy sounds like a business job we already could possibly have!

Fantasy isekai transports us viewers into a new world and we get to watch environments foreign to us. We see cool OP heroes do battle against mages and barbarians instead of writing quarterly reports for 20+ mins. As much as we loved The Devil is a Part-Timer, the idea of ending up in another world and working in a burger chain just seems like a horror story more than a fantasy one. We try to escape the world when watching anime and realistic isekai just reminds us the real world is behind us as we stare at our screens.

As epic as Sword Art Online can be, the idea of an OP hero is done so much that we could spend a literal ten pages just writing isekai protagonist names who have OP abilities. Isekai already has slowly begun to feel repetitive and while every season has a few shows that try to be different, no isekai labeled anime can escape the generic themes most have embed into them.

That’s why series like Log Horizon bridge the gap between fantasy and real-world so well. There are the obvious magical escapades of our heroes within but also the scary reality of how humans can be if left unwatched or unpoliced. Realistic isekai allows for newer stories to be presented to us rather than just watching another high school boy being sent to a world to save it with overpowered weapons/skills.

Anime like The Rising of the Shield Hero and Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest are captivating series as they constantly have action or drama. Only fantasy series can accomplish this so well! Let’s be honest, as much as we loved .hack//Sign for basically spearheading the isekai genre, there were a lot of boring moments to it as it constantly made us remember they were just in a game most of the time. Being bored while watching any anime isn’t a good thing folks…