During fits of boredom I have read quite a few isekai mangas no one's ever heard of, and oh my god are they bad. They all start basically exactly like this, there's no actual plot, and some of them would have been better off being porn.

blindVigil said:

During fits of boredom I have read quite a few isekai mangas no one's ever heard of, and oh my god are they bad. They all start basically exactly like this, there's no actual plot, and some of them would have been better off being porn.

Some of them are even worse than that, they have the male character be obnoxious to the girls despite them clinging to him. I remember one where a woman believe the Isekai'd kid to be used by an old woman, and she asks him if it's true. He immediately flips his lid and hits her because how dare you worry about him!

blindVigil said:

During fits of boredom I have read quite a few isekai mangas no one's ever heard of, and oh my god are they bad. They all start basically exactly like this, there's no actual plot, and some of them would have been better off being porn.

That's an insult to rocks porn.

I think the weirdest, though, are some of the chinese isekais. Imagine all the problems with regular isekai but add bottom of the barrel cuckold fetishes and nationalism. Its a really weird tendency.

Saladofstones said:

I think the weirdest, though, are some of the chinese isekais. Imagine all the problems with regular isekai but add bottom of the barrel cuckold fetishes and nationalism. Its a really weird tendency.

I found that korean manga knockoffs are full of cucking, being cucked and all around sexual degeneracies, but chinese knockoffs of korean knockoffs are more about being straight abusive, exerting power, and overall being a piece of shit.

ginx2666 said:
being straight abusive, exerting power, and overall being a piece of shit.

Sounds like china alright

ginx2666 said:

I found that korean manga knockoffs are full of cucking, being cucked and all around sexual degeneracies, but chinese knockoffs of korean knockoffs are more about being straight abusive, exerting power, and overall being a piece of shit.

This. So much this.
I've conditioned myself to avoid any and all manhwa and manhua. Webtoons in particular are just SO bad. Most of them have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They read like fanfictions. Characters have neither personality nor depth and artstyle tends to be utterly mediocre all around. The worst of the lot don't even bother drawing backgrounds. As if the story's interesting enough to make do without.

There's also the thing as stated above, about recurring tropes. Almost every Chi/Korean webcomic seems to be using the same template in regards to it's main plot points. Overpowered pretty-boy protagonist; hyper-agressive bully villains with friends in high places but all bark and no bite themselves; the designated woe-is-me victim(s) that provides exposition and exists for the protagonist to take pity on; clingy heroines (as beautifully surmised above) that provide "female approval" but with personalities as deep as puddles in the road; "CuLtIvAtIoN"; and no-one, except maybe the protagonist, that can think more than half a step ahead.

They're trainwrecks that i only sometimes read purely so i can be amazed at just how bad they are. It's like they've been written by edgy teens that don't know the first thing about storytelling, and even less about story-writing. The can't even pick a decent title for their work without having it sound cheesy as fuck. (though for all i know that could be because the translation just doesn't grammatically work.)

KhorneFlaeks said:
"CuLtIvAtIoN",

Oh god, this. This word. As much as i like isekai, (There are some good Korean and Chinese ones) almost all Chinese Isekai started off good, and then free-falling into a state that makes you wonder if the MC is the actual villain than the designated one? And everytime i saw "Cultivation', all i can think is something to do with farming or gardening.

KowaiTeitoku said:

And everytime i saw "Cultivation', all i can think is something to do with farming or gardening.

Wait. You're telling me it's not?

Valentine322 said:

Wait. You're telling me it's not?

"Taoist concept by which humans can extend their lifespan and gain supernatural powers through practicing a set of martial and mystical arts involving meditation and the cultivation of Qi." THIS cultivation, while i read it as the agricultural ones.

...It's less convoluted when this concept is used a la Jin Yong's Return of the Condor Heroes novella or Houshin Engi's lore behind the majority of the casts, but why it's such a mess, convoluted concept when it's used in chinese isekai or wuxia? And the way the title is written doesn't help - for ex. I'm The Greatest Cultivator in the Cultivation World vs I'm The Greatest Sage in the Spiritual World. Which one rolls the best in the tongue? And also, that one other word,

Black-bellied.

KhorneFlaeks said:

This. So much this.
I've conditioned myself to avoid any and all manhwa and manhua. Webtoons in particular are just SO bad. Most of them have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They read like fanfictions. Characters have neither personality nor depth and artstyle tends to be utterly mediocre all around. The worst of the lot don't even bother drawing backgrounds. As if the story's interesting enough to make do without.

There's also the thing as stated above, about recurring tropes. Almost every Chi/Korean webcomic seems to be using the same template in regards to it's main plot points. Overpowered pretty-boy protagonist; hyper-agressive bully villains with friends in high places but all bark and no bite themselves; the designated woe-is-me victim(s) that provides exposition and exists for the protagonist to take pity on; clingy heroines (as beautifully surmised above) that provide "female approval" but with personalities as deep as puddles in the road; "CuLtIvAtIoN"; and no-one, except maybe the protagonist, that can think more than half a step ahead.

They're trainwrecks that i only sometimes read purely so i can be amazed at just how bad they are. It's like they've been written by edgy teens that don't know the first thing about storytelling, and even less about story-writing. The can't even pick a decent title for their work without having it sound cheesy as fuck. (though for all i know that could be because the translation just doesn't grammatically work.)

It is such a shame that Andrew Hussie raised a few million dollars and spent it on an adventure game instead of making Homestuck into an anime, because it would count as an isekai while having way better writing and meta plot bullshit than 99.5% of the isekai out there. Hell, force Toby to score it and there'd probably be a decent amount of interest given how well Undertale was received across the pond.

KhorneFlaeks said:

(though for all i know that could be because the translation just doesn't grammatically work.)

I wonder what kind of people translate this kind of shit, imagine spending years to learn English just to translate something objectively garbage just for nationalism??? Or spending more years to learn mandarin just to read the lowest tier of literature of the language for fun?

Not a defense for the web novel's low quality(both in art and story), but the reason some of them "started good but goes to trash" can often be attributed to the fact that they're weekly releases done by otherwise amateurs. It's the same reason Japanese webnovels are drowned in atrocious Isekai harems and therefore, the light novel market similarly being bogged by Isekais because they're adapted from those web novels.

The author might start with a fresh idea but they never planned ahead, and in order to win over readership quickly, you need to put out that juicy part you planned from early on. No one's gonna bother wait for 50 chapters of so-so until you can actually "get to the good part", unlike official mangas a la HeroAca or Kimetsu.

So you're forced to play your best card from the get-go, then continue on without a plan, all while having to maintain weekly upload for the sake of remaining relevant. So it's just no wonders most ended up resorting to all the overused isekai cliches the moment their initial idea ran dry.

It's also why pandery tropes like Gary Stu and cringey fanservices are commonplace. It's an "appeal" that doesn't need setup, doesn't need skill to pull off, and can be spammed over and over infinitely.

KowaiTeitoku said:

Oh god, this. This word. As much as i like isekai, (There are some good Korean and Chinese ones) almost all Chinese Isekai started off good, and then free-falling into a state that makes you wonder if the MC is the actual villain than the designated one? And everytime i saw "Cultivation', all i can think is something to do with farming or gardening.

Granted, I haven't read more than maybe 10 cultivation novels, and some of them I dropped before the end, but like most things, the whole cultivation theme can be done right or wrong. When it's done right, it can be a really good source of change, growth, and motivation driving the story forward. It also works excellently for the kind of power level differences xianxia can have, more so than wuxia, and certainly more than most Western fantasy. Western rpg games have always had levels, based on experience points or more rarely skill growth (like Elder Scrolls), but how do you have such in a novel? It would look pretty stupid. Just like most isekai look stupid with the game like interfaces and numerical stats. Cultivation with the different stages is a solution for that. Of course it becomes very stale in the bulk of the run-of-the-mill novels, but that's what happens with any idea when left in the hands of a mediocre writer.

Something a bit different, but one thing that also really annoys me about this trope even in "the good ones" is that this sort of thing happens early in the story when the "hero" has no money and they have to get the "discount" slaves (because nothing's sexier in a sex fantasy than getting that sex ON SALE) with something wrong with them (they're near-death sick and need constant medical attention, don't speak the main language, have a curse, etc.), they hold themselves up as totally noble for buying a slave but it's OK because they totally treat them well... and then they totally ignore the other, more expensive slaves thrown into the horrible fate we're supposed to cheer for the hero for "saving" one of the heroines from. And these "heroes" invariably end up billionaires who can buy every slave on the market with pocket change AND build them all houses and give them all cushy jobs in whatever field he's raking in his easy money in, but fuck it, the slave market exists JUST to show how "nice guy" the "hero" is for buying a slave explicitly for his own ends, and any slaves that don't go into the main harem aren't worth wasting digital ink on. (Nevermind that if the "hero" can powergrind a slave from level 1 to 1,000 in a week, buying out that slave market and powergrinding them all would lead to an army that could instantly resolve the plot, but hey, that's less time to spend ogling at how power fantasied-out the "hero" is.)

It's just... if it was so "noble" of the "hero" to buy one slave "because he'll totally treat her nice", why does he only do it ONCE?

NWSiaCB said:

Something a bit different, but one thing that also really annoys me about this trope even in "the good ones" is that this sort of thing happens early in the story when the "hero" has no money and they have to get the "discount" slaves (because nothing's sexier in a sex fantasy than getting that sex ON SALE) with something wrong with them (they're near-death sick and need constant medical attention, don't speak the main language, have a curse, etc.), they hold themselves up as totally noble for buying a slave but it's OK because they totally treat them well... and then they totally ignore the other, more expensive slaves thrown into the horrible fate we're supposed to cheer for the hero for "saving" one of the heroines from. And these "heroes" invariably end up billionaires who can buy every slave on the market with pocket change AND build them all houses and give them all cushy jobs in whatever field he's raking in his easy money in, but fuck it, the slave market exists JUST to show how "nice guy" the "hero" is for buying a slave explicitly for his own ends, and any slaves that don't go into the main harem aren't worth wasting digital ink on. (Nevermind that if the "hero" can powergrind a slave from level 1 to 1,000 in a week, buying out that slave market and powergrinding them all would lead to an army that could instantly resolve the plot, but hey, that's less time to spend ogling at how power fantasied-out the "hero" is.)

It's just... if it was so "noble" of the "hero" to buy one slave "because he'll totally treat her nice", why does he only do it ONCE?

Some try to justify it by claiming the slaver (and therefore the purchaseable slaves) are constantly traveling, so the hero usually only has that one chance to buy a slave and free them before the slaver goes off to God-knows-where.

UserAccount said:

*Stuff*

You know, that reminds me of that one manga where the isekai hero starts off buying a "defective" slave, heals her back to full functionality, then sends her off to the dungeons to make money. When he's rich enough, he buys more slaves, heals them, then sends them off to do the same. Several chapters in, he's got a whole business run by his slaves. Everyone gets paid fairly (by Japanese standards, not the fantasy world counterpart), and he prioritizes their wellbeing over profits (because healthy, happy workers are more efficient than disposable warm bodies). Even after he frees them from the slave contract, they continue working for him and defend him with their lives even without his command. I feel it's one of the more satisfying "rich kid buys slaves" stories out there. Can't quite remember the name of the story, though...

...Oh, right. He also married a war heroine general of a major superpower who had to retire early because using combat magic basically shortens her lifespan. Guess how he deals with that.

AdventZero said:

You know, that reminds me of that one manga where the isekai hero starts off buying a "defective" slave, heals her back to full functionality, then sends her off to the dungeons to make money. When he's rich enough, he buys more slaves, heals them, then sends them off to do the same. Several chapters in, he's got a whole business run by his slaves. Everyone gets paid fairly (by Japanese standards, not the fantasy world counterpart), and he prioritizes their wellbeing over profits (because healthy, happy workers are more efficient than disposable warm bodies). Even after he frees them from the slave contract, they continue working for him and defend him with their lives even without his command. I feel it's one of the more satisfying "rich kid buys slaves" stories out there. Can't quite remember the name of the story, though...

...Oh, right. He also married a war heroine general of a major superpower who had to retire early because using combat magic basically shortens her lifespan. Guess how he deals with that.

Which one is this? Thanks

KanzakiKaori said:

Which one is this? Thanks

Hey, there! Sorry, didn't see you there.

The manga is called 「Isekai De Uwamae Hanete Ikiteiku ~Saisei Mahotsukai No Yuru Fuwa Jinzai Haken Seikatsu~」(Living in Another World by Taking Commissions ~A Relaxing and Comfy Life of The Restoration Magician's Staffing Agency~).

There should be 19 chapters out right about now.