this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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I've thought about the isekai genre (ending up in another world) a lot lately and how a big part is usually the characters trying to find a way home. I wondered what percentage of people would actually want that nowadays. I suspect it's considerably lower than it used to be.
"As for you, young lady, you want to go home, right?"
"No, not anymore. I want to stay here and become the new wicked witch."
"Nonsense! Now click your big honking boots together three times and wish to go home to Kansas to live in poverty with your dirt-farming, teetotaling aunt and uncle!"
If I could bring my cat and like 3 other people, I would 100% be like "good luck, losers!" and would never be heard from again lol.
Old isekai had the MC want to go home. Modern isekai has the MC wanting to start over and stay in their new world. You can chart the change based on how dissolutioned young adults are about the Japanese Dream of stable employment and raising a family.
Sword Art Online's original premise sounded kinda fun to me tbh. Though I have a feeling the whole "society makes sure that the players get life support in the hospital while they are stuck" wouldn't work as nicely in RL as it did in the anime. But "can't log out of video game because it'll kill me if I really try" would be kinda nice for a while.
People were dying because eventually power outages, and people pulling the plug. It was a major plot point.
But uh there's a reason he goes right back in LMAO
Yeah, I think it was episode 2 that mentioned some people just disappearing to never return and others disappearing temporarily while they were being moved to hospitals and the Nerve Gear having capacitors or something designed to allow it to be unplugged for a few hours before it does the death shock to allow for that.
It seemed like it wasn't a recurring thing, so most of the players in the game at the end of ep 2 must have been moved to hospitals (or had other life support options).
There's a big trend in recent isekai to just outright kill the character at the beginning. So, you're either reincarnated into another world or your soul is snatched upon death and body recreated in the other world as an explanation for why the character isn't spending their whole time just trying to get back, but I do think that would be an interesting angle to explore.
Yeah it would be cool to be really overt about it, have the character be perfectly able to go home but they're just like "nah, fuck that place" lol. I'm sure it exists somewhere but I don't think I've seen it before.
I can only think of two Isekais where the whole plot is the main character trying to get home, and the anime fans are gonna hate which two things those are.
A Kid in King Arthur's Court and Farscape.
3 if Quantum Leap could be counted as an isekai.
There is also Those who hunt elves.
That one was always hilarious. I've never actually finished it though, always stalling after the first few episodes.
Quantum leap is an Isekai. Getting home is a mainstay of the "Summoned Hero" genre of isekai.
Anime examples include:
The Rising of the Shield Hero
My Status as the Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's
My Instant Death Ability Is So Overpowered, No One In This Other World Stands A Chance Against Me!
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest
Non anime example: Black Knight
Is a cursed thing to hear and it's absolutely true.
Since we're talking that era, Sliders was a great show early on and it's a tragedy nobody knows it.
I liked it, but then it got weird
Sliders, quantum leap, and early edition are the trifecta
Fucking love that show... its a shame he missed his home world because his mother just had the gate fixed but also I don't actually think it was the correct one
The Wizard of Oz, which Futurama is parodying, definitely counts! Yes, Dorothy wants to help the randos she meets, but the whole reason she's going to the Emerald City in the first place is to try to get home to live in poverty with her dirt-farming, teetotaling aunt and uncle.
Inuyasha.
The plot does not revolve around anyone trying to get home in that, tho. Kagome gets to go home whenever she wants, and does frequently.
Eh, she has to get the gem pieces to stop the destruction of the past so she can stay home and often struggles to return to the present and stay there for any amount of time.
She even at the end stays in the past, missing it as her found home.
Its very isekai adjacent.
No, no. It's an isekai for sure, it just isn't one that revolves around the protagonist trying to get home. The "getting home" plot line is the thing I haven't seen much and could only think of those two examples off the top of my head.
Plenty of isekai where the main character doesn't care to go home or can't go home (usually because they died and the other world is some kind of reincarnation or afterlife). Such as with Inuyasha, Futurama, and nearly all those animes with the super long titles about being overpowered in another world.
Heck, the ending of the orginal Fullmetal Alchemist turned it into an isekai when Edward ends up in the real world's WW2 era Germany.
Jesus that first ending of fullmetal alchemist where someone thought they weren't being obvious enough with the fascist metaphor...
I guess its not a good escape fantasy if you are reminded of the place you are trying to escape from all the time.
But I have 2 more off the top of my head and you won't like either.
Sword Art Online
Digimon Adventures
Technically both about children trying to get home after disaster. It seems to be the only group that tries to go home.
I haven't seen Sword Art Online, but isn't that one sorta kinda like .Hack//Sign? Like they're trapped in VR?
Yup trapped in VR except its using peoples real bodies instead of character models with their real world fitness (at first, coma people ain't doing all that) and die in game die for real.
So like as close to a full isekai but reversible if they beat the game (100 level MMO), which the protagonist doesnt want to do but everyone else does because he is so edgy until he finds love and can have it in the "real world"
But its like 10,000 people get isekaid mentally at the same time. Second season is about going back in to get someone that didnt manage to come back the first time either.
There is a really really fantastic abridged series on YouTube by Something Witty Entertainment if you like crass but wholesome humor. Fixed a lot of the character flaws and terrible writing.
Hmm... That sounds a lot more interesting than just being trapped in a VR headset. I might just start watching it now.
Fabiniku is more along these lines. With the additional twist of the protag's boon being his best friend getting dragged in with him to help him out, so there's some exploration of why one or both would want to go back home.
...and genderbending.
The fantastic book series Magic Kingdom For Sale is basically about this. I started reading what I assumed would be a lighthearted comedy and it literally opens with our main character lost in alcoholic depression because of an awful tragedy. The fantasy land he's sent to is hostile, but it provides him enough hope to fight for a better world there.
It's bad when the idea of dealing with a fantasy Dark Lord is more appealing than real life. At least it's clear who the good and bad guys are.
I think much of the appeal of these stories, and post-apocalyptic ones, is that they put you in front of problems that are easier to understand and deal with. Needing to find food is a simple concept, even if it can be a difficult task, it's something we have evolved to deal with.
Emails and taxes, not so much.
Well, it's pretty clear in 2026 normie world too (who the bad guys are). People just aren't heroes in real life, and it's too hard to kill the top villains.
Always nice when the bad guy doesn't know exactly where you are.
Oh wow, core memory unlocked. Haven't thought of those books in decades.
Campfire Cooking is my favorite one of the newer crop of these.
His super power is basically Amazon Grocery. He immediately hides that fact from everyone, tells the people that summoned him he's useless, and leaves the country to live "off grid".
And all that before he even knows how that world works. I'm not even sure he knew he could do other kinds of magic at that point. Natural instinct to GTFO society / authority was something I could identify with
I only wish he would've warned the other kids who were summoned with him, as well.
An isekai where the MC is Snuffkin.
I'm aware of a few early isekai works from like the 80's to 90's (Dunbine, Elf Hunter, and quite a few western Choose Your Own Adventure books and pulp novels fall into this category). It seems to be that as a trend, the premise is that the main character wants to get back to the "real" world and that usually drives the main plot.
Then theres a big trend of Isekai light novels (and related anime etc) in the later 2000’s to today. These almost exclusively seem to feature characters who just want to live a life in their new fantasy world. Literal escapism, even. Konosuba is notable for being very popular, maybe being around the start of this trend, and the main character is given a task to complete and be returned to the real world, but he just ignores it.
I guess we can speculate on whether this means people got more miserable in the intervening time.
Funny enough the webnovels tend to mention why protagonist doesn't think of the real world, but their anime doesn't go over it much.
Even the Wish-Fulfillment Isekai are pretty gritty for everyone who isn't the MC, though, so in that situation most people would probably learn to suck a john, find a way home, or die.
This was me the whole time playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Every character except the main character is MUCH better off in the fantasy realm - the main character's brother is literally crippled and sick in the real world and healthy and robust in the fantasy realm, and the main character still wants to go back to the "real" world. Didn't identify with him at all.
An ancient 4chan demotivator summarized FFTA as "your life sucks shit and I'm dragging you back to it." You'd think it was fundamentally impossible to have a good story where the message is, escapism is bad, mmkay? But it would be so easy to say Ivalice only exists as a shared hallucination, with the locals they've befriended gradually revealed as shallow imitations of people. Or: say it's a real place which these kids can visit any time... y'know... like players do. Put some ludonarrative assonance on the idea there's a crapsack reality you do need to take care of, to continue enjoying this fantasy.
On the other hand, as an actual game, Penny Arcade gave it the "Oh shit, is it 3AM?" award.
Yeah I did forget to mention it's still one of my favorite games of all time. The story and characters are even really good - it's only Marche I don't identify with much.
I'm not sure what you mean, I don't think I've seen a single isekai protag try to go back to Earth unless you count the "trapped in VR" ones.
I'm always a little disappointed by how quickly the regular world becomes irrelevant in the story. The intrigue is from how a person from a modern nonmagical culture interacts with a medieval magical culture.
But from the isekais I've seen, I'd say you could replace half of them with a person with amnesia and nothing would change.
Wizard of Oz, for one. I'm using a Japanese term because English doesn't have a succinct one for that particular genre, but it apples to media anywhere.
It used to be the standard:
The only recent example I can think of is Zenshu from last year.
Welcome to Japan Ms. Elf might be up your alley: a guy finds out his lucid dreams have actually been him getting isekei'd every night for most of his life when he accidentally brings a friend/love interest back with him. She's fascinated by modern Japan so they start going back and forth between the real world and magical world together.
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out!
Well they still need the OP'ness