Three Anime Series With Interesting Takes on the ‘Stuck in a Video Game’ Genre

One of the most popular themes for stories in Japanese light novels and manga, many of which have been turned into anime series, is a protagonist being stuck in a parallel fantasy world. In Japan, this genre is called ‘isekai’. Classic anime like Inuyasha use this approach straight, with the protagonist from the normal world finding some kind of gateway to another world where they become embroiled in some kind of important fantasy story, though there is a big subgenre that uses video games as the setting, with players becoming ‘trapped’ in a world that resembles an RPG and has similar mechanics.

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There are loads of examples of this kind of series, which you can watch on anime streaming sites if you are interested, including this season’s Overlord season 2, and new series Death March, as well as older series like Log Horizon. But as with any other popular tropes, there are writers who have applied slightly different takes to their series, including these:

Sword Art Online

There are a lot of issues with Sword Art Online, and despite its fame, it is not a series that receives a lot of acclaim in the anime community. However, it does have an interesting approach to the isekai genre for a few reasons. Firstly, it is a rare example of a series where a lot of the important stuff happens in the ‘real world’, and secondly, protagonist Kirito knows why he is there and what his objectives are from the start. It also features multiple game worlds, if you make it past the original Sword Art Online arc. While the execution isn’t brilliant, aside from the excellent animation and artwork, there are some very good concepts at the base of SAO.

Re:Zero

Re:Zero is a show based on light novels, which in turn are based on web novels. The original web novel has millions of words so far (which, to compare, there are only around half a million words in the Lord of the Rings trilogy), so it is no surprise that this anime quickly takes some unexpected dives from its light-hearted, tropey start into far more serious territory. It quickly becomes a kind of psychological horror and is to the isekai genre what Puella Magi MadokaMagika is to the magical girl genre.

KonoSuba

KonoSuba’s author is actually very good friends with the writer of Re:Zero, and if you only watched the first couple of episodes of Re:Zero, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were similar stories. However, while they are both isekai deconstructions, KonoSuba goes in a completely different direction, going for comedy that lampshades typical isekai tropes rather than anything dark. It still has a harem of cute girls and high stakes quests, but everything is handled in a way that borders on parody.

These shows are all interesting in different ways, so if you like isekai-type stories, they are well worth checking out if you get a chance!