The popularity of isekai anime has been increasing nowadays, which is why even within the otaku community there have been many debates about why this phenomenon is happening and there are more and more stories that take place in different worlds. However, there have been complaints recently about this genre, especially the stories that are aimed at women, in which it is said that there has been no evolution for a long time and that the same clichés are still maintained.
Otaku community calls for change in isekai anime aimed at female audiences
As we already know, shoujo and josei are the demographics aimed at women, within which we can find a wide variety of stories for all tastes. However, speaking specifically of the “isekai” within these demographics, anime fans think that for a long time now these stories no longer bring anything new to the community, that they are always about the same thing unlike those aimed at men in demographics such as shonen and seinen where we have different elements.
Such elements within isekai anime can be transfer to another world, class transfer, exile, helping the villain’s daughter, being the villain’s son, among others. On the other hand, in stories aimed at women, situations such as getting married, having children or being helpless and having to be rescued by stronger male characters prevail. In this regard, many people in the otaku community expressed their disagreement, saying that it was a lie that, for example, women get bored so easily. They also felt that manga ratings were nonsense and should no longer be used.
The above point is quite interesting, as it has been seen on several occasions that, regardless of whether the story is shonen, seinen, shoujo or josei, there can be audiences of any genre who enjoy these stories, whether in anime or manga. In fact, it has been seen quite a lot with some anime that are based on shonen manga above all, which according to their classification are aimed at young men and the audience that mostly consumes them, are curiously women. It was also mentioned that there are quite good isekai anime for female audiences; however, they follow the pattern that people started complaining about in the above mentioned.
One point that was brought up during this conversation was that it is very common to find isekai anime that deal with the theme of the female villain, and this is very interesting for both men and women, so it is a formula that works quite well and engages the audience easily. So, perhaps in the same way that including mythical beings such as “elves” within the isekai has become a recurrent thing, we should start making stories whose plot revolves around the female villains of the story more and more popular.
Some of the anime that have this feature where we follow the story of the villainess are I’m in Love with the Villainess (Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou), which tells the story of Rei Ohashi, an ordinary worker who ends up dying from overwork and is reincarnated as Rae Taylor, the heroine of her favorite otome game “Revolution”. But Rae is not interested in following the game’s original romance route with the kingdom’s prince Bauer, instead, she becomes smitten with Claire Francois, the game’s main villain. Rae will use all her knowledge of the game to give Claire a happy ending before the events of the game prevent it.
On the other hand, we have Akuyaku Reijou nanode Last Boss wo Kattemimashita (I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss) and here we follow the young noblewoman Aileen who after her engagement to the prince has ended in a not very pleasant way, realizes that she is living in the world of one of her favorite otome games being the main villain. The problem is that her memory is very bad and she doesn’t remember the story of the game, but one thing she does know is that if she doesn’t do something to stop it, her demise is certain. Since she can’t rely on the main character, she decides to try it with the final boss.
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