Mugen Monday - 22nd Edition

For Those Who Dare Dream.

Since a good consideration of the time of the last few years, I have more and more found myself enticed by the unravelling of the medieval fantasy genre. I am sure you too have had your fair share of exposure to such a theme and setting. Be it traversing the lore-filled realm of Elder Scroll’s Skyrim - the fantasy role-playing game, or drifting through Sauron’s legends as Lord of The Rings hit theatres.

(If you’re here for the Gojo’s return article, kindly roam to the bottomless depth of this newsletter. But despite still, please do stay to read my foreword. I promise it’s quite well written).

The realm of medieval fantasy in the Anime industry seems to be more reclining towards the Isekai genre as of whole. Thinking of some good non-isekai Medieval fantasy is quite difficult.

Initially the name ‘Vinland Saga’ dawned upon me, but it’s quite arduous to specify the ‘fantasy’ element in it. Claymore, a famous 2000s Anime with a similar level of world-building as Attack on Titan, was one of the reknown medieval settings as per my limited knowledge.

All in all, I want to make a point. The Anime industry seems to lack good medieval fantasies. I have little to no complaint as to incorporating the isekai genre within this setting.

I get it, having a modern-day protagonist traversing another realm with a time period equivalent to Earth’s mid-time is quite an interesting concept. Despite the fact that the FLOOD of Isekai stories already seem to have made an overstay for this trope. Despite this overflow, I would judge that the isekai trope never loses its charm.

Only, if authors were not hell-bent on making it the most ridiculous story setting ever. It seems authors are finding more and more ways to make the isekai genre as mundane as possible. Although I attest that such an effort is instead the result of trying to perhaps draw some light-of-heart comic humour out of the setting.

I miss the time when humour was incorporated as a secondary element within Isekai. Overlord has its decent fair share of comic moments, without despairing the overall effect of overpowered ness - which is carried through by the story’s serious countenance. I always believe that one genre can be served to its most relishing delicacy if served secondarily.

Take for example Steins; Gate, it is easily a sci-fi series first and a romance series later. Yet Kurisu Makise and Okabe Rintarou’s love story remains still, as one Kurisu herself put it, one of the most romantic endeavours in all of Japanese fiction writing.

But despite an overflow of overly money-oriented author’s novel and manga authorship which is oriented towards quick dopamine-rush-inducing Isekai stories, I do believe one good thing emerges every once in a great while. And as such, I long for that one good story that shall truly entice me once more.

The last series that came remotely close was The Time I Was Reincarnated as A Slime. Also, one last thing I shall impart here, is that I have lately taken refugee to South Korean manhwas. Mainly because I find everything I want in an Isekai Genre (that Japan so conspicuously fails)in South Korean authors’ brilliant storytelling.

Read Pick Me Up Infinte Gacha and I Became The Tyrant of A Defense Game for starters. You won’t be disappointed.

- From the Editor’s Desk

Rhytham Das, Editor-in-Chief, Spiel Anime

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