Isekai Ideas. A Brainstorming Thread.

[GloatingSwine]

Isn't that the basic premise of Monster Hunter? a bunch of army folks and Mila Jovovich get isekai'd into the Monster Hunter world?

We do not speak of it.

[Lord Raziere]

Is there a genre covering the idea that the world we live in isnt what we think? As an example, MIB has the entire government agency in secret dealing with aliens thing, In a book series I enjoyed, Monster Hunter International, our main character, a cpa, learns the supernatural not only exists when his boss turns into a werewolf and tries to kill him, but that the various nation's government has a secret bounty budget for people who hunt the monsters down. And there is a massive coverup thats been going on since teddy roosevelt created the bounty system to keep the general public from finding out about it. Digression aside, is there a genre for this general category?

tvtropes calls it Masquerade but I don't recall there by any other name for it.

its not really a genre. its just a tool to make sure that the setting is relatable and easier for people to imagine. if the supernatural/alien stuff is secret for whatever reason, you can plausibly imagine a normal person being just as normal as our world and thus less work is needed to make the setting make sense if you assume all the important supernatural stuff is so secret it only affects the people clued in for the most part.

of course the problem is that its often set in modern day, and the advent of the smartphone basically makes it difficult to actually work, as anyone can film or take pictures of something in the masquerade and upload it to the internet, making proof of it happening easy to come by because everyone has phones.

[Kitten Champion]

The Masquerade is most typically an aspect of contemporary fantasy or urban fantasy, in terms of wider genre. So, like in Harry Potter, you can have a magical world and a mundane one overlapping one another without having to rewrite history and human civilization in its entirety to accommodate the existence of Witches, Wizards, and magical creatures... like Larry Correia did in his Grimnoir series.

Though even in Grimnoir, magic is a relatively recent phenomenon so much of history is still recognizable up to the beginning of the 20th century and you don't have the issue with Netflix's Bright where the world and its history are still nearly identical to our own despite magic, orcs, elves, dragons, etc. always being a thing.

[Radar]

I was thinking about a reverse isekai in two possible flavors:

1. Some prominent fantasy hero thrown into our world and needing to somehow make a living despite the fact that his/hers amazing skills are not all that useful. One of the key aspects of this is that most often isekai MC has some general idea of how a fantasy world would work so they do not have such a hard time adapting at least socially. It would very much not work in the other direction. This could either go in a comedy or drama direction equally easily.

2. Someone previously sent on a stereotypical fantasy isekai is sent back home to his/her mundane life. This could be a slow psychological drama on fitting in, dealing with keeping a big and important part of your life a secret as nobody would believe the truth, trying to again make mundane things matter etc.

edit:

Every Isekai i am aware (even stories that aren't anime but otherwise meet the definition (such as Wizard of Oz or Chronicals of Narnia)) has the protagonist be a person of little practical skills and basically no combat skills? What about an isekai about a skilled modern day detective or soldier that is sent through? Or some sort of fantasy Predator situation with a whole military squadron getting iskekaid?

Drifters: the protagonists of the series are well known historical figures pulled to another world specifically because of their combat expertise and/or strategic genius.

[Traab]

I was thinking about a reverse isekai in two possible flavors:

1. Some prominent fantasy hero thrown into our world and needing to somehow make a living despite the fact that his/hers amazing skills are not all that useful. One of the key aspects of this is that most often isekai MC has some general idea of how a fantasy world would work so they do not have such a hard time adapting at least socially. It would very much not work in the other direction. This could either go in a comedy or drama direction equally easily.

2. Someone previously sent on a stereotypical fantasy isekai is sent back home to his/her mundane life. This could be a slow psychological drama on fitting in, dealing with keeping a big and important part of your life a secret as nobody would believe the truth, trying to again make mundane things matter etc.

All I could think of was that scene from Thor

Spoiler

Show

[GloatingSwine]

I was thinking about a reverse isekai in two possible flavors:

1. Some prominent fantasy hero thrown into our world and needing to somehow make a living despite the fact that his/hers amazing skills are not all that useful. One of the key aspects of this is that most often isekai MC has some general idea of how a fantasy world would work so they do not have such a hard time adapting at least socially. It would very much not work in the other direction. This could either go in a comedy or drama direction equally easily.

The Devil is a Part-Timer. Except it's not the hero that gets isekaid into modern Japan, it's the demon lord who ends up powerless and having to get a job at a safe-for-copyright fast food restaurant.

2. Someone previously sent on a stereotypical fantasy isekai is sent back home to his/her mundane life. This could be a slow psychological drama on fitting in, dealing with keeping a big and important part of your life a secret as nobody would believe the truth, trying to again make mundane things matter etc.

There are dozens of these. Though usually they are wish fulfilment of varying horniness because the hero keeps all their isekai world powers and occasionally also inevitable harem. (The Hero Who Returned Remains the Strongest, Max Level Returner, etc.)


Although I have also discovered a rare inversion. Everyone Else is a Returnee, where the main character is the only person on earth who didn't get Isekai'd. Someone with more interest in reading jankily translated Korean web novels can check it out though.

[-D-]

I'd love to read Isekai where main character passively ruins the world. I.e. everyone tries to send them back.
Or an Isekai tournament arc. Where different types of Isekai protagonist have to fight in unfamiliar worlds.

[Reathin]

With all the "people deliberately attempting to get Isekai'd" jokes running around, a basic parody could be where it works, and they get transported to a fantasy world...but there's no heroes, or big villains or high stakes adventures, because their society focused more on super-practical magic instead of the combat stuff (communications, transport, readily available healing and disease mittigation, landscaping etc.), so instead of being a big-time savior of the land, the place is ironically just a mundane world with a different coat of paint. Maybe they eventually end up becoming the villain because they keep doing things that an RPG hero would do but gets them labeled (not unjustly) as a violent madman with delusions of heroism.

[Kitten Champion]

The Devil is a Part-Timer. Except it's not the hero that gets isekaid into modern Japan, it's the demon lord who ends up powerless and having to get a job at a safe-for-copyright fast food restaurant.

No, the Hero and deuteragonist - Emilia - does too. She gets a cushier job working at a call centre, and unlike Satan doesn't have to pay for a house-husband and a NEET. Which makes this office lady in a corporate uniform manically stalking a seemingly young, low-level McDonald's employee all the more absurd.

[NovenFromTheSun]

I have one basic idea I’m tinkering with:

As long as the main character could remember, he was able to teleport. Open two portals and step through them. At first he didn’t see anything unusual about this, he assumed that there were lots of other people with cool powers and eventually they’d invite him to their superhero team or something. But as time went on, this didn’t happen, the MC travels further and further, but finds no one else. He comes to believe he’s alone and, aided by other things going on in his life,starts to close himself off.

One day he comes very close to dying, only narrowly saving himself with a panic teleport. Without a destination chosen, the portal exits to a default location, and the MC is sent to a Sigil-like city between dimensions. After calming down from the initial shock, he actually starts to like this place: there’s lots of cool inhabitants and creatures, some have magic, and there are even larger portals in use that resemble his own. For the first time in many years he feels like he’s home.

This doesn’t last though. One of the city’s government workers stops him and takes him for questioning, seeing how he’s the first human that anyone remembers. After some translation stuff happens, their conversation fills him in on the situation: this city was first created by portal-makers, the workers there now can only maintain and store the portals they left, not create their own. Eventually the portal-makers vanished, going to a world only they know of. And rumors of someone teleporting around the place has caused a bit of a stir.

Because there’s no real way to prevent the MC from coming back whenever he wants, and there’s no established portal to Earth, the government worker offers to find him a job if he keeps his head down. While MC agrees to this deal, he’s less than pleased: one moment it seems he found everything he wanted, now he was right back in his old situation with a new coat of paint. He resolves to find the world of the portal-makers, believing it to be the place where and the people with whom he belongs.

[Ibrinar]

A city between worlds is something that can be interesting but the "keep your head down" setup seems lacking. First question is of course why they would want him to keep his head down instead of him being a celebrity there, but I suppose there are answers like politicians worried he will gain too much power thanks to his position as the only teleport guy. But aside from that he needs to spend a decent amount of time in the city/with city related stuff otherwise it is just there as plot hock to give him the info, which is a bit of a waste. And just being told to keep his head down seems to limit the plot options with the city a bit. (Also it just reminds me of many Isekai setups where people are just ***** for little reason.^^) Imo something more involved with the city would be more interesting. I would maybe go with something like:

The city is a prosperous place. it's network of portals connect it to worlds it trades with and facilitates trade between, and gives access to special and sometimes dangerous locations in other worlds that people visit for their resources. Also probably a blooming inter world holiday business. MC is of course in great demand while he does not know how to create permanent portals he can create temporary access to new world, faster access to locations in connected worlds that are far from the portals, very fast travel, or if any intrigue needs to be added he of course is perfect to enable a take over of the world by allowing access points beside the portal hubs. (Also great for crime.) Everybody wants MC to work for/with them. (Also probably some marriage proposals in the hope that it is hereditary.)

But over the long absence of the makers a third of the portals have failed and are beyond the ability of the population to repair. Because most worlds have multiple access points it hasn't changed that much for the city yet (though in the worlds they trade with the cities that lost a portal of course changed quite a bit.) One day enough portals will fail that the numbers of worlds they can access will shrink and if even more fail the city will become non viable. (Yeah I guess things breaking down is a pretty standard idea for a setup like this but imo not a bad one.) So once MC settles down from the rush of being in demand (and visiting some cool location as is mandatory with this setup) some people of course talk to him about this problem and ask for his help, maybe he can repair them?

But MC can't. The Makers have left some text and notes but learning permanent portal creation solely from them is a daunting task. So he does set out to find the ones that created the portals.

[NovenFromTheSun]

For convenience sake, I’m giving the main character, the government worker, and the city the temporary names of Seda, Amalli, and Exuitor.

Hmm, I admit that I originally thought of Exuitor as being the hub where Seda and friends have their downtime between dimension hopping adventures, until later where **** hits the fan. But you have a point, being the nexus between it all means that Exuitor is potentially the most exiting place in the setting, so it should be used. So I have a compromise, but first I want to get into the characters’ heads a bit.

Amalli’s main thought process is “nope, nope, nope. I am not paid nearly enough to cause a probable interdimensional incident.” She initially just wants Seda to return to Earth and only works with him because there’s nothing keeping him there now that he knows he can shift dimensions, until she later realizes that she’s actually having a lot of fun keeping up with him. Seda, meanwhile, is not looking for fame, but belonging; fellows rather than fans. Being lonely at the top is another failstate. But he does have a little altruistic streak, and he did want to be a superhero as a child so....

He utilizes his power with Exuitor under the guise of a masked secret identity! Of course, being the only human will make this a bit tricky, but there are other humanoids around so he’s not completely obvious. Telepaths will have to be at least really rare for this idea to work out (or all telepathy would be drowned out by the sound of Amalli’s internal screaming when she finds out :P). From Seda’s perspective, this is also a possible way to draw out the other portal-makers, who he thinks will be curious if they catch wind of such a (he admits this himself) bizarre turn of events.

This can help introduce his companions as well. I planned on a party of six including Seda and Amalli (who’s basically the deuteragonist); the more people know his secret the less likely all will keep it under wraps. So this allows them to to interact with Seda and understand his stakes before discovering the whole story.

I also like your idea that some of the lasting portals are getting old and breaking. Great way to raise that stakes while keeping more or less the same goals.

[ecarden]

I was thinking about a reverse isekai in two possible flavors:
2. Someone previously sent on a stereotypical fantasy isekai is sent back home to his/her mundane life. This could be a slow psychological drama on fitting in, dealing with keeping a big and important part of your life a secret as nobody would believe the truth, trying to again make mundane things matter etc.

This, or rather the aftermath of him finally finding his way back after a long life on Earth is the plot of

Spoiler: Minor spoiler from the first quarter of the book, but still a spoiler

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Soulhome and its sequels by Sarah Lin, which I quite enjoyed.