Isekai, light novels
Without a doubt, the isekai genre has become the most popular among writers and readers of light novels today. Isekai (異 世界) literally means "another world", and that's exactly what these stories are about: a character who travels to another world, another reality. From a stranger in a strange land.
You will find a list of isekai light novels in English, arranged alphabetically, with reviews, analysis, reading guides, and links to read light novels online; In addition to information on what are the Isekais, their subgenres, their history, and some curiosities.
What are isekai light novels?
As we have already said, broadly speaking isekai light novels are characterized because the protagonist travels to another world. In most cases this new land is of a fantastic and medieval type, as it happens in KonoSuba or Re: Zero. Although there are exceptions, as in Youjo Senki, where the other dimension recreates something similar to World War I, but with magic.
The medium used by the protagonist to travel to the other world also changes from one job to another. This character, usually a hikikomori or nini, can be reborn, trapped, or transported to a parallel world. On the other hand, this other dimension can be a fictional universe in the plane of origin of the protagonist (for example, an MMORPG videogame), or it can be a reality of which until now he was not aware.
Subgenres within the isekai
Isekai light novels are divided into two subgenres, taking into account the medium used by the protagonist to move from one plane of existence to another. The first is called isekai ten’i (異 世界 転 移), or “trip to another world”. The second is called isekai tensei (異 世界 転 生), or "reincarnation in another world."
In the isekai ten’i our protagonist travels, is invoked, has a new body, crosses a portal, recites some magic words, ends up inside an object that contains a new and unknown dimension, etc. Broadly speaking, it is the subgenre of the first wave of Isekai novels, and is less and less used.
As for isekai tensei, this is the most popular genre today. It is characterized because the character dies and is reincarnated in another reality. These kinds of works are so common that even in Castilian the term “reincarnation novels” has been coined to define them.
History of the Isekais
The remote origins of the light novels isekais can be traced back to the Japanese folk history of Urashima Tarou, which is about a fisherman who saves a turtle, and it takes him to an underwater kingdom. On the other hand, Japanese novelists were certainly inspired by works of Anglo-Saxon literature such as The Chronicles of Narnia (1950), by C. S. Lewis. To the point that it has become a recurring meme to say that "Narnia is an isekai."
Other works that have pre-isekais characteristics are: Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there (1871), by Lewis Carroll; Peter Pan (1904), play by J. M. Barrie; o The wonderful wizard of Oz (1900), by Lyman Frank Baum with illustrations by W. W. Denslow.
Gender today
Isekai light novels, specifically those of the subgenus Isekai tensei or reincarnation novels, have become so popular, outside and inside Japan, that they have generated some curious anecdotes. For example, in 2016 a short story contest, organized by Bungaku Free Market and the self-publishing domain of web novels Shousetsuka ni Narou, expressly banned the genre Isekai from its bases. Something repeated by the Kadokawa Shouten publishing house in its own 2017 contest.
It is true that the Isekai stories have been exploited to satiety, and we are in a stage of decline in the face of their origins, but good Isekai light novels still emerge. In general, those that subvert the genre, parody it, or introduce novel elements, in addition to entering paths not explored until now.
