Two Tales of Chris vs. a Foreign Culture · 12:25am Dec 17th, 2022
A couple of weeks ago, one of my sister's friends recommended that I try watching a new anime, Akiba Maid War; I was bitching about what I didn't like in another anime, and he suggested that Akiba was well-animated, had a nice balance of violence and humor, and wasn't full of uncomfortably oversexualized underage girls.
And he was right! So yesterday I was telling him that I'd watched the first half-dozen episodes, and that I enjoyed it--sure, it's not ground-breaking, but everything he said about it was spot-on. And I mentioned that I particularly liked the ridiculous premise: that this fictional Japanese city is full of an absurd thing called "Maid Cafes," where middle-aged men congregate to have women dressed as maids sing karaoke at them and make themed puns, and that apparently the town's entire economy is based on said cafes. It gave a nice air of surreal whimsicality that balanced nicely with the gang war bits, I said.
With some bemusement, he told me that Akiba is a real town, and maid cafes are a real thing, and Akiba does, in fact, have more of them per capita than Seattle has Starbucks'. The gang war bit is the only setting stuff that's actually made up.
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Those of you who've followed me for any length of time know about my love of Tolkien. But Steven R. Donaldson, and in particular The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, has also been a seminal influence on my reading life. At work today, a conversation with another teacher about how I'd finally gotten Donaldson's newest book and was going to dive in over the weekend segued into me delivering my usual full-throated recommendation of Covenant. And so, I began to describe the setup: how the title character, a leper in a particularly puritanical part of America pre-cure, suffers a near-death experience, from which he awakes to find himself in a magical world where his white gold wedding ring holds the power to--
"Oh," my co-worker interjected, "so it's an isekai?"
I stared at him blankly.
Seeing my confusion, he explained what an isekai is.
"These books are from the '70s," I finally said. "By a guy from New Mexico."
He shrugged. "So, old-school US isekai, I guess."
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These two tales have nothing in common, really. However, I share them together because, not 24 hours apart, I've twice found myself consumed by a single thought:
God damn it, Japan, what is your problem?
This post has so much “those damn kids and their newfangled ways” energy
In high school, one of my teachers recommended The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant to me and I tracked down the first book. I was big into fantasy at the time and he thought I'd love it.
I barely made it one-third of the way through.
I hated Covenant. I thought he was the biggest asshole to ever be granted magic powers. The worst offender was his raping of a girl and getting off scot free. If he does go through a character arc later that redeems him I'll never know because I was done by that point.
I also didn't care much for the fantasy world he ended up in. I thought it was dull with little that set it apart from other fantasy settings I read at the time. Maybe things get more interesting later but I didn't have the interest to find out.
On the note of isekai, that trope goes even further back. One of the earliest examples I can think of was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by good ol' Mark Twain. It may not be the first but I'd say it's one of the better ones.
That real life maid story is funny, though.
Old trope, new name. And I guarantee you other cultures have their own words for them.
Actually, now that I think about it, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis has some isekai elements as well. There's the wardrobe, of course, as well as that painting in Eustace's home, and the yard gate that he and Jill go through. Heck, the "Seven Friends of Narnia" in The Last Battle are *literally* isekai'd to Aslan's country after a train crash, though in that case it's less "survive in a new world" and more "so this is basically Heaven, I guess."
Yeah, but it's totally an isekai, though.
lh5.googleusercontent.com/1f7yCI4A9cVB3h7eFpoPnSJYiANSoZINBcAS4evkCJ5p__eHkMOav8Q6PcdnWTzjQVdgJIhkZbjT4cUBfnpYCGg_xLDROP38PQbMUtv1um0lMkssKIlgNNpXsnzPoPeeCxmN-oQRRZnFOT6nEy0vwldhNBwgUYyPn7YklSHczk6K4PPTb2CAUJDcZoP2Wg
I rather like Akiba Maid War as well. As I think it ends in another week or two, it'll be appearing in my blog pretty soon...
it's kind of amazing, and gross, how many things exist pre-this-century that the isekai label can be applied to <.< though I would argue it only really applies to anime
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With every passing day, I feel more and more like Seymore "No, it's the children who are wrong!" Skinner. I'm basically just a blue jacket and a Vietnam-era stolen identity away, at this point.
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I've said before that there are three kinds of Covenant readers: those who love it, those who hate it, and those who quit in disgust after chapter 7. Even if you pushed a little farther, I still think you map to the third group, and I think that's a totally legitimate response to the character, and to the books generally.
I'll just say, as far as the arc goes, that the (well, a) point of the story is that Covenant doesn't redeem himself, because that's not something you can simply go earn enough brownie points to wipe it off your moral credit score, even if you are literally the Chosen One and everyone, including your victim, is willing to sweep everything under the rug on your behalf. That's one of the big things people like me love about the books; Covenant is a true anti-hero, not just a grumpy hero who enjoys being mean sometimes. And while he grows and changes, the book--to its credit--makes very clear that he can change, but he can't ever erase what he's done.
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Covenant isn't an isekai for the same reason that the Narnia books aren't, nor is Connecticut Yankee, nor are any of the other classic lit examples you might name:
because I like thembecause isekai, like harem comedy or zombie survivalist or, if you want a fandom example, Displaced stories, is defined not just by its content, but by being written to be part of a pre-established genre, built around fans specifically seeking out the story tropes of that genre.In this 5000 word essay, I will
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Look forward to seeing what you think of it! And, as I so often find myself doing, I'm crossing my fingers that the back half of the season doesn't suddenly fall apart...
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Every genre begins life as an original idea. Before we had first-person shooters, we called them Doom clones.
I am absolutely startled to find that Tolkien not only wrote The Father Christmas Letters, but that elements of it may have acted as the forerunners of LotR. Like, Father Christmas being a forerunner of Gandalf, sort of thing.
I'm not sure I can look at LotR the same way again.
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A-hem. We do not talk about a certain Season Nine episode, don'tchaknow.
To be fair, there's probably someone on a Japanese forum somewhere - let's call him "Kurisu" - who's just finished a blog post with the words:
"Nantekotta, Amerika, anata no mondai wa nanidesu ka?"
"Oh my God, America, what is your problem?"
Recently saw a post that said "Hooters is just an American Maid Cafe."
I had to sit with that one a while.
You're welcome!