Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Trash
A Conneticut Yankee in king arthur's court: This trashy isekai light novel was written by mark twain in the 1880s but it follows most modern Trashy Isekai light novel tropes to a T.
MC is sent to a magical world via Isekaitis? Hammer kun is truck kun
MC is sent to a world where his modern knowledge makes him into a god? Check
World is effectively built around MC's ability? Check
MC gets a harem? Check (kinda)
and the big one you already knew it. The Title is also the premise.
Re:Zero: I have no clue why but I read 20 volumes of a time loop mystery. The thing that this story does is make our main character go through many different time loops in succession each "arc" is basically one time loop where our main character must both figure out the mystery and defeat the opponent. But our main character suffers a lot. Even though we have plot armor as an integral part of the story he suffers much more in interesting ways than most fantasy characters. This story is very well done with deep lore.
Stuff I read that is a waste of time but I can pretend to justify it better
The Chemical Formulary: A book of chemical recipies made in the 1930s has a lot of interesting ideas and also some of the worst ideas humanity has ever had.
One line you're reading an idea on how to prevent fog on your car then a little later you're reading about putting thallium in the ground to kill ants
The Geneva convention : I swear reading the Geneva convention has changed my opinion of fictional wars. Mainly I start to think the "good guys" are actually just fucking war criminals a lot.
The federalist papers: Some very interesting old papers where you get a great insight into the opinions of the founding fathers both how much foresight they had and how much they lacked. Really a great series of documents showing that these guys were absolutely insane. (in both a good and bad way)
I hear Isekai and its tropes trashed constantly. Why is that? Compared to other genres (kung-fu fighting shonen, school slice of life), is it more predictable, more numerous, not as enjoyable, or something else?
There are well-received “normal(ish) person transported to alternate world” works, like Gravity Falls, Narnia, Idiocracy, Harry Potter.
My guesses:
Isekai doesn’t even try to justify why the normal person is in the alternate world. Presumably writers who choose Isekai instead of Isekai-like prefer not justifying major plot points.
More likely, because most Isekai are trash, people who like Isekai tend to prefer trash, and people who dislike trash tend to have prejudice against Isekai. So either a) the author makes an Isekai-like to avoid the prejudice, b) they make a trash Isekai, or c) they have a small audience.
Thanks for your response, although I'll admit it didn't help me very much. For one, I didn't list "trash" as a reason, and the closest analog was "not enjoyable." I don't understand art criticism, so if art critics (or other taste gatekeepers) give vague criticism, I just phrase it descriptively as "they did not enjoy it." Should I just note that as your position?
"Not justifying major plot points" is interesting. Is a premise the same as a major plot point? In lots of fantasy there are magic systems that do not have any justification. I'm assuming that this is not a case where there are repetitive, periodic deus ex machina or a systemic problem with bad writing? If the premise is this unrealistic thing, like who cares? Is It's A Wonderful Life trash? Is the issue that Isekai tries to steal valor by having a dumb premise and doesn't even bother to do something interesting (="enjoyable") with it?
You can "not justify" something in the sense that we don't know a justification for why gravity exists and works the way it does, and you can "not justify" something in the sense that despite everything we've been told about gravity, an apple falls up instead of down.
If apples are constantly falling up even though we're always told they fall down, it would seem to be a systemic, periodic problem and not just a silly premise.
So it sounds like: the initial Isekai premise is just the first instance of the inevitable general tendency to Make Shit Up (commonly called 'bad writing'?)
If an apple fell up once so conveniently that the entire plot happened (and it was never explained), I'd consider that bad writing unless, I suppose, the irony of this one unexplained anomaly is the entire premise.
If there are apples falling up periodically yet it's never recognized or addressed in-universe even though it drives the entire plot, again, bad writing.
This seems obviously correct to me, except that empirically it's just wrong. Off the top of my head I can't actually think of any other examples in which it's wrong, though; is there some meta-irony here about how there's this one unexplained anomaly in the category of narrative quality of anomalies?
It's hard to explain in unimpeachable terms why Groundhog Day doesn't count as timeloopslop. I suppose one aspect is that it was literally the first, or among the first examples. The trope hadn't yet become a boring device for gaining power and waifus and actually had themes to explore. It's also a work where the anomaly encompasses the entire work, rather than being a vehicle for other plot points. It's not a deus ex machina if a deity suddenly interfering is what kickstarts the plot rather than solving crucial parts of it.
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