anime

which is why the nature of the world can't determine whether it's an isekai

is NGNL an isekai Pika?

they literally get sent to a different world

yes

is it a different world?

ngnl zero is not an isekai though

is NGNL:Zero an isekai?

it is a fantasy story

Tet goes to a new world at the end

Can you write a plot point for NGNL, that makes it not an isekai

The way it is structured, NGNL has to be an isekai

you'd have to change the premise

and the characterization of shiro and sora

does the knowledge of the world change matter?

consider Grimgar

where they just... wake up in a new world, confused and dazed

Yes, shiro and sora being from a different world with different knowledge matters a lot to the plot progression

in NGNL, they don't have the chess game wit hTet, and he just abducts them instead in their sleep

what then

I can give you an iskeai where it literally does not matter that I have actually seen

wise mans grandchild

the fact that he is isekai'd never came up other than the first episode in the anime

ok sure, that works

that could have just not been an isekai

But for isekais where the fact that the characters have specific knowledge/things from a different world, you cannot easily divorce them from being an isekai

how is SAO different then?

you could make shows like goblin slayer and danmachi an isekai, but they are not

in SAO, they never technically leave their world. I am willing to conceed it is an isekai in everything except the strictest definition

it is fully one in spirit

if anything, SAO and shows like it are what you should refer to as native isekai

so NGNL, if there's a future plot point where Disboard is actually in the real world it suddenly becomes "not an isekai"

that's my point

is that the plot of NGNL

I think the idea of the characters being "transported" to a new world is important too. To be honest, I would accept an arguement for a show where someone from say, Canada, randomly wakes up in Australia as an isekai

if an isekai relies on the premise of a "world transfer", that's fine but I don't think it can revolve around the fictional world's "existance" or not

and then I also think the transfer can be non-explicit, like Grimgar

Is time displacement an isekai then?

Parallel Paradise

If so how much time needs to be displaced?

I am also willing to accept an arguement that a time travel story is an isekai if the world is different enough

If a character wakes up a year later but doesn't know anyone around him, is that an isekai?

Honestly, Idk what the fuck parallel paradise actually is. If its "his mind is transported to a different world while his body stays in this coma" then yes

if its all a dream

then no, but it is in the same sense SAO might as well be

Grimgar was good kinda

It needed a second season they didnt really do anything from what i remember

Honestly, world end harem is a good example of this type of show for the sake of arguement

So that's my point, if we determine the bounds of what the characters relation needs to be to the new "world", for it to be an isekai

we can divorce an isekai from the need to explicitly change worlds

I think the character has to go somewhere, be it literally or metaphysically at a minimum

you cannot call a show where characters live in a world they have always lived in, that just so happens to be fantasy, an isekai

Otherwise the term isekai is meaningless

and is just synonymous with fantasy

so then we have two camps, isekais where the previous world is firmly established or known and native isekais, that predispose its characters to have the same relation to their world as an isekai would, but without their cannon knowledge of another world

the second one is a distinction without meaning though spooky

SAO is an isekai Danmachi is a native isekai

all shows are that

kaguya could be an isekai

they just don't know of the other world

steins;gate is actually an isekai thinking on the time travel thing (as a tangent since we've moved past that point)

I was thinking about time travel since that was brought up

I think the problem is spooky, you are predisposing that an isekai needs to be a fantasy world the person is isekai'd into, which is how danmachi has "Characters to have the same relation to their world as an isekai would"

You can isekai into a world that is basically the same as yours

I'm also thinking of classic isekais

like "soldier transported 2,000 years into the future" stories

I think isekais are more than "fish out of water stories"

it's the act of exploring a world from the vantage point of someone unaccustomed to it

and then you can take that in 1,000 different directions

Sure, that is a major element, but not the defining factor

it can't be the defining factor, because then any story that starts with someone being born (literally unaccustomed to the world), and growing (exploring an unknown world) is an isekai

which is silly

coming of age stories aren't isekais

That is correct

but a boy being swapped into the body of an adult would be

or "reincarnated" as an adult

The movie Big is an isekai?

ignoring the parallel world part of what you said, reincarnating into the same world as an adult is one of those borderline isekai/no isekai concepts

its a weird edge case

see