anime

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

Was clifford an isekai

I agree with Pika here

I agree that edge cases like that and SAO are messy

but by strict definition, danmachi, goblin slayer, other fantasy shows are no where near that line

I think it's borderline when it's the same world, with some expectation that it's not "new"

like in Big

that's the fence for me

I think a good edge case is made in abyss

Home Alone: Lost in New York is an isekai

same world (technically), but they can't go back (abyss sickness) and its funtionally a different world when in the abyss

MiA is a non-isekai, in my opinion

I mean, they are all fantasy

isekai is usually a subgenre of fantasy

OH

you know what it is

AMQ TIME

lol

lol

no

man

I can't say this

you sure?

without spoiling

nvm

lol

look

I know people care about MiA