Summary
Fans of fantasy anime should be aware by now thatIsekai main charactersnever learn from their mistakes, and, in many cases, these flaws end up becoming a burden for them or hurting secondary characters in the process.
The foolishness of thinking themselves superior for having cheating skills has developed into a collective flaw that makes the majority of Isekai anime characters trip on the same rock time after time. From vices that come from overconfidence and a sense of invulnerability to foolish errors, Isekai main characters are prone to repeating certain mistakes.
7Showing Off Their Talents
It Draws Unnecessary Attention And Always Complicates Things
Why is it that every Isekai main character has a powerful urge to step into the most wanted/most notorious of the kingdom lists in the flashiest of ways? Every time an Isekai main character steps into the Guild to “evaluate their abilities” or get a “rank test,” instead of being discreet and trying to draw the least possible attention, they end up overdoing it. This always leads to the most exaggerated situations that stir trouble in their worlds, but, aren’t they supposed to be there to fix the problems of the world where they were summoned? Instead, they cause more and more wherever they go. The seriesNo Longer Allowed in Another Worldprovides a fine example of the problem otherworlders cause in the fantasy realms, and so doesKonosuba, withGoddess Eris trying to fix all the damagethe irresponsible Aqua caused by summoning a herd of ignorant fools to an otherwise (relatively) peaceful world.
However, the modern Isekai MC always needs to be at the center of the spotlight, and this trend repeats in almost 90% of cases. That is, of course, unless viewers go way back in time to the earlier stages of the Isekai genre, where the meta-narrative surrounding the “spirited away” trope wasn’t so fresh, and the Japanese younglings that were translocated to fantasy worlds weren’t up-to-date with what was going on. Now, with all the gaming and abundant fantasy stories, Isekai MC is not always scared or frustrated with being transported to another world. Instead, they clearly show enthusiasm and eagerness tolive in a “game-like” world. Talk about immersion breaking, and besides, the fact that they are overpowered always makes them insensitive and cocky, which leads to the next repetitive pattern in Isekai stories.
6Escalating Conflicts Everywhere They Go
Diplomacy Fails All The Time When You Lack Basic Common Sense
Isekai main characters love to be flashy and barge into every place like they own it. They never learned about being discreet, moderate, or low profile, and they know much less about the unwritten rules of society, where avoiding conflict can prevent unnecessary trouble. Nevertheless, sinceprotagonists are protected by plot armorand feel so strong and powerful, it is logical that they feel the need to exert said power to make themselves “respected” among their peers. This is an especially recurring instance if the story includes the already cliche trope of “joining the guild” and “encountering the guild ruffians.”
The problem is that, most of the time, those ruffians who are easy to beat for the first time, will come back for more and bring more goons with them. Then, those goons, defeated again, will bring others with them, and so on. This is conflict escalation at its finest, a recurring trope that is present in most of the Isekai anime fans can enjoy today. But the question is: Are these tropes necessary for the plot, or are they just filler? The truth is that only a few Isekai MC have the necessary common sense to avoid escalating conflicts, and so do the people who create them. As such, it is easy to imagine Isekai authors playing every Tabletop RPG like a murder crew, never using diplomacy or subterfuge to avoid unnecessary combat.
5Turning Themselves Into The Public Enemy
That MC Necessity Of Solving Everything Through Violence Is A Problem
As if the other two repetitive patterns weren’t enough, there are cases when the MC is simply too far gone and detached from humanity that they do not consider sentient life as something precious anymore. Everything that crosses paths with them is an obstacle, and they don’t even care about becoming the enemy of humanity if their “freedom of movement” is not respected. When they are so overpowered, why stop with only one victory? They should keep beating everyone up, right? Obviously, this attitude belongs to those edgy maincharacters like Ainz Ooal Gown fromOverlord, Shadow fromEminence in Shadow, or even Hajime fromArifureta, who never know when enough is enough. Are they just sociopathic, or have they gone mad? No one knows for sure, and most of the time, the series will end without the audience learning of their true goal.
Conquest is a necessity of tyrants, and when characters have as much power as a living god it is easy to fall into the cliche of becoming the next big bad evil. In a world where there are no global threats but conflicts between factions that can be solved by means other than violence, it is hard to understand why they always end up destroying everything in a full-scale war. Some might say this is just human nature and that those characters are the true reflection of the human condition. But is that really true, oris it just lazy worldbuildingdisguised as unnecessary conflict?
4Shouting The Name Of Their Skills
Seriously, Why Does Every MC Do That?
Another cliche latched into the anime culture that got transported to every power fantasy and Isekai anime out there is the need to shout out the name of skills/magics when using them. In the second case, it is understandable that these derive from the verbal component of spells that are present in Vancian magic and are also dedicated to famous tabletop RPG systems, but in the case of other skills, it doesn’t make any sense at all. It is annoying and repetitive, drawing unnecessary attention from the animation. On top of that, shouting the name of an ability would make it quite easy for enemies to prepare for an incoming attack.
Butit is in the animeI Parry Everythingwhere this takes the most annoying and ridiculous shape, with the main character (in this case, the voice actor) shouting Parry every second in all fight scenes. Unsurprisingly, this tendency can quickly become tiresome, and it sparks discussions among fans of various popular Isekai. Thinking about it, even Rudeus fromMushoku Tenseimakes a notorious statement about this when developing his “silent casting” magic. And there are other characters out there who might follow his example and invest in the Silent Spell Metamagic Feat for once. That would be a blessing for many fans' ears.
3Trusting Nobility
These Seemingly Trustworthy Figures Can Sometimes Have Ulterior Motives
In every “summoned to another world to defeat the Demon Lord” story, there’s always a princess, a priestess, a king, or a queen that demands the heroes to yield their will for a greater cause, and in many of those cases, the Isekaid protagonists just go along with the flow and say yes, without thinking aboutthe consequences of their actionsor the looming threat that this supposes. Red Flag number one: If they have the power to break dimensional doors, why not just use that energy to fight the threat? Red Flag number two: most isekai main characters come from the real world, which has a lot of history for them to learn from, and most of that history involves nobility and their bloody quest for power. But the average Isekai MC lacks common sense, and maybe that’s why the young ones are targeted more often than seasoned adults, since they’re easier to manipulate.
Nevertheless, they have to admit that it is really suspicious to get summoned by a King out of the blue or to be followed around by a princess they never heard of. Melty fromRising of the Shield Heroconstitutes the finest example of why Isekai main characters should avoid trusting nobility at any cost. And there’s more, there seems to be an obvious meta-narrative that connects all Isekai worlds between, with Japanese summoned heroes knowing all too well the situation where they find themselves and knowing a great deal of the unwritten rules about being Isekaid. So, why not add this important piece of information to that general knowledge among isekai protagonists?
2Ask For Unnecessary Explanations
They Come From A Gaming RPG Heavily Influenced Culture; They Should Know The Rules By Now
In every Isekai anime where there are things like levels, ranks, or mercenary/adventurer guilds, there’s always this scene where the MC enters the turf of seasoned warriors and goes to get an evaluation, alongside a lengthy explanation on how the Rank system (that is always the same) works. That and many recurrent cliches have turned the Isekai genre into an eternal repetition of unnecessary scenes, where the audience (and the protagonists that allegedly share the same reality as them) receive high doses of boring dialogues about the rules of the adventurer guild and the ranking system.
Then again, there’s also the training scene, the explanation of the skills, the “voice from beyond” trope where a mysterious system explains everything to them and to the audience (talk about breaking the 4th wall), and so on. For members of a culture where RPGs and fantasy are so intertwined, Isekai main characters seem to be out of touch with"how to be an adventurer.“The problem with this is that they often end up wasting time learning dozens of unnecessary things while neglecting what’s truly important: basic survival skills.
1Waste Their Time Learning Useless Things, They Ignore The Basics Of Survival
Seriously, Don’t They Know About Self Preservation?
Among the worst things main characters can do when being transported to another world is waste their precious time learning how to catalog the ranks of a guild, when there are important skills that they lack, and they will need to survive a single day in the forest. A thing that every main character does isrely blindly on their cheat skills,forgetting that other skills can save them from getting hurt, like, for example, knowing how to build a basic tent in the woods or basic first aid.
Not knowing how to guide themselves using a compass or the position of the sun, not knowing how to lay traps to hunt for food, and not learning what is safe to eat are just a few examples of mistakes Isekai protagonists can make while out in the wild. Most of the time, they cannot even light a basic fire without the need for magic, and that is a huge problem. The list could go on and on, but the truth is that this pattern is repeated among most of the main characters in Isekai anime. The worst part is that they make no effort (except in rare cases where the summoned ones do actually know how to survive the wilds) to learn basic and useful abilities that any potential adventurer should have.
