Is the isekai genre overplayed? Are there still interesting facets of it to be explored?

>Most isekai stories make ending up in another world an extremely bland power trip.
To be fair, this has been an issue in these stories since even before anime got their hands on them.

Pic very much related. Heck, you could consider it the proto-isekai

>Clerics of twenty different gods pour into the state, each trying to set up a new church.

Imagine the butthurt from the church when they can actually do miracles.

> Is the isekai genre overplayed? Are there still interesting facets of it to be explored?

Alice in the Wonderland is a prime example of a good isekai literature.
Same about actually bringing in an adventurer from another world to our world - Hataraku Maou, or however it's called played it for comedy, but it's at its best when it's played serious.

Just because writers tend to go onto a protagonist powertrip doesn't mean that isekai genre is overplayed or even fully explored.

>Hataraku Maou
That was translated as "The Devil Is A Part-Timer," right? The first few episodes of the anime were cute.

>A big game hunter gets a license for an anti-materiel rifle, and tries to hire some adventurers to help him bag a dragon.
10/10 would play in GURPS with HIGH lethality turned on

If you want an example of bringing in an adventurer from another world to our world - imagine a low-level Paladin being brought into our world. He is woefully unprepared, he is separated from his deity so he can't really cast spells, and he has to adapt with the fact that he can't just simply be a smitebot, and yet he still has to struggle to remain the last bastion of morality in the world full of shit.
Now that's what I call isekai.

In general, the problem with most Japanese isekai literature is that they feature "a normal hero in abnormal circumstances" or basically, an escapistic self-insert in a fantasy realm.
If you want a good isekai plot, either do "an abnormal hero in abnormal circumstances", or "an abnormal hero in normal circumstances" - people whose morality and worldview are vastly different, maybe even alien to ours. You can't ride out your plot simply on "normal" interactions with the world you ended up in.

>The ones which use literal video game mechanics are terrible.
Log Horizon makes it work.

>less .Hack knockoffs, and more Escaflowne knockoffs
I can think of literally nothing wrong with that.

Log Horizon is terrible though.

What if instead of one world that's mostly like our world on the surface, with deviations in history and culture only becoming apparent as the series goes on, they go to a different world like that every issue/episode?

I disagree.

A paladin in our world almost seems like a brave new world sort of situation, especially if he has lost his magic

It's overplayed in anime maybe (though there has been a shocking amount of good isekai in the last year or two), but I've never personally played a pen and paper game with that premise. I think most people in my group would find the idea a little to embarrassing to run

Another user, but I actually agree with Log Horizon being terrible and not terrible at the same time.
The best part about Log Horizon is the Robinson Crusoe/Tunnel in the Sky atmosphere it manages to invoke, somehow.
The worst part about Log Horizon is bland and generic characters and meandering plot with absolute lack of direction, and both of those sins are pretty much inherent to Japanese LNs. Like, holy fuck, they lack absolutely any interesting personality traits.

i really liked that show.

the metaplot with the super-primates was interesting.

But how would you design the sessions?

For better or worse the things that make Log Horizon fun to watch don't immediately seem to me like things that would make for a good RPG. The anime is largely about exploiting game mechanics and creating infrastructure and things like that

Well, no, creating the infrastructure is extremely fun, if your isn't character-centric, but rather base/stronghold/town-centric, where you run different quests to improve your base of operations.
I've run a game like this recently about running an Assassin's Bureau in AC universe and slowly spreading influence over the city, and it was immensely fun.
You just have to be on the same page with your players that you are going to run a campaign like that.

Log Horizon was boring

.Hack is best "trapped in an MMO" chinese cartoon

I parsed that more as an honest to god attempt to write speculative fiction about why people back then were so dumb and wrong and didn't do things like we do [today].

While it's not isekai, the Glen Cook's Garrett P.I. series is pretty much this.

My best friend ran an isekai style game to all his friends (it was before we've met, back when he was in middle-high school) years before the genre became popular. It started with the premise of them themselves being drawn into a fantasy world (the GM was killed in the process so he won't have to play himself at the same time). That campaign lasted FIVE YEARS and they all have such incredible stories about it. They actually got a specially made wine bottle with scenes from the campaign colored in the glass to celebrate when it ended.

Go super, super isekai + sliders.

Normal dude nerd finds what at first seems to be a crazy hobo on his way home from work, but the guys nerdy pursuits alliw him to recognize two things other passers-by miss: that sword is fucking legit, and the 'made up' language he is speaking isnt gibberish. Its too structured, even if it sounds like nothing he has heard before.

Guy befriends the hobo and works out a crude means of communication, the two slowly learning each others language. Hobo eventually reveals he is from another world, got lost in this one, and can prove it with some badic magical cantrips.

So the first arc is broing around with an adventurer, showing off our world to him and helping him find a way back home. At the end, our MC packs up a bunch of survival gear, buys a sword on ebay, and gets a handgun at walmart. With that and a bag of spices and novelty items to trade, he goes with his new friend to the other world for a life of ADVENTURE and to learn magic.

So he goes to generic low fantasy land, and it kinda sucks. He is used to modern comforts, and he still doesnt speak the language so good, and his hobo friend is his only guide. The one upshot is that by fantasyland standards he is a goddamn scholar, and he thought to bring some reference books for useful shit.

So he trades knowledge from our world for magical teaching, and learns some simple spells and writes down instructions for more.

Eventually he decides to go back home to our world, either for good or just to get more stuff to trade... and it all goes wrong.

He ends up in a totally new setting, thing time more high fantasy jrpgish or something. Nothing like the low fantasy world he just came from. And this time he has no guide. The only saving grace is that in tjis world, they sell a necklace of comprehend languages, which he then has to pay off the debt for because he desperately needs it.

From here on, he jumps from world to world trying to find his way home. But the gimmick is that every world has magic and tech unique to it. He never masters anything compared to the people of the world it is from, but over time he starts accumulating tools and tricks that no one in the next world he jumps to have ever seen before. And THAT leaves him in a position of being actually special, and able to solve peoblems that the locals cant.

I like this. I like this a lot.

After how many worlds will he find a girlfriend? Also, will it end on a cliffhanger, or will he finally make it home, settle down, and get mad rich selling his knowledge to our world and starting a technological revolution?

If he just keeps gaining powers, I imagine he eventually just sort of becomes a wandering badass.

The first few times he just sort of gets drawn into 'fate of the world' plots as a victim of circumstance. But eventually he is going to reach a power level where he has to stop and realize "holy shit, I actually have the power to change the fate of worlds. I need to be way, WAY more responsible about this shit."

The final arc, going back to Earth as what is essentially a weirdly-specced wizard in alien power armor with wonderous items strapped onto it, would be pretty great.

He has fought gods and monsters and armies. He could change thw course of history, here and now. But doing so means basically taking over the world... and is he really up for that? Like, is that even a good idea? How does that make him any better than the varioys power mad sorcerer kings he has struck down on their own worlds?

>muh jumpchain
No.
If you really want a good isekai with a normie slowly turning into a badass, consider the Evil Dead series.

I still remember

>there has been a shocking amount of good isekai in the last year or two
Yeah, 0 is a pretty surprising amount, especially considering how much isekai gets made.

> he doesnt find Konosuba consistently hilarious

What a dark life you must lead.