WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
Chapo had a podcast? Was it about drugs?
It always really bothered me that the protag was a hikkiNEET but, once isekai’d he is the hardest worker around. That’s what made me like Konosuba so much more. Kasuma jerks off in the stables, hates working, yearns for true gender equality, etc. To me, one of my favorite things art can do is examine a psychological paradigm. I also greatly enjoyed Joker for this reason.
I’ve written an unpublished novel where an alienated protagonist finds a way to travel in between a modern day city and a spell-flinging world without electricity myself. The idea is that it’ll become a trilogy where he stats out flagrantly rude and becomes outright toxic & deranged not only in the fantasy world, but in the real one as well. This turns him into a social media darling and a fucking scourge on his acquaintances. This is before he ultimately and begrudgingly being a catalyst to save both worlds having learned nothing about morals or the world’s rich lore in the process (of which I’ve written other novels).
I say this because 1) I love talking about it and 2) I’ve always instinctively disliked wish fulfillment fantasy where hard work gets you opulent pleasures.
I would hesitate before I’d call it a critique in its inheritance. Could you differentiate an isekai from any other type of fantasy story or fairy tale? Surely the poet who wrote Beowulf didn’t actually slay a dragon. His story was far more engaging and interesting than whatever he was doing in the 10th century. I would much more quickly put a label of “wish fulfillment” than “capitalist critique” for these stories. In my mind, I think of the anime studio who needs easy an way to put a self-insert into a medieval setting. You don’t have time as a studio to get an audience to love a down-trodden minstrel turned street urchin if you only get one season, but you can immediately sympathize with a hikkiNEET in a wacky situation.
It drives me up a wall when they say it like that. Maaaaaybe, if you squint your eyes, corporate socialism might explain that chart that shows how the 7 companies make all the commodities because they can plan production, buy politicians, and get billions in bailouts when they need it. A better word for that is oligarchy though.
That’s fair, my exposure is mostly in re:zero, Konosuba, devil is a part timer, and shield hero. I feel confident saying those are self-interests or a subversion of it. I think we’re vaguely agreeing that isekai can be a capitalist critique by having an alienated main character, but it is not necessarily. Is that a fair statement?
You don’t need to explain to me why you hate your boss. I hate your boss too <3
