Now that isekai has firmly established itself as a subgenre in western storytelling (although it has always been there in some form), it got me thinking about what to call the subgenres of isekai itself.

If isekai itself is being transported to another world/universe, and reverse isekai is someone from another world being transported to ours... Then what do we call someone from another world being transported to another other wold? Or someone from our world being transported to another time in our world? Do these have names already?

Setting aside if we like or appreciate isekai, if they don't have genres names yet I thought it'd be funny to come up with our own. What do you think we should call all the sub-subgenres?

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[–] dresden@discuss.online 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Aren't they all called "Portal fantasy" when talking about western literature?

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hmmm, I've only ever heard it referred to as isekai in recent times, but it could be that I'm in a bubble or the videos I watch are trying to make a point/joke.

The impression I got was that "isekai" had more or less taken over as the name of the genre, even in the west. Especially in YA literature like lit-RPGs.

[–] dresden@discuss.online 2 points 2 years ago

lit-RPGs have grown from eastern web novels / light novels (AFAIK), so taking terminology from there is quite common.

In general literature, I haven't heard the term used often.