Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
When thinking of the "isekai" genre (if such a thing exists) two distinct and gendered species stick out to me: the male-oriented "swords & sorcery" type, and the female-oriented "villainess" type. Over time these two narrative structures have developed into very recognisable sets of identifiable tropes, distinct from each other and often unappealing to fans of the other gender. The male isekai, as it has come to exist today, consists of a young man being transported to a new world and having to construct some sort of life for himself utilising his own talents. This can range from building an entire new civilisation (Tensura/Dr Stone) down to just founding his own household or harem (Konosuba/Shield Hero), but almost always involve fighting, cunning and swooning girls. Often male isekai will also base the underlying rules of the world on classic JRPG/D&D rules; incorporating leveling, skill trees and HP/MP. Note that stories don't require an actual "transported from another world" situation to fall into these categories, and increasingly many skip that setup entirely in favour of getting straight into the story.
The female isekai, or at least as it is seen in "villainess" type stories such as Hamefura or Akurasu, is instead based around the core ruleset of visual novels, or to be more exact otome games with elements such as "bad ends", "routes" and "red flags" being of narrative important. They often have the protagonist appear in the world as a "villainess", the natural antagonist of the story, who has to subvert the fate of her archetype and defeat the "heroine". This is usually achieved through a combination of proving her own innocence, disgracing the heroine, and stealing the main love interest from her and therefore changing the "true end" of the heroine winning the man and the villainess being exiled or killed. Rather than the male isekai's emphasis on physical growth and strength, the female isekai focuses much more on the navigation of social interactions and emotional "manipulation".
As well as through the demographics' respective gaming inclinations, this dichotomy is also shown through the historical backdrop in which such stories are most likely to take place. The standard male isekai takes place in a broadly mediaeval society, worlds where might makes right and the outside world is a dangerous place of outlaws and monsters. I'd estimate that the standard seems to be between the years 1000-1300. Such warrior societies are (perceived as) more masculine in nature, promoting self-reliance and allowing for much more black and white morality.
Meanwhile female isekai seem usually take place in a more early modern era circa 1500-1800. These are in turn societies where courtly politics takes centre stage, with intricate social hierarchies and codes of conduct. Even if such caricatures of these eras aren't necessarily factual (mediaeval social systems was of course also very complex), they are the popular ideals of these periods of history. And by placing these stories in almost always a European setting, Japanese authors again distance themselves from any attempt at historical accuracy in favour of common perception. The complex nature of aristocratic society certainly did increase in the early modern period, with the massive expansion in the role of the state and the size and wealth of royal courts across Europe. The focus of Christendom also switched between these two periods from "external conflict" to "internal conflict". During the mediaeval era Christianity was still spreading across Europe, with Christian nations fighting crusades into barbaric regions of paganism to expand. However as the natural borders of Europe were reached, focus shifted to internal conflict within Christendom, especially in the West where no external enemy really existed like with the Saracens for the East. Schisms in the church precipitated new conflicts between not just states, but factions within societies, and conflicts became more nuanced and grey. Despite this female focus, women did not really hold a greater amount of power with this shift, but arguably the world itself became more feminine: focused on internal struggles, interpersonal relationships and self-expression. A good example is in fact "Kusuriya no Hitorigoto" which, despite being set in China and only figuratively being "isekai", certainly embodies the complexities of courtly life in a highly civilised world. Maomao is able to leverage her skills to promote herself to the top despite being outwardly a weak young girl.
^Town from Shield Hero looking very mediaeval
^Palace from Hamefura looking very not mediaeval
Kusuriya also displays another hallmark common to both male and female isekai: prior skillsets. In the classic male isekai it is usually the prowess of video games that allows the protagonist to excel in their new world. Skills which were previously considered worthless in the real world suddenly allow him to dominate in the new. Similarly female protagonists usually come equipped with a similar skillset at the start. In Kusuriya it is Maomao's advanced knowledge of medicine, but for many more otome-game style stories it is the prior knowledge of the "true end" of the story into which they have been transported.
Of course there is lots of cross-pollination between the two lines of succession. Many authors attempt to bring a classically male setup to a female audience and vice-versa. For example "Ascendence of a Bookworm" is, from the basic plot, an example of a male isekai: the protagonist building up her own personal household in a manner reminiscent of Tensura or Mushoku Tensei, but Bookworm is unmistakably a work of female fiction. Myne uses her prior modern scientific knowledge to develop new methodologies yes, but really most of the story is about her manoeuvring through social situations and slowly climbing the social ladder. This walking of the line is reflected in the setting, with the world of Bookworm seemingly being somewhere on the cusp of the Renaissance: new technologies and ways of thinking are emerging, but the world as a whole is still in a mediaeval state. On the other side we have "Tearmoon Teikoku", a story by a male author, but with the classic female isekai setup of a young maiden fated to be defeated (in this case guillotined in a revolution) trying to manouevre her way into a "good end" through social interactions. While surely more akin to female isekai (especially with its faux 18th century French setting), Tearmoon gives away its male-tilt with its focus on the more practical aspects of nation-building (also its girls are way to moe). This isn't to say an authors gender defines the limits of what he or she can effectively explore in their works however. Tearmoon gives us a good depiction of the conflicts inherent to enlightened despotism, just as Bookworm excitedly tells you how to make soap: but the nature of popular fiction is to reflect the cosmology of the audience through the author's worldview, and so an author will find little success straying too far from these axioms.
