There are several big things going on in the anime/light novel industry in Japan right now that are getting a lot of market visibility, and the market's getting flooded with a lot of stuff with the following themes:
- "Isekai," also known as 'I've been reincarnated/trapped in a fantasy world'
- I'm playing a VR game and it's basically another world or I'm trapped in said VR game
- Contrasting the traditional fantasy "Hero and Demon King" storyline with a modern sensibility/'a twist' (see Maoyū Maō Yūsha where the Hero ends up getting together with the assumed "Demon King villain" and tries to save the world with economics.)
SAO's anime adaptation brought a new wave of anime with it that used the 'normal person trapped in a game' theme - stuff like Log Horizon, Overlord, et cetera where the cast is all trapped in a videogame and the NPCs have suddenly become self aware.
Isekai stuff would be things like Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (a human girl from our world is reincarnated into a regular monster spider in a fantasy world), Tensei Shitara Slime datta ken (a human from our world is reincarnated into a slime and can gain new powers as they explore the unfamiliar fantasy world), Mushoku Tensei (an overweight disgusting NEET from our world is reincarnated as a baby in another world and essentially given a second chance to live right in a fantasy world), Re:Monster (a man from our world is stabbed and reincarnated as a goblin in a fantasy world)
The Hero and Demon King with a twist stuff would include things like The Devil is a Part-Timer (the Demon King escapes to our world from the fantasy world and ends up working as a burger flipper at McDonald's) There's a Demon Lord on the Floor (the Demon Lord escapes to our world and looks for work and ends up at a family restaurant) or Yuusha ni Narenakatta Ore wa Shibushibu Shuushoku wo Ketsui Shimashita (the Hero didn't get a chance to start heroing because the demon lord was defeated, and ends up working at a shop.)
You get the idea - a lot of these light novels and TV shows actually have a large amount of overlap, because in Kumo Desu ga, Re:Monster and Slime there's actually a voice in their head telling them 'they leveled up' and status windows and everything, like they were IN a videogame - but they're not, they just have a power that lets them view the world like a videogame.
Stuff like this from Kumo Desu ga:
As you can see here, by the time this manga adaptation of the LN came out, the story was already pretty aware of the 'tropes' of this sort of genre.
It's worth noting that a common thread in most of those kinds of stories is an enormous amount of wish fulfillment.
Hallmarks (will edit as necessary):
Has a floating user interface for skills/inventory and stuff and GM announcer voice in the character's head (not necessary, but quite common in the genre)
Fantasy worlds are involved (usually either using the setting of a badly balanced MMO with pay to win mechanics, like Overlord's cash shop items being used by the main character)
Sometimes involves reincarnation, or getting 'a second chance' at life
Almost always has a 'demon lord' and 'chosen hero' involved
Okay, so I typed out a bunch of stupid crap, now let's look at the only game adaptation of something that falls under this large umbrella, the Sword Art Online games.
Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment
Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment
Sword Art Online: Lost Song
Generally, these are basically a single player MMO (which would later have some multiplayer elements) but with slight dating sim bits to them, but are mostly received with mixed reactions - some people expected a lot more from them.
However, what I'm curious to see is how YOU would look at creating a game using one or all of these genres (since some of the series I've mentioned use multiple, all or one of the genres and hallmarks I mentioned.) I don't necessarily mean dump design docs in here, it's fine just throwing ideas out there.
I personally think there could be some really cool stuff done if you could switch between modern 'our world' and the fantasy world, and the 'user trapped in a VR game' idea was most recently done in Digimon: Cyber Sleuth - but I feel like the game industry really hasn't reflected this gigantic boom in the light novel/anime industry. Maybe that's good, maybe it isn't, but some of these stories are either guilty pleasures or legit interesting and entertaining thanks to the nature of a character being 'genre savvy' and essentially being a normal person put into the world of a videogame.
Like, think about if you played as someone from the modern world who was a computer guy and knew enough to use magic to create a 'computer' in a fantasy world using the principles, or something like that and turned that world upside down, or messed with the economy thanks to their modern knowledge of economics, et cetera - this sorta has the same appeal as traveling back in time with advanced technology.
That's just one specific idea, but there's a lot to work with here, I think, from a game mechanic perspective. In the case of Slime, the character gains new skills every time they absorb an enemy - for example, when absorbing a monster snake the slime has a poison ability, but instead of throwing away the old one like Kirby the slime just keeps getting new ones. Same goes for Re:Monster, where as an goblin the main character gets a new power every time they eat something - when eating a spider they get a spider silk out of their fingers ability, when eating a bat he gets an echolocation power, et cetera.
- "Isekai," also known as 'I've been reincarnated/trapped in a fantasy world'
- I'm playing a VR game and it's basically another world or I'm trapped in said VR game
- Contrasting the traditional fantasy "Hero and Demon King" storyline with a modern sensibility/'a twist' (see Maoyū Maō Yūsha where the Hero ends up getting together with the assumed "Demon King villain" and tries to save the world with economics.)
SAO's anime adaptation brought a new wave of anime with it that used the 'normal person trapped in a game' theme - stuff like Log Horizon, Overlord, et cetera where the cast is all trapped in a videogame and the NPCs have suddenly become self aware.
Isekai stuff would be things like Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (a human girl from our world is reincarnated into a regular monster spider in a fantasy world), Tensei Shitara Slime datta ken (a human from our world is reincarnated into a slime and can gain new powers as they explore the unfamiliar fantasy world), Mushoku Tensei (an overweight disgusting NEET from our world is reincarnated as a baby in another world and essentially given a second chance to live right in a fantasy world), Re:Monster (a man from our world is stabbed and reincarnated as a goblin in a fantasy world)
The Hero and Demon King with a twist stuff would include things like The Devil is a Part-Timer (the Demon King escapes to our world from the fantasy world and ends up working as a burger flipper at McDonald's) There's a Demon Lord on the Floor (the Demon Lord escapes to our world and looks for work and ends up at a family restaurant) or Yuusha ni Narenakatta Ore wa Shibushibu Shuushoku wo Ketsui Shimashita (the Hero didn't get a chance to start heroing because the demon lord was defeated, and ends up working at a shop.)
You get the idea - a lot of these light novels and TV shows actually have a large amount of overlap, because in Kumo Desu ga, Re:Monster and Slime there's actually a voice in their head telling them 'they leveled up' and status windows and everything, like they were IN a videogame - but they're not, they just have a power that lets them view the world like a videogame.
Stuff like this from Kumo Desu ga:
As you can see here, by the time this manga adaptation of the LN came out, the story was already pretty aware of the 'tropes' of this sort of genre.
It's worth noting that a common thread in most of those kinds of stories is an enormous amount of wish fulfillment.
Hallmarks (will edit as necessary):
Has a floating user interface for skills/inventory and stuff and GM announcer voice in the character's head (not necessary, but quite common in the genre)
Fantasy worlds are involved (usually either using the setting of a badly balanced MMO with pay to win mechanics, like Overlord's cash shop items being used by the main character)
Sometimes involves reincarnation, or getting 'a second chance' at life
Almost always has a 'demon lord' and 'chosen hero' involved
Okay, so I typed out a bunch of stupid crap, now let's look at the only game adaptation of something that falls under this large umbrella, the Sword Art Online games.
Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment
Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment
Sword Art Online: Lost Song
Generally, these are basically a single player MMO (which would later have some multiplayer elements) but with slight dating sim bits to them, but are mostly received with mixed reactions - some people expected a lot more from them.
However, what I'm curious to see is how YOU would look at creating a game using one or all of these genres (since some of the series I've mentioned use multiple, all or one of the genres and hallmarks I mentioned.) I don't necessarily mean dump design docs in here, it's fine just throwing ideas out there.
I personally think there could be some really cool stuff done if you could switch between modern 'our world' and the fantasy world, and the 'user trapped in a VR game' idea was most recently done in Digimon: Cyber Sleuth - but I feel like the game industry really hasn't reflected this gigantic boom in the light novel/anime industry. Maybe that's good, maybe it isn't, but some of these stories are either guilty pleasures or legit interesting and entertaining thanks to the nature of a character being 'genre savvy' and essentially being a normal person put into the world of a videogame.
Like, think about if you played as someone from the modern world who was a computer guy and knew enough to use magic to create a 'computer' in a fantasy world using the principles, or something like that and turned that world upside down, or messed with the economy thanks to their modern knowledge of economics, et cetera - this sorta has the same appeal as traveling back in time with advanced technology.
That's just one specific idea, but there's a lot to work with here, I think, from a game mechanic perspective. In the case of Slime, the character gains new skills every time they absorb an enemy - for example, when absorbing a monster snake the slime has a poison ability, but instead of throwing away the old one like Kirby the slime just keeps getting new ones. Same goes for Re:Monster, where as an goblin the main character gets a new power every time they eat something - when eating a spider they get a spider silk out of their fingers ability, when eating a bat he gets an echolocation power, et cetera.
