[VIDEO] Does Time Travel Count As Isekai?

Tonight’s planned article is taking longer than I though. If I’m going to make deadline I’ll save it for tomorrow (getting back to it as soon as I’m done here) and I’ll have to drop this one on you instead.

Isekai is a Japanese genre that can best be described to the average Westerner as “what if A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court was a video game”, though I’m sure Japanese media fans will have a bit about that truncation. It’s an intro, folks. I’m not going to go through the whole history, especially when I’m fighting a deadline here. While Camelot technically is another world, stories often treat it like the past, using it as fodder for a story to explain being with King Arthur with time travel rather than interdimensional travel. Most time travel stories actually take place in our actual past, but does that qualify as being in another world? If you want to talk philosophically, maybe, but what about narratively?

In the following video by Mother’s Basement on YouTube, Geoff Thew goes through the question and tries to figure out if Doctor Who is actually an isekai show. Not Doctor Who specifically since he discusses anime. So it’s more like does an anime show involving time travel that isn’t a magical version of feudal Japan still count as isekai? Some swearing will follow. Geoff’s a pottymouth.

Catch more from Mother’s Basement on YouTube

For the record, I will never tell you to watch Inu-Yasha. I don’t even watch it.

For me, isekai can use time travel elements, time travel can use isekai elements, and virtual reality isn’t necessarily isekai, or else the crew of the Enterprise-D get isekaied constantly. And given how often the safeties go offline it’s not that big a difference. It’s like how science fiction can use fantasy elements and vice versa. It’s a robot, but it’s powered by magic. A golem is essentially a robot after all, and a robot can be considered a golem. I usually look at what the dominating perspective is. If there’s more sci-fi than fantasy, it’s sci-fi that happens to include magic, and the reverse is also true. Or if you have a balance, it gets called science fantasy, like Star Wars or Masters Of The Universe.

In the same vein, maybe a joint genre title could be used. Virtual isekai, time travel isekai, or the we really want everything in there, virtual time travel isekai. Time travel is usually science fiction, but fantasy stories have gates through time as well, like the second Beastmaster movie. It’s still a fantasy franchise. Castle Grayskull has time and space portals but in the live-action movie He-Man and company were transported by a machine to another planet. Star Wars has spaceships and aliens, but also the Force and the recent addition of the “world between worlds” so they can pull off whatever nonsense they want and still pretend canon is on their side.

So that’s how I decide. Take what appears to be the dominate genre and go with that, merging genre titles where appropriate. What about you? Do you consider time travel and isekai to be the same thing? Where do virtual worlds fit into that?