Is Shadowbringers an Isekai?

[Illmaeran]

I was having a debate about this with a friend, and we couldn't come to an agreement.
I don't think it's a true Isekai, but it is borderline or at least possesses Isekai elements.

What do you all think?

I would say yes, it is. It's got the hallmarks of the genre: an overpowered protagonist, said protagonist gets transported to a different/alternate world involuntarily, said protagonist handily destroys some of the most powerful non-Gods in existence, etc.

Go into a Chronicles of Narnia fan forum and tell them it's an isekai. Then duck and cover.

That's horrible, yet so incredibly morbidly tempting that I won't be able to get it out of my head.

[Dikatis]

Strictly speaking, "isekai" only means "another world". So being transported to another world not like your own is by definition one.

As for whether it conforms to the typical tropes of the most common modern isekai series, I guess? Person from another world is transported to another one to save it from its ongoing crisis and proceeds to make it better along the way. This isn't an inherently bad thing. It's just that the isekai genre has become so saturated with cookie-cutter plots and trashy tropes that the credibility of the trope has sort of been dragged through the mud.

[Lubu_Mykono]

The whole game is an isekai mate.

[Neoyoshi]

Go into a Chronicles of Narnia fan forum and tell them it's an isekai. Then duck and cover.

That would make my whole afternoon right there.

[Naoki34]

I was having a debate about this with a friend, and we couldn't come to an agreement.
I don't think it's a true Isekai, but it is borderline or at least possesses Isekai elements.

What do you all think?

According to the definition of Isekai, probably.

Although some would say that other worlds exist in the universe as the two worlds exist in an isekai.

Isekai literally means "other world", so yes. The first reflection is another world.

No need to argue for 300 years...


Personally, I don't care about classifications as long as it is coherent and gives me an adventure.

[Rangiswimming]

It's Magic Knight Rayearth an isekai?

The Source and the reflections are different worlds, and although they all came from the same source, they have developed into different things. It's not somewhere you can actually go at will, you either have to break the laws of time and space (G'raha), or get "called" to it (even if it's botched).
The only one who "could" hop from world to world are Aliens, and the OG beings... but even those had body restrictions.

Ergo the First and other shard are different worlds from the Source. Therefore, it's an isekai.

[SentioftheHoukai]

I don't recall getting hit by a truck.

Mayhaps not, but you surely got hit by the mack truck of all headaches. ;3

[TaleraRistain]

I don't recall getting hit by a truck.

I was thinking the same thing "Wait, did I miss Truck-kun?"

To the OP, I think it could qualify because isekai can involve parallel worlds and doesn't always involve someone being fully reborn or inhabiting a person there, though those isekai are a bit rarer. But I read one recently called "As You Wish, Prince" where an author was pulled fully physically into her own work and we were pulled over to the First in a similar manner.

[NekoMataMata]

Go into a Chronicles of Narnia fan forum and tell them it's an isekai. Then duck and cover.

I was waiting for this.

[Axxion]

I don't recall getting hit by a truck.

https://imgur.com/a/PMcjNbC

there you go and sound on