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Shonen

Isekai

異世界・なろう系
Beginnings2012BandShonenKey works7
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What this genre is

The reborn-in-another-world boom came out of web-novel sites and exploded once it was drawn as manga. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and Re:Zero mark the moment web-born work became an industry.

Shonen — about this band: What the weekly boys' magazines built: effort, friendship, victory — and the dark fantasy that came after.

Connections

Three kinds of line: direct evolution, influence, and born in reaction against.

Flowed into this

Key works

📖
Tower of God (2010)
SIU / LINE Manga

A boy climbing a tower to have his wish granted. A worldwide hit Korean webtoon, and the work that spread vertical scrolling globally.

📖
Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World (2014)
長月達平・原作 / Monthly Comic Alive and others

Subaru struggles in a hopeless other world armed with return by death, which rewinds time whenever he dies. One of the defining works to come out of the web-novel sites.

📖
Overlord (2014)
丸山くがね・原作 / Comp Ace

A man left behind in a game world as a skeletal overlord, and his conquest. The standard-bearer of the too-strong-protagonist other-world story.

📖
The Rising of the Shield Hero (2014)
アネコユサギ・原作 / Monthly Comic Flapper

A hero given nothing but a shield he cannot attack with, betrayed, and taking his revenge. The work that lit the exile-and-revenge branch of web novels.

📖
Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (2014)
理不尽な孫の手・原作 / Monthly Comic Flapper

A recluse restarts life in another world from infancy. A reincarnation chronicle often called the monument of the web-novel form.

📖
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (2015)
川上泰樹・伏瀬 / Monthly Shonen Sirius

An office worker stabbed by a stranger is reborn as a slime. The biggest hit among the web-novel adaptations.

📖
KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! (2015)
暁なつめ・原作 / Monthly Dragon Age

Other-world comedy with a set of useless goddesses. The standard slack comedy parodying the web-novel genre itself.

Shonen — walk the band

Genres in the same band, in order of year. You are at the highlighted one.

  1. 1950 Monthly Boys' Magazines
  2. 1959 Weekly Shonen Magazines
  3. 1965 Yokai & Horror
  4. 1966 Sports & Guts
  5. 1978 Shonen Rom-Com
  6. 1984 Jump Golden Age
  7. 2003 Mind Games
  8. 2009 Dark Fantasy
  9. 2012 Isekaiyou are here

All genres

About this entry

Genre boundaries are drawn where the network of manga happens to concentrate, not by decree. Years are approximate. Where opinions differ, this page says so rather than picking a winner.