Exploring Isekai: Mapping Worlds through Anime, Manga, and Light Novels (Global East Asian Screen Cultures) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1350465569 ISBN 13: 9781350465565

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2026

Synopsis

Exploring Isekai offers the first comprehensive study of isekai in anime, manga and light novels in which characters from the “real world” are transported, summoned, reincarnated or trapped in fantastical realms.

Challenging the misconception that isekai is mere escapism, the volume brings together an international group of contributors to consider how the genre reflects contemporary anxieties, desires and social structures through game-like world-building, moral frameworks and recurring underdog heroes. Examining classics like Spirited Away (2001) alongside globally popular series such as That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (2013–25) and Overlord (2015–), the volume traces the thematic and aesthetic evolution of isekai, revealing how these narratives reimagine identity, labour and belonging in an increasingly digital and transnational world.

About this title

About the Author

Shintaro Mizushima is Associate Professor of International Studies and English Communication in the College of Letters at Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He is the author and illustrator of Manga de wakaru danseigaku [Learn men’s studies through manga] (2016).

William B. Ashbaugh is Professor of History at SUNY Oneonta, USA. He teaches East Asian history, World War II, anime and manga history, and US foreign relations. He also serves on the editorial board of Mechademia: Second Arc, the leading journal of East Asian popular culture.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350465569
• ISBN 13: 9781350465565
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: Ashbaugh William B., Mizushima Shintaro