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    Exploring Isekai: Mapping Worlds through Anime, Manga, and Light Novels

    Exploring Isekai by Ashbaugh, William B.; Mizushima, Shintaro;

    Mapping Worlds through Anime, Manga, and Light Novels

    Series: Global East Asian Screen Cultures;

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      • Publisher's listprice GBP 85.00
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        38 377 Ft (36 550 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 20% (cc. 7 675 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 30 702 Ft (29 240 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount is valid until: 30 June 2026

    38 377 Ft

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    Availability

    Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
    Not in stock at Prospero.

    Why don't you give exact delivery time?

    Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.

    Product details:

    • Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
    • Date of Publication 5 March 2026

    • ISBN 9781350465565
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages328 pages
    • Size 236x162x28 mm
    • Weight 880 g
    • Language
    • Illustrations 40 bw illus
    • 684

    Categories

    Long description:

    "

    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.

    "

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    Table of Contents:

    "

    List of Illustrations
    Acknowledgments
    Notes on the Use of Japanese Language

    Part One: Isekai in Historic Perspective
    1. The First Anime Isekai: Aura Battler Dunbine's Origins and Cold War Fears - Shintaro Mizushima and William B. Ashbaugh
    2. Isekai Enactment in Millennial Japan: Mediating Violence in Now and Then, Here and There - Brett Hack
    3.Worlds Beyond, Selves Within: Mythopoeic Metamorphosis in Select Isekai Anime - Ananya Saha

    Part Two: Understanding Isekai
    4. Exploring Isekai: The Window into Another World - Michael Cserkits
    5. Alice in Borderland and Beyond: Examining Existential Crises through an Isekai Manga - Alayna L. Vander Veer
    6. Open for Otherworldly Business: Work, Life, and Fantasy in Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement - Zach Long
    7. Intersecting Media: Game Systems as Narrative Tools in Kumo desu ga, nani ka? - Giovanni Tagliamonte
    8. The Social Significance of Isekai: A New Narrative Type in the Age of Fiction? - Jessy Escande

    Part Three: How Fiction Influences Reality
    9. Sokushinbutsu and Isekai in Takahashi Rumiko's Inuyasha - Jon Morris
    10. Creation of a New Transcendent: Religious Affordance in Overlord and My Next Life as a Villainess - Barbara Greene
    11. ""Now Go, and Don't Look Back"": Spirited Away, Anime on the Global Stage, and Extratextual Isekai - Zoe Crombie

    Part Four: Gender Perspectives on Isekai
    12. Queering Isekai: The Executioner and Her Way of Life - Travis Nishii
    13. Power, Transhumanism, and Gender Differences in Preference for Isekai Anime - Stephen Reysen, Thomas R. Brooks, Courtney N. Plante, Sharon E. Roberts, Kathleen C. Gerbasi, Rhea Joshi, and Cole Rehbein
    14. Control, Autonomy, and Slavery in Isekai - Yaochong Yang and Matthew Valenzuela

    Contributor Biographies
    General Index
    Index of Non-Japanese Novels and Fiction Authors
    Index of Anime/Manga/Light Novels

    "

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