@@astrothewolfman I blame it SAO's popularity (its cool if you like the show but hear me out) older isekai were about either normal people who had relatable problems in the real world sent to another world where they go on a journey of self discovery or in some case a normal person being sent to a world by circumstance and the show focuses entirely on world building and the story/themes. Either way you had Normal people as vessels for the audience. There was no pandering to one specific group like today with its Shut In Male Otaku pandering. Older Isekai could be war stories, romances, sci fi, or some combination of those and more. Nowadys its just generic MMO world with no real exploration of the world or characters.
I hope a distributor like Discotek Media can release Leda in the U.S. on blu ray as I discovered it a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it. The only downside was that there was never an official follow-up to it in any shape or form. Perhaps that can change someday with a potential remake, who knows, 🤷♂️.
Interesting how anime of this kind was made seemingly out of wanting to appeal to the Alice in Wonderland fan crowd, and basically transformed into appealing to the otaku crowd. I wonder how much enthusiasm there’s left for the Alice in Wonderland approach.
I have always been a fan of Isekai or Portal anime since first seeing shows like Digimon and Inuyasha and I couldn't agree with this review more. Older Isekai didn't even always have to have a female lead digimon was a group of boys and girls and shows like Kiba had two male characters. Shows like Inuyasha even had the protagonist not go home in the end but only after admitting that she was in love and wanted to be with him. At the risk of coming off like an elitist, I prefer the older style of isekai because the protagonist where for the most part your average john and janes not shut in Otakus.
In 1986, Wolf Team released Valis: The Fantasm Soldier, which might as well have been "We wanted to make a Leda video game but couldn't get the rights". As a retro games fan, it's interesting to see the OVA that directly inspired the Valis game series.
I though that was pretty neat about Leda too. Heck, if a proper Valis reboot came out in the future, I'd like it to acknowledge Leda by having a Shiro Sagisu-esque score.
I'm glad you mentioned Valis because when the game got a NES/Famicom port, they made a 3 minute anime promo and you're not going to believe who directed that NES anime promo: Hideaki Anno (yes, the same Anno who founded Studio Gainax, and the creator of Evangelion), and Katsuhiko Nishijima (director of Projact A-Ko, and Agent Aika OVA). You can find the promo on RU-vid and it's subtitled too.
I was going to write that Valis was made by Telenet japan, not the wolfteam then i checked to be sure and... oh oups, my bad, they are part of Telenet. So i must thank you for making me search. What's funny is that wolfteam works with Mitsumi Inomata who draws for Leda in the game Arcus Odyssey. And i would love Valis to be Leda...
What actual proof is there that Leda actually, or"directly", inspired Valis? You said it "might as well have been" an unlicensed Leda game, then in the next sentence you say it "directly inspired" it. Those are mutually exclusive phrases. Either it "might have (but not really, nor ever was)" a Leda related/influenced thing, OR it definitely, directly inspired/was meant to be a tie-in to Leda. What is known about Valis is that it was based on an unfinished novel by one of the developers.
@@garaschneider4808 The first Valis game was first released over a year after Leda's debut. It's conceivable that Leda had an influence on the game in some form, be it character design, setting, plot, or even as validation for the developers. Unless confirmed by the developers in an interview or evidence is found in design documentation, Leda's influence on Valis is a question of if, and if so how much.
Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko, I like to call it "Japan's Neverending Story"....really hope we get the blu ray release at some point here in the west
9:26 OMFG!!! I spent DECADES trying to remember the name of that anime I saw when I was little; it was practically driving me nuts since no one else seemed to know if its existence. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ACKNOWLEDGING IT!!! Looking forward for when you talk about it!
One of my favorite OVA's! It's simple and sweet and a lot of fun with a superb mood and vibe. I listen to the ending theme often. Thanks for giving it such a thorough review. It seems like a lot of people don't pay it much attention. They probably should have made more of them and turned it into a real franchise. I just found it looking for 80s OVA's some years back, and it is right up my alley. It makes me think of the Valis series of video games.
Thanks for doing these reviews. I really appreciate the look at these shows that isn't couched in some click-baity fake rage like a lot of anime review channels. It's some good stuff and you cover such a wide variety of neat shows!
Fantastic video! Saw Leda a few months back and loved it, how it uses the escapism of the isekai genre not to really escape but to remove the protagonist from current issues to gain perspective. And not failing to mention Escaflowne (gotta rewatch that show!) and Rayearth both! (I know of Rayearth but havent gotten into it yet it looks glorious and cute and im sold on the premise). Love ya man you just know exactly how to give flow to your videos i was both entertained and learned all that was relevant on the subject.
Mushoku Tensei is the best of the modern isekai shows. Besides the fact that it created a "style" of isekai, it was also the first to gain a huge audience as a web novel, which in turn spurred on the success of RE:Zero and a lot of the other big franchises that also emerged out of that web novel community. I don't think anyone with a working brain would say it is the actual first isekai show.
I appreciate your work so much. It's so cool how you shine the light on anime history and on these kinds of retro titles that I immediately want to check out. Your channel greatly inspired my current interest in older anime and I wanted to say thank you for that. Keep it up ♥️
Amaizing you said it, now i think about it, in the first wave of isekai, the characters were characters, they have problems, and virtus, they were human beings, these new way of isekais are power fantasies, and you put everithing, in Leda in such simple words, i love it. Also PD, i prefer Yoko with ledas armour design, something from the 80, that any modern Raftalia or boring harems. I mean come on, even an anime were i think they will use politics and economics to save the world, it endsd in the tipical boring isekai, Leda is miles away, miles from the boring isekai
Plawres sanshiro was one of my favorite childhood anime. I remember watching it when it was dubbed into Arabic in the early 90s. It is probably one of the most 80's looking and sounding anime out there. The soundtrack is really catchy 👌
I try to watch some of these anime before watching your videos on them, and in this case I'm glad I did. It was a simple and fun OVA with some really cool designs. Leda is the kind of anime we would've loved to watch in my anime club in college.
I like Isekai animes and mangas (depending on my tastes and impressions on them) as I am a fan of fantasy, though I have watched animes from the past that I had no idea would become the Isekai genre. I have seen these 90s Isekai animes before all this Isekai craze: Magic Knight Rayearth, Vision of Escaflowne and El Hazard. I'm having a Renaissance of looking into 90s animes to see which ones I've missed and see what I'll like. So this shows me this is an 80s Isekai story, plus fanservice? Now this looks interesting. We got to have a Renaissance of 80s and 90s animes.
KB... This is Channel's content is right up there with guys like Ben the Sage I really hope you blow up some day in the near future I'm broke 😥 so here's a Like and a Sub
The usage of music and modern technology makes everything even the more interesting. This is already much better than the modern isekai (I just wish she was an adult woman instead 🤷🏾♂️).
I really hope that Discotek Media will release this on Bluray. They've been on a role with all their releases. A lot of them being Central Park media releases. Looking forward to their Twitch announcement stream Monday March 8th.
Does inuyasha technically count too? It’s the past instead of another world, but it’s full of magic and supernatural beings. That’s one of my favorites too. It’s so comfy and imaginative
I heard of it, because was attach or heard due to its similarities with the videogame, isekai also, warrior girl yoko or the warrior girl valis, dream warrior valis, and when i watch leda i could see the similarities, from the sword and armour
Leda wasn't even the first 'isekai' from the 80s: There were plenty other 80s isekai around Leda's time such as "Tobira o Akete" & Dunbine, allegedly the first 'isekai', created the legendary Yoshiyuki Tomino. That aside, I seriously would love to see isekai go back to basics and rekindle the sense of wonder in it's worldbuilding & the intimacy of it's character development like in Escaflowne.
Hopefully Discotek or whoever picks this up. Since were on the topic of Isekai, some of my favorites of the genre are Digimon, Rayearth, Sword Art online, My Next Life as a Villainess, and Konosuba.
Isekai took over from cyberpunk as the dominant form of anime because the Japanese economy has been tanked ever since the crash at the end of the 1980s. Kidults with no job and no girlfriend watching anime as escapism to a world where they actually have work opportunities and sexual relationships like grown adults.
People clown on Fushigi Yuugi for its melodrama and how it hasn't aged well, but at least Miaka was a character and not a blank slate. Also, it's interesting how most 90s isekai with real characters had female protagonists (El Hazard's Makoto is the only exception I can think of and he was part of a group) while the otaku-bait isekai have male protagonists. I wouldn't mind a male-focused isekai with a hero like Miaka or Hikaru.
I had a VHS copy of 'Leda' when I was a teenager, but I only watched it a handful of times thanks to the terrible dub. Apparently I had one of those Hong Kong-dubbed copies and couldn't get past the bad voice acting and sound quality, even though I remember enjoying the animation and story quite a bit. I figured it had just fallen into anime obscurity over the past few decades, so it's nice to see it had something of a small revival.
Definitely sounds interesting and I did enjoy Rayearth, Fushigi Yuugi, and Escaflowne. That said, I also thought a lot of SAO was great and that the Kirito X Asuna romance was compelling.
Well, I plan on doing a video on that one of these days. I guess what I can say is that it's great, but near-impossible to work up the courage to re-watch.
Isn't the fact the that this modern wave of Isekai being particularly aimed to cater at the Otaku/Losers skyrocketing high from the early 2010's to present-day, kind prove that there are more Otaku/Losers than before in the prior 40 or so years during the older waves? Japan doesn't necessarily _(Infact never)_ caters to anyone outside of it's country, whatever is in demand, there will be a supply. So the fact that there's more demand in terms of Japan's market for this type of Isekai, what does that tell you? Not trying to make this a social commentary on Japan's social status on a whole, but given the crap that's been happening in American media for the past 6 to 8 years, roughly starting around 2016 with the massive rise in Feminism, and Neo-Feminist produced projects, along with now more common _"social attacks"_ such as more and more exaggerated slander and misleading information on Anime & Manga as a medium, shit is hitting the fan hard. What I'm trying to say is, yeah modern Isekai is pretty tiring, even I'm tired of it, but it's currently the only form of media that indirectly combating America's Tier 5 Feminist issue since Anime & Manga are outselling American made media such a Socially or Politically injected comics, and or TV shows. As much as I dislike or don't care for this current wave of Isekai, it is technically helping us. Would I like to see this previous waves eventually come back, yes, Inuyasha was technically an Isekai, and it was one of my favorites. But I don't want anime to subliminally mislead or misinterpret people into backing up their agenda, Anime is suppose to be for entertainment. But every time I say that, people always wanna say otherwise that it'll influence inappropriate behavior, and there's where U.S. modern politics keep wanting to invade.
Where did you get the clips for this, is this streaming anywhere? It looks like blu ray quality, I would like to watch this but they are going for hefty prices.
Love this classic. Such a beautiful and innocent anime design, like being a child again. But I digress, you must review Legend of the Overfiend next. Ha ha ha ha!
I'm really not sure how I feel about you coincidentally having a negative part of your script about Iseskai over footage of Rising Of The Shield Hero which is great well-written generally insightful and uniquely handled with relatable and interesting characters and unique ideas, and having the positive part of your script about Iseskai over Re:Zero, one of the absolute worst anime series with some of the most disgustingly atrocious story writing and quite possibly the single worst protagonist since Shinji Ikari of any series made in the last 20 years. It's like watching someone narrating about the flaws and pitfalls of anime while Azumanga Daioh, Slayers and Dragon Ball on screen, and when discussing how impactful anime is as an art form while Mars Of Destruction, M.D Geist and Boku No Pico are on screen. In that i''m willing to bet you didn't intend it, but god it's surreal at best and a horrifying yikes-inducing coincidence at worst.
Personal taste is a thing; objective quality isn't. No matter how we try to defend them; someone else is going to see the stories we treasure as absolute garbage, and there is nothing we can do about that except learn to accept it.
Man, dont put log horizon on the same level as that trash SAO and other generic Isekai fluff log horizon is so much better than that trash. It also doesnt even fit the power fantasy thing, as its focus is almost entirely on society building and working out the reasoning and systems of the world they find thenselves in, finding out how to make it all work; The protag being good at strategy, planning and cordination, not just overpowering things (even when he does an absolutely broken thing its by finding a way to use and twist the rules of the world they find thenselves in to achieve his goal) Hell, the protagonist, Shiroe, doesnt even fit the blank slate descriptor. ... just a bit tired of seeing people shove that show into the generic Isekai grouping when it does have a lot more to it beyond the generic look.
isekai - giving the click bait "activist disguised as journalist" material to rage over for the last decade. However the reality is some are good and some are bad. Don't like it don't watch it. The End. Also Shield Hero bashing.....dull surprise. Shield Hero is a good show and breaks many of the tropes stated above.
i know you're an oldhead and stuff but beating up on the dead horse of anitube that is isekai just to introduce this show wasn't very cool, especially when you say it's just a cynical low effort low artistic value trend. not cash money bro. i recommend you to watch pause and select's videos on the isekai phenomenon, extremely interesting and insightful.
@@KhayJayArt Everything is trash; from a certain point of view. Just ask people who hate anime what they think of isekai; they'll look at you like you're crazy for suggesting that anything in the medium might not be complete dreck by comparison.
