The Isekai genre stats I found surprised me a lot

I was looking at MyAnimeList data last night and saw that over 60 percent of isekai shows from the last 5 years have a rating below 7.0. That made me realize a lot of these shows are just not that good, but people still watch them because they are popular. Why do we keep giving these average shows a pass when there are better hidden gems out there?

2 comments

2 Comments

markc8424d ago

yeah but here's the thing that gets me... how many of those 60 percent are still getting sequels or spin-offs anyway? like isn't the real problem that we keep rewarding mediocrity with more seasons? i've seen shows with a 6.5 rating get a second season announcement before something like "Girls' Last Tour" which was actually creative... doesn't the data show we're just training studios to pump out low effort stuff because it still makes money? what would actually have to happen for people to stop watching these shows?

the_sean23d ago

Hang on man, I gotta push back on this. A show with a 6.5 rating getting a season 2 isn't always "mediocrity being rewarded." Sometimes those shows just hit a specific audience hard, the kind of audience that buys merch and actually watches live. Ratings from sites like MAL are just a tiny slice of the pie, they don't tell you about international streaming numbers or how many people actually shell out for Blu-rays. You're acting like "Girls' Last Tour" was some hidden gem nobody watched, but the data might show it just didn't pull the numbers to justify the production cost. And the idea that we're "training" studios to make low effort stuff? That's a bit dramatic. Studios chase money, sure, but a lot of those 6.5 rated shows get sequels because someone at the production committee did the math and figured it would still turn a profit. If you want people to stop watching, you'd have to change the entire streaming model and how anime is funded in Japan, not just complain about low scores.