#isekai000

Remember when people thought "isekai" meant that a story used videogame elements? Like experience points and UI, like Sword Art Online? That's not what "isekai" means. That was just a trending trope within the isekai genre, after SAO popularized it.

"Isekai" just means "another world", as in the protagonist travels to another world. Usually from our modern human world to some completely different universe or time. Peter Pan, Alice In Wonderland, The Wizard Of Oz, and A Yankee In King Arthur's Court are all isekai genre.

Isekai does not require videogame elements, just because SAO made that popular. It does not require "Truck-kun". It does not require death to travel to the other world. It does not require a Harem. Those are just more recent, popular trends.

Isekai used to be primarily a Shoujo Genre. The protagonists were female and didn't die to get to another world. The other world didn't work by videogame elements, and it wasn't always a Medieval European world, like Lord Of The Rings or Dungeon & Dragons. The biggest Isekai series used to be Vision Of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi, Magic Knight Rayearth, and later, Inuyasha. In manga, big Isekai were also Shojo titles, like Red River and From Far Away.

(Non Shoujo isekai at the time of those bigger Shojo tittles' heyday, were more niche: El Hazard, Those Who Hunt Elves, etc.)

Isekai just means traveling to another world. Some elements were made popular by some big titles, like SAO. But please, let's remember the difference between popular trending tropes, and the actual meaning of words and the genre.

Witch Hat Atelier centers around a protagonist who was born and raised in her fantasy world. Her soul wasn't even originally from our modern human world, then reincarnated into the fantasy world. She is just 100% from her fantasy world. There is no isekai in Witch Hat Atelier.