Kara Dennison
August 31, 2024 
No Longer Allowed in Another World is taking a swing at isekai while paying tribute to one of the greats of Japanese literature. Billing itself as an “anti-isekai,” it examines the tropes with which we’ve grown familiar. And in the process, it has a lot to say about the genre. Here are just a few ways this season’s new series puts its genre under the microscope.
Truck-kun
It’s certainly not the first time this isekai trope has been called out, and it won’t be the last. But No Longer Allowed in Another World actually puts some mechanics behind this familiar vehicle. As we all know, it’s common for heroes reincarnated into another world to be hit by trucks. But according to this series, it’s not just coincidence: it’s deliberate!
“Truck-kun,” it’s explained, is actually a “delivery service.” When people from our world are at the lowest point in their lives, this bad boy delivers them to the alternate fantasy world of the series. Once there, their awesome-dream life as an overpowered hero can begin. But, as we see in this series, that’s not exactly a great system.
Low-Powered, But Not No-Powered
Isekai heroes tend to fall into one of two camps. Either they come in with some overpowered skill, or they start with something deceptively useless. But in No Longer Allowed in Another World, Sensei comes in with basically nothing. He’s got one hit point, no mana, and is constantly poisoned. The last of these means that anyone trying to drain his life force will also get poisoned. But that feels more like a bug than a feature.
When given a chance to choose a skill, Sensei refuses. He is, after all, an author. Why would he need another job? As it happens, though, that real-world training is all he needs. So what’s his actual special ability? We’ll let you watch and find out for yourself.
Are we the baddies?
The world of No Longer Allowed in Another World has a hero problem. Once the heroes transported from Japan defeated the Demon Lord, they took his place. See, there’s a problem with yanking sad, bullied people out of their real life and giving them god-tier powers: that’s not always conducive to heroism. Hurt people hurt people, after all. And now the nation is overrun with sad, angry, confused teens equipped with the ability to subjugate entire populations.
While there are the occasional outliers (like Sensei himself), it’s a salient point. In many isekai anime, we see our protagonists take dark turns once they’re powered up. But Sensei takes the time to investigate what these downturns actually depict. Are these heel turns valid? Or could these antiheroes potentially rewrite their own story?
Speaking of isekai, check out the first novelization of Disney Twisted-Wonderland!
