![]() “So many of those generic light novels you see about a guy buying slaves and making a harem depict the guy being kind to his slaves or refusing to exploit them. My sister’s eyes widened and she tilted her head. “Erm? I’d think of him as a weirdo, I guess?” “Now then, my sister, what would you think?” When you ask him why he did that, he gives a vague response like, ‘I didn’t feel good.’ “But then that average guy helps you out. You committed a crime and you have to pay back the people who are now bullying you. People bully you and make you do their errands. “Now imagine you’re the black sheep in the class. “Okay,” said my sister, closing her eyes and thinking of someone. Think of the average guy in your class who has no standout features.” My sister was unconvinced, so I went into a more detailed explanation. ![]() That’s the part of slave light novels that we’re not supposed to talk about openly, I thought, but I gave her a straight answer anyway. “Why’d she fall for that guy?” she asked bluntly. My sister pointed to the part where the protagonist treats the heroine like family and she falls in love with him, all according to the template. Sometimes, she asked me about things that caught her attention. My sister was a casual light novel reader, but because she had no money she got into this website. There were a bunch of crappy stories where almost every sentence seemed lifted from somewhere else, but there were some hidden gems among the rough. This sort of lazy, by-the-numbers storytelling was dime a dozen on Narou. It was one of those novels that were jam packed with my least favourite tropes. “I Formed the Strongest Party Out of My Slave Harem in the Other World.” My little sister Misa showed me a trending novel on the popular novel sharing website Shousetsuka ni Narou. So I’ve been reading this light novel lately…” I Tried Thinking About the Common Isekai Slave Circumstances Realistically I thought it was interesting so I reached out to the author ε-(´∀` ) and obtained their permission to translate it. It’s an essay/short story that explores the topic. ![]() I stumbled upon a story called よくある異世界奴隷事情を現実的に考えてみた (“I Tried Thinking About the Common Isekai Slave Circumstances Realistically”). And thanks to America’s fraught history with chattel slavery and persisting political issues regarding how that history is taught and remembered, isekai slavery is a more controversial topic there.Īs a result of all the recent chatter, I became curious about why slavery became such a trend on Narou in the first place. What was once a curious oddity within the light novel subculture has gotten much more visible now. Why is slavery such a common plot device in isekai web novels? It’s something I’ve touched upon in earlier blog posts and Twitter threads, but it’s only become a big question within the last year or so, thanks to The Rising of the Shield Hero‘s general popularity with the Western anime community. “I, a betrayed S-rank adventurer, will make a harem guild entirely from my beloved slaves”
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