The number of isekai stories about protagonists turned into the hero in some game/book is staggering, but what if they were a side character instead?
The concept of being “transported” into the world of a storybook, video game, or novel the protagonist is reading has shockingly been done quite a lot in both anime and manga. And typically, the protagonist of the anime or manga is transported into the body of the main character to live out the story themselves.
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But, sometimes, there are series where there’s a twist, and the protagonist is instead dropped into their story or game of choice as some other background character, Sometimes it’s a villain, other times it’s a completely new character, and it can even be some inconsequential mob character. So, let’s take a look at some of the best stories in which this exact thing happens.
Updated July 23rd, 2023 by Jacob Buchalter: Even though it may seem like the most niche of niche sub-genres, there are actually quite a few stories that involve the protagonist ‘becoming’ some side character in another story. In fact, not only is there a good handful of these stories, but more new ones are coming out every few months. Whether this involves becoming the villain of a story, some background side character that nobody remembers, or even a brand-new character that nobody wants to talk to, it’s always interesting to see how these MCs figure out ways to avoid their character’s intended fate. With that in mind, let’s comb through the archives again and see if there are any other stories that deserve a spot on this ‘best of the best’ list.
10 Never Die Extra
Let’s start off with a bit of a twist on this niche sub-genre of stories with one called Never Die Extra. Now typically in these sorts of stories about someone reincarnating as a villain in some story or being transported to a video game world as some side character, they’re doing their best to avoid one specific path that leads to their doom (or a few at most). However, in Never Die Extra, the protagonist, Evan D. Sherden, is trying to avoid hundreds of different ‘bad ends’ all the time.
In his first life, Yeo Ban-min was obsessed with a game series called ‘Yo-Ma Great War’. But, he wasn’t just obsessed with the game, he was fervently dedicated to finding a way to keep Evan alive. Now that he’s actually living as Evan, Yeo has to sort of make these plans up on the fly to avoid all these death flags using his encyclopedic memory of information from when this was just a game. Overall, it’s a pretty cute story, though the stakes themselves are never quite as tense as the setup would make it seem.
9 The Greatest Estate Developer
The Greatest Estate Developer might just be one of the funniest comedy series out there, it has one of the more iconic art styles, and it escalates things to absurd levels more than almost anything else. Readers are constantly wondering how the author (who goes by BK_Moon) could possibly make things more ridiculous. As most of these stories do, the tale starts with a down-on-his-luck protagonist who falls asleep one day and suddenly wakes up as one of the characters in the piece of media they were reading/playing.
Suho Kim was an engineering student in his first life, and this time around he’s been put into the body of Lloyd Frontera, a drunken, awful, and all-around lazy noble who dies at the hands of the protagonist not long after. From here, Kim Suho (AKA Lloyd) has to do everything in his power to turn his life around and pull his family’s territory and debt up from the deepest depths. While that all may sound pretty typical and even a bit mundane, readers need to understand that Kim Suho is a bit of a lunatic, and will do anything if it at all gets him a bit closer to his ideal life of being rich and lazing around.
Just to name a few things he does in just the first big chunk of The Greatest Estate Developer to give readers a taste of the absurdity of this series, Lloyd Frontera builds heated floors for his entire territory, beats the guard captain within an inch of his life with a shovel, tricks the protagonist of the story into being dependant on Lloyd in order to even sleep, and summons a mouse-like creature that can eat sunflower seeds to grow to the size of a large building. And to top it all off, the facial expressions these characters make (Lloyd in particular) are so hilariously over-the-top yet it doesn’t take away from the story overall.
8 The S-Classes That I Raised
Next up is a bit of a loophole inclusion, as it doesn’t really involve someone being ‘transported’ into the body of the side character in some story, but rather it takes a character who feels like he’s a side character in his own life and sends him back to the past of his world to fix his past mistakes. Han Yoojin was a leech to society, he was an F-Class Hunter while his brother was an S-Class one, he constantly caused trouble by pushing himself into dungeons far above his abilities, and his own real power was being able to use double the abilities (for a short duration) of someone who he cared about that recently died.
So, when his brother saves him from an S-Rank Dragon in a D-Rank Dungeon but dies in the process, Han Yoojin uses double his brother’s abilities to slay the dragon and use the Wish Stone rewarded to him to turn back time. This time around, he’ll use his new abilities to nurture those around him, improve his relationship with his brother, and generally improve the lives of everyone he meets.
7 My Next Life As A Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom
Moving on to by far the most popular version of this concept, especially for newcomers to the medium, it’s My Next Life as a Villainess. This part isekai, part comedy, and part romance wild ride is a great example of someone being transported to their game of choice, but not as the lead. However, in this case, the MC isn’t some unremarkable side character, she’s the main villain.
Katarina Claes is the villainess of Fortune Lover, an otome game based all around a magical high school and the drama within. Now, as the main female lead, it’s not like Katarina starts off with any real advantage, she’s at a magic academy yet she’s awful at magic, which fans of things like Jobless Reincarnation might be surprised by. But her biggest hurdle is the fact that her character dies at the end of the game, it’s up to the `new` Katarina to stumble her way out of all these bad endings.
6 I’m The Villainess, So I’m Taming The Final Boss
Moving on to a rare case of two anime having almost the exact same story setup, here’s I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming The Final Boss. This concept is so incredibly similar to My Next Life As The Villainess in terms of structure that they might as well be from the same author. Suddenly the main female villain of an otome game regains her memories of being a girl in Japan who was isekai’d into this game (which is now just her reality) and has to do everything in her power to avoid dying at the game’s ending.
That said, outside of this nearly identical foundational concept, the two anime are pretty different in every other category. For one, the story is centered on the tumultuous relationship between Demonkind and Humanity. Two, Aileen is a much more competent protagonist compared to Katarina (for better or worse). And three, there’s only one route to Aileen’s doom at the hands of Jeanne Claude Elmir as opposed to Katarina’s numerous death flags, so her goals are much more simplified.
5 Trapped In A Dating Sim: The World Of Otome Games Is Tough For Mobs
Yet another `trapped in a romance game` story here, yet this one is pretty different in terms of its setup. Instead of a female lead being trapped in a game with all the male romance-path characters, it’s the exact opposite.
Not only that, but in the setting of this shockingly well-realized otome game, women are the absolute ruling class and men are treated similarly to trophies or objects. The concept itself is interesting enough if not a bit of an on-the-nose role reversal. But, it’s the protagonist’s absolutely masterful use of his game knowledge and overall intelligence that keeps the audience interested. It’s not a show that’s worthy of being up there with some of the all-time isekai greats, but it’s still very entertaining.
4 The Crow’s Prince
The Crow’s Prince is next up, and it’s a decent example of both an isekai where the main character is reincarnated as something non-human (which is becoming quite the popular concept) and also one where they’re brought into a game as a completely ‘new’ character. A young Korean zookeeper who adores animals is excitedly cleaning the cage of a panther one day when she’s attacked and killed. Suddenly, she’s awake again, but this time in the body of a crow in some fantasy story.
After some misadventures, the crow stumbles upon an injured prince named Karmeut who names her Reinelle. Not long after this, Reinelle remembers that this prince is a character in a romance mobile game she used to play, and he’s one of the romantic options for the main heroine. From here, Reinelle slowly but surely carves out a life for herself at Karmeut’s side after eating a magic stone that allows her to switch between her crow form and a human form, all the while worrying about what will happen to her when the main heroine does inevitably appear. It’s a great story with a lot of twists from the standard setup, and it has a lot of enjoyable romance aspects as well.
3 My Death Flags Show No Sign Of Ending
Here’s another story where the protagonist suddenly wakes up in the body of one of the villains, but this time the game of choice is an RPG rather than a romance game or a fantasy novel. Suddenly the MC finds himself in the body of Harold Stokes right during one of the most tragic early-game events where Harold orders the execution of one of his maids (over a small mistake). Very quickly, this `reincarnated` Harold has to figure out what’s going on and how to save this maid from an undeserved death without that decision feeling too ‘out of left field’ for his character.
The only problem with this plan is that everything he wants to say gets auto-translated into the way Harold, the villain that he was designed to be, would phrase it before it even leaves his mouth. More often than not is, this means that he calls people names and insults their intelligence when all he wanted to do was say something completely normal. My Death Flags Show No Sign of Ending is quite a unique example of this type of story for many reasons, but this whole `filter through Harold’s verbiage` aspect of it is especially innovative, at least for a while.
2 The Novel’s Extra
The Novel’s Extra is another Korean webtoon example, and it’s probably the most faithful example of a story where the protagonist becomes a background character. Instead of becoming the main villain or even a random side character, the MC of this story is transported into his own novel as someone even less than a side character.
Kim Hajin wasn’t an actual character in the author’s novel, The Returned Hero, but is a whole new character created by this mysterious `second author` so that the transported protagonist can impact the events of this superhuman world full of heroes, monsters, and villains. Now, the author has to progress through his own story while it’s being modified in all types of ways by some outside force in the hopes of making it to the end of the story and getting himself back home. Along the way, he’ll need to involve himself in the events of the story, as the more of an impact he makes on the main cast of his story, the more resources he has to level himself up.
1 The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated In Another World As An Aristocrat
There have been a lot of webtoon or manga examples on here, but luckily this next one has both a great manga and fantastic anime they can enjoy as well. The World’s Finest Assassin Reincarnated In Another World is yet another reincarnation isekai story, but one with quite a unique setup where the protagonist actually ‘chooses’ to become some background character in a very Eminence in Shadow sort of way. Just a fair warning ahead of time, this one is pretty dark, and it’s got a lot of fanservice.
Basically, the world’s best assassin on Earth is finally killed when he retires, betrayed by his own organization. And, instead of going to some boring afterlife, this assassin is asked by the Goddess of another world to help save the world she governs over. As it turns out, the Hero who fights the Demon King in her world then ends up destroying the world not long after. So, the Goddess has brought the assassin here to offer him a deal, get reincarnated in a new world, and live all over again, with the only requirement being that he’ll have to assassinate the Hero once he turns 18. And the assassin, reveling in his second chance to do what he loves and experience a better life, takes her up on this offer in an instant.
Fuente: successacademy.edu.vn
Categorías: Anime
