The COVID Context
It all began during the COVID period.
Successive restrictions created an artificial isolation that many people deeply felt. Even simple everyday actions became complicated. Like many others, I started looking for ways to escape—forms of entertainment capable of lightening the weight of that unusual time.
I am not a heavy television consumer. Yet during that period, I watched more than usual. One conviction, however, remained unchanged: entertainment should bring something meaningful, never leave a feeling of emptiness.
Searching for Uplifting Entertainment
I do not seek entertainment to feel demoralized.
When a story builds enthusiasm only to end in gratuitous sadness, it feels like emotional manipulation without purpose. Sadness, when it offers neither meaning nor perspective, is not constructive.
I was looking for stories that could provide momentum—stories that let the mind travel without weighing it down. This search gradually distanced me from overly serious films, omnipresent dramas, and deliberately bleak narratives, and brought me closer—without my realizing it yet—to a genre I would soon discover: the light novel.
Discovering Japanese Animation
Almost by chance, I turned to Japanese animation. Very quickly, this led me to fantasy and isekai.
There, I found stories in which the protagonist moves forward, learns, sometimes fails—but always progresses. Series such as Re:Zero, Mushoku Tensei, and Overlord left a strong impression on me through their ability to blend adventure, personal growth, humor, and deeper questions, without ever losing sight of narrative enjoyment.
That precise combination—progression, immersion, and emotion—captivated me.
From Light Novels to Writing
After consuming these works, the next step came naturally: light novels. I found stories there that were more detailed, more nuanced, and sometimes far richer than their animated adaptations. I read many of them, discovered new worlds, new voices.
Gradually, however, my search began to lose momentum.
I found fewer and fewer stories capable of captivating me to the same degree. Some lacked coherence, others depth, and still others felt recycled, without a clear narrative intention.
After several weeks without finding anything that truly made me want to continue, a simple idea emerged:
What if I wrote the story I would have wanted to read myself?
That is how the ISEKAI: The Otherworlder’s Heir saga was born.
An adventure where every trial becomes an opportunity for growth, and where the other world serves as a mirror to our own quests—legacy, responsibility, identity, and self-transcendence.
And you—what drives you to seek stories that lift you up rather than pull you down?