This Common Anime Word was Officially Added to the Oxford English Dictionary

01.04.2024 - 16:15 / gamerant.com / Jack Jaegar

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the most widely accepted authority on the English language, and is updated quarterly with revised meanings and new words as our language continues to evolve. Sometimes these words are entirely new creations, and sometimes they are words from other languages that have been adopted for common use in English. This past quarter, 23 new Japanese words were officially added to the OED, showing how much of an impact Japanese culture has even outside of Japan.

One of these new words in particular is of major interest to otaku, because it is a word that was created entirely for anime, manga, and light novels — «isekai.» These days, it is impossible to be an otaku without knowing the word isekai, considering it is one of the most popular genres for new works. But now, the word has also been officially added to the OED, making it not just a Japanese word that otaku throw around, but an addition to the English language itself, thanks to the influence it has had around the world in recent years.

The word isekai is written in Japanese as 異世界, and can be translated as «different world,» «other world,» or «another world.» For a story to be in the isekai genre, the main character has to be transported from our world into another world (usually a fantasy one), where they must learn to survive, typically without any hope of returning to our world. Usually, the protagonist has to fight to survive, and common tropes in the genre are that they are either extremely powerful in their new world, or extremely weak. Isekai as a concept started long ago in Japanese folklore, particularly in the story of Urashima Tarou, a fisherman who is transported to a magical undersea world after saving a turtle.

Isekai has been around for a while now in the anime world, and started to really gain popularity in the 2010s, but has now been brought to the forefront by the recent success of Studio Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron. The movie tells the story of a boy who is pulled into a magical world through a tower, and he has to figure out how to get back to his home. While many otaku may first think of popular titles like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime or Konosuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World, it is likely thanks to movies like The Boy and the Heron and Spirited Away that isekai as a genre has been introduced to the wider world. Keep in mind that both of those movies by Studio Ghibli won Academy Awards.

With The Boy and the Heron's best picture win creating a stir in the world of both anime and Western cinema, isekai has moved from something only anime fans know about to something that other people are learning about, too. The genre has existed for many years in international media,