Lately I’ve been thinking about Bender’s Game, one of the sorta movies that makes up season 5 of Futurama. [Update: so Futurama is one of those annoying stations where different placed number the seasons differently, I said season 5 based on Wikipedia but on Hulu they are season 6.]
It can be described as an Isekai, but not just in the way that the Pylea arc of Angle can be. By using a Game, Dungeons and Dragons, as one of its main jumping off points, by being a parody set in what can be thought as a very generic Fantasy setting. It truly is the only work of western media I can think of that’s almost like modern Isekai Anime.
It draws on the iconography of DnD and Lord of The Rings the same way all these modern Isekai draw on Dragon Quest and Record of Lodoss War.
I find that fascinating since it’s from 2008, five years before this kind of Anime really starts becoming a thing.
Maybe it says something about me that I always even back then kind of enjoyed this the most of the 4 movies while others I suspect found it the least interesting, a filler arc comparatively. And now I’m a Weeb who is one of modern Isekai’s apologists.
I’m writing this without having yet rewatched it. I haven’t watched the whole thing since before I got full time into Anime around the same time this modern Isekai trend was taking off. I am concerned I won’t like it as much now in the context of how some of my tastes have changed and how a lot of what these “adult” cartoons were doing in the 00s hasn’t aged well. I kind of wanted to document my thoughts here before a rewatch changes them.
And I do also want to comment on something unrelated to the Isekai comparison. The Titanious Anglesmith persona.
When this personality takes over Bender while they are still in the regular Futurama setting he seems very different in personality from Bender. The Comedy for long time Futurama viewers is Bender not acting like himself. But once they are in the fantasy world Titanious now is just Bender in a fantasy world and that becomes the joke.
I could see someone else drawing attention to this making a criticism out of it, “why isn’t Titanious written consistently” DING. But Futurama is first and foremost a comedy and so this contrast is probably intentional and not an oversight, it is itself part of the joke. But given how Futurama does go for more than just comedy, I sometimes wonder if there is something philosophical in this choice?
Since I titled this post with my humorous guess at what a long LN style title for Bender's Game would be. I'll end with what Google Translates says that would be in Japanese.
ある配送チームが、故障した酒浸りで口の悪いロボットの想像力によって生み出された、別世界へと転送されてしまう。
Aru haisō chīmu ga, koshō shita sakebitari de kuchi no warui robotto no sōzō-ryoku ni yotte umidasa reta, bessekai e to tensō sa rete shimau.
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