With the upcoming Winter 2023 anime season, fans will have the second season of BOFURI: I Don’t Want To Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense and the return of Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? (even if it is debatable if this anime technically is isekai or not), with the second cour of its fourth season to look forward to.
Aside from those two, Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire ♀, Endo And Kobayashi Live! The Latest On Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte — which comes to join what seems to be the dawn of otome isekai era —, The Reincarnation Of The Strongest Exorcist In Another World, and Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill, are series to look forward to. And what do they all have in common?
The Trend Of Long Titles In Isekai
Whether you are a casual fan of anime or a die-hard one, it is impossible not to have noticed the ongoing trend of absurdly long titles in the midst of the isekai anime series that have been “invading” the market. While not as often as manga, light novels regularly get anime adaptations, and the number of adapted light novels has increased and proven very successful over the years. There were several new anime series based on light novels in 2022, and the length of their titles also increased.
The Winter 2023 anime season also counts on several isekai anime series with long titles, and the aforementioned anime series have that in common — all of them are based off light novels. That brings to mind that Sword Art Online was also based off light novels, and the same happens with Overlord. Both have short and impactful titles that do not explain something important in the plot, as is the case with many absurdly long isekai titles.
It is curious to notice that Reincarnated As A Sword is also based off light novels, its name is not insanely long, but it does explain a main point in the story — its main character is, well, reincarnated as a sword. The original light novel series that gave birth to this adaptation, though, is also known as I Was A Sword When I Reincarnated, I Became The Sword By Transmigrating, or simply TenKen (転剣) – short for the name of the light novel series in Japanese, (転生したら剣でした Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita). The alternative names are also explanative, while the short name is something that helps fans talk about their favorite series with long titles without having to actually mention them entirely.
While long titles are not only relegated to light novels in Japan, with Japanese books and films also tending to be long in general, light novels are notorious for the outlandish premises they lay out in their titles. Also, long titles are not only restricted to Japan either. There are countries in which books, films etc. have long subtitles, and the public refers to them by their titles only. Japanese people use acronyms or shorten the names of the works instead, like KonoSuba, DanMachi, or TenKen, as well as My Next Life As A Villainess — which seems long, but is the short version of My Next Life as a Villainess All Routes Lead to Doom!.
Both Sword Art Online and Overlord are not recent titles, with the first of these light novel series starting in 2009, and the latter, in 2012. Reincarnated As A Sword might be an exception to the absurdly long titles, but it is explanative. However, even Sword Art Online fell into the “trap” of long titles, and Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online has the longest of the light novels’ titles released in 2016. According to the Ranobe Mori database, the series of light novels with the longest title is I’m A High School Boy And A Successful Novel Author, But I’m Being Strangled By A Female Classmate Who’s A Voice Actress And Is Younger Than Me. The length of their titles has been increasing over the years. Most isekai titles nowadays have absurdly long titles AND they are explanative. And why is that?
Not all of the recent isekai anime series have such long titles, but a lot do. The otome isekai subgenre got both Romantic Killer and I’m The Villainess, So I’m Taming The Final Boss added to the bunch in 2022. However, the trend has been maintained with a high number of isekai anime series with long titles than the opposite. Though it is not restricted to isekai light novels, since they, according to research, have the longest titles, with an average length of almost 40 characters, it is obvious that the “trend of absurdly long titles” would be easily connected to the isekai genre.
Verdict
Long, explanative, almost a synopsis — and usually full of quotation and exclamation marks! Some say the reason for the increase in the length of light novel titles, and the use of !!! and ???, is due to their clickbait nature. An answer by Kakeru Takamine, the author of the light novel How To Melt The Ice Queen’s Heart, to the question — “Why do you think there are so many light novel series with extremely long titles?” points out the answer is really something along those lines, especially if we consider that this clickbait nature is not really something negative in the midst of an industry with so many titles being released at once, and they must find a way to stand out:
This background is a long story to explain. Many Japanese readers now want the title alone to explain the entire novel. They use the title to decide whether to buy a novel or not, which is why a detailed explanation is required. Inevitably, there will be many long titles. I didn’t like that, so I made mine a short one.
It is funny to notice that, by old standards, How To Melt The Ice Queen’s Heart would be considered a long title in itself, but, when compared to the recent titles that work as a synopsis, it is indeed “very short” — “only” 27 characters!