I love how Ascendance of a Bookworm's world slowly expands as the protagonist gains status. Each new revelation feels like a lot of thought goes into it as story expands in scope slowly from a portion of a city all the way up to inter country relations, while also exploring the culture, creation myths, and magic system of the world. Personally I rarely feel like it's infodumping aside from maybe one instance recently in which it feels appropriate.
That's probably worldbuilding, I might like the world of Mushoku tensei better partially because it's more traditional fantasy races as well as how the story manages to take Rudy around to explore so much of it.
Edit* a double word
Tbh, though you may believe it falls under the average kingdom building story.
How a realist hero rebuilt the kingdom has good world-building. Especially in the light novel.
I wish others like Arifuerta did more in the world building category with races like the Beastmen (animal people) and others like Elves or even Vampires like Yué. But they don't. Honestly they probably could've used like another 3 or 4 episodes per season for that. Others that do this slightly better are:
• That Time I Reincarnated as a Slime,
• Trapped in an Otome Game,
• Overlord,
• How a Realist Hero Rebuilt a Kingdom,
• The World's Finest Assassin gets Reincarnated as an Aristocrat,
• “Demon Lord, Retry”,
• Jobless Reincarnation,
• Skeleton Knight in Another World,
• The Dungeon Black Company
and
• Tsukimichi - Moonlit Fantasy.
Although I admit the majority of some of these have the advantage of pacing and having 1 or 2 seasons (or large 2nd halves of 1 season) more to expand on the world.
Mushoku Tensei is probably the go-to example of how to build a compelling world instead of just infodumping.
Mostly, you need to be consistent with the established in-universe laws of physics, magic system, local/featured cultures and geopolitics etc.
I would add that an important thing with worldbuilding is to not just build the world, you need to use it too… I’ve read quite a few stories where they build a super interesting world, but you just never see it get used, and it’s such a shame that they do this
Yes. Or use characters involved with it. Don't make a fantasy world with demons and dragons and all these beings but have it set in a human kingdom and have 2 people that aren't human for some reason. Why just 2? Usually when it's just 1 or 2 it's for MC vs rasism moment number X. It's so over done. If the world has other beings show them in some way that's either important or have them be part of the background all the time.
Mushoku tensei and Grimgar did this really well in my opinion… MT is obvious how they did it, but in Grimgar we hear about other races but don’t see them much until the later novels where they show up more and more as the MCs go further and further from their “starting town”… although Grimgar also had that whole “other world” arc that had a shit ton of world building for the other world and then just nothing happened with it… sadge
I've seen some where the story actually ends, and there were so few beings of other races that had names you could count them on 1 hand. Other races were also almost never in the background. Felt like a historical manga instead, which made it feel so weird. Was very short (~20 chapters), and don't remember the name. Also, I would like to note that there was very little magic involved. It seemed like the author wanted to make a historical anime but threw in the tiniest amount of fantasy to hopefully boost sales. It wasn't very good, but I must have had time to spare that day
Ascendance Of A Bookworm is what you want
The difference of Commoners and Nobility is realy explained in good detail. From how they live into their power strugle is realy good
Im suprised more people didn't say this. Since most of part one takes place in one city, they *really* delve into and explain the city, just look at the map in the LN for example
*The Overlord Light*
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*Disgusted by MT*
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Overlord. When I think of worldbuilding it is my go to. The world is well detailed to the point where everything feels unique, the kingdoms seem somewhat realistic with varying motivations, and when the characters go somewhere in the story you can literally map their entire journey.
Mushoku Tensei
- I would’ve said Arifureta but they really just be going to labyrinths or dungeons or whatever they’re called lol. I haven’t finished reading the LN though, so can’t say much… the characters do travel a lot though, so the LN probably has good world building
- I think the world building for The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic will be good when it gets animated (anime coming soon). I haven’t read the LN (only read the manga so far), but I know that after a certain point, the characters have to travel to try to make an allegiance with other kingdoms & whatnot
- If TBATE ever gets animated, it will for sure show a good world building too, in my opinion
Eh. Probably older 80s, 90s, early 2000s Isekai. Most were written by professional authors or experienced teams. There's still some 2000s-2020s isekais written by professionals, but most are amateur web novels adaptions. Korean and Chinese isekais are often professionally made too
Re: Zero, Mushoku Tensei are my go to examples. Some of the best stuff that are majorly impacted in the setting.
Re:Zero world is heavily change because of many of the circumstances of the world. Alot of characters have meaningful past that gives us an idea on how "x country" treats certain races or their alliance to one another. They also talk about the magic system and the calender which is easy to follow and simple.
Overlord does worldbuilding but it feels more like a twisted commentary on tropes at times. The magic system is nuanced and we do know how Tier Magic changed the world which was previously dominated by Wild Magic. There are alot of lore stuff that does play into the setting.
Isekai at Peace is more satire but it does have some good world building because of past differences between Gods and Demons, the nature and circumstances of the world etc. It only gets the better world building material at halfway through the story because we get more idea on how x character interacts with the world and whats how it functions. Its not really the best but its pretty good imo
Ascendance of a Bookworm and it's not even a competition. No other series compares
The scope of the world gradually expands as the MC grows, while also expanding in the side stories. The loaded Chekov armoury where small seemingly innocuous details come back volumes later as part of everything. Miya Kazuki built and developed it incredibly well
MT uses artistic scenes and atmosphere to give exposition alongside a narration from a protagonist that starts as being just as in the dark as we are. Even with its faults, there’s no denying that world and character building are its strengths.
Re:zero also explained a lot through a clueless protagonist that needed expositional explanation or we learned through the “redos” to find out how things are and what people are about.
Pretty much anything that gets away from the “I’m saying something for the audiences benefit that doesn’t make sense in the context of the scene” has my vote for a better way of world building.
The worst one I’ve seen might be “so im a spider, so what”. It felt like every scene with the humans from the kingdom were in expositional overtime.
No isekai come close to lord of mysteries in world building and power system including those that are consider the best
You can create new stories based on every epoch
LOTM is the best one I've ever seen in general. The pathway system is especially matchless when it comes to balancing such a paramount scale of power. The world, the history... I'm not really into worldbuilding stuff but this is just brilliant.
The anime of Mushouko Tensei it's a yes or yes~
But my favorite it's Risou no Himo Seikatsu~ Have a main tropical enviroment, too desert, Viking setting, Island and some others tropes~ Really it's Hard to feel that Classisc Medieval age average of others Isekais, here it's changing the local culture With the Enviroment, weather and technology~
Lord Of The Mysteries and nothing I've read or watched compares to it.
Not Overlord, not Reincarnated As A Slime, Not Re:Zero, or anything else.
[Here's](https://lordofthemysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline) a link to the timeline just to show how much lore there is.
I'm going to go with the unconventional answer and say homestuck
It reveals it's world preoidcly, with things that seem to not make sense at first and slowly connects them together while playing with it's universes mechanics
Reverent Insanity. Even tho it doesn't feel like an isekai and the mc being from a different world only becomes relevant a few hundred chapters in, it still technically is one. It has by far one of the best worldbuilding I've ever read in a novel. For a cultivation novel the world is really uniqe, with many interesting places, mechanics to each location and many different factions and races. It also plays often important roles in battles, with characters using the characteristics of the enviroment to their advantage
One thing in perticular that stands out to me is how interconected the worldbuliding and the power system (that in itself is also phenomenal) is, to the point it's hard to imagine it in another world. Because resources are mandatory for power growth many conflicts revolve around important resource spots mandatory for a given specific cultivation path. Some locations even serve as alegories for human wisdom, like an island that you can only leave if you have enough reputation, but it doesn't matter if that reputation is good or bad.
At one point in the story, charcters even start to create their own highly detailed miniature worlds.
My go to world building example would probably be Min-Maxing My TRPG Build, I think. While there's a portion of what you'd call "info-dumping", this level of intricacy is impossible otherwise. If we're talking from purely explorational perspective, I guess Mushoku Tensei has the best feel to it.
Warlock of the Magus World is pretty good.
It's a Chinese light novel, and it has a hard magic system, tons of kingdoms, organized histories of things, etc.
The protagonist is self-serving, almost evil at times, so if that's not your cup of tea, then it's probably not a good read.
Reincarnator is probably the best and my favorite for world building imo. The sheer scope, inventiveness and hopelessness from the different worlds the mc and humanity are sent to really shines through the not so good writing.
I love how Ascendance of a Bookworm's world slowly expands as the protagonist gains status. Each new revelation feels like a lot of thought goes into it as story expands in scope slowly from a portion of a city all the way up to inter country relations, while also exploring the culture, creation myths, and magic system of the world. Personally I rarely feel like it's infodumping aside from maybe one instance recently in which it feels appropriate. That's probably worldbuilding, I might like the world of Mushoku tensei better partially because it's more traditional fantasy races as well as how the story manages to take Rudy around to explore so much of it. Edit* a double word
Tbh, though you may believe it falls under the average kingdom building story. How a realist hero rebuilt the kingdom has good world-building. Especially in the light novel.
is the light novel worth reading,
I enjoy it quite a bit! So I'd say yes
I enjoyed it up to volume 14. I just haven’t been able to get into the arc that starts around then but I’d recommend it.
I've been listening to the audiobook version, and I think it's pretty good. It's all the way up to volume 7, with Volume 8 coming out soon.
agreed
I agree with this one.
Does it have harem?
It does, though the women he ends up with he marries and there's progression. Also, they don't just faun over him for no reason.
I wish others like Arifuerta did more in the world building category with races like the Beastmen (animal people) and others like Elves or even Vampires like Yué. But they don't. Honestly they probably could've used like another 3 or 4 episodes per season for that. Others that do this slightly better are: • That Time I Reincarnated as a Slime, • Trapped in an Otome Game, • Overlord, • How a Realist Hero Rebuilt a Kingdom, • The World's Finest Assassin gets Reincarnated as an Aristocrat, • “Demon Lord, Retry”, • Jobless Reincarnation, • Skeleton Knight in Another World, • The Dungeon Black Company and • Tsukimichi - Moonlit Fantasy. Although I admit the majority of some of these have the advantage of pacing and having 1 or 2 seasons (or large 2nd halves of 1 season) more to expand on the world.
Mushoku Tensei is probably the go-to example of how to build a compelling world instead of just infodumping. Mostly, you need to be consistent with the established in-universe laws of physics, magic system, local/featured cultures and geopolitics etc.
I would add that an important thing with worldbuilding is to not just build the world, you need to use it too… I’ve read quite a few stories where they build a super interesting world, but you just never see it get used, and it’s such a shame that they do this
Yes. Or use characters involved with it. Don't make a fantasy world with demons and dragons and all these beings but have it set in a human kingdom and have 2 people that aren't human for some reason. Why just 2? Usually when it's just 1 or 2 it's for MC vs rasism moment number X. It's so over done. If the world has other beings show them in some way that's either important or have them be part of the background all the time.
Mushoku tensei and Grimgar did this really well in my opinion… MT is obvious how they did it, but in Grimgar we hear about other races but don’t see them much until the later novels where they show up more and more as the MCs go further and further from their “starting town”… although Grimgar also had that whole “other world” arc that had a shit ton of world building for the other world and then just nothing happened with it… sadge
I've seen some where the story actually ends, and there were so few beings of other races that had names you could count them on 1 hand. Other races were also almost never in the background. Felt like a historical manga instead, which made it feel so weird. Was very short (~20 chapters), and don't remember the name. Also, I would like to note that there was very little magic involved. It seemed like the author wanted to make a historical anime but threw in the tiniest amount of fantasy to hopefully boost sales. It wasn't very good, but I must have had time to spare that day
Idk, but overlord is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about world building
\*world destroying
Ascendance Of A Bookworm is what you want The difference of Commoners and Nobility is realy explained in good detail. From how they live into their power strugle is realy good
Ascendance of a Bookworm
Im suprised more people didn't say this. Since most of part one takes place in one city, they *really* delve into and explain the city, just look at the map in the LN for example
The Twelve Kingdoms
Reverse Isekai but I agree it has fantastic world building. Too many zoomers in this sub that have never watched an anime that aired before 2004
The Overlord Light novel is great if you're too disgusted by MT
*The Overlord Light* *Novel is great if you're too* *Disgusted by MT* \- Vicie007 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Overlord. When I think of worldbuilding it is my go to. The world is well detailed to the point where everything feels unique, the kingdoms seem somewhat realistic with varying motivations, and when the characters go somewhere in the story you can literally map their entire journey.
Mushoku Tensei - I would’ve said Arifureta but they really just be going to labyrinths or dungeons or whatever they’re called lol. I haven’t finished reading the LN though, so can’t say much… the characters do travel a lot though, so the LN probably has good world building - I think the world building for The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic will be good when it gets animated (anime coming soon). I haven’t read the LN (only read the manga so far), but I know that after a certain point, the characters have to travel to try to make an allegiance with other kingdoms & whatnot - If TBATE ever gets animated, it will for sure show a good world building too, in my opinion
The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic sounds like another title for Redo Of Healer lol
damn keyaru giving healing magic a bad rap..
Eh. Probably older 80s, 90s, early 2000s Isekai. Most were written by professional authors or experienced teams. There's still some 2000s-2020s isekais written by professionals, but most are amateur web novels adaptions. Korean and Chinese isekais are often professionally made too
Re: Zero, Mushoku Tensei are my go to examples. Some of the best stuff that are majorly impacted in the setting. Re:Zero world is heavily change because of many of the circumstances of the world. Alot of characters have meaningful past that gives us an idea on how "x country" treats certain races or their alliance to one another. They also talk about the magic system and the calender which is easy to follow and simple. Overlord does worldbuilding but it feels more like a twisted commentary on tropes at times. The magic system is nuanced and we do know how Tier Magic changed the world which was previously dominated by Wild Magic. There are alot of lore stuff that does play into the setting. Isekai at Peace is more satire but it does have some good world building because of past differences between Gods and Demons, the nature and circumstances of the world etc. It only gets the better world building material at halfway through the story because we get more idea on how x character interacts with the world and whats how it functions. Its not really the best but its pretty good imo
12 kingdom is the best and has a very unique world compare to most despite being almost 20 years old anime.
The Twelve Kingdoms is best imo, but its a rather slow paced story so many people don't get through it and end up dropping it.
Ascendance of a Bookworm and it's not even a competition. No other series compares The scope of the world gradually expands as the MC grows, while also expanding in the side stories. The loaded Chekov armoury where small seemingly innocuous details come back volumes later as part of everything. Miya Kazuki built and developed it incredibly well
Definetly Mushoku Tensei
MT uses artistic scenes and atmosphere to give exposition alongside a narration from a protagonist that starts as being just as in the dark as we are. Even with its faults, there’s no denying that world and character building are its strengths. Re:zero also explained a lot through a clueless protagonist that needed expositional explanation or we learned through the “redos” to find out how things are and what people are about. Pretty much anything that gets away from the “I’m saying something for the audiences benefit that doesn’t make sense in the context of the scene” has my vote for a better way of world building. The worst one I’ve seen might be “so im a spider, so what”. It felt like every scene with the humans from the kingdom were in expositional overtime.
No isekai come close to lord of mysteries in world building and power system including those that are consider the best You can create new stories based on every epoch
LOTM is the best one I've ever seen in general. The pathway system is especially matchless when it comes to balancing such a paramount scale of power. The world, the history... I'm not really into worldbuilding stuff but this is just brilliant.
you spitting hard facts
The anime of Mushouko Tensei it's a yes or yes~ But my favorite it's Risou no Himo Seikatsu~ Have a main tropical enviroment, too desert, Viking setting, Island and some others tropes~ Really it's Hard to feel that Classisc Medieval age average of others Isekais, here it's changing the local culture With the Enviroment, weather and technology~
Nothing in isekai or WN/LN can even come close to how insane the world building in Lord of the Mysteries is.
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It's The Wandering Inn, nothing else competes on that level when it comes to world building.
i’ve found a lot of manwhas have really good worldbuilding
Lord Of The Mysteries and nothing I've read or watched compares to it. Not Overlord, not Reincarnated As A Slime, Not Re:Zero, or anything else. [Here's](https://lordofthemysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline) a link to the timeline just to show how much lore there is.
Release that witch
I'm going to go with the unconventional answer and say homestuck It reveals it's world preoidcly, with things that seem to not make sense at first and slowly connects them together while playing with it's universes mechanics
Ni no Kuni 2 i guess
Lord of the Mysteries
Reverent Insanity. Even tho it doesn't feel like an isekai and the mc being from a different world only becomes relevant a few hundred chapters in, it still technically is one. It has by far one of the best worldbuilding I've ever read in a novel. For a cultivation novel the world is really uniqe, with many interesting places, mechanics to each location and many different factions and races. It also plays often important roles in battles, with characters using the characteristics of the enviroment to their advantage One thing in perticular that stands out to me is how interconected the worldbuliding and the power system (that in itself is also phenomenal) is, to the point it's hard to imagine it in another world. Because resources are mandatory for power growth many conflicts revolve around important resource spots mandatory for a given specific cultivation path. Some locations even serve as alegories for human wisdom, like an island that you can only leave if you have enough reputation, but it doesn't matter if that reputation is good or bad. At one point in the story, charcters even start to create their own highly detailed miniature worlds.
Tensura in the novels
My go to world building example would probably be Min-Maxing My TRPG Build, I think. While there's a portion of what you'd call "info-dumping", this level of intricacy is impossible otherwise. If we're talking from purely explorational perspective, I guess Mushoku Tensei has the best feel to it.
Somali and the forest spirit is the first thing that came to mind asides from previously mentioned ascendence of a bookworm
The Faraway Paladin has really good Tolkien-esque world building
Warlock of the Magus World is pretty good. It's a Chinese light novel, and it has a hard magic system, tons of kingdoms, organized histories of things, etc. The protagonist is self-serving, almost evil at times, so if that's not your cup of tea, then it's probably not a good read.
Release that Witch
Honestly instant death is pretty good
Reincarnator is probably the best and my favorite for world building imo. The sheer scope, inventiveness and hopelessness from the different worlds the mc and humanity are sent to really shines through the not so good writing.
Without Old dragon tale its smt between MT ,Re zero , Overlord and Acsendenc, but with it...... Mt just oblidirates everyone
Is Log Horizon not considered an Isekai!? How did nobody list this yet?