なぜ現代人は異世界転生に心惹かれるのか【進化心理学】

Why are the settings for isekai (otherworld reincarnation) stories invariably medieval Europe-style, with swords and magic? Not a galaxy filled with spaceships, nor a futuristic world of towering skyscrapers, but always cobblestone streets, horse-drawn carriages, and lantern-lit taverns. There are no painkillers, and when the sun sets, the world is plunged into darkness. Logically, it's a very inconvenient world, yet we're somehow captivated by it. Hundreds of thousands of isekai stories have piled up on "Shosetsuka ni Narou" (a Japanese online novel platform), and over 200 have been adapted into anime. This enthusiasm is the same across the ocean in America, where the percentage of anime viewers has roughly doubled in the last five years. Why do so many people deliberately leave this convenient modern world to yearn for the dreaded illusion of the inconvenient Middle Ages? The answer lies not in dragons, magic, or the gleam of a hero's sword. In that world, simply defeating a single monster directly translates accumulated effort into tangible results. There's always at least one role that only you can fulfill. If you bake bread, the customer in front of you smiles and says it's delicious. If you look closely, what we truly envy isn't swords or magic, but rather some of the "taken-for-granted" things that once existed in this reality, but somehow slipped through society's fingers. Imagine a flock of birds, swept away by a storm to a remote island, where one bird happens to have a strangely shaped beak. That oddly shaped beak, useless on its home continent, becomes the only weapon capable of cracking hard fruit on this island. No special power was born. The value of the same trait simply skyrocketed due to a slight change in environment. The protagonist of this alternate world didn't suddenly become amazing. Perhaps it's simply that the vast modern society that kept us confined to "ordinary individuals" has completely disappeared. But is that "perfect world where effort is always rewarded," so longed for, truly a gentle place? A world where all success is proof of ability is also a place where all failures are met with the unspoken message, "It's entirely your own fault." That's why other worlds are best left as something beyond the realm of fiction. You can always return to them by closing the book. This time, I've explored the question of "Why do modern people seek 'reincarnation into another world'?" from the perspectives of evolutionary psychology and labor sociology. ---------------------------- ▼Timestamps 00:00 - Prologue: Nostalgia for Cobblestone Streets 02:07 - Chapter 1: The Escaped Convict of the Starting Town 05:49 - Chapter 2: The Magic of Karma 09:06 - Chapter 3: The Deformed Beak that Bloomed on the Isolated Island 14:47 - Chapter 4: The Fossil of the Hole in the Heart 17:55 - Epilogue: Welcome to a Fuzzy World ---------------------------- ▼References and Data Sources [1] Number of works published and adapted into anime on "Shosetsuka ni Narou" (Hundreds of thousands of submitted works set in other worlds have accumulated, and there are over 200 works that have been adapted into anime. Overview based on the site and various summaries) [2] Trends in the proportion of anime viewers in the United States (The percentage of people who watch anime is projected to roughly double, from approximately 10% in 2020 to approximately 22% in 2025. Based on various global viewing surveys. *This is the "percentage of people who watch anime," not "viewership rating.") [3] Price, P. (2021). "A Survey of the Story Elements of Isekai Manga." Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, 2. (Analysis of 746 Isekai manga series. Approximately 80% of the works feature protagonists whose bodies are physically transformed through reincarnation or transmigration, and approximately 41% of the protagonists are adult males.) [4] Ryan, R. M., Rigby, C. S., & Przybylski, A. (2006). "The Motivational Pull of Video Games: A Self-Determination Theory Approach." Motivation and Emotion, 30, 344–360. (Analysis of online game players n=730 = Study 4. The greatest contributor to enjoyment is "autonomy" (β=0.49), approximately twice as important as "competence" (β=0.24). Relationships (β=0.12). (Self-determination theory) [5] Siegrist, J. (1996). "Adverse Health Effects of High-Effort/Low-Reward Conditions." Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1(1), 27–41. (Effort-reward imbalance model. If the rewards, recognition, and status received do not match the effort invested, mental and physical health will be impaired.) [6] Marx, K. Alienated labor in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (the concept of "alienation" where workers are separated from the results of their labor, the process of labor, others, and themselves) [7] Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon & Schuster. / Soffia, M., Wood, A. J., & Burchell, B. (2022). "Alienation Is Not 'Bullshit': An Empirical Critique of Graeber's Theory of BS Jobs."...