It’s like capitalism has gotten so bad in Asia that it’s profitable to make shows about depressed salarymen/hikkikomori dying and reincarnating in a happy fun exciting world where they are a badass super god/goddess that gets all the women easily.
It’s like capitalism has gotten so bad in Asia that it’s profitable to make shows about depressed salarymen/hikkikomori dying and reincarnating in a happy fun exciting world where they are a badass super god/goddess that gets all the women easily.
Honestly I think it has more to do with the Syosetu the platform and its genre classification system that inadvertently setoff this unholy chain reaction with a positive feedback loop. More readers click on the high fantasy section due to a few popular titles in the beginning, more writers write high fantasy because there’s more readership, etc. until the whole platform is dominated by that one genre. It sets off a chain reaction as publishers heavily recruit from the platform, anime adaptations happen from LN, etc. until it dominated the sphere.
Power fantasy itself being popular has as much to do with the daily webserial format that is popular in Asia for pulp fiction imo. You see the same trend of the main character not being subject to hardship for extended amount of chapters in Chinese web serials as well, and Chinese people have a positive outlook on society, future, and the economy comparatively speaking. It is harder to keep the readership engaged throughout shorter daily chapters so every chapter has to be overloaded with positivity instead of taking a few weeks to set up the payoff.