I yearn for isekai that isn't power fantasies mixed with imperialism, let be a multi coalition power of friendship deal that saves the day.
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but SAO:Alicization actually sort of did that, with a driving theme of "the artificial human souls in this simulated world are still ultimately human and deserve their own liberation and safety, while the imperialist warmongers fucking with them to make automated weapons are ontologically evil". It even made the point that the "evil" races of the world were also still literally just people who were being forced into a role they didn't want and in fact actively rebelled against.
It's just that it's still SAO and has more of the other kind of SA than ever before too. But on the other hand it does have Kirito depowered and/or in a coma for like 95% of it.
It's not good by any measure, but it's the least bad that mainline SAO ever was. It's an enjoyable hate-watch that somehow ends up with sort of ok major themes to it.
Too bad i have no fucking clue how it relates to the original sword art online or it might have been interesting 
You're kinda selling it to me ngl, I been watching some other slop that my standards are getting low enough I'll prob give it a look or at least read some synopsis to see how the pacing is
It's fun if you've got a high tolerance for gross bullshit and can enjoy laughing at the show. SAO is weird because in its later arcs it's like the author is earnestly trying to not be awful, but he still fundamentally doesn't understand technology, video games, people, or cause and effect, so it ends up in this weird space where it can be wildly problematic but then have better themes than most anime and center its female characters as the ones with agency who are driving all of the plot, while still being an absolutely nonsensical story that hinges on plot points that fundamentally just do not make sense or work at all.
What about the isekai doctor manga where it's just a doctor teaching people medicine and the only people who have a problem with it are human supremacists who wish to monopolize (flawed, not omnipotent) healing magic to do imperialism on others
Try the OG isekai - Aura Battler Dunbine. It's a Yoshiyuki Tomino joint, so there's imperialism and a spiraling arms race but the author is trying to tell folks that's a bad thing.
Edit:
let be a multi coalition power of friendship deal that saves the day
Lord of the Rings without the questionable bits lol
Digimon
There are 47 comments if this is another Freiren thread istg I'm putting you all on time out
It's about Venezuela idk if that's better or worst than Freiren debates.
No no it's pretty close to a struggle about I Was Kidnapped And Taken To The Demon King's Castle And Now I Can't Get A Good Night's Sleep
i was level 100 and challenged the demon lord to a duel but everybody laughed at me and refused to take me seriously because i had no social capital and then i died a second time when i drank poisoned tea
I Spent Six Years in Wizard College To Learn Magic, But There Aren't Any Wizarding Jobs, So Now I'm Trapped In Eternal Dept And I Flip Burgers at Burger King
that first one is kind of the plot of frieren
I mean not really, the plot goes to some lengths to point out all kinds of background heroes did alot of the heavy lifting tackling the bulk of the demon army
In fact there are hints that the disillusionment over the lack of recognition for these acts may be behind a certain character's motivation to commit homicidal actions against mages
Tbf don’t the games usually have you going through henchmen and henchwomen before reaching final boss?
In the story telling of the big baddie games you implicitly (and explicitly) wrecking the (demon) society while getting good at game, i assume same is true of gamer anime
In games you have to kill all the demon generals before you get to fight the big bad! Each one unlocks a new region.
But don’t the isekais follow that plot structure, broadly speaking? Leveling up by killing demon generals or whatever? And not go immediately after big baddie
Depends on the show tbh. I see a lot where they only go after the generals because they have no idea where the demon king actually is.
The idea that decapitation strikes don't work because of systemic forces has been totally disproved by Maduro.
Removing Maduro didn't do anything beyond appeasing the egos of American politicians. He was open to a lot of the stuff the current government is doing, but the US wouldn't negotiate with him at all.
I don't think Maduro would be deporting people he received in prisoner exchanges with the US back to the US like the current gov is doing.
Not true, the kidnapping of Maduro also made a bunch of online armchair leftists immediately abandon dialectical materialist thinking in favour of an entirely vibes based approach where they read every western statement about Venezuela completely uncritically and get mad that Venezuela isn't fighting the US down to every man, woman and child in the country.
"If you're openly taking meetings with the CIA where you plan to help them with clandestine ops and handing over Maduro's cabinet members to the US in return for nothing, then you may be collaborating with the US" is not a"Vibes based approach" and if it is then I'll take my "Vibes" over your "Actually collaborating with the US is good" based approach.
Why are you even a communist if you think every setback and issue a communist country has is proof of the US's undying might? Seriously, why are you even here if you clearly think the US is eternal and undefeatable and every communist movement so fragile that any assault on them is just proof of their revolutionary movement collapsing? Communism clearly doesn't work in your worldview, so why the fuck are you even here?
I'm literally the person arguing that you can and should resist the hegemon and acquiescence isn't inevitable.
Do you read posts before you respond, or do you just go off your inherent belief that you're the one true communist?
And how do you even square your belief that you're the one true communist with your seeming belief that actually revisionism isn't worth criticising?
All oil revenues go through a US controlled fund in Qatar, US writes checks and disburses oil money to Venezuela.
Venezuela released thousands of "political prisoners" aka comprador Gusano violent right-wingers and they deported Alex Saab back to the USA, who Maduro's government negotiated to bring back to Venezuela
The government has begun instituting neoliberal policies and working with US government and US capitalists
Oil has been redirected, Venezuela no longer attempts to send anything to Cuba but instead sends it to the USA where it even has been seen to be immediately redirected to Israel
This isn't vibes. You are projecting. We are the ones describing materialist things.
Was Maduro proposing letting the US set up a CIA "partnership" with Venezuela?
Perhaps "do execution strikes work" is the wrong question compared to "in which situations and by which metrics do execution strikes work"....... Hmmmm, yes, quite.......
If there are circumstances under which decapitation strikes work, and those circumstances are capable of being set up by the Trump white house, then decapitation strikes cannot be dismissed as unworkable because of systemic factors.
I don't think "do decapitation strikes work" was ever the right angle to approach it. The conditions in Venezuela took time to work to the point where a decap worked. That process happened slowly, the decap happened suddenly. A materialist approach would be to analyze how venezuela got to this point, where a country like Iran was so much more resilient.
In other words, decapitation strikes work. We cannot dismiss them as a useless gesture. Because you can set them up, and they can accomplish the goals you wish.
decapitation strikes work
Decapitation strikes can work.
They work on weak states with fundamental flaws, yes.
They clearly do not work on strong states.
I believe that to be an incorrect framing. The issue is not the strength of the state. Decapitation strikes have most famously failed against relatively weakly organised states. ISIS was not a very well organised system with robust infrastructure, biweekly assassination of their leadership did not change much in that regard. If not having a strong state was what mattered, then ISIS would have collapsed as soon as Baghdadi died, and all the various successor organisations would likewise have collapsed rather than now running Syria.
What matters is the incentive structures and the motivations of potential successors.
Removing Lincoln (Even if his assassination could not really be called a decapitation strike, he is nevertheless instructive) changed the trajectory of reconstruction and therefore American history, it did so not because the US was a particularly weak state, but because of who was put in charge and who was removed.
Venezuela has flaws, but it has a strong socialist tradition and believers in the Bolivaran revolution in various positions of local government. It has systems that were deliberately set up to act independently of a potential reactionary government. The idea that Venezuela is uniquely unable to withstand the US is just not a premise I accept. The leadership is choosing to go along with an American agenda. It may either be doing so because leaders of the government don't really believe in the socialist project, it may be doing so out of fear of more kidnappings or other American reprisals. I can't read thoughts.
Edit: Changed the wording to make it clear that you I don't think you are incorrect on a factual basis, I just disagree.
It's the same issue as we've seen in the past no? The revolutionaries at the time of the revolution are hardcore and would literally die for the cause but the following waves post-revolution are not fully committed on that level. When they're faced with a situation where their life is at stake they capitulate.
Iran hasn't crumbled to this because the religion has created subsequent generations of leadership that are still just as fully committed and willing to die for it.
Socialist states are failing to properly pass on that commitment. They failed in the soviet union, they failed in several african projects, they've failed in venezuela. They almost failed in China too, if it had been anyone other than Xi in charge we could have seen less drive for anti-corruption and a liberalisation of the country. Fortunately Xi is a true believer.
Venezuelan socialists will have to find those who have that true belief and decide whether they can be pushed through the existing system or whether they need to do something drastic.
If socialism fails unless our leadership forever consist of true believers, then I fear for our future. But yes, we have a problem with passing on a revolutionary fervor. I would think the hope is that we can build incentive structures that result in everyone having motivation to continue building socialism. But on that I have no answers.
And as harsh as I am being on Rodriguez, I do not believe we can confidently say that Venezuelan socialism is yet a totally failed project (And if what you meant is that Venezuela has only failed in passing on the revolutionary fervor, I would say that there does seem to be some people committed to the cause, it just doesn't seem to me to be their head of state). I can only say that removing Maduro has greatly been to the US' benefit.
Decapitation strikes work, when they can tip the balance in struggle between two or more relatively equal factions, and fail, when one faction is absolutely dominant.
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