Fluffy Paradise is Escapist Drivel and the Worst Show I've Ever Seen.
Life is terrible. Wouldn’t it be better to just die? Wouldn’t it be even better to die and then be transported to another world. A world that is more interesting and fulfilling, that is tailored to your every want and need.
This is the premise of the Isekai genre, the current greatest trend within the anime industry. For years now, each season brings with it countless Isekai shows1. Each one more trite than the last.
This can be seen as a substitute for religion for anime fans. At the end of the day, whether you are an overworked office worker, or a depressed NEET, what is waiting for you upon death is a world of excitement and intrigue. It is the functional equivalent of a promised Heaven directed towards anime fans. It is pure escapism.
Fluffy Paradise is the most egregious example of escapism and wish fulfillment within an Isekai I have ever seen. It begins with its main character, an office worker who is overworked to the point of death (a common archetype within these stories). She promptly meets God who sends her to fulfill a great task in another world, granting her one special ability. This ability is to have animals love her. She is then born into an aristocratic family as a baby. Her family is perfect and everyone loves her.
The show then follows the formula of her coming across an issue and immediately solving it with her cuteness. On paper her ability is only to court the love of animals, but she seems to have bewitched the humans in the show as well. She befriends the Tiger of the young, charming prince who immediately takes a liking to her and treats her like a little sister. When she is being bullied by another noble, the prince appears and saves her, where she then in his arms visits her sister’s magic exam (she is extremely skilled, of course). The first episode ends with the summoning of a powerful dragon, and much to everyone’s shock she jumps in front of the dragon and exclaims “don’t hurt him!”
There is no conflict within the story. Everything goes exactly right for her. Animals and human alike all adore her. Her family is rich, powerful, and perfect and she has the support of the Prince. She has the special power to tame great beasts. The episode is formulaic as every issue that arises is immediately solved due to one of the few contrivances the writer uses. There are no stakes within the story, as she has died and gone to Heaven and now everything is alright.
I had a visceral reaction of disgust upon watching Fluffy Paradise. My immediate thought was of Plato’s allegory of the cave2 and his opinions on harmful art. In the cave where you are shown shadows on the wall which you believe to be the real thing. It is a dream within a dream, the image of an image in anime. There is not a hint of reality in the show, it’s a delusion of a life and world after death where nothing bad ever happens and everyone loves you. It ignore any actual existence. This is the future of entertainment. As we plunge further into hell in our real world, our entertainment reflects that there is nothing of value within life, so all we can do is fantasize that perhaps after death we can be reincarnated into a world of worth.
While there are hundreds of terrible Isekai shows, Fluffy Paradise stood out to me because of its production quality and the complete lack of substance. While Isekai shows typically are escapist, they usually have some form of conflict and reality in them. It’s not a bad looking show, but all of this work was wasted on this escapist drivel. If there is such thing as harmful art, this is it.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/genre/62/Isekai
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/seyer/files/plato_republic_514b-518d_allegory-of-the-cave.pdf