Oz: The First Isekai

In 1900, L. Frank Baum began the American fairy tale with The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. The former salesman turned children's book author already had a few titles under his belt, including a sequel to Mother Goose, but when he collaborated with artist W.W. Denslow to create his own personal take on Alice In Wonderland, he wanted to have a story about a young girl leaving the mundane world and entering a true fantasy realm, not just a dream such as in the 1939 movie. Thus, the Oz books were the first genuine isekai, both its original incarnations and its follow-ups. Many of Baum’s novels that weren’t in the Oz series were eventually brought into the Oz continuity so characters like Santa Claus became part of ever-expanding cast, making Oz one of the world’s first shared fictional universes.

Baum was a feminist and had married the daughter of one America’s leading suffragists. He had four children that he dreamed up short stories for along with some of the neighboring kids while he was struggling to make sales in his curiosity shop out west. Aside from already having a short career as a playwright, Baum worked with Denslow to make an amazingly illustrated novel based on his ideas of an enchanted realm which was intended for the entertainment of younger readers. This led to an entire empire that Baum was the ringleader of including stage musicals and one of America’s first independent movie franchises which was focused on children's entertainment. He oddly made more money from the expanded Oz media he created than the actual novel. The underlying theme of having the main character in most stories be a female and interacting in a land of sorcery stood on its own as most other American young fiction was geared toward boys. After he passed away in 1919, the Oz books continued to be made by different authors and illustrators, including a boundless stream of adaptations and sequels which numerous creators have added their talent to.

The first animated adaptation was a short done in 1933 by Ted Eshbaugh that first opens in black and white then changes into color when Dorothy arrives in Oz, although the short didn’t get shown much in color at the time because Walt Disney on the copyright on the Technicolor film process and didn’t want the outside film to compete with his cartoons. Disney also wanted to acquire the rights to Wizard Of Oz to follow up their success with Snow White, but the film rights were instead sold to MGM who released their own live-action movie to compete with Disney.

MGM’s 1939 movie went through several directors before settling on Victor Flemming who did it just before he went on to direct Gone With The Wind for Selznick Pictures in the same year. This film also starts out in black and white until Dorothy gets to Oz and the entire film changes to color after they got the rights to Technicolor a year before it was released. The movie starring Judy Garland as Dorothy wasn’t a hit when it first came out and didn’t gain any real traction with the public until it was first re-released in 1949. It became an annual standard when NBC began broadcasting it in 1956, even though the initial showings were presented completely in black and white as color TV didn’t become common until a decade later.

The aftermath of the 1939 movie had ramifications that ran deep in the pop culture, so much so that numerous new adaptations, sequels, and spinoffs arose over the course of time based on the Oz books. Disney did their own live-action sequel in 1985 titled Return To Oz, plus a prequel in 2013, both of which are connected to the MGM movie. A popular stage musical titled The Wiz with an all-African American cast was made in the 70s along with its own film. There were several animated takes on Wizard Of Oz including a full-length feature by Filmation titled Journey Back To Oz, a Rankin-Bass TV series, a few TV specials and indie movies, a Saturday Morning cartoon, and various international productions including a Mexican film, as well as many from Russia inspired on their version of Oz written by Alexander Volkov.

Japan of course tried their own approach to Oz. Even though there are many ancient tales like that of Urashima Taro as an example of otherworldly travels, Oz remains prevalent as a source of the fantasy genre. There was a bizarre full-length Toho anime movie in 1982 directed by Gundam animator Fumihiko Takayama which was modeled much more after Baum’s original designs. Following this was a 52-episode TV series done in 1985 that covered four of the Oz novels which are even closer to Baum’s vision although slightly rewritten in its adaptation. Afterwards there was another TV anime that was a complete sci-fi remake titled The Wonderful Galaxy Of Oz from Enoki Films in 1992 where Dorothy leaves her home planet of New Kansas and gathers a group of friends to help her search for magic crystals. Each of these received an English release, some of which were in compilation movies only, but they all proved that Oz was a prime motivator for the anime industry.

The manga business also had a takes on Wizard Of Oz. One such manga was Captive Hearts Of Oz where Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man are handsome bishonen while Dorothy is on a predetermined path. Toto: The Wonderful Adventure was a standard fantasy adventure about the young lad Kakashi who adopts a dog named Toto who can turn into a big dragon and then teams up with Dorothy on her quest down the Yellow Brick Road. A Korean comic titled Dorothy Of Oz has a girl named Mara ending up in an alternative Oz where the Wicked Witches are mad scientists and Mara is referred to their legendary savior known as Dorothy. Some manga merely borrowed elements from the Oz books like Mar where a boy named Ginta is sent to the realm of Mar Heaven and befriends the teenage witch Dorothy who summons monsters based on Oz characters. At least two American productions claiming to be manga have been done of the first two Oz book, one by Antarctic Press and another by Seven Seas Entertainment.

The Oz books fall under the label of portal fantasy which in Japan is often referred to as isekai. On its own, The Wizard Of Oz separates itself from earlier fantasy publications like Alice In Wonderland as it features someone immersing themselves in on otherworld outside of their mundane lives and navigating their way through it. This became the basis for isekai in anime and manga which really began to spark back in the 1980s with the TV series Aura Battler Dunbine. In it, people from the regular world are sent to pilot magical giant robots in a parallel dimension where fairies and unicorns are common. Other titles in the 90s such as Magic Knight Rayearth, El-Hazard, Fushigi Yuugi, Digimon, and Escaflowne had young people getting sent to another world or even sometimes a different planet. Further anime that came out such as Inuyasha employed time travel as an isekai trope where someone travels to a point in the past where magic was something your average person could use. The tide shifted when it titles like .Hack and Sword Art Online where the main characters get stuck in a virtual reality and can’t unplug without dying in real life. The majority of what most anime fans recognize as isekai is where a normal human is either summoned to a magical world like Familiar Of Zero or die then get reincarnated in the fantasy of their dreams. These reincarnations can have them being reborn as their normal selves, sometimes with heightened abilities that excel their statis in their new life, while other times they might be reborn as a totally different creature like a slime monster or a large spider, as well as inanimate objects including swords and vending machines.

Many of these isekai have the main character going on a quest which might lead them back home. A good majority of them place the character as a hero where people automatically adore and respect them. Some of these protagonists are living out a power fantasy like getting their own harem, while other might be more grounded and just wanting to become a simple farmer that happens to be staffed by cute elves. One occurring theme is the main character plagued by a higher power in this fantasy world by being transformed into a different age or gender despite their new magical talents. Time loops also play a part in isekai where someone can be resurrected to some point in the past if they are killed along the way like in a video game. Studio Ghibli has made the biggest impact with only a few isekai movies like Spirited Away, The Cat Returns, and The Boy And The Heron.

Out of the four standard categories of isekai consisting of immersive, intrusion, liminal, and portal quest, the Oz books fall under many of these. By its very nature, the original Wizard Of Oz book is immersive as it features a girl trapped in another world. This also validates the book as a portal quest as Dorothy is constantly on a journey to go back home travelling from one part of the enchanted land to another, usually dealing with witches. The land of Oz itself is liminal with the real world as there is more than one way to access it, normally via natural disasters. As far as intrusion is concerned, Oz rarely tracks over into the civilized world we know aside from some of the more creative sequels and spinoffs.

There have been anime adaptations of other L. Frank Baum books such as The Life And Adventures Of Santa Claus but the Oz series has been the inspiration of a great amount of iseaki titles. Whether the other world is high fantasy, space opera, or just a computer simulation in a role-playing game, Oz will remain the foundation for many isekai yet to come, hopefully not being reincarnated as a yellow brick.