Despite the never-ending “slop” allegations, isekai remains one of the most popular genres across Japanese, Korean, and Chinese fiction, be it anime, manga, webtoons, manhua, or even web novels. It’s hard to deny the allure of quite literally diving into a new world alongside an isekai protagonist. As such, while even major publishers are beginning to admit to the genre’s oversaturation, isekai has still managed to remain popular, with new anime like Overgeared still managing to grab eyeballs nearly every season.
All that said, not all isekai series have managed to garner attention for good reasons, with one strong recent example beingThe Beginning After the End, which made headlines with its infamously lackluster anime adaptation. And now, while the anime is two seasons in with no sign of a renewal yet, the end of an era is upon the series, though not quite in the way most would expect.
The Beginning After The End Faces An Uncertain Future With New Major Hiatus
Arthur The Beginning After The End season 6
It’s the end of an era for The Beginning After the End on Tapas, as after nearly 9 years of serialization on the platform, the series will inevitably be forced to find a new home. The Beginning After the End’s webcomic will be going on indefinite hiatus after the release of Chapter 259 on October 29, 2026.
The series’ creator, TurtleMe, announced the hiatus through a post on X, confirming that this hiatus is due to the recent closure of Tapas, one of the biggest webcomic platforms in North America, which has hosted The Beginning After the End’s web novel since January 2017 and the webtoon since July 2018. The post by TurtleMe reads:
With Tapas’ announced closure affecting all original productions, The Beginning After the End will be going on hiatus after Chapter 259 on 10/29. I wish I had more information to share, but the honest truth is, I don’t have answers yet about what comes next. I’m still working to get them, and I’ll keep pushing until I do.
I know this isn’t the first time we’ve been here. TBATE has definitely had more ups and downs than any of us would like, and every time, you’ve stuck around. Your patience means more to me than I can ever express. This is just another hurdle, and I’m confident my team and I will overcome it. Please know I’ll keep doing everything in my power to continue the comic.
And thank you to everyone who has been spending their remaining Ink on TBATE these last few weeks. It means more than you know. If you have any left, I’d encourage you to use it on your favorite creators to show your support during these difficult times.
Thank you for your patience and support. I’ll update you as soon as I have something to share.
Kakao Entertainment, the South Korean parent company that acquired Tapas back in 2021, recently announced its closure, which came as a brick to the face to readers as well as creators who were equally caught off guard. The end-of-service announcement came shortly after, with D-Day being March 31, 2027. While popular titles like Solo Leveling, Tomb Raider King, and Overgeared that have been licensed by other platforms were barely affected, originals like The Beginning After The End evidently took the biggest hit.
Tapas’ Sudden Closure Continues to Bare Its Consequences
The Beginning After The End’s Arthur looking traumatized over images from the series.Custom image created by Evan D. Mullicane
After having spent nearly a decade on the platform and arguably growing alongside it, The Beginning After The End will have to find a new home in the months to come. As such, despite the series’ history of hiatuses, there’s no telling how long this particular hiatus will last and where the series will be going next. The webcomic, which is currently being illustrated by MGK Story, is barely halfway into adapting the web novel’s 529-chapter run, which ended in November 2025. There’s much still to be told, but for now, an uncertain future awaits the series.
From the Truck-kun to the Tempest Federation · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Isekai Anime? “In another world — with my smartphone.”
🎯AincradDeath-game MMO
⏳Re:ZeroReturn by Death
🔮KonoSubaUseless goddess
🥻Tempest SlimePredator Skill
👻OverlordAinz Ooal Gown
01
The Japanese term “isekai” (異世界) is now the catch-all label for stories about ordinary people transported, summoned or reincarnated into a fantasy realm — from Sword Art Online to Konosuba to Mushoku Tensei. What does the word literally translate to in English?
✓ Correct! “Different world” or “another world.” The word breaks into i (different) + sekai (world). The genre traces back as far as 1990s OVAs (Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi, Inuyasha) but exploded in the 2010s thanks to Sword Art Online (2009 LN, 2012 anime), Re:Zero, KonoSuba, Overlord and the “Narou” web-novel ecosystem of Shōsetsuka ni Narō.
✗ Wrong. The answer is “Different World.” Isekai breaks down literally to “i” (different) + “sekai” (world). It’s now used as a publishing-industry shorthand for the entire genre of transported/reincarnated/summoned-hero stories that boomed across the 2010s.
02
Re:Zero — Starting Life in Another World’s protagonist Subaru Natsuki is a hikikomori who’s pulled into a fantasy kingdom and given a single, brutal supernatural ability: when he dies, time rewinds to a fixed checkpoint and he relives the same stretch of days, retaining his memories. Name this signature ability.
✓ Correct! Return by Death. Subaru’s ability is treated by Tappei Nagatsuki’s novels as a curse rather than a power — the Witch of Envy locks his memory of it (he physically cannot tell anyone he can rewind), and every “reset” means he genuinely dies. Re:Zero is widely credited with redefining the modern isekai psychological lane and remains one of the genre’s most acclaimed entries.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Return by Death. None of the other names are official. Tappei Nagatsuki’s web-novel-turned-LN coined “Return by Death” specifically and made the death-and-rewind a thematic engine: every reset means a real death and accumulating trauma.
03
In KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!, NEET protagonist Kazuma Sato dies and is offered a wish by an obnoxious goddess. He chooses, out of pure spite, to take her with him to the fantasy world. She becomes the party’s perpetually-dunked-on, Drain-Touch-fearing water-and-resurrection priestess. Name her.
✓ Correct! Aqua. The goddess of water, useless and proud of it. Kazuma’s entire character arc is being saddled with three of the most dysfunctional party members in any RPG — Aqua (the goddess), Megumin (the explosion-only Crimson Demon mage) and Darkness (the masochistic crusader who can’t hit anything). Aqua’s mortal terror of Drain Touch and undead is one of the show’s longest-running gags.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Aqua. Megumin is the explosion-magic mage. Darkness is the masochistic crusader. Wiz is the lich shopkeeper. The goddess Kazuma drags into the fantasy world — and the source of about 90% of the party’s problems — is Aqua.
04
In That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Mikami Satoru is stabbed in modern Tokyo and reincarnates in a fantasy world as a low-tier blue slime monster — only to discover his new body has the absurd Predator Skill that lets him absorb anything he eats. He soon names himself after a great storm dragon he befriends in a cave. What name does he take?
✓ Correct! Rimuru Tempest — surname taken from Veldora Tempest, the Storm Dragon Rimuru befriends and absorbs in his first cave. By the time the series gets going, Rimuru is the founder and ruler of the monster nation Tempest, a Demon Lord, and the most powerful single character in his world. Fuse’s web novel started in 2013, Kawakami’s manga adaptation is over 25 volumes deep, and the 8-bit Studio anime is still ongoing.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Rimuru Tempest. Lugh Veleno is the protagonist of The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated. Hajime Nagumo is the lead of Arifureta. Naofumi Iwatani is the Shield Hero. The slime who eats Veldora and names himself Tempest is Rimuru.
05
In Overlord (2015–), the Yggdrasil MMORPG’s servers shut down on the player Momonga, but instead of logging him out, he and his Great Tomb of Nazarick are pulled into a parallel world. He renames himself after his old guild — the same name that gives the show its menacing brand-villain register. What does he rename himself?
✓ Correct! Ainz Ooal Gown. Originally the name of Momonga’s 41-member Yggdrasil guild — the “Nine’s Own Goal” in original Japanese — he reclaims it as his personal alias to honour his absent guildmates. Maruyama’s LNs and Madhouse’s anime treat the protagonist as a slow-burn villain: a skeletal Eldritch Lord trying to figure out what he’s become while his floor guardians worship him as a god.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Ainz Ooal Gown. Albedo and Cocytus are NPC floor guardians of Nazarick. Demiurge is another floor guardian. Touch Me was a famous member of the original guild but isn’t Momonga’s alias. The protagonist takes the guild’s own name, Ainz Ooal Gown.
06
Sword Art Online’s first-arc death game traps Kirito and 10,000 players inside a 100-floor floating-castle MMO — if you die in the game, you die in real life. Each floor is a distinct biome and boss fight, and the only way out is to clear all 100. What is this castle/MMO called?
✓ Correct! Aincrad — the floating fortress designed by lead-developer-villain Akihiko Kayaba. Reki Kawahara’s LN began as a 2002 web novel and was adapted by A-1 Pictures in 2012, kicking off the modern isekai boom. The series moved through other servers/worlds across its sequels (Alfheim Online, Gun Gale Online, Project Alicization’s Underworld) but Aincrad remains the foundational setting and the brand image of the franchise.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Aincrad. Alfheim is the fairy-themed VRMMO of Season 1’s back half. Gun Gale Online is the FPS arc. The Underworld is the simulated world of the Alicization arc. The first-season death game is the floating fortress Aincrad.
07
Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (2021–) is widely cited as the foundational modern isekai web novel — published online from 2012, it’s often credited with defining the genre’s template. Its protagonist is a 34-year-old NEET reincarnated as a baby in a fantasy world, retaining his adult mind. What’s his new-life name?
✓ Correct! Rudeus Greyrat — born to swordsman father Paul and maid mother Zenith in the Buena Village in the Asura Kingdom. Rifujin na Magonote’s web novel ran from 2012–15 on Shōsetsuka ni Narō and is widely credited as the prototype for the modern reincarnation-isekai template. Studio Bind’s anime adaptation (2021–) is one of the genre’s most lavishly produced.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Rudeus Greyrat. Cid Kagenou is the lead of The Eminence in Shadow. Ars Lalatoya is Rudeus’s son later in the series, not Rudeus himself. Subaru Natsuki is the protagonist of Re:Zero. Rudeus is the reborn-as-a-baby protagonist of Mushoku Tensei.
08
A huge proportion of modern isekai (Re:Zero, Mushoku Tensei, Overlord, Slime, KonoSuba and many others) started as free amateur web serials hosted on a single Japanese user-generated-novel website — effectively the AO3 of the isekai boom — before being picked up by light-novel publishers. Name the platform.
✓ Correct! Shōsetsuka ni Narō (literally “Let’s Become a Novelist”), commonly abbreviated to “Narou.” Launched in 2004, by the early 2010s it had become the dominant funnel for amateur isekai web novels — with publishers like Kadokawa and Shueisha trawling its leaderboards for hits to acquire. So many isekai LNs originated there that “Narou-kei” (Narou-style) became a publishing-industry shorthand for the genre’s tropes (overpowered protagonist, cheat skill, harem dynamics, RPG status screens).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Shōsetsuka ni Narō (Narou). Comico is a Korean-style webtoons platform. Pixiv Novels is a sister site to the Pixiv illustration platform but isn’t the dominant isekai pipeline. Niconico Books doesn’t exist as a major publishing platform. Narou is where the modern isekai boom was incubated.
Status Window · Final Tally Your Isekai Standing
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Demon Lord-tier — or just a Truck-kun victim?
Regardless of the bad impression that the anime may have left on millions, The Beginning After The End’s web novel and web comic still retain quite a sizable fan base — fans to whom the new hiatus will come as a disappointing update. The same holds true for multiple other series on Tapas and the platform’s millions of readers.
Only a couple hundred of Tapas’ titles are available on alternate platforms, and when Tapas inevitably shuts down in 2027, countless titles could be lost and forgotten in the licensing whirlwind that has likely already ensued. Despite its controversial anime adaptation, The Beginning After the End’s original webcomic has luckily been loved by enough that it will survive this transition, and until then, hopefully more of those who discovered the series through the anime will actually come around by giving the webcomic a chance.
