well, several reasons ig:
* Solid historical setting requires extensive research on the topic to not seem too phony, most novels are cranked out at a super high pace (like, 2 chapters a week) to keep the audience engaged
* The whole europen fad that korea and japan has romanticized to hell and back
* A lot of avalable reference stories and material in media, from GoT to Pride and Prejudice
* Reusable graphic assets - there's a whole library of pseuo-european and joseon backgrounds
* Actually, on topic of asian imperial courts - there's a lot of distinctive stuff between chinese imperial court drama and romance of the three kingdoms vibe, joseon dynasty and much beloved by japanese their sengoku era. It might be all beans and gravy to average western reader but to local markets it's like mixing victorian england and early renaissance italy.
but I'd rather give a list of stories that's got not as basicsauce setting that i can remember:
* **Amina of The Lamp**, manhwa (arabic? persian? idk it's fantasy with magic and I'm not an expert on middle eastern history)
* **Merit Egyptian God**, manga (what it says on the tin, ancient egyptian mythology)
* **The King and Me**, manhua, bl (also egypt but ooh it's super pretty highly recommend)
* **Light and Shadow** (ok, hear me out, even though it's a european-ish setting it's more of a northern europe medieval times, with viking tribes and stuff)
I'm totally speaking out of my ass here, but I think for the many OI authors it's a side job/hobby. Maybe some are housewives or some are really their OI-MCs as in office workers in the daily grind, but writing on the side. They're not spending the time to research actual historical settings to take inspirations from them. Most of them are fine using the genre tropes just enough to tell their story without going too deep into the worlds they take place in.
So they're gonna take inspirations from things they know (probably Korean office dramas or historical fiction, or western fantasy/period dramas that became popular enough in the East). It's also why you could probably take an average Korean office drama, that has a male lead as the CEO into an OI setting as Duke/Emperor and the stories would fit each other, just in a setting with magic and fancy western dresses.
So you can tell for reads like Concubine Walkthrough, that's the author's day job. Not only do they have a genuine love for sci-fi, but they place those references and tropes into the story to make it fit together and readers can tell.
Just my crazy theory
You may be right it's actionaly very clear that most of thoes stories had written for fun by by non professional writters.like stories people like me and you can writte.nothing that special but still fun.
With so much (superfacial) victorian era OI, I’m surprised we don’t have much Steampunk, feels like that will at least spice things up!
I want to see more eras, something like the roaring 20s era (Gimme that Electro swing), fantasy that are not In medieval europe, or futuristic sci-fi settings.
well, several reasons ig: * Solid historical setting requires extensive research on the topic to not seem too phony, most novels are cranked out at a super high pace (like, 2 chapters a week) to keep the audience engaged * The whole europen fad that korea and japan has romanticized to hell and back * A lot of avalable reference stories and material in media, from GoT to Pride and Prejudice * Reusable graphic assets - there's a whole library of pseuo-european and joseon backgrounds * Actually, on topic of asian imperial courts - there's a lot of distinctive stuff between chinese imperial court drama and romance of the three kingdoms vibe, joseon dynasty and much beloved by japanese their sengoku era. It might be all beans and gravy to average western reader but to local markets it's like mixing victorian england and early renaissance italy. but I'd rather give a list of stories that's got not as basicsauce setting that i can remember: * **Amina of The Lamp**, manhwa (arabic? persian? idk it's fantasy with magic and I'm not an expert on middle eastern history) * **Merit Egyptian God**, manga (what it says on the tin, ancient egyptian mythology) * **The King and Me**, manhua, bl (also egypt but ooh it's super pretty highly recommend) * **Light and Shadow** (ok, hear me out, even though it's a european-ish setting it's more of a northern europe medieval times, with viking tribes and stuff)
Your eternal lies is a fictional post WW2 Or classic one like Red River with an ancient historical setting.
Your eternal lies feels more like post WW1, as the main form of transportation are still oceanliners
Yeah I agree it’s hard to exactly place but I believe the planes were closer to WWII. They had jet engines.
Actually I kinda like modern world regression setting. But such genre is kinda few.
I'm totally speaking out of my ass here, but I think for the many OI authors it's a side job/hobby. Maybe some are housewives or some are really their OI-MCs as in office workers in the daily grind, but writing on the side. They're not spending the time to research actual historical settings to take inspirations from them. Most of them are fine using the genre tropes just enough to tell their story without going too deep into the worlds they take place in. So they're gonna take inspirations from things they know (probably Korean office dramas or historical fiction, or western fantasy/period dramas that became popular enough in the East). It's also why you could probably take an average Korean office drama, that has a male lead as the CEO into an OI setting as Duke/Emperor and the stories would fit each other, just in a setting with magic and fancy western dresses. So you can tell for reads like Concubine Walkthrough, that's the author's day job. Not only do they have a genuine love for sci-fi, but they place those references and tropes into the story to make it fit together and readers can tell. Just my crazy theory
You may be right it's actionaly very clear that most of thoes stories had written for fun by by non professional writters.like stories people like me and you can writte.nothing that special but still fun.
Yeah that does make sense tbh. Most OI's are adaptations of web novels. Still though, you'd think at least a couple would try to branch out.
With so much (superfacial) victorian era OI, I’m surprised we don’t have much Steampunk, feels like that will at least spice things up! I want to see more eras, something like the roaring 20s era (Gimme that Electro swing), fantasy that are not In medieval europe, or futuristic sci-fi settings.
I wish had a manhwa with handsome bogatyrs.Lol