Is Sword Art Online to blame for the isekai craze that we see today?

Yes

Ok, I'm a retard.

No. Isekai being popular on Shōsetsuka ni Narō and any similar sites is to blame.

Publishers realized that people were publishing entire amateur novel series online. Some of which were both popular and written at a level good enough for the publishers to use with just some editing. Meaning that instead of just relying on a single submitted manuscript and a pitch for a series from would be author, they could sift through what was published online to find series with relatively proven success, by authors whose consistency and work ethic to produce an entire series or more could be gauged by their already existing output, and then offer publishing deals to either authors of already completed works that just needed editing, or authors who were successful and consistent and as such could probably be relied upon to not hit writers block for years at a time when they hit it big.

As isekai was the big thing on amateur writer sites at the time that publishers started looking, that's what got the publishing deal offers.

No. It's not an isekai, and doesn't even use the usual tropes.

In the good ol' days you'd just say "fantasy" anime.
Also, I've noticed the term "iyashikei" popping up a lot lately in series which I'd normally call "slice of life" animu. Don't know if this is a recent trend or if it's just me being late to the party once again.

no you wouldn't
there's a big difference between actual fantasy and iseshit

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No, this was to blame

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It should have ended when they finished the game.
The anime was literally called sword art online.

>character gets transported to a world of swords and sorcery
>actually they don't get transported
>also no sorcery

>It's popular therefore I hate it
>Why won't anybody ever talk to me?
You might have metal issues.

Why do idiots call cyberspace isekai?

this + The Matrix
Though SAO might take some blame for the utter lack of fantasy worldbuilding by such talentless japanese creators making YA garbage (worldbuilding? in my fantasy setting? why? haven't you played a JRPG before?)

There's some overlap with the latter. I generally categorize SoL into either iyashikei, comedy, or drama.

I literally just looked through spring 2022 and was wondering why over half the shows were solid for the first time in _years_ Can you guess why?
>anichart.net/Spring-2022
There's four isekai afaict (not count Kongming) and the highest rated after Bookworm is 16th on that chart.

Standard fantasy, romance, and weird original shit like Kongming are finally being given a chance and making a comeback

Death to the generic isekai trash o/