'Suicide Squad Isekai': The Time Blackgate's Inmates Were Isekai'd

Task Force X's latest mission takes them into another world, literally

- RUDRAA ABIRAMI SUDARSHAN

The suicide squad (or Task Force X) has been sent on many a mission on many a medium. Be it in the comics, the live-action adaptations, the animated films or even video games; they’ve been everywhere. These treacherous assignments with perilous foes can be anywhere, against any kind of enemy where the team may not necessarily make it out in one piece, let alone alive. Hence the name Suicide Squad.

This time round, Task Force X is headed out to a world that’s unlike any other they’ve encountered so far — an Isekai. And in a medium they haven’t really been featured in — anime.

Isekai (異世界) literally translates to “another world.” A popular genre of light novels and anime that take place when the protagonist awakens in a realm different from ours. Mostly, these isekai feature a protagonist that is for all essences and purposes a ‘loser’ in every sense of the term. This loser is swiftly dispatched to the other world at the entity affectionally called ‘Truck-kun’. After meeting an unfortunate end in their original world, they are reincarnated as heroes in the isekai, which is more often than not, a high fantasy world.

Technically speaking, this isn’t the first time that the DC universe has been isekai’d, for lack of a better term. The first time was in Batman Ninja (2018) where the Dark Knight and a large number of his compatriots and rogues’ gallery were transported to feudal-era Japan. Interestingly enough a sequel — Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League — has been announced, so it looks like Gotham’s residents are fated to be traversing between worlds.

There are differences between the two, of course. While Batman Ninja was an entirely 3D CG film, Suicide Squad Isekai is a 10-episode anime series. There is a distinct lack of the Caped Crusader because the focus is on the Suicide Squad.