Jesus that first ending of fullmetal alchemist where someone thought they weren’t being obvious enough with the fascist metaphor…
I guess its not a good escape fantasy if you are reminded of the place you are trying to escape from all the time.
But I have 2 more off the top of my head and you won’t like either.
Sword Art Online
Digimon Adventures
Technically both about children trying to get home after disaster. It seems to be the only group that tries to go home.
Eh, she has to get the gem pieces to stop the destruction of the past so she can stay home and often struggles to return to the present and stay there for any amount of time.
She even at the end stays in the past, missing it as her found home.
Its very isekai adjacent.
"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society. "
Yup trapped in VR except its using peoples real bodies instead of character models with their real world fitness (at first, coma people ain’t doing all that) and die in game die for real.
So like as close to a full isekai but reversible if they beat the game (100 level MMO), which the protagonist doesnt want to do but everyone else does because he is so edgy until he finds love and can have it in the “real world”
But its like 10,000 people get isekaid mentally at the same time. Second season is about going back in to get someone that didnt manage to come back the first time either.
There is a really really fantastic abridged series on YouTube by Something Witty Entertainment if you like crass but wholesome humor. Fixed a lot of the character flaws and terrible writing.