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It’s time for part two of our Transmigration and Isekai discussion with the incredibly knowledgeable Liliana, host of the Tea and Soju Podcast. We wouldn’t be doing our due diligence if we didn’t consider how romance, relationships, and frequently inevitable heartbreak often steal the show when isekai and romance get together. We also share some of our very favorite examples, and then close out the episode by theorizing what kind of transmigration story we’d be most likely to land in.
Many thanks to our pinch-hitter editor, Jordan, who handled this episode! Plus, Spotify users, vote on our poll to help us decided on our next episode. (Non-Spotify users can let us know what you think on Instagram.)
Episode was recorded November 8, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: The Romance of Tiger and Rose, Joy of Life (CDrama), Yummy! Yummy! Yummy! (Cdrama), Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir (Webnovel), The Princess Royal.The Grand Princess (Cdrama), Blossom (CDrama), Till the End of the Moon (CDrama), The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Mr. Queen (KDrama), Go Princess Go (CDrama), Love Hina, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom, Scarlet Heart (CDrama), Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (Kdrama), A Dream Within a Dream (CDrama), When Destiny Brings the Demon (CDeama), Zenshu, Long Live Evil and All Hail Chaos by Sarah Rees Brennan, Extraordinary You, Moby Dick, The Story of Kunning Palace (CDrama)
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes (usually) drop the last Friday of the month.
Get ready for some hot takes from your SLL girlies! In the first of two episodes, we’re joined by the host of the Tea and Soju Podcast and friend of the show, Liliana, to talk all things transmigration and isekai.
Don’t know what that means? We’ve got you covered! We start out by identifying the defining features of these culturally specific genres and name drop some of our favorite examples. We also debate the difference–if there is one–between isekai and portal fantasy, in which Ayanni definitely gets in her grumpy anime auntie bag.
Many thanks to our pinch-hitter editor, Jordan, who handled this episode!
Episode was recorded November 8, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: Daebak K-Rambles Podcast, NoSleep4Dramas Podcast, May I Ask for One Final Thing, Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher, Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher, Love in the Clouds (CDrama), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Dream Within a Dream (CDrama), The Romance of Tiger and Rose (CDrama), Alice in Wonderland, Spirited Away, Magic Knight Rayearth, Prince Caspian, Oshi No Ko, Till the End of the Moon (CDrama), When Destiny Brings the Demon (CDrama), Moon Lovers Scarlet Heart Ryeo (K and CDrama), How Dare You (Chinese Animation), Anne of Green Gables, Blossom (Cdrama), Uncle from Another World
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes (usually) drop the last Friday of the month.
The final installment of our deep dive into R. F. Kuang’s Katabasis is finally here!! Even three episodes in, we somehow still have more to say about this dark academic journey to hell.
Corinne flexes her academic muscles in a conversation about consent in fantasy (and academic reality). Then we wrap up by turning to the book’s ending and our feelings about Alice and Peter's relationship.
As a bit of a content warning, Katabasis deals with abuse and suicidal ideation. Because these themes are pretty central to the novel, we won’t be able to provide specific timecodes for when it comes up in our own discussion, but wanted to make sure you know going in.
Many thanks to our pinch-hitter editor, Jordan, who handled this episode!
Episode was recorded October 19, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: Tess of the Road
On Future SLL Episodes: Isekai and Transmigration
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
Episode two of our Katabasis deep dive is finally here! For some reason, we start the first of our spoiler-filled episodes with a sports metaphor before grumbling about Alice and Peter as academic types with whom we are quite familiar (and spoiler alert, we don’t like them).
We also consider Kuang’s construction of hell as a university–but with the pretty clear argument that salvation is definitely not a dissertation.
As a bit of a content warning, Katabasis deals with abuse and suicidal ideation. Because these themes are pretty central to the novel, we won’t be able to provide specific timecodes for when it comes up in our own discussion, but wanted to make sure you know going in.
Many thanks to our pinch-hitter editor, Jordan, who handled this episode! (Look at us, using another sports metaphor.)
What's Sparking Joy this episode: N.Flying & Heyley Williams
Episode was recorded October 19, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Under Review Podcast
On Future SLL Episodes: Isekai and Transmigration
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
After a long wait, we're really excited that Yumi's Cells Season 3 is finally here! In this mini-episode (a return of La Petit's perhaps?), we briefly chat about the Kdrama, what our prime cell would be, and what we're excited to see this season.
(You can watch Yumi's Cells on Viki!)
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: Inside Out, Cells at Work
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
Hi y'all! We're popping in here to give you all a quick update about why we've on an impromptu hiatus since October (hint: it's Ayanni's fault lol, but you might not guess why 👀) and provide an update on the rest of our Katabasis conversation, plus the great chat we had with Liliana from Tea and Soju Podcast (https://open.spotify.com/show/26MG5cR9if00QcJrZgTNmq) about Transmigration & Isekai as a genre.
As a treat, we do a rapid fire round of What's Sparking Joy for us in the moment. To no one's surprise, it's a lot of CDramas, anime, and KPop.
See y'all again soon!!
Show Notes:
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
Happy Halloween!! This episode, we join Alice and Peter, two PhD Students in Magick studies, as they journey to hell to save their advisor in R.F. Kuang’s new fantasy novel Katabasis. We start off spoiler free in this first of three episodes with our initial reactions, thoughts on pretentiousness in relation to academic prestige and precarity, and who we ultimately think this book is for.
As a bit of a content warning, Katabasis deals with abuse and suicidal ideation. Because these themes are pretty central to the novel, we won’t be able to provide specific timecodes for when it comes up in our own discussion, but wanted to make sure you know going in.
What's Sparking Joy this episode: Silent Hill f and Love in the Cloud
Episode was recorded October 19, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: His Dark Materials, Hadestown, The Wasteland by T S Elliot, Dante's Inferno, Alice in Wonderland, The Stormlight Archive, Witch Hat Atelier, A Discovery of Witches
On Future SLL Episodes: Isekai and Transmigration, Trope Spotlight: Forced Proximity, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
Welcome to the second half of our discussion on the Hulu dramedy, Dying for Sex.
In this episode, we get into the details about Molly’s sexual escapades as well as the other important relationships that balance out her life, especially with her friend and caretaker Nikki.
Content warning: Dying for Sex deals with terminal illness and trauma related to sexual assault. Because these themes are so woven into the show, we won’t be able to provide specific time codes for when they come up in our own discussion, but wanted to make sure you know going in.
What's Sparking Joy this episode: Twin and Like Jennie by Jennie, Saving Flowers by Rina Sawayama and salute
Episode was recorded April 20th, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: Hit the Spot (Fanta G Spot), A Fault in Our Stars
On Future SLL Episodes: Trope Spotlight: Forced Proximity, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
BLACKPINK was in our area and we couldn't _not_ tell y'all all about it. Sharing the same recording space for the first time, we chat about everything we loved about being part of the sea of Blinks to sing with, dance to, and cheer on Lisa, Jennie, Jisoo, and Rosé.
Note: We used a different set up this time, so the sound is a little less crisp than we'd like 😩 but still worth it to record together 💛Episode was recorded July 27th, 2025
Show Notes:
On Future SLL Episodes: Dying for Sex part 2 (on Hulu), Trope Spotlight: Forced Proximity, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
Mirror, mirror on my phone, who's the baddest? (Us, hello?) This episode, we are joined by a very special guest, Audrey Hall, to talk about the Netflix animated film, KPop Demon Hunters!
We get into productive intersection of idoldom and demon hunting that allows the film to explore internalized–and externalized–shame, particularly through the romance of Rumi, the leader of KPop group Huntr/x and Jinu, our kpop demon boy. (Because no discussion of KPop Demon Hunters would be complete without a little consideration of sexy demons.)
What's Sparking Joy this episode: The Law According to Lidia Poet (Netflix), K-Pop concerts, BTS's return
Episode was recorded July 4th, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: The Mitchells Vs the Machines, Spider-verse, Castlevania, Lost You Forever
Check out SLL Live in 2025:
On Future SLL Episodes: Dying for Sex part 2 (on Hulu), Trope Spotlight: Forced Proximity, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Don't forget to subscribe to Sex. Love. Literature! You can find us at SexLoveLitPodcast.com; on Instagram , Tumblr, and BlueSky @SexLoveLitPodcast. Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sexlovelitpodcast
Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.
From the publisher's feed