All of these American examples are missing a key part of the Isekai genre which is power fantasy. 99% of Isekai involves the MC being an overpowered self-insert character that has a harem of sex slaves.
I consider Isekai and other world to be different aspects of the same basic concept.
We do have that with owl house and amphibia, the Santa clause movies and series, and avatar, just sort of off the top of my head. None of these really have a sex harem (some of them have a single romantic interest tho), but nor did most of the anime I’ve watched, because anything involving a sex harem isn’t up my alley at all. Suuuuper cringe. But they do have the for-reasons overpowered self-insert main character in a fantasy land.
Arguably not enough to make a genre, ofc, but we do have some examples that fit better than the ones in the meme.
Edit to add - if anyone knows of more, I’m actually kinda into the genre, so I’m all eyes!
I just rewarched Army of Darkness last night and it sounds like it fits. Doesn't have so much of a harem, but at one point a romantic interest for seemingly no reason. And certainly a overpowered main character.
You just have to look at western sensibilities to understand the missing harem trope. The heroes in Western stories have a once in a lifetime romance. If there's a problem with the romance, it's part of the evil plot device (Ursula in the little mermaid.)
Western power fantasy tropes come in the form of the white savior or agents above the law tropes. John Carter was written in the early 1900's, Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein in the 60's.
Octavia Butler takes those classically white and Western tropes and turns them on their head.
Also, collapse of society movies are close to American/English isekai because of our obsession with both apocalypse and saviors. Walking dead is a great example.
And the number of isekai ever made in the US is still less than what started airing in Japan this season 3 weeks ago.
To be fair, Oz, Matrix, AIW, Narnia fit the genre pretty well, but if you call a few movies scattered around decades a genre, there would be a seperate genre for almost every movie
Isekai if I remember right translates to other world. However in the context of the genre it’s when the protagonist gets transported to what is usually a fantasy world from what is usually death or reincarnation and sometimes summoning
Another trope I’ve seen is protagonist just wakes up in an MMO as their character and all the NPCs are sentient
I’m sure there are more but in anime it mostly boils down to: character is in fantasy now and knowledge of our world could give them an edge
When done right and done good it’s also a great trope for a fresh start and world building cus we don’t know the world, and the protagonist doesn’t know the world so we learn with them.
That seems like such a broad genre to pass judgement on. That's like if someone said "Ah-ha! You do have fish-out-of-water genres in the US!" I mean, ok; whatever. Who actually cares either way to debate this...?
If you're going to apply that restriction you might as well go whole hog and also apply the "new world runs on shitty JRPG mechanics" part that also plagues modern isekai too.
Peter Pan, Alice in wonderland, and The Iron Man were also all written by UK authors. Although I haven't read The Iron Man for a very long time so I can't remember how closely the Iron Giant movie uses the source material.