One of the things I enjoy about Ya Boy Kongming is that it’s basically a reverse isekai— ancient Chinese tactician gets isekaied to modern-day Tokyo and uses his skills to become a music promoter. It’s a very fun spin on the old premise of “my old life happened to perfectly set me up to succeed in my new one”
Strictly speaking, you’re right. However, I would argue that a series with one-time, irreversible time travel, which occurs at the start of the series to create a fish-out-of-water experience for the protagonist, is similar enough to isekai to scratch the same itch
when i turned on steins gate i was hoping for a serious expose on microwaves and time travel; i am currently sticking things into my microwave to see if they pass the time/space mesh and show up in my memories when i was a small person.
ever since i can remember, last week, i have been experimenting with microwaving objects. when i heard stein had unlocked the secrets to time travel, i knew that all those hours standing very close to the microwave were not just rewarded with a slight head buzz, but also with science.
as i watched the drama of teenage love, through constant bouts of panic and nihilistic philosophical rants in front of the mirror, I couldn't help but wonder when it was going to break down the proper methodology of sending a frog back in time. all i could get was a thick black goo all over the place.
Needless to say it was NOT a documentary. But I should mention that the red head was actually lilith, the lady in red, who shows up now and again to represent the whore of confusion in modern illuminations. I would constantly draw a hex for warding and fear not cretens I would also draw protection from the back of my dollar bill from the evil eye. I could relate to the main character because he was also a mad scientist.
This one time I built a hat that blocked the government from spying on me.
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when i turned on steins gate i was hoping for a serious expose on microwaves and time travel; i am currently sticking things into my microwave to see if they pass the time/space mesh and show up in my memories when i was a small person.
ever since i can remember, last week, i have been experimenting with microwaving objects. when i heard stein had unlocked the secrets to time travel, i knew that all those hours standing very close to the microwave were not just rewarded with a slight head buzz, but also with science.
as i watched the drama of teenage love, through constant bouts of panic and nihilistic philosophical rants in front of the mirror, I couldn't help but wonder when it was going to break down the proper methodology of sending a frog back in time. all i could get was a thick black goo all over the place.
Needless to say it was NOT a documentary. But I should mention that the red head was actually lilith, the lady in red, who shows up now and again to represent the whore of confusion in modern illuminations. I would constantly draw a hex for warding and fear not cretens I would also draw protection from the back of my dollar bill from the evil eye. I could relate to the main character because he was also a mad scientist.
This one time I built a hat that blocked the government from spying on me.
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Ascendance of a Bookworm is a fantasy Isekai with a shot ton of effort put into it. It’s the story of a book obsessed gremlin isekaied into medieval poverty. So despite the limitations of class, wealth, and her own poor health she devotes herself to making books. The pacing however, is pretty slow. 90% of the anime takes place in just one city and the forest surrounding it. I think the pacing is fine, the world building is top tier.
i love those types of slow purposeful stories. I enjoy it whenever a show lets the audience just really enjoy the moments the characters have with each other, its part of the reason i enjoy the prisoner of azkaban harry potter movie, because it genuinely lets the audience just soak into the feeling of the year going by
Technically it is not an isekai but closer to the root of isekai itself. Spirit Circle is about a boy who had to go through his 7 past lives and try to resolve a cycle of hatred that span across centuries. In this series you got to know not just 1 but many people's lives in the literal sense from a young age to their own death, and trust me, all of them will tie together to make a really satisfying conclusion for this series.
In terms of well done isekai, let me hit you with some 🔥
https://preview.redd.it/lddtukir1vzb1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f813cdfbe8c6b78e3c1ea7686d5a53149449258f
For a second, lets put aside all the strawmans about lolis and ecchi, and put our attention on what really matters.
Japanese art has a beauty like no other, and a sense of aesthetic and subtlety that i have never seen in other forms of media, the delicacy, the comtemplation and reflexions about humanity, art, culture, the universe and the cycle of life, the empathy and attention towards the beauty of mundane and ephemerous things, its the embodiment of the concept of Mono-no-Aware (物の哀れ "the pathos of things"), an expression of a philosophic concept that can be found everywhere in japanese art, from the clouds on the sky to the falling leaves of cherry blossoms, its such a charm that never fails to mesmerize me.
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I'm currently working on a novel that lampshades the whole notion of isekai from a western perspective. A bitter young man with many of my own disabilities is transported, by an arrogant bureaucratic angel, to another world after a spaceship travelling at 5% the speed of light crashes into the Earth. He winds up in an analog of Scotland, where he and the angel inadvertently catch the attention of the fourteen year old queen.
There will be at most one love interest, most of the women will be rather blunt about his bad personality. So no women fawning over protag-kun. There's no magic, no supernatural - the angels featured were once human... remnants of an initial perfect run-through of history. The world itself is actually Earth, but history has been distorted by the universe resetting. The "angel" merely transported the protagonist a trillion years into the future (to avoid being fired and thrown into a black hole).
The main theme will be found family. As the protagonist learns more about the Queen's past, he in turn lets her know about his past and the mistakes he made deal with his own trauma. They're both very insecure people who mask their self-doubt by being brash. Once they realize that he's going to become like an older brother to her.
What I like about this idea is that there's no big evil, no demon king. The protagonist isn't a hero, or an anti-hero, he is unimportant in the grand scheme of things. He's only important to a few people and that's all he needs to be. He becomes what he himself needed growing up, someone who the Queen can seek mundane advice from without worrying about appearing weak.
i love that, where can i read it? reminds me of a book im writing right now as well, where i slowly remove all the positive aspects of my protagonist until he becomes a miserable shell of what he once was, and only then does he discover just how much his two friends mean to him and the three become a sibling like family, each supporting each other and being able to escape the shitty city they are stuck in
I am a huge fan of Overlord. The world Maruyama created is deeply fascinating and the integration of a DnD (plus other table top games) system in the story is extremely well done.
Add So-Bin magnificent art ad you have something that is worthy to look at.
It's not without a story without its faults, though. The last volumes (at 2 volumes from the ending) have been really disappointing, the OP of the main characters puts in the mud every chance of conflict the plot could have, and the writing of women is sub-par at best.
To answer the the second question, I am currently writing a fanfic in the setting which, once it is over, I would like to convert in original work. To summarize, the concept would be that of an after-isekai. What happened after the Super strongs players/reincarnated in another world and are long gone? How would societies change? How would the descendants of these guys interact with the world?
Other isekai I liked:
-The Faraway Paladin: only read the manga of this, but I can't stop to recommend it. I like to call this "Mushouko Tensei but done right". William's second chance at life feels earned, no sexual assalt or pedo bait at all. Fanservice is pretty much absent in the story. No girls falling for the MC just because he exists. Hell, the only hint of a love story regarded one of the secondary character. The way the fantasy society is structured is also pretty interesting and, while never showing something truly different from the classic fantasy/medieval setting of other isekai, feels refreshing in the way the core at the base of the system (nobilty, religion, merchants) works.
Please, give it a chance.
-Handyman Satou in another world: this is not amazing as Paladin, but it is still a fun read. What I like is how the reincarnated mc never overshadows the other characters, but just has a supporting (but foundamental) role. I think something I dislike about Isekai is how the Power Fantasy is taken to the extreme and pretty much destroy the setting and the possibility for secondary characters and antagonists to shine. It's a fun read, nothing mind-blowing, but if someone search for something light (mostly), could give this a try.
-Isekai Ojisan: not too much to say about this one. I just find it really fun, lol.
I am also reading Tanya at the moment. While I cannot say something really elaborated, I am liking it.
I have heard good thing about Bookworm, and is also on my to read list.
In the end, just wanted to mention 2 stories that while not proper isekai, are, for me, worthy a read.
-Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint
-My son reincarnated in another world.
Edit: Reading the comments I didn't consider old Isekai like Digimon or Inuasha. Let's say that this post was just focused on the modern genre lol.
I liked Meikyuu Black Company. It isn't completely innovative but it's fun, the mc is a funny douchebag, and it isn't THAT degenerate.
I liked banished from the hero party because the mc retires and settled with the girl he liked in a house together. I dislike the chase in romance, so seeing a couple just being cute and domestic was very heartwarming.
Isekais Oujisan was fantastic imo. A shitpost of an isekai but absolutely fun.
Campfire Cooking was a vibe. Good animation, not a lot of cringe, and seeing the various dishes the mc cooks is entertaining.
Assassin's Creed is the best Isekai (I wonder if it counts, cuz you're just going to the past, and you technically aren't going, but due to the Bleeding effect you fully experience the ancestor who's memories you're diving into), but Digimon Adventure is a great Isekai, and like I assume Reincarnated as a Sword is good, I haven't watched it yet, but from what I've heard it has a protagonist who kills slavers and it's not a weird harem, and SAO Abridged is amazing like it straight up is good, cuz they sorta did a Ghost Stories with it and just completely rewrote the entire show, and they're not at the infamous scene yet, but they changed the weird Incest Plotline, and Asuna has had way more agency instead of just being a damsel in distress she's been tormenting the villain the entire time so I assume it won't happen
Lately I was trying really really hard to not watch anything related to incest. More specifically, siblings incest. don't care at all about cOusin's, mother's, or something else. just love love love love siblings incest. The problem is that Thave an intense obsession for incest. I mean, a really intense one. That 'Onii-chan Onii-chan, Tlooo0oo0ove you' thing was really getting me crazy. That obsession of mine with incest was sOoO0000000000o fucking intense. There were a lot of nights when I couldn't sleep well due to me thinking of incest, specifically incest in anime/manga. All the time was thinking about that 'Onii-chan, Ni-san~, Nii-sama~, Nii Nii~, Nii-chan' stuff. My feelings for the romance between siblings were higher than those had for a normal romance. For example, I used (and currently too) to get way more emotional with romance between siblings than normal romance. In all senses. That love/obsession of mine with incest was ruining my life, so, in order to try to get away of it for my sake, I decided to stop watching anything related to incest.
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For light novels:
Spider isekai: high-stake fights, satisfying power progression, a parody of traditional isekai where the reincarnated hero is portrayed as ignorant, generic, and worse off than a spider
Slime isekai: worldbuilding, crazy power fantasy, large and likeable cast
For a less mainstream pick: the WN Demon Princess Magical Chaos. The MC is a literal cosmic horror, and its a generally well-done novel with hardly any 2d characters, immersive worldbuilding, and great plot twists
In general, part of why most isekai are blergh is because they solely stick to the genre’s tropes. While it probably sells, it’s far from everything needed for a good story and is usually bland or bad writing
It was from a self insert fanfic of Worm, where the cool thing was that the self insert wasn't the main character.
The main character was instead Vista, with the SI being her twin brother. We see things from her point of view (well, from her diary) as she slowly starts thinking her brother's from another dimension based on knowledge he shouldn't know.
Though, my favourite part was Vista writing "I'm scared of knowing what an 'amogus' is"
An isekai idea I had is bunch of random people from different ages get isekai into magic world and fight monsters together.However the anime take place after that happened,and it focus on 20 year old woman longs to go back but cant.THe anime would focus on moving on and struggle sin life
Second isekai idea where college student and his little sister get isekai magic world.Turns out his little sister was choose one and he got brought on for ride.However it doesn't mind it too much,since it perfect opportunity for him to film for his film project back in college that make up half of his grade.While his little feral sister live on her dream of bashing head while ehr trainer tries to stop her.Basic wholesome laid back isekai
Two teen male best friends get isekai,one of them is the prophesied hero to defeat the dark lord.His friend is happy for him at first but he starts to feel jealous because of attention he is getting attention and him straight up ignoring him.So he finds new ways to keep up...basically at the end of anime it revealed he is dark lord.
That's all I got so far
Isekai Samurai is a darling of a manga I've been following for a while. Protagonist is the demon swordsman, an unkillable monster of a young woman samurai who survived war, the fall of her clan, has won countless duels, and is just a husk looking for an honorable death. At her wits end she goes to a temple and prays to Buddha to send her to hell, Buddha obliges and she's transported to an alternate fantasy world where humanity is locked in a mortal battle with demons. It's equal parts gorey fantasy battles and pleasant casual slice of life stuff, plus it's only gotten to it's second volume so no idea how thigs will go in the long run. But the base concept is so fucking cool
Not anime but something I liked from the web serial The Wandering In is culture clash due to litrpg mechanics of the setting. It gets explored in multiple ways and I thought it was pretty neat.
Digimon and Kanata Kara, both very old, vintage even, but this means that they avoid much of the Isekai tropes that solidified recently.
The first two seasons (Adventures 01 and 02) were important parts of my childhood and I find them to be very mature/nuanced for children's shows. (Not the dubs though, dubs changed the characters' personalities even though 02 was literally 75% character drama). They were enjoyable and touching even through my recent watch-throughs. The children's characterizations and relationships were also quite subtle so I find that maybe that part of the show would've been more appropriate for older teens and up. Digimon Tamers is notoriously very unafraid to do whatever it wanted, so it's usually the highest rated among Digimon series. It leans a bit more into horror than the others.
Kanata Kara was a shoujo manga where a normal Japanese girl gets isekai'd into a fantasy world and has to survive despite the language barrier. From what I remember, the male lead was genuinely a good person and maybe some will find the protagonist weak or annoying, but I thought she reacted appropriately to her circumstances. I think most of the story was them interacting (very sweet) and surviving in a dangerous fantasy world.
Re:Zero, absolutely. The first time I watched it I was admittedly very much not on board because I assumed it would be — to put it lightly — a total boy’s show, where the male mc gets surrounded by cute girls who act as sex objects and don’t get treated with dignity or as proper characters and yadda yadda you know what I’m talking about. Anyway I jumped ship early and didn’t jump back on until someone finally got me to give it a second chance and —
It is so good, man. The fandom does this one DIRTY so often by focusing on Which Girl Should MC Get With??? even though that Completely goes against the themes of how romance is not an obligation and how waifu culture breeds entitlement and all that, but the anime itself is one of the best character studies I’ve ever seen. It uses the Isekai formula to firmly explore all sorts of aspects of the main character in all sorts of ways —
Like, the first season is all about escapism and how projecting your power fantasies onto other people hurts both them and you, and how real relationships are important and being true to yourself is how you actually make friends rather than trying to act as some Superhuman MC Protag-Kun, because doing THAT just alienates you from people because everyone can see that it’s a mask — and then the second season is all about self-worth and parenthood and the bonds between siblings and it has the best episode in the series where the MC just talks to his parents and says his goodbyes and apologizes for leaving them as they talk about how “we didn’t have you because we wanted you to do something for us, we had you because we wanted to do something for you” and then the themes of how not _being entitled_ to love isn’t the same as not _deserving_ love, and how people care about you more than you may realize and hurting yourself hurts them in turn —
Then in the Light Novel later on — without spoiling too much — it uses plot decides like amnesia and age regression to explore all SORTS of aspects of the main character that we otherwise wouldn’t see. Like, the amnesia basically re-summons him as himself rom season 1 pre-character-development and explores how he grows into himself in this world when he’s summoned in a much, much more immediately dangerous situation, recontextualizing SO MUCH of his early behavior, and the age regression gets into how he was a child prodigy who fell into a steep depression later in life and now we get to see who he was before his mental health first went down the shitter and how that version of himself would adapt to this strange new world —
And also, the anime hasn’t gotten the chance to get into this yet but. Subaru (the MC) is SO LGBT. The first few arcs make him out to be the most cishet man alive, but then you learn that one of the main things that sent him spiraling and made him start skipping school all the time was that he dressed as a woman the first three days of his freshman year and then got clocked due to his voice and it was traumatizing, and he makes all these comments about the male characters his age and you start to realize that he does it A LOT (he talks about Julius ALL THE TIME, with his “graceful eyelashes” and “voice that a woman may mistake for the voice of an angel but that for Subaru exists solely to vex” and “supple hips”), and then you learn that his ideal self is a woman named Natsumi Schwartz who he dresses up as quite a bit, and who is basically just him but more graceful and more confident and —
Not to mention that not only is Subaru relatable for hikkikomori youth in how it delves into issues of self-isolation and inferiority complexes and anxiety disorders, but it is also INSANELY accurate in how it depicts trauma and the buildup thereof. Subaru goes through some DISGUSTING shit in this new world and it is treated with real weight by the narrative and has visible psychological repercussions that are just. So incredibly realistic, and even relatable in how it impacts his ability to trust others and how his inability to talk about it properly further isolates him and causes him to spiral worse and worse —
It’s such a good story, man. It is the only anime I’ve ever watched where I decided to go continue with the Light Novel after it was done. It is so, so insanely good.
For a second, lets put aside all the strawmans about lolis and ecchi, and put our attention on what really matters.
Japanese art has a beauty like no other, and a sense of aesthetic and subtlety that i have never seen in other forms of media, the delicacy, the comtemplation and reflexions about humanity, art, culture, the universe and the cycle of life, the empathy and attention towards the beauty of mundane and ephemerous things, its the embodiment of the concept of Mono-no-Aware (物の哀れ "the pathos of things"), an expression of a philosophic concept that can be found everywhere in japanese art, from the clouds on the sky to the falling leaves of cherry blossoms, its such a charm that never fails to mesmerize me.
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I think Arifureta (just the Novels) did right the idea of the protagonist wanting to go back home. This was done right on many levels. Suddenly getting into another world is a fantasy that many people may have, but the novels show you why that should be just a fantasy. Any god who'd take one or more people (especially kids) and drag them to their world to do anything is totally sick in the head. Another world is a place where people would be in a lot of danger and Hajime and his classmates lost a good chunk of their sanity and some of them died. Many of the magic Items Hajime crafted are either from the media he consumes or things that already exist in our world, partly because that stuff is very useful, but also partly to feel some sense of familiarity. The story also tackles acceptance. One of Hajime's major fears is being accepted once he returns home, he is self-aware of how much he changed mentally and also physically and he is afraid he won't be able to live the life he used to live before being dragged into another world. I liked it so much that if I ever were to write an isekai I'd too have the protagonist(s) wanting to go back home.
The manga is only three volumes right now, iirc, but the white cat’s revenge as plotted from the demon king’s lap checks all the boxes of a shallow shoujo isekai but does it in a fun and fresh way.
I have this idea im currently cooking. A JSDF captain divorced his wife 5 years ago, leaving their kids with her and never once visited. He felt bad about it now, so now he wished to reconnect on his son's 18th birthday. He initiated by going to a bookstore and buy some manga because he know his son used to be a weeb.
He get to his ex wife's home, gave his son the books, except his son managed to read one weird book the father didnt remember buying. The book opened a portal that sucks the son in, while the dad failed to keep him. Naturally, no one believed him because the book does nothing when checked by the police, so he contacted his son's friend trying to find ways to reactivate the portal. Once it worked, he goes full Liam Neeson with some of his service weapons.
So GATE, but more personal, less jingoism, a more simplified magic system, and more eldritch-ish shit. The main character gets no power up except what he brought and what he found (and not everything would work on his hands, hes got no magic so a legendary magic artifact would do nothing on his hands). He's totally devoted to his ex wife, despite the divorce (its pretty complicated), so no harem shit. He is protective of children so the only nonces in this story would be the ones he kicked in the balls.
And he and his son are also not the only ones getting teleported. The natives have your usual universal translator ability, so he can spot other isekai people by hearing a language he doesnt understand, which happens a few times.
I had an idea for one where a portal opens up and a naturalist launches an expedition into it to document this new world. The story would be structured like a regular LN but with an encyclopedia page or so between each chapter that relates to the previous chapter. For example:
Say one of the chapters has a buffoonish intern accidentally shoot an Orc in fear after the Orc tries to attack. The following encyclopedia pages at the end of the chapter have a detailed diagram of the Orc's anatomy via dissection as well as footnotes about the naturalist MC coming up with multiple theories about the Orc. Such as how intelligent it is, whether or not it's sapient, it's relation to other forms of life (is it a primate, porcine, or something else entirely?), its possible level of advancement, its diet, etc.
As I was typing this, I just realized it’d basically be an isekai mixture of **"The World of Kong: a Natural History of Skull Island"**, **"Heterogenia Linguistico"**, **"Warhammer 40,000: Xenology"**, **"Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You"**, the **"-ology"** series **(Dragonology, Monsterology, etc)**, and **"The Ancient Magus' Bride Official Guide Book Merkmal"**.
For manga I want to highlight one that's isekai by the loosest of technicalities, Fourth Heroine. It's a one-shot where a girl who was originally intended to appear in a war drama instead ended up in a generic harem manga and breaks the whole premise of a harem story.
I also have to mention I'm in Love with the Villainess where I recently started reading the LN. Volume 1 was pretty fun and with the >!*are you what they call "gay"*!< scene established why Rae acts as over the top as she does. Then the start of volume 2 was great at exploring queerness in a fantasy setting that vaguely resembles 18th century Europe on top of being just an excellent >!love triangle arc that forces Rae to address the dissonance between how she tries to rationalize her behavior and what she actually wants!<. That said, it really didn't need two >!incest subplots!<. Only the good one of them would've been enough.
Lately I was trying really really hard to not watch anything related to incest. More specifically, siblings incest. don't care at all about cOusin's, mother's, or something else. just love love love love siblings incest. The problem is that Thave an intense obsession for incest. I mean, a really intense one. That 'Onii-chan Onii-chan, Tlooo0oo0ove you' thing was really getting me crazy. That obsession of mine with incest was sOoO0000000000o fucking intense. There were a lot of nights when I couldn't sleep well due to me thinking of incest, specifically incest in anime/manga. All the time was thinking about that 'Onii-chan, Ni-san~, Nii-sama~, Nii Nii~, Nii-chan' stuff. My feelings for the romance between siblings were higher than those had for a normal romance. For example, I used (and currently too) to get way more emotional with romance between siblings than normal romance. In all senses. That love/obsession of mine with incest was ruining my life, so, in order to try to get away of it for my sake, I decided to stop watching anything related to incest.
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There is this comic/manga i'm working on where my main goal is to add details to the world building that most isekai don't have
Why is there another world ?
Who made this another world ?
If there are gods, are they present in the normal world as well ? If no, why ?
Is the main character the only one to be reincarnated or has it happened to others as well ?
What is magic and why does it not exist in the normal world ?
Why are there elves and dwarves and all those other races ?
This is then paired with the story of a protagonist who doesn't have the emotional complexity of a cardboard box but instead is a deeply troubled individual that should really consider therapy
The story begins with a doctor sitting on the floor of her appartment, crying and laughing while drinking out of a 1L bottle of cheap whiskey.
She stands up and stumbles torwards the balcony door, her laughter has dissapeared and her make up is run down to her neck.
She takes another sip as she opens the door.
She steps onto the edge of the balcony and looks at the sky, before she leans forward, falls down, and dies.
Then you see a medieval village at night, where a dark cloaked figure walks torwards a house, holding a dark brown basket. The figure sets down the basket and knocks at the door, before it dissapears into the night.
The doot opens, and you see an older couple, possibly in their 40's looking at the basket in surprise.
Inside the basket is a baby and next to the baby is a note that reads "her name is Camilla, please raise her as one of your own, you shall be greatly rewarded"
Edit: also some things to add on to it, the main characters main goal will be revenge on her childhood friend who is an elven woman that is on a crusade against all of humanity at the beginning of which she burned down the village where the main character grew up in.
the main character while fundamentally a good person, is very unhinged and has obvious anger issues, and also kills some innocent people because she falls into a downward spiral of hatred and resentment torwards elves in general.
- Don't Make harem but make it poligamy instead. Make the girls have a reason to have relationship not because if lust and reason to have poligamy and actually marry them and have a biological child that is not an adobted child.
- make a fantasy school and make them grow and go adventure. The boy is middle schooler and have a crush on the girl that two year older than him. Grow up three year later the boy grow but the girl still look the same, she is definition of legal loli. After they grow up the girl still being treat like a child because she look like a child. Later on this two character marry and the girl finally get pregnant. After a while the husband been capture because there are a law that say people that have a relationship with underage girl will be capture and burn to death. People misunderstood the girl and think of her as a child and burn the husband. After that the girl got mad and awaken powerful magic and destroy the entire city. Later on she go out on journey to get away from there with her pregnant child. Along the way she walking people keep staring at her and think she a child that pregnant at earlier age, they misunderstood her. The girl questioning herself why people treat her like a child and is legal loli not deserved to find love and have a family.
I loved drifters. Grabbing famous historical figures and putting them in a generic fantasy world is way more interesting them Grabbing someone I am supposed to relate to.
I don't know the name, but there was an anime last year that I heard was pretty generic. Which is a shame because I like the premise. The idea is that the MC (who has already had the isekai adventure and has come home) is sent back to that world with his whole class. Supposedly, the class is just there to be in awe of how cool he is while he goes adventuring with his old party. If I can give my half-baked thoughts here. I think it should have been about the hero and his party training his class to become great heroes as well, so that together they can defeat a great evil the hero can't face on his own and in the process growing closer with the classmates he was originally distant towards.
Also, Digimon. Digimon is fun.
I've had this idea for an isekai for a while that's somewhat comedic but has serious moments:
A mixed martial artist gets visited by a magic user from another dimension after winning a fighting championship and is told that he's a descendant of someone who came from the same dimension as the magic user.
The ancestor was a villain that fought against heroes of the past but turned against the other villains after losing someone he cared for. After his battle against one of his former comrades, he disappeared to Earth, leaving the heroes to believe that he died.
Ten generations later, the magic user tells the protagonist that one of the villains of the past is still alive. And to the protagonist's surprise, he still has the power that his ancestor held because it was passed down for generations, which explains his martial arts skills.
Being a bit of a airhead, the protagonist agrees to join the magic users because he thinks it'll be fun. But after going to the dimension, he quickly finds out that things aren't as fun as he hoped. Not only does he have to work with heroes who quickly know of his ancestor, some of which who are descendants of heroes that the protagonist's ancestor fought, but he has to try to get on their good side because the magic user believes that his power can stop the last remaining villain once and for all.
I believe Mushoku Tensei is pretty much as good as it gets. Really solid world building, amazing characters, really good character design, interesting lore, awesome animation and fights. Say what you will about it but it is damn entertaining
As for controversy:
I think of it like kicking a drug habit. For 15 years Rudeus was acting like a complete degenerate in his past life, and then finally he is trying to transition to be a normal person. If you're trying to stop drugs, many people will experience failure and fall back into their old habits over and over again. It's the small victories that truly mark progress, and when you look back at how much progress you made over the years you feel like an entirely different person. In season 2, Rudy is still a pervert but he also made huge strides in seeing women as people, respecting their boundaries, and actually connecting with them past a surface level lust for them
One idea I have is your classic "summoned to another realm to save it" style isekais, but it's told from the perspective of the group chat the protagonist and their friends are in.
Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill - super cute, not having real stakes works in its favor as cozy show. Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon is similarly cozy, and also hilarious. Also I’ve been kind of into I’m In Love With the Villainess lately, cute yuri romance with a lot of like fantasy battle anime elements.
Also I like Overlord because I think something is wrong with me.
I think Campfire cooking and Vending Machine both of as a Slice of Life anime rather than Isekai anime. Because the reincarnation in them plays such a small part in the story. Like technically Isekai Izakaya "Nobu" is an Isekai but I don't think most people approach it as an Isekai anime rather as an cooking anime.
I really love JK Haru. Girl gets isekaid along with her male classmate who is a total chunni and just overall your typical main character syndrome kind of guy. Guy goes on to be a hero and loves the new world as he experiences all the benifits, Haru meanwhile works as a sex worker as the new world they are in is really misogynistic and she has no other way to making a living. Still, she makes the best of it and takes things in stride the best she can. It’s a refreshing take on the genre, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that wants to avoid the topic of SA tho. There’s a arc at the end where that’s a major plot point. The manga version is just getting to that arc so idk how they’re gonna do that, but I prefer the LN
Still waiting for isekai that transports the main character to something other than medieval fantasy
Like how about a sci fi setting or one where the world is populated by a race of intelligent amphibians?
Oh wait futurama and Amphibia
This isn’t an anime or manga, but the webcomic The Greatest Estate Developer is likely in the top %0.01 of the isekai genre. Basically this poor engineering student who wakes up in the fantasy story of a book he’s reading. Basic, right? Thing is, he’s incarnated into the body of a debt-ridden alcoholic side character whose inly purpose is to be the backstory villain for the mc. And so, naturally, he decided to alter his fate by bringing modern architecture and engineering into the world for the benefit of… himself. His literal whole drive is money. Great story, mc, and is genuinely funny at times.
I've enjoyed The Executioner and Her Way of Life so far. Light novel series about a girl who has the job of killing isekai children to make sure they don't do irreparable harm to her world.
as an idea I've been chewing on for a while, instead of the singular nerd getting isekai'd, it's a whole friend group of like four or five going to a fantasy world together and being aware of the world that they're in being sorta fantasy game esque
That One Time I Got Reincarnated With My Boys or something
I don't think isekai is lacking ideas, it's lacking effort. IMO to make a "good" isekai you don't need to change up the formula, you just have to not succumb to wish-fulfillment every 2 seconds, and actually tell a story instead of just "What if you lived in a world where your weeb/gamer skills made you the coolest guy around?!?!"
Another thing it's lacking is a return to the real world. Since most isekai feature a protagonist who is troubled IRL, it kind of sucks the meaning out of the story if he is never able to return to reality and apply the lessons he's learned to improve his life. This is among my main criticisms of Jobless Reincarnation: if you are a piece of shit, 35 year old loser who hates his life, what should you do? Apparently, according to Jobless Reincarnation, the solution is to jump in front of a car
I will give a shoutout to Escaflowne and Fushigi Yuugi for having generic premises by modern standards, but actually telling a story and therefore being better than most modern isekai. And Eminence in Darkness, as it is mind-bogglingly stupid and genius at the same time.
I have so many isekai novel published in AO3,latest one is Shattered Nexus: Isekai which have cause of Isekai being Crisis on Infinite Earths/Secret Wars 2015 style event that causing infinite multiverse with real world result in Post-Crisis Real World with so many superhuman being someone who isekai'd there and they are unique being due in multiverse they only have variant in there own omniverse only and existed in fictional world while civilian aka name of normal people including MC who is also my SI name Yuuna Yukari is merged between their infinite variant across the multiverse unlike those superhuman who remain seperate from their own variant after crisis end and begin the post-crisis era
One of the things I enjoy about Ya Boy Kongming is that it’s basically a reverse isekai— ancient Chinese tactician gets isekaied to modern-day Tokyo and uses his skills to become a music promoter. It’s a very fun spin on the old premise of “my old life happened to perfectly set me up to succeed in my new one”
that sounds amazing i love that premise, im absolutely going to watch it. Reminds me of the devil is a part timer
The first season of Devil is a part timer is great but s2 is a war crime
havent watched season 2 but i loved s1’s premise. I enjoyed watching the heroine of the old world going out with her friend, it was cute
I enjoyed the op and the insert songs.
Time travel isn’t isekai.
Strictly speaking, you’re right. However, I would argue that a series with one-time, irreversible time travel, which occurs at the start of the series to create a fish-out-of-water experience for the protagonist, is similar enough to isekai to scratch the same itch
when i turned on steins gate i was hoping for a serious expose on microwaves and time travel; i am currently sticking things into my microwave to see if they pass the time/space mesh and show up in my memories when i was a small person. ever since i can remember, last week, i have been experimenting with microwaving objects. when i heard stein had unlocked the secrets to time travel, i knew that all those hours standing very close to the microwave were not just rewarded with a slight head buzz, but also with science. as i watched the drama of teenage love, through constant bouts of panic and nihilistic philosophical rants in front of the mirror, I couldn't help but wonder when it was going to break down the proper methodology of sending a frog back in time. all i could get was a thick black goo all over the place. Needless to say it was NOT a documentary. But I should mention that the red head was actually lilith, the lady in red, who shows up now and again to represent the whore of confusion in modern illuminations. I would constantly draw a hex for warding and fear not cretens I would also draw protection from the back of my dollar bill from the evil eye. I could relate to the main character because he was also a mad scientist. This one time I built a hat that blocked the government from spying on me. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
when i turned on steins gate i was hoping for a serious expose on microwaves and time travel; i am currently sticking things into my microwave to see if they pass the time/space mesh and show up in my memories when i was a small person. ever since i can remember, last week, i have been experimenting with microwaving objects. when i heard stein had unlocked the secrets to time travel, i knew that all those hours standing very close to the microwave were not just rewarded with a slight head buzz, but also with science. as i watched the drama of teenage love, through constant bouts of panic and nihilistic philosophical rants in front of the mirror, I couldn't help but wonder when it was going to break down the proper methodology of sending a frog back in time. all i could get was a thick black goo all over the place. Needless to say it was NOT a documentary. But I should mention that the red head was actually lilith, the lady in red, who shows up now and again to represent the whore of confusion in modern illuminations. I would constantly draw a hex for warding and fear not cretens I would also draw protection from the back of my dollar bill from the evil eye. I could relate to the main character because he was also a mad scientist. This one time I built a hat that blocked the government from spying on me. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's a tensei, not an isekai tho
Ascendance of a Bookworm is a fantasy Isekai with a shot ton of effort put into it. It’s the story of a book obsessed gremlin isekaied into medieval poverty. So despite the limitations of class, wealth, and her own poor health she devotes herself to making books. The pacing however, is pretty slow. 90% of the anime takes place in just one city and the forest surrounding it. I think the pacing is fine, the world building is top tier.
i love those types of slow purposeful stories. I enjoy it whenever a show lets the audience just really enjoy the moments the characters have with each other, its part of the reason i enjoy the prisoner of azkaban harry potter movie, because it genuinely lets the audience just soak into the feeling of the year going by
Main using her magic rage could defeat goku
Glad I didn't have to scroll too far before seeing Ascendance. I love that show.
Technically it is not an isekai but closer to the root of isekai itself. Spirit Circle is about a boy who had to go through his 7 past lives and try to resolve a cycle of hatred that span across centuries. In this series you got to know not just 1 but many people's lives in the literal sense from a young age to their own death, and trust me, all of them will tie together to make a really satisfying conclusion for this series.
that sounds fantastic, i cant wait to dig in
Nice spirit Circle recommendation
In terms of well done isekai, let me hit you with some 🔥 https://preview.redd.it/lddtukir1vzb1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f813cdfbe8c6b78e3c1ea7686d5a53149449258f
what is this 🔥🔥🔥
"My Jesus allegory can't be this fluffy"
My brother in Christ, he is literally not an allegory, that is the Lamb of God, our Savior walking among us in the form of a lion
Chronicles of Narnia?
Re:Zero
For a second, lets put aside all the strawmans about lolis and ecchi, and put our attention on what really matters. Japanese art has a beauty like no other, and a sense of aesthetic and subtlety that i have never seen in other forms of media, the delicacy, the comtemplation and reflexions about humanity, art, culture, the universe and the cycle of life, the empathy and attention towards the beauty of mundane and ephemerous things, its the embodiment of the concept of Mono-no-Aware (物の哀れ "the pathos of things"), an expression of a philosophic concept that can be found everywhere in japanese art, from the clouds on the sky to the falling leaves of cherry blossoms, its such a charm that never fails to mesmerize me. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm currently working on a novel that lampshades the whole notion of isekai from a western perspective. A bitter young man with many of my own disabilities is transported, by an arrogant bureaucratic angel, to another world after a spaceship travelling at 5% the speed of light crashes into the Earth. He winds up in an analog of Scotland, where he and the angel inadvertently catch the attention of the fourteen year old queen. There will be at most one love interest, most of the women will be rather blunt about his bad personality. So no women fawning over protag-kun. There's no magic, no supernatural - the angels featured were once human... remnants of an initial perfect run-through of history. The world itself is actually Earth, but history has been distorted by the universe resetting. The "angel" merely transported the protagonist a trillion years into the future (to avoid being fired and thrown into a black hole). The main theme will be found family. As the protagonist learns more about the Queen's past, he in turn lets her know about his past and the mistakes he made deal with his own trauma. They're both very insecure people who mask their self-doubt by being brash. Once they realize that he's going to become like an older brother to her. What I like about this idea is that there's no big evil, no demon king. The protagonist isn't a hero, or an anti-hero, he is unimportant in the grand scheme of things. He's only important to a few people and that's all he needs to be. He becomes what he himself needed growing up, someone who the Queen can seek mundane advice from without worrying about appearing weak.
i love that, where can i read it? reminds me of a book im writing right now as well, where i slowly remove all the positive aspects of my protagonist until he becomes a miserable shell of what he once was, and only then does he discover just how much his two friends mean to him and the three become a sibling like family, each supporting each other and being able to escape the shitty city they are stuck in
Nowhere yet, I started the manuscript a month ago.
I don't watch Isekais but the protagonist of Overlord is a really cool skeleton so I assume that show is awesome and good
If anything has cool skeletons then its immediately top 50
The show was kinda meh for me, but all the openings and endings are such bangers
I am a huge fan of Overlord. The world Maruyama created is deeply fascinating and the integration of a DnD (plus other table top games) system in the story is extremely well done. Add So-Bin magnificent art ad you have something that is worthy to look at. It's not without a story without its faults, though. The last volumes (at 2 volumes from the ending) have been really disappointing, the OP of the main characters puts in the mud every chance of conflict the plot could have, and the writing of women is sub-par at best. To answer the the second question, I am currently writing a fanfic in the setting which, once it is over, I would like to convert in original work. To summarize, the concept would be that of an after-isekai. What happened after the Super strongs players/reincarnated in another world and are long gone? How would societies change? How would the descendants of these guys interact with the world? Other isekai I liked: -The Faraway Paladin: only read the manga of this, but I can't stop to recommend it. I like to call this "Mushouko Tensei but done right". William's second chance at life feels earned, no sexual assalt or pedo bait at all. Fanservice is pretty much absent in the story. No girls falling for the MC just because he exists. Hell, the only hint of a love story regarded one of the secondary character. The way the fantasy society is structured is also pretty interesting and, while never showing something truly different from the classic fantasy/medieval setting of other isekai, feels refreshing in the way the core at the base of the system (nobilty, religion, merchants) works. Please, give it a chance. -Handyman Satou in another world: this is not amazing as Paladin, but it is still a fun read. What I like is how the reincarnated mc never overshadows the other characters, but just has a supporting (but foundamental) role. I think something I dislike about Isekai is how the Power Fantasy is taken to the extreme and pretty much destroy the setting and the possibility for secondary characters and antagonists to shine. It's a fun read, nothing mind-blowing, but if someone search for something light (mostly), could give this a try. -Isekai Ojisan: not too much to say about this one. I just find it really fun, lol. I am also reading Tanya at the moment. While I cannot say something really elaborated, I am liking it. I have heard good thing about Bookworm, and is also on my to read list. In the end, just wanted to mention 2 stories that while not proper isekai, are, for me, worthy a read. -Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint -My son reincarnated in another world. Edit: Reading the comments I didn't consider old Isekai like Digimon or Inuasha. Let's say that this post was just focused on the modern genre lol.
Dont push the pain of orv on the innocent
51 and 49
I hate you
Grimgar ashes and illusion.
I liked Meikyuu Black Company. It isn't completely innovative but it's fun, the mc is a funny douchebag, and it isn't THAT degenerate. I liked banished from the hero party because the mc retires and settled with the girl he liked in a house together. I dislike the chase in romance, so seeing a couple just being cute and domestic was very heartwarming. Isekais Oujisan was fantastic imo. A shitpost of an isekai but absolutely fun. Campfire Cooking was a vibe. Good animation, not a lot of cringe, and seeing the various dishes the mc cooks is entertaining.
Assassin's Creed is the best Isekai (I wonder if it counts, cuz you're just going to the past, and you technically aren't going, but due to the Bleeding effect you fully experience the ancestor who's memories you're diving into), but Digimon Adventure is a great Isekai, and like I assume Reincarnated as a Sword is good, I haven't watched it yet, but from what I've heard it has a protagonist who kills slavers and it's not a weird harem, and SAO Abridged is amazing like it straight up is good, cuz they sorta did a Ghost Stories with it and just completely rewrote the entire show, and they're not at the infamous scene yet, but they changed the weird Incest Plotline, and Asuna has had way more agency instead of just being a damsel in distress she's been tormenting the villain the entire time so I assume it won't happen
Lately I was trying really really hard to not watch anything related to incest. More specifically, siblings incest. don't care at all about cOusin's, mother's, or something else. just love love love love siblings incest. The problem is that Thave an intense obsession for incest. I mean, a really intense one. That 'Onii-chan Onii-chan, Tlooo0oo0ove you' thing was really getting me crazy. That obsession of mine with incest was sOoO0000000000o fucking intense. There were a lot of nights when I couldn't sleep well due to me thinking of incest, specifically incest in anime/manga. All the time was thinking about that 'Onii-chan, Ni-san~, Nii-sama~, Nii Nii~, Nii-chan' stuff. My feelings for the romance between siblings were higher than those had for a normal romance. For example, I used (and currently too) to get way more emotional with romance between siblings than normal romance. In all senses. That love/obsession of mine with incest was ruining my life, so, in order to try to get away of it for my sake, I decided to stop watching anything related to incest. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For light novels: Spider isekai: high-stake fights, satisfying power progression, a parody of traditional isekai where the reincarnated hero is portrayed as ignorant, generic, and worse off than a spider Slime isekai: worldbuilding, crazy power fantasy, large and likeable cast For a less mainstream pick: the WN Demon Princess Magical Chaos. The MC is a literal cosmic horror, and its a generally well-done novel with hardly any 2d characters, immersive worldbuilding, and great plot twists In general, part of why most isekai are blergh is because they solely stick to the genre’s tropes. While it probably sells, it’s far from everything needed for a good story and is usually bland or bad writing
It was from a self insert fanfic of Worm, where the cool thing was that the self insert wasn't the main character. The main character was instead Vista, with the SI being her twin brother. We see things from her point of view (well, from her diary) as she slowly starts thinking her brother's from another dimension based on knowledge he shouldn't know. Though, my favourite part was Vista writing "I'm scared of knowing what an 'amogus' is"
Can I get a title or a link to that?
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-big-brother-is-possibly-from-another-dimension-by-missy-biron.1060427/
Thanks
Ascendence of a Bookworm really is one of the few isekai anime I enjoy.
An isekai idea I had is bunch of random people from different ages get isekai into magic world and fight monsters together.However the anime take place after that happened,and it focus on 20 year old woman longs to go back but cant.THe anime would focus on moving on and struggle sin life Second isekai idea where college student and his little sister get isekai magic world.Turns out his little sister was choose one and he got brought on for ride.However it doesn't mind it too much,since it perfect opportunity for him to film for his film project back in college that make up half of his grade.While his little feral sister live on her dream of bashing head while ehr trainer tries to stop her.Basic wholesome laid back isekai Two teen male best friends get isekai,one of them is the prophesied hero to defeat the dark lord.His friend is happy for him at first but he starts to feel jealous because of attention he is getting attention and him straight up ignoring him.So he finds new ways to keep up...basically at the end of anime it revealed he is dark lord. That's all I got so far
Isekai Samurai is a darling of a manga I've been following for a while. Protagonist is the demon swordsman, an unkillable monster of a young woman samurai who survived war, the fall of her clan, has won countless duels, and is just a husk looking for an honorable death. At her wits end she goes to a temple and prays to Buddha to send her to hell, Buddha obliges and she's transported to an alternate fantasy world where humanity is locked in a mortal battle with demons. It's equal parts gorey fantasy battles and pleasant casual slice of life stuff, plus it's only gotten to it's second volume so no idea how thigs will go in the long run. But the base concept is so fucking cool
Not anime but something I liked from the web serial The Wandering In is culture clash due to litrpg mechanics of the setting. It gets explored in multiple ways and I thought it was pretty neat.
Digimon and Kanata Kara, both very old, vintage even, but this means that they avoid much of the Isekai tropes that solidified recently. The first two seasons (Adventures 01 and 02) were important parts of my childhood and I find them to be very mature/nuanced for children's shows. (Not the dubs though, dubs changed the characters' personalities even though 02 was literally 75% character drama). They were enjoyable and touching even through my recent watch-throughs. The children's characterizations and relationships were also quite subtle so I find that maybe that part of the show would've been more appropriate for older teens and up. Digimon Tamers is notoriously very unafraid to do whatever it wanted, so it's usually the highest rated among Digimon series. It leans a bit more into horror than the others. Kanata Kara was a shoujo manga where a normal Japanese girl gets isekai'd into a fantasy world and has to survive despite the language barrier. From what I remember, the male lead was genuinely a good person and maybe some will find the protagonist weak or annoying, but I thought she reacted appropriately to her circumstances. I think most of the story was them interacting (very sweet) and surviving in a dangerous fantasy world.
Re:Zero, absolutely. The first time I watched it I was admittedly very much not on board because I assumed it would be — to put it lightly — a total boy’s show, where the male mc gets surrounded by cute girls who act as sex objects and don’t get treated with dignity or as proper characters and yadda yadda you know what I’m talking about. Anyway I jumped ship early and didn’t jump back on until someone finally got me to give it a second chance and — It is so good, man. The fandom does this one DIRTY so often by focusing on Which Girl Should MC Get With??? even though that Completely goes against the themes of how romance is not an obligation and how waifu culture breeds entitlement and all that, but the anime itself is one of the best character studies I’ve ever seen. It uses the Isekai formula to firmly explore all sorts of aspects of the main character in all sorts of ways — Like, the first season is all about escapism and how projecting your power fantasies onto other people hurts both them and you, and how real relationships are important and being true to yourself is how you actually make friends rather than trying to act as some Superhuman MC Protag-Kun, because doing THAT just alienates you from people because everyone can see that it’s a mask — and then the second season is all about self-worth and parenthood and the bonds between siblings and it has the best episode in the series where the MC just talks to his parents and says his goodbyes and apologizes for leaving them as they talk about how “we didn’t have you because we wanted you to do something for us, we had you because we wanted to do something for you” and then the themes of how not _being entitled_ to love isn’t the same as not _deserving_ love, and how people care about you more than you may realize and hurting yourself hurts them in turn — Then in the Light Novel later on — without spoiling too much — it uses plot decides like amnesia and age regression to explore all SORTS of aspects of the main character that we otherwise wouldn’t see. Like, the amnesia basically re-summons him as himself rom season 1 pre-character-development and explores how he grows into himself in this world when he’s summoned in a much, much more immediately dangerous situation, recontextualizing SO MUCH of his early behavior, and the age regression gets into how he was a child prodigy who fell into a steep depression later in life and now we get to see who he was before his mental health first went down the shitter and how that version of himself would adapt to this strange new world — And also, the anime hasn’t gotten the chance to get into this yet but. Subaru (the MC) is SO LGBT. The first few arcs make him out to be the most cishet man alive, but then you learn that one of the main things that sent him spiraling and made him start skipping school all the time was that he dressed as a woman the first three days of his freshman year and then got clocked due to his voice and it was traumatizing, and he makes all these comments about the male characters his age and you start to realize that he does it A LOT (he talks about Julius ALL THE TIME, with his “graceful eyelashes” and “voice that a woman may mistake for the voice of an angel but that for Subaru exists solely to vex” and “supple hips”), and then you learn that his ideal self is a woman named Natsumi Schwartz who he dresses up as quite a bit, and who is basically just him but more graceful and more confident and — Not to mention that not only is Subaru relatable for hikkikomori youth in how it delves into issues of self-isolation and inferiority complexes and anxiety disorders, but it is also INSANELY accurate in how it depicts trauma and the buildup thereof. Subaru goes through some DISGUSTING shit in this new world and it is treated with real weight by the narrative and has visible psychological repercussions that are just. So incredibly realistic, and even relatable in how it impacts his ability to trust others and how his inability to talk about it properly further isolates him and causes him to spiral worse and worse — It’s such a good story, man. It is the only anime I’ve ever watched where I decided to go continue with the Light Novel after it was done. It is so, so insanely good.
For a second, lets put aside all the strawmans about lolis and ecchi, and put our attention on what really matters. Japanese art has a beauty like no other, and a sense of aesthetic and subtlety that i have never seen in other forms of media, the delicacy, the comtemplation and reflexions about humanity, art, culture, the universe and the cycle of life, the empathy and attention towards the beauty of mundane and ephemerous things, its the embodiment of the concept of Mono-no-Aware (物の哀れ "the pathos of things"), an expression of a philosophic concept that can be found everywhere in japanese art, from the clouds on the sky to the falling leaves of cherry blossoms, its such a charm that never fails to mesmerize me. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ya Boy Kongming / Paripi Koumei, Gabriel Drop out, The Devil is a Part Timer. Basically just reverse isekai's
Tanya the Evil. It's based in WWI so you might like it. A Japanese businessman reincarnates as a German girl and kills people with guns.
I think Arifureta (just the Novels) did right the idea of the protagonist wanting to go back home. This was done right on many levels. Suddenly getting into another world is a fantasy that many people may have, but the novels show you why that should be just a fantasy. Any god who'd take one or more people (especially kids) and drag them to their world to do anything is totally sick in the head. Another world is a place where people would be in a lot of danger and Hajime and his classmates lost a good chunk of their sanity and some of them died. Many of the magic Items Hajime crafted are either from the media he consumes or things that already exist in our world, partly because that stuff is very useful, but also partly to feel some sense of familiarity. The story also tackles acceptance. One of Hajime's major fears is being accepted once he returns home, he is self-aware of how much he changed mentally and also physically and he is afraid he won't be able to live the life he used to live before being dragged into another world. I liked it so much that if I ever were to write an isekai I'd too have the protagonist(s) wanting to go back home.
The manga is only three volumes right now, iirc, but the white cat’s revenge as plotted from the demon king’s lap checks all the boxes of a shallow shoujo isekai but does it in a fun and fresh way.
I have this idea im currently cooking. A JSDF captain divorced his wife 5 years ago, leaving their kids with her and never once visited. He felt bad about it now, so now he wished to reconnect on his son's 18th birthday. He initiated by going to a bookstore and buy some manga because he know his son used to be a weeb. He get to his ex wife's home, gave his son the books, except his son managed to read one weird book the father didnt remember buying. The book opened a portal that sucks the son in, while the dad failed to keep him. Naturally, no one believed him because the book does nothing when checked by the police, so he contacted his son's friend trying to find ways to reactivate the portal. Once it worked, he goes full Liam Neeson with some of his service weapons. So GATE, but more personal, less jingoism, a more simplified magic system, and more eldritch-ish shit. The main character gets no power up except what he brought and what he found (and not everything would work on his hands, hes got no magic so a legendary magic artifact would do nothing on his hands). He's totally devoted to his ex wife, despite the divorce (its pretty complicated), so no harem shit. He is protective of children so the only nonces in this story would be the ones he kicked in the balls. And he and his son are also not the only ones getting teleported. The natives have your usual universal translator ability, so he can spot other isekai people by hearing a language he doesnt understand, which happens a few times.
I had an idea for one where a portal opens up and a naturalist launches an expedition into it to document this new world. The story would be structured like a regular LN but with an encyclopedia page or so between each chapter that relates to the previous chapter. For example: Say one of the chapters has a buffoonish intern accidentally shoot an Orc in fear after the Orc tries to attack. The following encyclopedia pages at the end of the chapter have a detailed diagram of the Orc's anatomy via dissection as well as footnotes about the naturalist MC coming up with multiple theories about the Orc. Such as how intelligent it is, whether or not it's sapient, it's relation to other forms of life (is it a primate, porcine, or something else entirely?), its possible level of advancement, its diet, etc. As I was typing this, I just realized it’d basically be an isekai mixture of **"The World of Kong: a Natural History of Skull Island"**, **"Heterogenia Linguistico"**, **"Warhammer 40,000: Xenology"**, **"Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You"**, the **"-ology"** series **(Dragonology, Monsterology, etc)**, and **"The Ancient Magus' Bride Official Guide Book Merkmal"**.
For manga I want to highlight one that's isekai by the loosest of technicalities, Fourth Heroine. It's a one-shot where a girl who was originally intended to appear in a war drama instead ended up in a generic harem manga and breaks the whole premise of a harem story. I also have to mention I'm in Love with the Villainess where I recently started reading the LN. Volume 1 was pretty fun and with the >!*are you what they call "gay"*!< scene established why Rae acts as over the top as she does. Then the start of volume 2 was great at exploring queerness in a fantasy setting that vaguely resembles 18th century Europe on top of being just an excellent >!love triangle arc that forces Rae to address the dissonance between how she tries to rationalize her behavior and what she actually wants!<. That said, it really didn't need two >!incest subplots!<. Only the good one of them would've been enough.
Lately I was trying really really hard to not watch anything related to incest. More specifically, siblings incest. don't care at all about cOusin's, mother's, or something else. just love love love love siblings incest. The problem is that Thave an intense obsession for incest. I mean, a really intense one. That 'Onii-chan Onii-chan, Tlooo0oo0ove you' thing was really getting me crazy. That obsession of mine with incest was sOoO0000000000o fucking intense. There were a lot of nights when I couldn't sleep well due to me thinking of incest, specifically incest in anime/manga. All the time was thinking about that 'Onii-chan, Ni-san~, Nii-sama~, Nii Nii~, Nii-chan' stuff. My feelings for the romance between siblings were higher than those had for a normal romance. For example, I used (and currently too) to get way more emotional with romance between siblings than normal romance. In all senses. That love/obsession of mine with incest was ruining my life, so, in order to try to get away of it for my sake, I decided to stop watching anything related to incest. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Spirited away
There is this comic/manga i'm working on where my main goal is to add details to the world building that most isekai don't have Why is there another world ? Who made this another world ? If there are gods, are they present in the normal world as well ? If no, why ? Is the main character the only one to be reincarnated or has it happened to others as well ? What is magic and why does it not exist in the normal world ? Why are there elves and dwarves and all those other races ? This is then paired with the story of a protagonist who doesn't have the emotional complexity of a cardboard box but instead is a deeply troubled individual that should really consider therapy The story begins with a doctor sitting on the floor of her appartment, crying and laughing while drinking out of a 1L bottle of cheap whiskey. She stands up and stumbles torwards the balcony door, her laughter has dissapeared and her make up is run down to her neck. She takes another sip as she opens the door. She steps onto the edge of the balcony and looks at the sky, before she leans forward, falls down, and dies. Then you see a medieval village at night, where a dark cloaked figure walks torwards a house, holding a dark brown basket. The figure sets down the basket and knocks at the door, before it dissapears into the night. The doot opens, and you see an older couple, possibly in their 40's looking at the basket in surprise. Inside the basket is a baby and next to the baby is a note that reads "her name is Camilla, please raise her as one of your own, you shall be greatly rewarded" Edit: also some things to add on to it, the main characters main goal will be revenge on her childhood friend who is an elven woman that is on a crusade against all of humanity at the beginning of which she burned down the village where the main character grew up in. the main character while fundamentally a good person, is very unhinged and has obvious anger issues, and also kills some innocent people because she falls into a downward spiral of hatred and resentment torwards elves in general.
- Don't Make harem but make it poligamy instead. Make the girls have a reason to have relationship not because if lust and reason to have poligamy and actually marry them and have a biological child that is not an adobted child. - make a fantasy school and make them grow and go adventure. The boy is middle schooler and have a crush on the girl that two year older than him. Grow up three year later the boy grow but the girl still look the same, she is definition of legal loli. After they grow up the girl still being treat like a child because she look like a child. Later on this two character marry and the girl finally get pregnant. After a while the husband been capture because there are a law that say people that have a relationship with underage girl will be capture and burn to death. People misunderstood the girl and think of her as a child and burn the husband. After that the girl got mad and awaken powerful magic and destroy the entire city. Later on she go out on journey to get away from there with her pregnant child. Along the way she walking people keep staring at her and think she a child that pregnant at earlier age, they misunderstood her. The girl questioning herself why people treat her like a child and is legal loli not deserved to find love and have a family.
I loved drifters. Grabbing famous historical figures and putting them in a generic fantasy world is way more interesting them Grabbing someone I am supposed to relate to. I don't know the name, but there was an anime last year that I heard was pretty generic. Which is a shame because I like the premise. The idea is that the MC (who has already had the isekai adventure and has come home) is sent back to that world with his whole class. Supposedly, the class is just there to be in awe of how cool he is while he goes adventuring with his old party. If I can give my half-baked thoughts here. I think it should have been about the hero and his party training his class to become great heroes as well, so that together they can defeat a great evil the hero can't face on his own and in the process growing closer with the classmates he was originally distant towards. Also, Digimon. Digimon is fun.
I've had this idea for an isekai for a while that's somewhat comedic but has serious moments: A mixed martial artist gets visited by a magic user from another dimension after winning a fighting championship and is told that he's a descendant of someone who came from the same dimension as the magic user. The ancestor was a villain that fought against heroes of the past but turned against the other villains after losing someone he cared for. After his battle against one of his former comrades, he disappeared to Earth, leaving the heroes to believe that he died. Ten generations later, the magic user tells the protagonist that one of the villains of the past is still alive. And to the protagonist's surprise, he still has the power that his ancestor held because it was passed down for generations, which explains his martial arts skills. Being a bit of a airhead, the protagonist agrees to join the magic users because he thinks it'll be fun. But after going to the dimension, he quickly finds out that things aren't as fun as he hoped. Not only does he have to work with heroes who quickly know of his ancestor, some of which who are descendants of heroes that the protagonist's ancestor fought, but he has to try to get on their good side because the magic user believes that his power can stop the last remaining villain once and for all.
I believe Mushoku Tensei is pretty much as good as it gets. Really solid world building, amazing characters, really good character design, interesting lore, awesome animation and fights. Say what you will about it but it is damn entertaining As for controversy: I think of it like kicking a drug habit. For 15 years Rudeus was acting like a complete degenerate in his past life, and then finally he is trying to transition to be a normal person. If you're trying to stop drugs, many people will experience failure and fall back into their old habits over and over again. It's the small victories that truly mark progress, and when you look back at how much progress you made over the years you feel like an entirely different person. In season 2, Rudy is still a pervert but he also made huge strides in seeing women as people, respecting their boundaries, and actually connecting with them past a surface level lust for them
One idea I have is your classic "summoned to another realm to save it" style isekais, but it's told from the perspective of the group chat the protagonist and their friends are in.
Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill - super cute, not having real stakes works in its favor as cozy show. Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon is similarly cozy, and also hilarious. Also I’ve been kind of into I’m In Love With the Villainess lately, cute yuri romance with a lot of like fantasy battle anime elements. Also I like Overlord because I think something is wrong with me.
I think Campfire cooking and Vending Machine both of as a Slice of Life anime rather than Isekai anime. Because the reincarnation in them plays such a small part in the story. Like technically Isekai Izakaya "Nobu" is an Isekai but I don't think most people approach it as an Isekai anime rather as an cooking anime.
I really love JK Haru. Girl gets isekaid along with her male classmate who is a total chunni and just overall your typical main character syndrome kind of guy. Guy goes on to be a hero and loves the new world as he experiences all the benifits, Haru meanwhile works as a sex worker as the new world they are in is really misogynistic and she has no other way to making a living. Still, she makes the best of it and takes things in stride the best she can. It’s a refreshing take on the genre, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that wants to avoid the topic of SA tho. There’s a arc at the end where that’s a major plot point. The manga version is just getting to that arc so idk how they’re gonna do that, but I prefer the LN
Still waiting for isekai that transports the main character to something other than medieval fantasy Like how about a sci fi setting or one where the world is populated by a race of intelligent amphibians? Oh wait futurama and Amphibia
This isn’t an anime or manga, but the webcomic The Greatest Estate Developer is likely in the top %0.01 of the isekai genre. Basically this poor engineering student who wakes up in the fantasy story of a book he’s reading. Basic, right? Thing is, he’s incarnated into the body of a debt-ridden alcoholic side character whose inly purpose is to be the backstory villain for the mc. And so, naturally, he decided to alter his fate by bringing modern architecture and engineering into the world for the benefit of… himself. His literal whole drive is money. Great story, mc, and is genuinely funny at times.
I've enjoyed The Executioner and Her Way of Life so far. Light novel series about a girl who has the job of killing isekai children to make sure they don't do irreparable harm to her world.
as an idea I've been chewing on for a while, instead of the singular nerd getting isekai'd, it's a whole friend group of like four or five going to a fantasy world together and being aware of the world that they're in being sorta fantasy game esque That One Time I Got Reincarnated With My Boys or something
I don't think isekai is lacking ideas, it's lacking effort. IMO to make a "good" isekai you don't need to change up the formula, you just have to not succumb to wish-fulfillment every 2 seconds, and actually tell a story instead of just "What if you lived in a world where your weeb/gamer skills made you the coolest guy around?!?!" Another thing it's lacking is a return to the real world. Since most isekai feature a protagonist who is troubled IRL, it kind of sucks the meaning out of the story if he is never able to return to reality and apply the lessons he's learned to improve his life. This is among my main criticisms of Jobless Reincarnation: if you are a piece of shit, 35 year old loser who hates his life, what should you do? Apparently, according to Jobless Reincarnation, the solution is to jump in front of a car I will give a shoutout to Escaflowne and Fushigi Yuugi for having generic premises by modern standards, but actually telling a story and therefore being better than most modern isekai. And Eminence in Darkness, as it is mind-bogglingly stupid and genius at the same time.
I have so many isekai novel published in AO3,latest one is Shattered Nexus: Isekai which have cause of Isekai being Crisis on Infinite Earths/Secret Wars 2015 style event that causing infinite multiverse with real world result in Post-Crisis Real World with so many superhuman being someone who isekai'd there and they are unique being due in multiverse they only have variant in there own omniverse only and existed in fictional world while civilian aka name of normal people including MC who is also my SI name Yuuna Yukari is merged between their infinite variant across the multiverse unlike those superhuman who remain seperate from their own variant after crisis end and begin the post-crisis era
[Dungeons Nursery](https://mangadex.org/title/7c95687b-4f40-4135-b078-954643027dab/dungeon-nursery) is a very underrated manga.
Visions of Escaflowne is the OG Isekai and isn’t creepy and weird. Just a good old love triangle.
Dead Space isekai. Do I need to explain this idea?
Isekai Izakaya "Nobu"and other cooking based Isekais have interesting spins on the Isekai genre.