Isekai is a subgenre of Japanese light novels, video games, manga, and anime where the protagonist gets transported to or reborn in another world. They're usually tasked with completing a specific mission during their time in this new world they've been forced into. In recent years, isekai's popularity has skyrocketed, resulting in several more isekai anime adaptations.
It's safe to say that isekai is the most popular type of anime at the moment. Several isekai anime have gone on to become classics because of the rich storytelling, dynamic characters, and immersive world-building that makes every protagonist's story seem more realistic.
Updated on June 28th, 2023 by Sage Ashford: As the isekai genre continues to expand, not every series has turned out to be a gem. However, there are still some legitimately great isekai anime that fans of the genre should absolutely check out. This list has been updated with even more amazing isekai series.
48 Show By Rock
60 Episodes
Cyan Hijirikawa just wanted to play her favorite rhythm game. Instead, she got sucked into the game and transported to Midi City. In this new city, people can control the city purely through the power of music. Though Cyan wants to return home, she soon finds her best chance of doing so is fighting back against the “dark monsters” plaguing Midi City.
Based on a phone game, Show By Rock is a different kind of isekai, abandoning isekai’s typical fantasy trappings in favor of a more unique setting. Talented studio Kinema Citrus brings the beautiful Midi City to life in all its glorious weirdness, making it worth watching just to take in the backgrounds.
47 Campfire Cooking With My Absurd Skill
12 Episodes
Tsuyoshi Mukouda is an adult summoned to another world alongside a group of teenagers. While the teenagers have powerful skills that they intend to use to battle a Demon King, Mukouda opts out, calling his skill useless. However, his actual skill allows him to order food items directly from Japan. This ability helps him cook incredible dishes which attract some of the most powerful creatures in the world.
Campfire Cooking is another example of the "relaxing isekai." Most of the focus is on Mukouda meeting incredibly powerful beings thanks to his cooking and making friends with them. Though there is adventuring, it’s all in the service of making new delicacies. Fans who love seeing food animated as appetizingly as possible should check this series out.
46 Tenchi Muyo: War On Geminar
13 Episodes
When Kenshi Masaki is pulled into the fantastical world of Geminar, he decides he’s willing to do anything to get back. However, when he’s given the job of taking out the princess of a nation, he realizes “anything” might be too much. Unwilling to kill the princess, Kenshi becomes her bodyguard instead, getting pulled into the politics of the world around him.
Tenchi Muyo: War on Geminar might not be filled with Tenchi references, but fans should still check this out for its connection to the main universe. Isekai fans on the other hand will love the overpowered protagonist, as Kenshi is always the strongest one in any encounter.
45 Dog Days
39 Episodes
Releasing just before the isekai genre truly took off, Dog Days took a normally serious genre and had fun with it. Thanks to his acrobatic talent, Cinque Izumi is summoned to another world to take part in their athletic competitions. Though battles can be fierce, the country’s magic ensures no one ever gets harmed in battle. Freed from that concern, everyone can fight to their heart’s content.
From the creator of Nanoha, Dog Days offers a unique fantasy world, unlike most in any other isekai. The series is as much about relaxing vibes as it is about intense combat scenes. Over three seasons, the series gradually expands its cast of adorable characters, allowing viewers to fall in love with the world at their own pace.
44 Drifters
12 Episodes + 3 OVAs
After Shimazu Toyahisa is wounded at the Battle of Sekigahara, he’s suddenly transported to a completely different world. In this new world, humans live alongside other races, like elves and dwarves. However, all of them struggle against a powerful army known as "Ends," who use monsters as weapons to wipe out humanity. The only thing standing in their way: the Drifters, a collection of warriors from across time, transported into this new world.
From the creator of Hellsing, most people should already know what they’re getting into with Drifters. It presents a violent world filled with brutal battles, as the Drifters struggle against the power of the Ends and their Black King. The series also contains a surprising amount of humor, offering levity to more serious situations.
43 The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion
7 Episodes
One of the newer series on the air, Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion is based on a massively popular webtoon. The protagonist is a young woman who was killed, only to be reincarnated into another world as the daughter of a baron. Living the good life, Raeliana should be happy. Only, she remembers she's living the life of a character she read about in her past life.
A small part of a mystery novel, Raeliana is destined to be killed by the man she's engaged to. Refusing to suffer that fate, she takes matters into her own hand, trying to manipulate the events and people around her. This includes the true protagonist of the book, Noah Wynknight. However, Raeliana discovers manipulating a genius protagonist is harder than it seems. An entertaining fantasy-romance, Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion will appeal to people who thought My Next Life As A Villainness was too saccharine.
42 Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is for the isekai fan who just wants a relaxing, healing watch. The series follows a teenage girl named Yuna, who spends all her time playing VRMMO games. One day, she's granted a special bear costume in her favorite game, World Fantasy Online.
It grants Yuna incredible stats that make her one of the strongest players in the game. When she logs in to try it out, she finds herself locked within the game for good. Thanks to her incredible powers, Yuna's got nothing to worry about, and is free to explore the world however she wants. There's no super important mystery to Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, it's just about enjoying a fun series.
41 Total Fantasy Knockout
Tsukasa Jinguuji and Hinata Tachibana are two men who've been friends for years, even into their thirties. However, when Hinata wishes he had been born a beautiful woman, the two of them are greeted with a goddess who grants his wish.
Out of nowhere, both Hinata and Tsukasa are transported to another world, where Hinata has become a beautiful woman. If the two want to get back, they'll have to work together to defeat this world's Demon Lord. However, with Hinata having turned into a woman, a new wrinkle has developed: the two of them are falling in love with each other.
40 Combatants Will Be Dispatched!
Combat Agent 6 is a guy with plans of making his way up to the top of the evil Kisaragi Corporation. To have a chance at doing so, he'll have to take on his most dangerous mission yet. Agent 6 finds himself sent to an alternate world where he's meant to infiltrate the kingdom of Grace.
While there, Agent 6's actions lead to him being forced to join Grace's royal knights. Fortunately for him, this means he's that much closer to fulfilling his goal with the Kisaragi Corporation. However, it comes at a cost: he'll have to battle against the Kingdom of Grace's enemy, the Demon Lord's Army.
39 Kemono Michi: Rise Up
Genzou Shiba is a pro wrestler with a heart of gold and a love for animals. When he's summoned to another world by a princess, he finds himself asked to deal with a monster problem plaguing the country. Refusing to listen to her, he knocks her unconscious with a wrestling move before he escapes the castle.
In this new world, Genzou becomes a monster hunter to meet as many animals as possible, on the way to opening his own pet shop. Kemono Michi is a straightforward isekai for fans who just want to see a guy have fun in a fantasy world making friends with animals and suplex princesses.
38 I'm The Villainess, So I'm Taming The Final Boss
12 Episodes
The popularity of My Next Life As A Villainess has seemingly led to more stories centered on women being reincarnated as villains. In I'm Taming The Final Boss, the protagonist is Aileen, a young girl who realizes she's the villain of an otome game she beat just after being dumped by her fiancée in the new world.
Being dumped is one thing, but now Aileen remembers her ultimate fate is to be killed by the Demon King, Claude Jean Ellmeyer. If she's to have any chance of surviving, she'll have to come up with a plan. Fortunately, she has one: convince the Demon King to fall in love with her. It's a wacky plan, but with her knowledge of the game, Aileen might have a chance of making it work.
37 The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent
Proof that not every isekai series has to be a harem to work, The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent is built around a woman named Sei Takanashi. Sei, alongside another woman named Aira, are teleported to another world in the kingdom of Slantania.
Though the kingdom was meant to summon a single "Saint" for the sake of ridding the world of a monster-creating miasma, they mistakenly summoned two instead. After Aira is chosen as the Holy Saint, Sei is allowed to live her own life as she chooses. However, despite the country's choices, Sei soon finds herself pulled into the world's threats.
36 Welcome To Demon School, Iruma-kun
Iruma Suzuki was born to the worst parents ever. They’re so terrible, they actually sell him to a demon. Fortunately for Iruma, the demon only wants a grandchild he can spoil, including enrolling him at the local demon school Babyls. Iruma just has one problem: no one at school can know of his identity as a human, since demons are supposed to eat humans.
Worse, Iruma's new grandfather wants him to become the next King of Demons, which means he can’t exactly keep a low profile. With one of the nicest protagonists in all of isekai anime, Iruma-kun is worth watching just to see Iruma develop into a person who can stand up for himself. Fortunately, Welcome To Demon School, Iruma-kun is readily available for fans to check out on Crunchyroll.
35 Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia
The entire Fate/Grand Order storyline is just one long historical isekai. The entire story focuses on Ritsuka Fujimaru and his partner Mash Kyrielight traveling through time to different eras to deal with specific singularities through time to protect the present.
Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia sees the pair travel back to B.C. 2655 Mesopotamia, where the first city of humanity is under siege by both demonic beasts and goddesses alike. With some of the best animated fight scenes of the last decade, this series is a must-watch for any action fan.
34 Uncle From Another World
The isekai genre has been around long enough for some excellent parodies like Isekai Ojisan to surface. In Uncle From Another World, protagonist Yousuke Shibazaki is hit by a truck, and he spends the next seventeen years in a coma. Once he awakens, he reveals he spent the last several years trapped in another world.
Knowing how different the world he’s come back to is, he relies on his nephew, Takafumi Takaoka, to re-acquaint him with the world. Along the way, they create a YouTube channel to show off all the special powers Shibazaki attained in the other world. An excellent parody of isekai and otaku culture, this series is great regardless of one’s feelings about isekai.
33 The Magical Revolution Of The Reincarnated Princess And The Genius Young Lady
Magical Revolution or Tensei Oujo, gets away from many of the usual isekai tropes to tell a genuinely fascinating story. After being reincarnated into a new world, Princess Anisphia wants nothing more than to learn how to use magic, something other nobles can do easily. She spends much of her time focusing on developing magic tools, against the wishes of her father.
However, when Anisphia learns her brother has broken his engagement to his fiancée Euphyllia, Anisphia decides to make Euphyllia into her assistant… and potentially, her wife. Tensei Oujo is a fantastic girls love series with just enough fantasy to keep things spicy. The only issue with the show is its another isekai that could’ve just been a regular fantasy series.
32 Kyo Kara Maoh!
Kyo Kara Maoh! is one of the earliest isekai from the mid-2000s era. The series depicts Yuri Shibuya being transported to another world in one of the strangest possible ways — after being given a swirly. The toilet he’s dumped into sends Yuri to another world, where his eyes and hair denote him as a royal, and potentially the next Demon King.
While still lost at everything happening around him, Yuri winds up in a duel with another high-up demon, and in winning against him, learns his victory is akin to a proposal in this world. An isekai comedy with light shonen-ai elements, Kyo Kara Maoh! works best for fans who want isekai without as many of the modern tropes of the genre.
31 The Devil Is A Part-Timer!
24 Episodes
The Devil Is A Part-Timer! is a brilliant blend of comedy and isekai. Rather than the series' hero getting teleported from the average world into one of mysticism and adventure, Satan is taken out of hell and sent to the real world. He quickly realizes that he had to make ends meet, so he picked up a part-time job at MgRonalds.
Satan names himself "Sadao Maou" and gets to burger flipping right away. The Devil Is A Part-Timer! appeals to so many fans since the hero doesn't start out as an average person who obtains godlike powers; Sadao's story is the exact opposite.
30 Isekai Quartet
24 Episodes
Isekai Quartet combines characters from Overlord, KonoSuba, Tanya The Terrible, Re: Zero, and The Rising Of The Shield Hero into one series where they all attend school together. It's an amalgamation of some of the genre's greatest heroes and heroines coming together in the most chaotic way possible.
Isekai Quartet is a campy series that puts each character's running gags on full blast. It pokes fun at the genre's most overdone tropes and amps everything up to eleven. It's one of the best isekai series for veteran fans of the genre.
29 World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated In Another World As An Aristocrat
12 Episodes
After years of service, the world's greatest assassin finds himself betrayed by the very group he'd spent years working for. Before reincarnating into another world, however, a goddess offers him the chance to retain his memories if he'll do one thing for her: assassinate the new world's greatest hero. This is no easy task, as the hero is born with more talent and power than any other human on the planet.
World's Finest Assassin gained popularity at launch for being so different from what people are used to with isekai. While the protagonist is technically young, he's actually got the mind of an older man, and his attitudes towards the world around him have changed as a result. It's also distinctly less optimistic than some isekai series would lean, while keeping plenty of cool fantasy abilities.