Otaku Hajime Nagumo and several of his classmates are summoned to a fantasy world and tasked with saving mankind. However, while his classmates are gifted with great abilities, Hajime only has transmutation skills that have no real offensive use. He is soon betrayed by a classmate and sent into an abyss filled with monsters. Resolving to not die to the darkness, he struggles to survive and teams up with an imprisoned vampire to return to the world above.
Suffering from some obvious CGI issues, Arifureta lives up to its common name. However, if you look past that to the plot, we have more anime recommendations that you might enjoy.
Anime Like Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest
For Fans of Suffering Protagonists
The Rising of the Shield Hero
The stories tell of four heroes summoned from another world – the sword, spear, bow, and shield heroes who will prevent calamity. With darkness bearing down on them, the Kingdom of Melromarc summons these heroes from modern day Japan. For otaku Naofumi Iwatani, unfortunately he is labeled the shield hero, the weakest of the group. Worse yet, betrayal sees him labeled as a criminal and outcasted. With hatred and vengeance consuming him, he sets forth to grow strong.
In both shows, the main characters are isekai’d into a role that is not necessarily good at fighting. Furthermore, they are then betrayed pretty horribly and spend a lot of time just clawing their way back up and collecting a loyal harem along the way.
Re:Zero
When Subaru Natsuki goes out for a midnight snack run, he suddenly finds himself transported to another world. As a bewildered teen in a land of swords and magic, he wanders around and ends up attacked by thugs. After being saved by a mysterious woman, he agrees to help her get back something that was stolen. Unfortunately, it ends in both their deaths. With his dying breath, he finds that he possesses the power of revival, escaping his death by the repeating the last few hours.
While Arifureta stays true to more traditional isekai tropes, you will find that both the main characters need to be subjected to a lot of suffering. In Re:Zero, Subaru dies painfully, like, all the time. In Arifureta, he has to endure a shocking betrayal and suffers as he tries to get his revenge.
Grimgar of Ash and Fantasy
Thrown into a fantasy land with no memories of their previous life, the strong among this new group of people bind together while the weak are left to fend for themselves. Grimgar tells the tale of the struggles of the weak as they pick up combat skills and fight the creatures of the world in order to earn a living.
Isekai shows tend to make things look like they come easy to the main characters. However, both Arifureta and Grimgar highlight how hard things are in this new world and how hard the main characters need to work in order to get even a little bit better.
For Fans of Monster-Focused Isekai
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
After a run in with a robber, the 37-year-old Satoru is suddenly killed. He is reincarnated into a fantasy land, but not as a man. In fact, he is no longer even human! He is reincarnated as a lowly slime. After wandering, he comes across a dragon who he befriends and who gives him the new name of Rimuru. Absorbing this dragon into his slime body, promising to eventually break the seal that has bound him, gives Rimuru great magical ability. He then continues to inadvertently befriend beleaguered fantasy creatures in the forest who are constantly threatened by humanity. Eventually, he decides to found a nation uniting these creatures in order to help them protect themselves.
Both shows focus not on purely human heroes, but have a larger emphasis on the monsters. It shows that sometimes the humans can be worse than the monsters of the world and tells a story from a different perspective.
Goblin Slayer
A young priestess fresh out of the temple is excited to start her life as an adventurer. On her first day, she joins an adventuring party to go slay some goblins. However, like so many young adventure parties before them, they underestimate the goblins. It ends with two dead, one viciously raped, and the priestess saved from fate by a man whose only mission in life is to slay all the goblins.
Both series follow angry main characters that are on the mission for vengeance in their fantasy world. While they have that single goal in mind, they also collect themselves a helpful harem.
Overlord
As the final hour approaches the life cycle of the MMO Yggdrasil, Momonga, a powerful wizard and leader of the dark guild Ainz Ooal Gown, is there to see it off. However, to his surprise, the servers don’t go down and even stranger is that all the NPC characters have come alive with their own unique personalities.
It’s easy to forget, but the guild in Overlord is staffed and led by monsters. Both series focus on characters that are often seen as the enemy by the rest of the world, but they are actually the ones working hardest to…Take it over in Overlord, I guess.
For Fans of Fantasy Harems
The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?
One day, 25-year-old Shingo Ichinomiya goes to sleep and wakes up a 6-year-old in a medieval noble family. Unfortunately, he soon comes to learn that his noble family is not only quite poor, but he is actually the 8th son and looking at virtually no inheritance. He is, however, talented at magic and decides to work to bring prosperity to his family.
Both series are rather ‘meh’ isekai series where the main character starts at a disadvantage, but is reward by gathering a harem of useful women that are drawn to them for various reasons.
How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
In his MMORPG, Takuma boast overwhelming strength and was referred to as the demon king. However, one day he gets summoned to another world, still in the appearance of his character. There he discovers two girls that use the same magic he uses to turn others into slaves. However, due to his magic reflect skill, the spell was turned back on them.
While How Not to Summon a Demon Lord knows what it is and doesn’t try to be better, Arifureta just sort of fails to live up to its own expectations. These shows are guilty pleasures because they are not necessarily good, but they can have fun trashy moments to watch.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon
In the fantasy city of Orario, there is a massive labyrinth underneath it. For brave adventurers, glory and fortune can be found within. However, in order to tackle the challenging monsters inside, adventurers join guilds of strong gods and goddesses. However, for newbie adventurer Bell Cranel, no good guild will have him, except for Hestia, a goddess with no followers. Together they team up to grow strong and find glory.
Both series feature white haired main characters that start off very weak. They then climb to lofty heights and gather a series of admiring women along the way. Unfortunately, Arifureta suffers in that journey with the CGI.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Arifureta? Let fans know in the comments section below.
I love this anime a lot happy new year live long anime 🙂 anime anime anime
This anime is great,wish I even had more like it.
this is cool but i have seen all these already
same i need a new anime too watch not this shit i feel like i watch too much anime now
Same