There is magic in a good chunk of anime these days. While there is certainly some charm to enjoying fantasy anime set in a fantasy land filled with magic, sometimes you wonder what magic might be like if it were present in our world.
Contemporary fantasy anime, or urban fantasy anime as it is sometimes called, often captures exactly that. While there are many fantasy anime that can be considered urban fantasy anime, these anime recommendations are more specifically for people that want to see magic in a world that is, or at least is very close to, our own modern world.
These anime series meld science and technology from reality with the magic that only comes from fantasy to varying and interesting results while showing off how it shapes and changes the modern world.
Best Anime With Magic in a Modern World
A Certain Magical Index
The entire concept behind the world of A Certain Magical Index and its spin-off series, A Certain Scientific Railgun, is that the world melds both science and magic. Both series follow intertwined characters that show off that unique world where both technology and magic thrive and intersect.
Both A Certain Magical Index and its spin-off really are some of the best options for those that want magic anime set in a modern world since it goes into great detail when it comes to building the specifics of that world and how magic works in it.
The Irregular at Magic High School
While The Irregular at Magic High School wastes its magical world by taking place in a school, it does have an interesting set up compared to most magic school anime where the world is – and always was – magical.
Instead, in the world of The Irregular at Magic High School has a whole history of how magic was first seen in the 20th century, but didn’t become a larger part of the world until the advent of World War III in 2045 and the prior climate collapse. After the war is settled, mages became something that was initially meant to prevent countries form using nuclear weapons, but then became more like weapons themselves.
Even upon the first episode of the series, you get a sense that The Irregular at Magic High School comes from a lore-dense light novel, and it does, but the anime itself also does a good job at detailing the world throughout its narrative.
Fate / Stay Night
The main series of the Fate franchise, Fate/Stay Night, details a tournament in which several masters – most from prestigious mage families – who go through effort to summon servants, which are people from historical or mythical significance, from their time period to fight for them in order to win the Holy Grail and get a wish granted.
That in and of itself is a subdued sort of magic, but there are moments throughout Fate/Stay Night, particularly in Unlimited Bladeworks that details Rin’s path of the visual novel, that make the tournament seem like some backwater event in the world.
As in, there is this whole magical hierarchy around the world that exists without interfering with normal society and this city-contained tournament is one small drop in a large bucket.
It is intriguing, and something that is explored even further in the Fate spin-offs. If you want a magic series based in our modern world that you can truly get lost in, the Fate Franchise is for you.
Blood Blockade Battlefront
New York City has a bit of an international reputation as a diverse hub full of weirdos, but Blood Blockade Battlefront takes that to a more literal place.
In Blood Blockade Battlefront, a gate to the Otherworld opened in New York City. The city transformed into a closed off space where otherworldly beings and humans lived together in relative normalcy despite frequent chaos.
The series follows an organization whose purpose is to deal with otherworldly beings that are causing too much chaos in the already odd city. In it, many of the members have powers from being otherworldly beings or having some exposure to them. This allows them the power to combat whatever starts happening.
Blast of Tempest
Like many a magic anime set in a modern world, Blast of Tempest sees sorcerers remain more on the fringes of society, hidden from public view. However, the interesting thing about Blast of Tempest is that this magic anime isn’t telling the typical magic anime story.
Instead, the anime focuses in on a mystery surrounding the death of a girl investigated by her brother and his friend, the boy she was secretly dating. It just so happens to have their paths intertwine with intrigues in the world of sorcerers who are undergoing their own upheaval. What happens isn’t a show where magic spells are thrown around all the time, but it leads to a more psychological mystery with hints of magic use augmenting the mystery.
The Flying Witch
The Flying Witch is perhaps not what people are looking for when it comes to anime with magic in our modern world, but that doesn’t make it less applicable.
Unlike some of the other series on here, The Flying Witch isn’t action-oriented. Instead is is a slower slice of life series about a young witch honing her magic in rural, but still very modern day Japan. You see her bring lower key, less flashy magic to life and grow her skills.
It lacks flash and sizzle when it comes to spell-casting, but it is nice to see a series intertwine magic into our world in a way that is small enough in scale that it feels like it could actually be going on somewhere.
Witch Hunter Robin
If witches existed in the world, we would for sure be trying to control them. I mean, we tried to control them in this world, and they don’t actually exist.
Witch Hunter Robin is about an organization that uses humans and government-sanctioned witches to subdue and capture rogue witches using their magic irresponsibly or to the detriment of others.
It features a rather bleak and melancholic tone compared to most other magic anime, but that’s because most magic users seem to be suffering based on their powers, the oppression of them, or because of discrimination against witches. Furthermore, the series develops intrigue surrounding what actually happens to the witches that this team is tasked with bringing in alive.
Uncle from Another World
What would you do if you came back from another world and still retained your magical powers?
In Uncle From Another World, it shakes up the whole concept of isekai by having the titular uncle be in a coma in our world while living out his fantasy life elsewhere. When he wakes up, he still retains his memories and magical powers from another world.
Of course, he was an ugly otaku as a teen, and being in a coma did not change that. He was also frequently considered ugly in his isekai adventure.
With nowhere else to go, he lives with his nephew who monetizes his Uncle’s magic powers by posting YouTube videos for income while listening to his Uncle’s comical misadventures from another world in their spare time.
Durarara
Durarara is a series that tells a lot of stories all framed within the Tokyo suburb of Ikebukuro. By focusing in on the various residents that live in the area, it can interweave the stories masterfully even if those people, at first, aren’t interacting with each other.
While Durarara isn’t a “magic” anime in the traditional sense, what it does well is have the supernatural aspects like dullahans and sword-possessed maiden meld perfectly into the city without being wholly out of place.
Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
While reverse isekai anime is quickly growing in popularity, Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero injects perhaps more ecchi than you wanted to see in the genre.
This series follows a main character who was part of a larger generation of children who were all sent to different other worlds. Many of them brought back powers, abilities, and objects from that other world, and as such are contained in a school.
However, what the main character brought back was the daughter of a demon lord that he claims is his sister. So he tries medium-hard to keep her identity a secret so she is not whisked away for study. Meanwhile, he has kept much of his strength and magic from his adventure.
While he uses this magic heroically, he also uses it for perversion. So this is perhaps not the most wholesome anime where magic finds its way into our modern world, but it is still applicable.
Cop Craft
I had thought to include Gate on this list, but much of the series was about a modern guy and the JSDF in a fantasy world handling politics there. There are moments when the main character and his fantasy harem return to the modern world, but they are less than someone who wants anime featuring magic in our modern world would want.
Cop Craft is actually quite similar to Gate, but opposite. Instead, it focuses on beings from a magical world coming to our world, and follows police officers who handle crime in the mixed hub city. The cop duo is one standard issue gruff with a heart of gold human detective and a haughty lady knight with tsundere tendencies.
It is interesting to see the variety of crimes that come from our society intermingling with a more fantasy one, but mostly what you will see is something familiar – humans being xenophobic against another species.
Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka
A large portion of magical girl anime often features an element of injecting magic into our modern world via magical girls and their magical enemies. I chose Magical Girl Spec Op Asuka in particular specifically because the world it portrays was without magic until creatures crossed over from another world and started a brutal war with humanity.
To combat them, magical girls gains magic powers and still remain the best option for fighting the creatures despite humanity slowly gaining magic-augmented weapons.
Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka dips its toes into the military not loving that their best option for battle being teenage girls, but having their hands tied due to the lack of other viable options. It also likes to meld magical girls with how brutal any warfare, magical or not, actually is.
People get maimed, they die, the enemy gets tortured for information, and it remains a magical girl anime that embraces the realities and psychological impact of violent militarized conflict.
Iroduku: The World in Colors
Iroduku has an interesting take on magic. It is not a infinite wellspring used for battle or utility. Instead, magic is a seemingly finite resource that it often used as a parlor trick or to spark a little bit of joy in people.
As such, people aren’t surprised in Iroduku when a girl is sent back into the future by her grandmother to hang out with her teenage grandmother and her friends in order to overcome her emotional issues. Magic exists then, and they know that enough of it can be used in such a way.
The interesting bit is that the future that Hitomi lives in before being sent back in time has such a small amount of magic left that mostly it isn’t present in society anymore. It makes the world almost exactly like our own, leading to ponderous thoughts like what if the same thing happened in our own history, suddenly explaining the unexplainable of our world.
Do you have more urban fantasy anime that focus on magic in a modern world much like our own? Let fans know in the comments section below.
