Isekai – It is big enough to be a genre of its own now, and it literally gets bigger with every new season of anime that premieres. However, unlike broad genres like “Action” or “Fantasy,” isekai has a rather strict definition, and that strictness limits how creative it can be while still being within this very popular and marketable modern anime genre. As such, a number of shows have premiered to try to shake things up, but not shake things up enough so they can’t be called isekai. It is a phenomenon that I’ve started calling “Isekai, but” because that is essentially how you start a sentence describing these anime series.
Isekai Anime With A Twist
Isekai, but Everyone In Your Adventuring Party Sucks
Konosuba
This one of the earliest and most successful examples of this isekai twist. In Konosuba, a shut-in is killed trying to heroically save someone who was never in actual danger, and is reincarnated into another world with something of his choosing. Thinking himself clever, he chooses to reincarnate with the Goddess he is talking to, who proves to be near useless in the actual world.
As both of them are rather ineffectual adventurers, they don’t exactly attract the cream of the adventuring crop to their party. Instead they get a mage who can cast one very powerful spell, but only once per day, and a tank who really gets off being hit so much that she actively tries to be. These tragically inept characters are what make it comedy gold.
Isekai, but The Demon Lord Was Transported to Our World
The Devil is a Part-timer
In this reverse isekai, it features an all-powerful demon lord on the verge of victory who accidentally transports himself to our modern world. Here, he has minimal powers and nothing really. So he is forced to get a part time job and toil like the rest of us.
Isekai, but It’s an Enigmatic Mindscrew
Sonny Boy
I honestly don’t think that when they were pitching around Sonny Boy they were pitching an isekai anime. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it is technically what they made. What makes it different is that they aren’t in a fantasy land, they aren’t heroes, but some are manifesting powers. Still, they are trapped in another world and must wade through the dense miasma of symbolism and metaphor before they can get back. If they get back.
Isekai, but the Goddess Genderbent Me and My Best Friend, Who Came With Me, Hates Women
Life With An Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into a Total Fantasy Knockout
This is one of the later entries into “isekai, but” where things are starting to get very hyper-specific to differentiate themselves from other similar twists. Regardless, the “will they, won’t they, should they even” chemistry between the newly female main character and his lady-hating male friend is lovely comedy, if not a joke they lean on for too much of the content.
Isekai, but The Hero Came Back
Uncle From Another World & Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
Both of these series focus in on a person who was sent to another world, had adventures that we only get to see in the occasional flashback, and then came back though still retain their powers. However, despite that similarity, they are vastly different shows.
Uncle From Another World is a comedy about a nephew trying to make money off his uncle’s power and commiserating with the uncle who was considered disgusting both in his real life and his isekai life.
Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero is about a boy who brought back the daughter of the demon lord he defeated and passes her off as his little sister as they go to school. He acts like an absolute Giga-Chad and often uses his powers for lewdness in this distinctly ecchi anime.
Isekai, but The Kingdom That Summoned Me Also Betrayed Me
The Rising of the Shield Hero
It was specifically the twist of the “hero” being absolutely shat upon in the first few episodes that made The Rising of the Shield Hero sky-rocket in initial popularity. He is summoned with three other people, discovers that he has a seeming ineffectual destined weapon of the shield instead of something cool like a sword or spear, and then is framed by a woman who was manipulating his good intentions. This leads to him being exiled, hated, and darkens his view on the world.
However, his vengeance comes in the form of being the only hero who is actually good at saving people.
Isekai, but My Mom is With Me
Do You Love Your Mother and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?
Imagine you get your shot at being an adventurer. You have the power to save people, make money, gather a harem, and have good times – all the things you lack the fundamental freedom to do in real life – but there is a catch. Your very clingy mother is there the whole time.
Luckily, Mamako is wholesome instead of judgmental and berating, but a clingy mother is still a clingy mother. This one is a rather strange comedy, but they get points for trying to do something weird and utterly unexpected in this MILFsekai.
Isekai, but The Only Thing The Kingdom Needs Saving From Is Insolvency
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom
This is isekai I can get behind. The hero in this series isn’t one about using battle prowess, but rather he is a hero that uses his sharp mind. He is summoned to a failing kingdom and immediately gains rule of that kingdom from a king that abdicates and betroths him to his daughter. Immediately seeing how much of an administrative mess everything is, this economics student gets to work managing it.
While the action is practically minimal compared to other series, it is nice to actually learn about a fantasy world rather than just move on to the next flashy beast to slay.
Isekai, but They Wanted The Other Girl
The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent
This “isekai, but” twist is becoming more and more common, but this one still does it really well. The Saint’s Magic is Omnipotent follows a tired female office lady who is summoned to another world alone with another, younger girl. The kingdom had meant to summon one saint, and so the prince just picked the cuter, younger girl. Not being bothered by not being chosen, the office lady develops a passion for using her magic to make potions and find a much more fulfilling life than her previous one.
This series is particularly refreshing in that the main character isn’t the naive female type that you see in a lot of isekai anime. She is wiser and more grounded in reality, but still very cute in her romantic innocence.
Isekai, but The Main Characters Are Prodigies And Are Trying Not To Talent-Ravage A Less Advanced Civilization
High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World
It is kind of a cop-out to just make all of your main characters perfect Mary and Gary Stu’s under the cover-all guise of being a prodigy. However, this anime series isn’t trying to be intellectually stimulating in its character development. The interesting portion of it is in its world building.
A plane full of these prodigies are isekai’d into a more medieval fantasy world where they attempt to balance using their talents to improve people’s lives with not ruining this new virgin world with too much knowledge and discovery.
The balancing act could have been done in more clever ways, but what they give you is an interesting thought experiment.
Isekai, but He Wants to Be An Advocate For Monsters Instead of Slay Them
Kemono Michi
This isekai series follows a professional wrestler who, after his final match, is going to retire and open a pet shop. However, during that final match, he is summoned to another world in order to slay demon beasts. He declines this offer by suplexing the princess and goes on his merry way to build a harem of demon beasts.
Ostensibly, he still maintains the dream of opening that pet shop, but part of the comedy is that no one really wants demon beasts as pets. So instead he is just really gathering and taming beasts because he likes them.
Isekai, but It’s A Restaurant
Restaurant to Another World and Isekai Izakaya
Real food, fantasy patrons. It isn’t the most creative twist, but I’ll eat it up.
Isekai, but I’m The Monster
That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime and So I’m a Spider, So What?
This form of “isekai, but” isn’t that much of a stretch, and as such, it is commonly used. The biggest examples are That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime and So I’m a Spider, So What? These series are are both about human characters that are reincarnated as monsters for their isekai adventure, but the shows play out differently.
That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime is about building a nation for monsters that are constantly attacked by humanity under the leadership of a slime who is also super powerful. So I’m a Spider So What is less grand in that she spends a good portion of her time hiding, trying to survive, and growing her power.
This twist technically covers other series like Overlord and Skeleton Knight in Another World, both of which are about undead characters which would technically be shunned by humanity in the same way these monster characters are.
Isekai, but I’m a Psychotic Man Reincarnated in the Body of a Small Girl
The Saga of Tanya the Evil
A small portion of isekai series follow older characters reincarnated into the body of a younger person. This allows them to bring a more adult energy into the plot even though it should be pretty strange for the characters interacting with a child wiser than themselves. However, the gender usually stays the same.
Tanya brings an interesting energy to its show by putting a shrewd salaryman in the body of a cute girl that makes all the twisted stuff he does to survive even more twisted.
Isekai, but The World Decided to Start Killing Those That Appeared Because Their Powers Are Troublesome
The Executioner and Her Way Of Life
I enjoy the way this series twists things around. So many people from Japan were getting sent to this world and developing these magic powers that it was actually quite destructive for the people that lived in the world. As such, the church created a group that started exterminating them.
That little tidbit of lore is a fun twist, but ultimately not the big focus of the series. Instead it chooses to explore the adventure of one such executioner trying to find a way to kill an isekai’d girl who seems pretty immortal. It is a fun girl’s love-tinged isekai.
Do you have more isekai series you would classify as “isekai, but” with a fun twists. There will surely be more as time goes on. Leave them in the comments section below.
