24 Isekai Anime With a Female Main Character

Isekai is the hot thing in anime right now. Each new season has had at least three new shows that fall under the purview of being an “isekai anime” where a main character is sent to another world.

Given the state of our world, it isn’t any wonder as to why people are seeking the lovely dose of wish fulfillment and escapism that an isekai fantasy can indulge.

While isekai anime is dominated by male main characters going on action-oriented (or harem-oriented) adventures, just as the isekai genre grows, so too does the amount of isekai anime with female main characters.

Female-led isekai anime is usually a less about action and more about fulfillment in a new world. However, these isekai anime recommendations featuring female protagonists have a little bit of everything for everyone.

Best Isekai Anime With a Female Main Character

The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent

A good portion of isekai anime with a female main characters tends to prioritize being cute over being interesting. However, The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent is the perfect blend of interesting isekai adventure with a very fairy tale type romance and a main character that is so perfectly grounded in reality that you can’t help but love her.

The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent follows an older office lady who is summoned to another world to be the standard destined hero. Except, the kingdom actually accidentally summoned two girls, and the prince likes the younger one better.

As such, the office lady is stuck in their world, kicked out of the palace, and ends up developing a passion for making potions with her magic. You get to watch her find fulfillment in her work, carry out a nice romance, and realize that – Oh, crap – she might actually be the destined hero instead of the other girl.

In The Land of Leadale

Like many an isekai anime, In The Land of Leadale follows a female main character that died, but ended up in the MMO she was playing while in the hospital.

The twist is that there are no other players, and the world of the MMO is about 200 years past when she played it.

In the Land of Leadale explores some interesting aspects compared to other anime with a similar set up. It is fun to watch her interact with her “children,” or NPC characters she created, as well as interesting to see her explore the mystery of what happened to the other players.

Saving 80,000 in Another World For My Retirement

Many isekai anime with a female main characters tend to lean toward fluff or romance, but if you just want to watch a girl be magnificent and make money, then Saving 80,000 in Another World For My Retirement is for you.

Saving 80,000 in Another World For My Retirement follows a girl that accidentally fell off a cliff. While doing so, she manage to rip power away from a passing god that lets her travel between her world and a fantasy land.

Not knowing when this power will go away, she decides to use it to make enough money to live comfortably in whatever world she got trapped in.

Mostly what you see is her taking goods from our world and peddling them in a fantasy land. Of course, this is often balanced with her trying to make sure she doesn’t upset the balance of the world or become too suspicious.

The Twelve Kingdoms

The Twelve Kingdoms is quite old at this point, but even when it was brand new, it flew under the radar.

The series follows a school girl who is approached by a stranger who swears loyalty to her. Soon after, she is attacked and flung into another world where she searches for that stranger and a way to get home.

While The Twelve Kingdoms tells a pretty standard isekai adventure story, what it really excels in doing is showing off each of the titular twelve kingdoms and making each one feel unique.

Restaurant to Another World

It doesn’t matter what other genre it combines with, food anime is always something to enjoy. I mean, unless you are on a diet.

Restaurant to Another World is just what it says on the label. It is a restaurant in our world, but on a certain day, it closes its doors to human patrons and serves delicious human food to patrons from another world.

While there really isn’t a specific main character here, it does really focus on the female waitstaff that serve patrons.

Ascendance of a Bookworm

Ascendance of a Bookworm was one of the early isekai anime that wasn’t about adventuring in another world, but rather was just about working there.

Ascendance of a Bookworm follows a bookworm crushed by her collection of books. She is reincarnated into another world as a small child of a solider, and is shocked to find that books are something only available to nobility. She dedicates her life to making books and making them more accessible to all.

You learn a good bit about making books, and to its credit, this series finds a way to make that really quite a joy to watch.

My Next Life as a Villainess

Following an otaku girl that got isekai’d into her otome game as the villainess, this series manages to be both harem and reverse harem as she woos both the male and female characters to avoid her grisly fate in the game. Although, it does so without any lewdness that can accompany harems.

My Next Life as a Villainess is dripping with charm and takes a nice wholesome route to the genre. It is not about strife and battle, but rather life and relationships – something the main character lacked in her previous world.

I’m The Villainess, So I’m Taming The Final Boss

Extremely similar to My Next Life as a Villainess, I’m The Villainess, So I’m Taming The Final Boss is also about a girl who is reincarnated into her favorite otome game as the villainess trying to avoid her unfortunate fate in the game.

However, whereas My Next Life as a Villainess has the female main character work hard to make friends with literally everyone, essentially building a large bisexual harem, the female main character in I’m The Villainess, So I’m Taming The Final Boss is laser-focused on the handsome demon lord.

This romance isekai anime has her build a sizable man stable, but she only has feelings for the demon lord. It also does something unthinkable in reverse harem anime – it features romantic progression.

Yes, this is a romance isekai anime where you get an actual couple that progresses over the series. It is very rare in isekai.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

This anime takes the standard “trapped in a VRMMO for real,” but instead of making it pretty dire, takes a more laid-back approach.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear follows a girl who is addicted to a VRMMO game. One day, she receives a powerful, but silly looking bear costume that she hesitates to use. However, when she finds herself trapped in the game for real, at level one, she has no choice but to embrace the powerful bear costume to survive.

As she is overpowered immediately, things are pretty low stakes. While it is often a cute girls doing cute things anime, Yuuna is a bit different from the standard protagonist in those type of anime series. She is pretty down to earth and very likable.

If you are a fan of the not isekai VRMMO anime Bofuri, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is similar to that, but she is trapped inside the game.

Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits

I am undecided as to if being taken to the spirit world counts as an isekai, but Kakuriyo is such a great anime that I am willing to stretch some definitions for it.

In Kakuriyo, a girl that can see spirits discovers that her grandfather has sold her to a (handsome) ogre as a bride in order to pay the debt he amassed at the ogre’s inn. While she is taken to the inn, she decides to pay the debt back herself by starting a restaurant on the property.

This series is part-food anime and part-romance anime. She grows closer with the ogre as well as other handsome spirit men, but her passion becomes running her restaurant as well as helping the inn with its occasionally difficult patrons.

Fushigi Yuugi

Regarded as one of the earliest isekai anime, Fushigi Yuugi is an oft-forgotten classic.

It is about two junior high girls that are sent to into a world based on an ancient Chinese book. These two girls are manipulated to be on different sides and serve as priestesses for two different gods. The person who succeeds in summoning their god first is granted three wishes, but their desires, as you would expect, don’t align.

Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time

Usually I describe Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time as “Fushigi Yuugi, but a little worse,” and that is really what it is. Unfortunately, that’s not really what you should say when you are trying to sell people on an anime recommendation.

Regardless, if you enjoyed what Fushigi Yuugi was – a series about characters sent to another world where they discover they are a priestess and gather handsome warriors of destiny to protect her from the forces of evil – Haruka is more of that. It just puts a little less effort into making the world feel unique from the standard fantasy world.

Vision of Escaflowne

Although older, Escaflowne is as sweeping a fantasy story as any other isekai anime. It doesn’t play the tropes for laughs, but rather makes the tropes.

Escaflowne is the story of a young girl transported to a new world with a prince that ended up in her modern world and suddenly finds herself embroiled in a war for his country.

If you enjoy the older style type of action romance anime where a heroic, but occasionally difficult man saves his female heroine often, Escaflowne is very much that.

Magic Knight Rayearth

Because the animation is so very early 90’s, Magic Knight Rayearth is an anime easily forgotten.

However, if you can look past the art, it has a pretty good story about three girls transported to a new world (by flying fish) in order to become magic knights.

As it is an early isekai story, you know what happens next. They play it straight and the girls aim to save the world.

The Saga of Tanya the Evil

The Saga of Tanya the Evil is a different sort of isekai. Isekai anime with female protagonists tend to be a little more light-hearted and sometimes less action-oriented. The Saga of Tanya the Evil is all about action and there is very little that is light-hearted about Tanya.

Tanya is in fact an evil little girl who used to be an adult salaryman before being reincarnated by a God seeking to humble him.

This God reincarnates her in a world at war where they blend World War I technology with magic. Being gifted at magic, Tanya is sent to the front lines, but all she wants to do is be a ruthless high achiever so she can land a cushy job on the safe back lines.

Unfortunately, doing well often ends up with her being put in increasingly dangerous situations.

Inuyasha

Sure, it’s named after the male main character, but Kagome, the girl who falls down a well and ends up in feudal Japan, is as much the main character as any. Their destinies are tied and there are only a few moments in which they are not together.

Inuyasha follows a modern Japanese school girl who falls down a well and is transported back to Feudal Japan, which is also overrun by demons. There, she frees the titular half-demon Inuyasha and after a few unfortunate incidents, they find themselves forced together to gather shards of a powerful jewel they broken and spread all over the world.

Inuyasha is one of those beloved staple anime series, and it is like that for a reason. It has decent action, decent romance, and decent drama. It is a series that you can really get lost in, but always come out loving.

Otherside Picnic

There are some who don’t count an anime as “isekai” if the characters can just return to the modern world whenever. However, just as I count Inuyasha, a beloved anime long before the isekai craze, as an isekai, so too is Otherside Picnic.

This series follows two girls who find various access points to a dangerous otherworld that they team up to explore for profit and to search for someone.

As most episodes end with them going back home, it can be tough to count this as an isekai anime, but it is still an interesting watch in its own right and led by two female main characters.

As is common when anime decides to put two female main characters together, it is also a girl’s love anime.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life

Like Otherside Picnic is a pretty subtle girl’s love isekai anime, The Executioner and Her Way of Life is a little more obvious on that front. However, The Executioner and Her Way of Life is an isekai anime with a fun twist.

In this series, the fantasy land has had enough of Japanese teens getting sent there and causing chaos with their magnificent powers, so they set up an order of executioners to kill them on sight. The main character of this anime is one such executioner who finds a Japanese girl that is immortal.

They set off a journey to find a way to kill her and develop an increasingly fun romantic relationship with each other.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady

Finally, we reach the most overtly gay of the girl’s love isekai anime! The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady finally has a main character who is unabashedly interested in women as a love interest, announcing it to her royal family early in her childhood.

As the main character is a girl reincarnated into a princess, but can’t use magic, she dedicates herself to melding magical power with objects to create new technology from her past life. While she is dedicated to furthering this science she calls “magicology,” her path crosses with another noble girl and it thrusts her into a building intrigue happening in her kingdom.

This series starts cute, but moves slow. It takes a long while for anything particularly interesting to happen in the plot, but it is really worth the wait.

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level isn’t a big action isekai anime or even an isekai anime with a intriguing plot. Instead, it is a comfy isekai.

In this series, the main character was an office lady that died of overwork. Pitying her, the gods reincarnated her as an immortal witch. So now she spends her time lounging and only killing slimes for money.

Of course, 300 years of doing that maxed out her level. Now challengers come to fight her and she ends up usually turning them into friends to hang out with.

This is the isekai anime you want to watch when you just want to watch a bunch of girl friends just doing cozy slice of life things.

So I’m a Spider, So What

Does it count as an isekai anime with a female main character if that character is also a spider? Let’s hope so, because I’m counting it.

So I’m A Spider, So What follows a whole group of school kids that were reincarnated in a fantasy world. Some are heroes, some are noble creatures, and one unlucky girl is reincarnated away from her peers as a lowly cave spider.

At first, you watch her struggle just to stay alive in a cave full of stronger creatures that just want to cannibalize her, but eventually this little spider gets a lot of momentum going as she levels up.

Didn’t I Tell You to Make My Abilities Average in The Next Life?

This isekai anime is one of those where the whole plot is right there in the title.

Didn’t I Tell You to Make My Abilities Average in The Next Life follows a wealthy and prodigal girl who wasn’t able to really make friends in her past life. As such, she asks to be reborn as a normal girl, but even in another world she is a noble and gifted with magic. So she runs away from all that to a school far in the country where she attempts to make friends.

This female-led isekai anime is pretty much just classic cute girls doing cute things. She hangs out with her friends, tries to be normal, and everyone is usually pretty shocked by her magnificent abilities even though she is trying to hide them.

The Great Jahy-sama Won’t Be Defeated

This reverse isekai follows a powerful (and curvy) demon that was second-in-command for the demon realm until a magical girl defeated her and caused her to be flung into our world.

To make matters worse, she is also in the body of a little girl as her powers wane. Now forced to work and pay rent, Jahy tries to survive in our world as well as get her once magnificent powers back.

If you are looking for a lot of substance, it is not here. However, if you enjoy comedy, that you will find in abundance in The Great Jahy-sama Won’t Be Defeated.

Show By Rock

As the isekai genre continues to grow, we will continue to see it twisted in a number of fun ways. Show By Rock is an early adapter of fun by being a music-themed isekai anime.

Show By Rock follows a guitarist that gets sucked into her phone and sent to another world where those that play the most passionate music have the power to rule the world. However, not everyone is benevolent with this and she soon finds that she has the power to defeat evil through her music. Now, if only she had the confidence to do so.

This series is very much Symphogears-style fun where it is both simultaneously really cheesy and really epic. Of course, it wouldn’t be a music anime worth watching without a great soundtrack either.

Do you have any more isekai anime series with female main character? Let fans know in the comments section below.