If isekai anime can be defined as taking a person from our modern world and sending them to another, usually fantasy, world, then reverse isekai is the opposite. You take fantasy creatures, heroes, or demon lords and you bring them to our mundane modern world full of convenient technology.
However, the definition of reverse isekai can be stretched into a fair few shapes. For example, having isekai’d heroes come back to our world with their fantasy powers can be a reverse isekai story too. Having demons and angels come from their respective realms is also a reverse isekai. What really matters in a reverse isekai anime is that these fantasy beings are either using their magic in our perfectly normal world, crushed in the meat grinder of capitalism, or corrupted by our various conveniences.
Sometimes reverse isekai is used to tell wholesome stories. Sometimes there might even be some action. However, mostly, reverse isekai anime is a sub-genre that is ripe for comedy. You didn’t know you wanted to see a demon lord sling fast food or run from the landlord they are late to pay rent to, but it is as relatable to see them struggle as it is hilarious.
If you are looking to escape from your world by watching fantasy creatures escape to ours, give these great reverse isekai anime recommendations a try.
Best Reverse Isekai Anime
The Devil is a Part-Timer
When people think of reverse isekai, The Devil is a Part-Timer is usually what they think of. It is the quintessential reverse isekai that subverted the wave of same-y regular isekai by taking the demon lord meant to be defeated by the hero and bringing him to our world with nothing.
No great fantasy adventure for you, Demon Lord. No, no, you get to experience our version of the adventurer’s life – working a part-time job in fast food and being chronically poor.
While this series is a great comedy, it often dips its toes into having actual action and plot, which serves to prevent it from becoming just the same joke slung at you on repeat.
Restaurant to Another World
Instead of taking our delicious cuisine to another world, Restaurant to Another World has a restaurant able to open its door to another world and invite in fantasy patrons.
What you get in a nice restaurant setting that invites an array of interesting creatures and beings inside for their favorite human food.
Don’t expect a lot of plot with these food-based reverse isekai, but you do get a lot of great looking food and the occasional nice character story.
Isekai Izakaya
You know Restaurant to Another World? Isekai Izakaya has that exact same plot, except instead of a fancier restaurant, it is more izakaya, or bar food, fare.
This series is similarly lovely with its food, but there is a little less depth to the character stories. However, it also has short-form episodes so it doesn’t really feel like it is trying to draw things out either. Isekai Izakaya knows what you wanted and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Uncle From Another World
We’ve started to move on to our post-Isekai phase where now the trend will become heroes from isekai adventures coming back home. That’s Uncle From Another World.
The main character’s uncle was hit by a car and spent his 17-year coma in our world on an isekai adventure before one day waking up and still retaining the magic he learned there.
The series is him recounting his comical adventures in another land, making money off his magic, and trying to catch up on the otaku culture that he missed.
Gate – Thus The JSDF Fought There
Gate is simultaneously an isekai anime and a reverse anime. As its title suggests, Gate follows a main character in the military who is assigned to explore the otherworld after a gate to it opened up in Tokyo.
However, this gate works both ways. The JSDF can go through and otherworlders can come visit our world through it too.
Admittedly, Gate spends 90% of its time being an isekai about the main character in another world. However, he does enjoy the delights of Japan with his harem of fantasy girls for a little bit. It is a fun tidbit seeing fantasy beings like a young mage, an elf, and a demigoddess of war enjoy modern conveniences, but not as fun as seeing an attack helicopter tear up a medieval fort.
Re:Creators
Re:Creators is an anime that is guaranteed to resonate with anyone who has ever wrote a story or drew a character. Now, imagine that the character you created that was innately yours was brought to life in our world – that’s the plot of the anime.
Re:Creators follows a series of fictional characters that are mysteriously brought to life in our modern world and start to clash with each other. You unravel the mystery of their purpose there as well as see how some of their creators react to them. As an anime, it has some flaws, but the concept is solidly intriguing.
Amagi Brilliant Park
Amagi Brilliant Park does really well to trick you into thinking it isn’t even an isekai at all. Even its synopsis simply states that it is about a boy who misunderstand a girl’s invitation and ends up working at her failing amusement park instead of dating her.
The part they left out is that amusement park is using the energy of its patrons to fuel residents from another world. Those cute mascots aren’t people in suits, they are often otherworlders.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
After an office lady helped a wounded dragon while stumbling around drunk one night, that dragon ends up at her front door offering to be her maid. What kicked off as a single maid dressed as a dragon has lead to a bit of a dragon invasion of Tokyo in Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.
The series follows the shenanigans of the titular dragon maid and several of her other dragon associates that also made the trip to our world and ended up staying.
While Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is a great comedy about fantasy creatures melded into our mundane lives, you don’t expect the anime to turn into a pretty touching family series about the found family built between Kobayashi, her maid, and the young dragon that lives with them.
Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
While Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero is about a main character that, like many others, returned from his isekai adventure with magnificent powers and goes to a school specifically for those people, it makes itself hard to love.
Or rather, Aesthetica of a Rogue hero makes itself hard to love if you don’t like ecchi harem comedy.
The main character is cocky and powerful, a potent mix that often has him using his powers to entertain himself and create ecchi situations. It has some interesting action to it, but you have to wade through a lot to get there.
Otaku Elf
Reverse isekai is occasionally prone to some more unique twists compare the traditional isekai story, and Otaku Elf is proof of that.
This series follows an elf that was summoned to Japan in the Edo period to be an enshrined deity. However, the story isn’t set in the Edo Period. It is set in modern day where, after 400 years, the elf have become a complete shut-in and a degenerate otaku.
Alongside being a supernatural slice of life comedy, this series is also distinctly a cute girls doing cute things anime about the elf, the shrine maiden that takes care of her, and a few others.
Blood Blockade Battlefront
Blood Blockade Battlefront, beloved superhuman action anime that it is, is not what people think of when they think of “reverse isekai” anime. However, like several other entries on this list, it fits the most literal definition of it.
In Blood Blockade Battlefront, a gate to another world opened in New York City. Now, the city has been walled off to contain the people who came through the gate and who turned the city into near-constant chaos.
This series follows an organization of super-powered individuals who work to calm some of the incidents that the police cannot handle. This is the type of series where no one is quite human. Some came from another world, but even normal humans seemingly gained some super power from another world through one occurrence or another in this series.
Cop Craft
Like Blood Beyond Battlefront, Cop Craft tells the story of a gate from another world opening in our world. In this series, they built a city near that gate and it became a hub after many otherworlders immigrated.
The story follows a buddy cop duo of a gruff, xenophobic human detective with a heart of gold and a stuffy lady-knight with tsundere sensibilities from the other world. It also carries out like the buddy cop police mystery that it sounds like. However, that fantasy touch in and of itself does make it a pretty interesting watch.
The Great Jahy Won’t Be Defeated
The Great Jahy Won’t Be Defeated is one of those “suspicious similar” anime series that, in this instance, looks pretty similar to The Devil is a Part-Timer.
This time, it is not a demon lord, but a high ranking demon general that gets sent to our world. She is then forced to toil in a bar to make rent and maintains a comedic relationship with neighbors and co-workers.
Regardless of their suspicious similarities, The Great Jahy Won’t Be Defeated and The Devil is a Part-Timer share the most important similarity – being really good reverse isekai comedies.
Hinamatsuri
Hinamatsuri is one of those reverse isekai anime that feels like it doesn’t quite fit. The series follows a young girl with with incredible psychokinetic abilities. On her home-world, she felt like she was being used because of her powers, so she used the technology from her advanced civilization to travel through dimensions to our dimension where she lives with a mid-tier yakuza thug.
Hinamatsuri fits the definition of a reverse isekai, but doesn’t quite feel like one. However, it doesn’t hurt its case that it is also probably one of the best comedies in anime too. So if your definition of reverse isekai isn’t strictly “fantasy-looking” fantasy creatures in our world and you love your comedies, Hinamatsuri is a great watch.
Gabriel Dropout
There are tons of anime about demons and angels in anime, but Gabriel Dropout subverts all those other action series by having the characters be chronic screw-ups.
In Gabriel Dropout, angels and devils are sent to our world after graduation to work with humanity for to further the goals of their two realms. However, while Gabriel was a high-achieving student, as soon as she got to Earth, she was corrupted by video games and the otaku lifestyle, now becoming a shut-in and layabout.
Dropkick on My Devil
Dropkick on My Devil is about a human accidentally summoning a devil. As her summoner doesn’t actually know how to send the demon back, they are now two unwilling roommates.
While the summoner doesn’t know how to send her back, the demon knows that if she kills the summoner, she can go home. However, that is easier said than done.
Dropkick on My Devil is one of those fun “cute girls doing cute things with a large side of violence” comedies. The demon tries to kill her summoner, fails comically, and gets beaten in all sorts of ways for it. Good thing she is an immortal and and can regenerate because this series doesn’t hold back.
Dead Mount Death Play
Profoundly few of these reverse isekai anime actually take up serious plots. We find it more fun to watch fantasy creatures struggle in our modern world as we struggle, after all. However, Death Mount Death Play takes a stance of an “evil in his world, but not really” character being sent to our world where he takes up with a group of assassins.
It is interesting to see a main character be labeled evil in his previous world because of his power as a necromancer be juxtaposed with actual evil from our world where he seems good by comparison.
Reverse isekai as comedy is great, but having a serious, bloody, and complicated reverse isekai anime is good too.
Do you have more good reverse isekai anime recommendations? Let fans know in the comments section below.
