this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Everyone who replied already with an anime from the 80's/90's is correct, in that isekai back then were typically adventure stories about young adults growing up, ironically mostly aimed at teen girls with stories centering young female protagonists with maybe a hot guy love interest (Fushigi Yuugi is kinda the problematic template for that.) The characters usually go into the other world and have a character arc overcoming their weaknesses before returning having saved the world and/or bagging the hot boyfriend. Y'know typical heroes journey type stuff, the original template was more Never-ending Story or Chronicles of Narnia than... Ready Player One I guess.
Buuuuuut post-Sword Art Online that all changed and most of it's all lowest common denominator escapist fantasy. Having said that, it's been done to death so much that there are subgenres within it now (Reincarnating as the Villainess of a Visual Novel, Retiring to the countryside with my middle-aged busty wife, Guillotining the aristocracy with my lesbian polycule) that aren't icky apologia for slavery power fantasies, but sifting through all the trash for half decent (or rather, a different flavour of trashy) doesn't seem worth it to me. Admittedly, lately I've become a media snob who'll never admit in public to watching the Minecraft movie, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Anyway, more recent recs that stretch the definition of "good"-
Log Horizon is a probably the best "trapped in a videogame" story just based on the sheer amount of worldbuilding that goes into imagining how a MMO-ized fantasy world would even work, even if all that worldbuilding is in service to making the point that Free Market Capitalism coupled with Keynesian economics is the be-all-end-all ideology. The author got got for tax evasion irl. Stop after S1 tho, the next two seasons try to cram too much of the novels into too short a runtime.
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash you could say is the forerunner of shows like Frieren or Dungeon Meshi, where the focus is on the harshness of the fantasy world and the logistics of trying to survive- ironically these things seem to have fallen into the purview of straight fantasy as opposed to isekai, but hey at least this show was trying something different at the time. Has a gorgeous art style. Sadly only got 1 season. Also those other two straight fantasy shows are much better that anything else on this list. Dungeon Meshi especially.
My Next Life as a Villainess is a thrashy fun comedy about a proletarian inadvertently averting the death of the aristocrat whose body she is inhabiting by dint of acting distinctly un-aristocratic. Most of the comedy comes from watching our heroine unknowingly make everyone fall in love with her, regardless of their gender... by simply not acting on the privilege her position in society grants her. It's really dumb but I honestly enjoyed it a lot.
I know a bunch of Hexbears enjoyed The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady even if it wasn't for me. I liked how aggressively and un-apologetically gay it is tho.
I hear good things about Ascendance of a Bookworm from people I trust but I haven't seen it myself so I can't say for sure. Including it cos why not.
There's probably other show's that are borderline "good"-ish that I just didn't bother rec here like Re: Zero or Slime Reincarnation, but imo the shows I gave a synopsis of are what I'd actually recommend to people on this board.
edited for clarity
I am not a media snob, opposite really I don't really watch many movies or series except things that seem to specifically appeal to me or if someone asks to watch something with me so indeed shifting through that much of a genre to wade through its various subgenres for the love of the game is not something I imagine myself doing. However I did watch both Frieren and Dungeon Meshi as both of those appealed to me, as I do like fantasy with focus on the human element. So I'll keep these recommendations in mind if I end up watching something similar in future. Genre deconstruction comedy is also something I like, so that may be something I watch with someone if that happens. Thank you for recommendations.
Becoming a film snob in 2025 mostly just means drunkenly binge watching David Lynch films while crying yourself to sleep so yeah don't worry about it, glad I could help.
If this is up your alley, KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! is just a straight parody of wish-fulfillment fantasy isekai. Unfortunately later on the jokes start to dip into problematic homophobic/transphobic territory which is why I didn't recommend it initially, but it mostly works as a comedy show barring that.
Excuse me. I would like to know more.
The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady and The Executioner and Her Way of Life are recent examples I think (although maybe not exactly as revolutionary as I hyperbolically suggested).
There are other LN's and manga's that haven't been adapted to an anime yet, there were threads here about a manga that for the life of me I can't remember the title, will look later.
Good rule of thumb for all media, the queerer it is (usually) the more radical it is.
Grimgar was okay. It definitely avoided a lot of the problematic isekai tropes and is really well animated. I think it's because it drops the isekai premise almost immediately and plays as traditional fantasy. It was kinda mid, though, plotwise. The characters are basically the same as when they started and questions about the world they're in don't get resolved.
Re:Zero sucks and Reincarnated as a Slime is okay buy could seriously use some volcel policing.
I kinda agree that Girmgar is mid, but sadly a mid isekai is above average compared to the rest of the genre. Something actually good like Now and Then, Here and There sadly remains the purview of the 90's. But also I dunno if I'd recommend that one, there are some really strong CW's and I haven't watched it recently to see if it holds up.
I only saw the first season of Re: Zero, thought it was trying for the Evangelion/Madoka "this is the edgy subversion of the genre" style but I don't know whether it succeeds at it or not because I didn't watch the other seasons since I couldn't get invested in the characters.
Likewise only saw the first season of Slime isekai but the "we must build society by going through the means of production" premise held some promise, unfortunately I couldn't care about the characters for the life of me.
I stopped watching the slime anime after they introduced a 12 year old girl, ahktually a 1000 year old demon, who wears a bikini. I liked watching them build their little kingdom but I couldn't get past that.
God damn, sounds like I dodged a bullet there
Catarina Claes wass the peak of the otome isekai protagonist.
Bookworm is a great ride, but it's one where you really need to just bite the bullet and read the books, rather than wasting time with the anime. There's pretty much zero chance of the whole thing actually getting adapted, and they made some changes early on that put it totally at odds with how things wind up playing out in the books, so I'm not sure how even a benevolent, otaku sponsor could fix it with a fully funded adaptation, short of just doing a complete reboot of the series and starting over.