Isekai anime are inescapable. Without fail, every season includes a few shows that send their protagonists to alternate worlds filled with magic, wonder, danger, elves, and dungeons. Oftentimes, these average guys (or gals, rarely) gain incredible abilities that allow them to lead carefree lives defined by wealth, freedom, power, and harems. Occasionally, they find themselves stuck in a dark fantasy realm where one false move could spell their end. Love or hate them, these series are popular and are here to stay.
As overexposed as this concept has become, isekai anime have an undeniable charm to them, even the so-called “trashy” ones. Even at its worst, this theme can still work as a tension-free escape from reality that asks nothing from viewers. Conversely, the best isekai anime are fantastic works of art that offer adventure, comedy, action, world-building, character growth, and stellar animation. To simplify the rummaging process, let’s highlight isekai’s greatest animated efforts.
The rankings are regularly updated with new isekai anime since there is always something fresh to watch. Reverse isekai anime are also featured in a separate article.
Updated on October 16, 2025 by Mark Sammut: The Fall 2025 season has been great, and that includes isekai. Let’s highlight two new shows that every fan of the theme should check out.
Fall 2025’s Best New Isekai Anime
The Fall 2025 season is underway, and it has been pretty good so far. Shows like Spy x Family and My Hero Academia are hogging most of the limelight, but the season also has plenty of exciting isekai anime. If you are remotely into slow-life goodness, Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2 should be a must-watch for you. It is one of the season’s best slice of life anime, regardless of theme. Just excellent stuff.
In terms of new isekai anime, Fall 2025 has one of the strongest lineups in a long time, with multiple candidates that could realistically land among the greatest shows ever. Let’s highlight the two best new series. That said, you need to have a fondness for overpowered MCs.
A Wild Last Boss Appeared!
OK, this isekai anime delivers exactly the type of experience suggested by its title. Basically, Overlord, but with a female character and less interested in kingdom building (for now, at least). Lufas is a super-powerful gaming character who was finally defeated in a game; however, her creator reincarnates as her 200 years after she died in the game. He/She quickly adapts to the situation and realizes that she is far more powerful than pretty much everyone else, allowing her to “slaughter” rather than just defeat enemies.
A Wild Last Boss Appeared is OP MC comfort food. So far, the series has done almost nothing original, although it is refreshing to see a female avatar with this type of moveset. Still, the action is good and surprisingly vicious, while Lufas is likable enough as the “villainess.” She is sidelined by some interesting characters as well.
My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s
Another Fall 2025 show with a powerful protagonist, My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s, features another popular trope: the full-class summon. Oda Akira is just one of many students summoned to a new world to help save it, and he realizes that his stats as an assassin are much higher than the hero’s. While most of the students go along with their summoner’s requests and believe them to be their allies, Akira does not, and his suspicions quickly prove to be well-founded.
While still too early to say if this story will amount to anything more than enjoyable angst, My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s has been really entertaining so far, with good action sequences, a solid protagonist, and good use of secondary characters who are starting to develop their own separate stories.
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Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered But Overly Cautious
MyAnimeList: 7.48
Isekai loves an overpowered protagonist who can blast through skyscraper-sized enemies while barely breaking a sweat. When the goddess Ristarte summons Seiya to help her save a world on the brink of annihilation, she gets a hero who is only willing to dive into threatening situations when victory is 100% assured. Basically, this means a lot of training and taking no chances during battles.
Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious is a mostly lighthearted adventure built upon the love/hate dynamic between Seiya and Ristarte. Driven primarily by humor, the anime uses its protagonist’s unique mindset to produce comedy gold.
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No Longer Allowed in Another World
MyAnimeList: 7.28
While looking to end his life with his lover, Osamu Dazai is hit by a truck and wakes up in a fantasy world where he is quickly informed about his status as an Other Worlder with heroic ambitions. However, the Japanese author is not particularly pleased with this turn of events, and his goal is to find his partner and end his love. Fortunately, he quickly becomes surrounded by girls who would rather keep him around.
6 Best Isekai Anime Like No Longer Allowed In Another World
These series each bring a unique twist to the isekai genre, offering everything from intense psychological drama to light-hearted comedy.
A dark comedy with a charming protagonist, No Longer Allowed in Another World is a clever isekai parody that includes a few subversions of the theme’s tropes and cliches. More importantly, Dazai is just an enigmatic lead who feels very fresh compared to most modern isekai MCs. As with all comedies, the humor does not always hit the mark, but enough jokes land to make up for the misses.
While always comedic, No Longer Allowed in Another World has some surprisingly poignant episodes, particularly during the second half of its run.
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Ishura
MyAnimeList: 6.68 (Season 1)
Ishura
- Release Date
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January 3, 2024
- Directors
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Yuki Ogawa, Takeo Takahashi
- Writers
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Keiso, Kenta Ihara
As isekai anime have a habit of playing things too safe, a show that is willing to take risks should be commended. However, just because something is different does not automatically make it good, and Ishura does not leave a great first impression. In a world with many Visitors and other superpowered entities, city-destroying conflicts are always on the horizon, especially since the True Demon King’s death left a power vacuum.
Ishura is structured unusually for not only an isekai but also anime in general. Rather than focusing on a single character, the show dedicates the first five episodes to introducing different OP archetypes, dedicating about 10 minutes to each. As these stories are only loosely connected, the first half of season one is confusing and hard to follow. However, things come together nicely in the second half, when all these characters clash in a war between two empires.
Although not devoid of world-building or political intrigue, Ishura‘s selling point is its fights pitting overpowered characters against each other, and the roster is diverse and absurd. Season 2 is a bit more focused than its predecessor, but it mostly exists for the same reason.
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I’m In Love With The Villainess
MyAnimeList: 7.34
Villainess stories are starting to become commonplace, with most seasons seemingly producing a new variant. I’m In Love With The Villainess presents a nice twist on this formula since the protagonist awakens as an otome game’s heroine rather than its villainess; however, she decides to romance the latter rather than any of the reverse harem’s male candidates.
Inori’s manga and light novel are both highly regarded, setting the stage for a potentially brilliant anime; ultimately, the adaptation fell slightly short of expectations, but it was still solid. Although the humor can get repetitive since jokes tend to follow a similar setup and payoff, in a vacuum, the punchlines are funny. Rae and Claire have a fun dynamic right from their first scene together, and their one-sided love affair is gradually shifting from stalker-ish behavior to something a little more wholesome.
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So I’m a Spider, So What?
MyAnimeList: 7.45
Hey, not everyone gets to reincarnate as a powerful human with ties to nobility. Some folks must draw the short straw, and Kumoko gets the worst of it when she starts a new life as a spider. Yes, the poor girl is just an ordinary monster, albeit one with a pretty high power ceiling. Focusing on dungeon crawling, Kumoko sets out to become her best spider-self, all the while making a few notable friends along the way.
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So I’m a Spider, So What? is a show of two halves. Whenever Kumoko takes center stage, the anime is fun, light-hearted, and even quite epic. She is an awesome MC and carries the show on her back. Unfortunately, the series is pretty evenly divided between Kumoko and the human characters (some of whom were also isekai’d), and the latter’s storylines and scenes are nowhere near as captivating.
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KamiKatsu: Working For God In A Godless World
MyAnimeList: 6.71
The son of a cult leader, Yukito, is killed by his father as part of a ritual, and he reawakens in a world with no concept of gods. Although not as exciting as he was hoping it would be, Yukito eventually comes to see his new life as a big step up from his previous existence; however, that changes when he learns that two of his friends have been chosen to be killed simply because they fear death. A lack of spirituality has, for some reason, spawned a society that treats death as a mundane event and villainizes anyone who does not share that mentality. Luckily for Yukito, his former cult’s deity pays him a visit.
A Spring 2023 anime, KamiKatsu might as well be called Tonal Whiplash: The Anime, and that is somehow a compliment. The series jumps back and forth between fairly juvenile comedy and shockingly dark scenes, and the story’s frantic pacing means these moments can take place within the same minute. Depending on the viewer, this isekai anime could be deemed awesome or terrible, but almost nobody will find it boring.
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From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated!
MyAnimeList: 7.43
From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated!
- Release Date
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January 10, 2025
- Network
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TBS, MBS, CBC, Tulip Television, BSN, tys, NBC, HBC, RKK, i-Television, SBS, IBC, BSS, MRO, OBS, TUF, RSK, TUY, tbc, RKB, SBC, KUTV, RBC, UTY, RCC, MRT, atv, MBC
Nowadays, every season seems to include a villainess isekai anime, and Winter 2025 was no exception. Fortunately, these shows have been consistently decent, and From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated continued that trend. In fact, this series is one of the better representatives of this subgenre, largely thanks to a delightful protagonist and a fun twist on the otome game formula.
A dad in his 50s, Kenzaburou meets truck-kun and reincarnates as the baddie of an otome game. While he has fragments of memories of his daughter playing the game, Kenzaburou has to mostly rely on his parental instincts to navigate the challenges of adolescent relationships and prejudice. While trying to set up a romance for the game’s heroine, he inadvertently sets the stage for a reverse harem for his character. In a refreshing twist, the anime also jumps back to Earth to show Kenzaburou’s family, and they end up contributing in their own ways.
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.hack//Sign
MyAnimeList: 6.94
While far from the first to tackle the concept, .hack is generally regarded as the ancestor of video game-focused isekai anime like Sword Art Online. However, most of the anime are not part of the genre, since they usually do not revolve around characters who are trapped within a game. The main exception is .hack//Sign, the first anime set within this universe.
At its core, this story is about Tsukasa, a boy who is trapped within the virtual world of an MMO. While this premise might conjure up memories of dozens of subsequent shows, .hack/Sign has a wildly different tone than most of its successors. Moving at a purposefully slow pace, this isekai anime is surprisingly contemplative and mysterious, opting to ask challenging questions rather than provide satisfying answers. The result is a polarizing show that is ambitious but not necessarily all that entertaining.
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My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
MyAnimeList: 7.45 (Season 1)
While it might not seem that obvious at a glance, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is one of the most important isekai anime of all time. Similar to the light novel medium, this project helped propel villainess stories into the mainstream, triggering a new era of dominance that is still going strong years later. Nowadays, nearly every season seems to include one show featuring a woman reincarnated as an otome game’s female baddie, and My Next Life as a Villainess got the ball rolling in a big way.
Due to the influx of similar series, Catarina’s journey might not seem all that special nowadays. Like many influential anime, My Next Life as a Villainess is the prototype of this subgenre, one that sets the basics that many of its successors follow. After regaining her memories of a past life and realizing she is a villain who will die sooner rather than later, Catarina sets out to rewrite her destiny, a process she accomplishes through her irresistible charm and positive attitude. She enjoys a bit of romance, develops a harem, and even gets to occasionally show off some cool magic.
My Next Life as a Villainess is just fun, and a lot of that comes down to Catarina. She is just relentlessly endearing, and she has to genuinely work to protect herself during the first season. The sequel is not quite as good since it lacks any real tension, but it is still decent.
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Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke’s Mansion
MyAnimeList: 7.53
After being pushed to her doom, Rinko awakens as a supporting character in a fantasy novel she once read. To make matters worse, her host, Raeliana, is destined to meet an untimely end at the hands of her fiance. As Rinko would very much like that not to happen, she sets out to strike a deal with the powerful Noah, a duke who appears charming and noble but is really quite devilish and complicated.
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Raeliana/Rinko carries the entire show on her back, and she is more than strong enough as a protagonist to bear the burden. Smart without being omnipotent, Raeliana works as a surrogate for the audience while also having a clearly defined personality that elevates her beyond self-insert leads. Noah is also fun and mysterious, with his actions and motives being difficult to pin down.
