Isekai Anime - How to hikikomori 101

[Dildo]

I don't know shit about anime and I've only recently begun watching it; Shiki, Hellsing, FMA and after watching Overlord I'd love to watch more like it.

Anyone know anything that's worth a look?

P.S: Is it worth reading the mangas for these things? The series were decent but I can't decide if the original material is worth a look or not.

 

[Hatoful Dandy]

You wouldn't go wrong with Rising of the Shield Hero, El Hazard (the OVA, not the tv series) and Konosuba.

Yes, it's worth it to look up the original source material. The Overlord light novels have a lot more details that the anime left out, for example.

 

[HeyYou]

Shield Hero is really good, yeah. Konosuba is really just a comedy series riffing on the Isekai genre. Anything else is almost guaranteed to be not worth it.

 

[Marco Fucko]

Watch Now and Then, Here and There, it's pretty classic.

I don't really watch a lot of modern isekai since it's generally trash or very basic.

 

[garakfan69]

Saga of Tanya the Evil is pretty good.
I also like Log Horizon.

 

[BoingoTango]

If you're watching anything weebier than Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, Cowboy Bebop, or Lupin III, you should probably just off yourself before you go too far down the rabbit hole.

 

[frozenrunner]

Berserk.

The 90s adaptation and the films cover the same arc (roughly), with the 90s adaptation having the vastly superior soundtrack and the films having better animation (and a lot of CGI, be warned). The second anime adaptation covers later arcs but is almost entirely bad CGI with a little meh hand drawn stuff. The great writing shines through, though.

The manga is awesome, no qualifiers.

 

[garakfan69]

Berserk.

How is that an Isekai though?

 

[Truthboi]

I don't watch much Isekai anime myself but it's surprising how mainstream it is since the most exposure I had to the genre is shitty fanfiction that follows the formula.

However I watched a few and I'll probably just give my favorite and least favorite one

Favorite: Konosuba for basically being a parody of Isekai anime and making fun of the tropes associated with it. It helps that the main character is a major contrast to most Isekai protagonists who are just projections for the viewer to insert themselves into while Kazuma is more of an actual person by being a socially inept jerk based on the fact he is a NEET and never got interaction but he's still a good person somewhat. The other characters are also quite entertaining and good parodies of a self sacrificing knight, the weak mage, and the kindhearted goddess. It's also consistently funny with occasional good action scenes or heartfelt moments so I recommend this.

Least Favorite: In Another World With My Smartphone is a very boring isekai anime that has the worst aspects of both Isekai and harem anime played 100% straight with the main character getting their problems easily solved to them by God or convenient powers coming out of his ass. I get this show is more about the harem but even then the harem in this show is horrible as every girl barring the fairy lady and android are pretty much the exact same character while every character in this show either falls in love with the MC, praises the MC for being nice, or are inept. Doesn't help that literal gods are subservient to the MC for no reason and all the girls are literally just in love with him because he's nice and has cool powers. If you can't tell already but the MC is probably the biggest Mary Sue in all of fiction that'd make Rey from Star Wars and Kirito from SAO look more like flawed well rounded characters.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

My favorite isekai will always be Escaflowne. They at least attempted to show the difference between Gaia and earth where Hitomi's from, although she never does ever look like she's out-of-place or homesick. But there's a beauty to the anime that you just kinda forget that it's a different world, and Hitomi is also her own character and not a blank slate for the viewer to put themselves into.

You can also try out Magic Knight Rayearth for being what amounts to a love letter to JRPGs. Anime's different from the manga, though, which I feel has a better ending. There's also Digimon although you forget it's an isekai and it has different stories/lore across its many seasons.

 

[Gar For Archer]

I kid you not, in middle school I read what I now realize was a Holocaust isekai. I can’t remember the title nor anything that happened, except that the main character is a Jewish girl celebrating Hanaka or some shit and suddenly wakes up during WWII. The book ends with her walking into a fucking gas chamber and then returning to her real life.

 

[Vlad Transylvania Mai]

Well there is re zero welcome to another world it's a pretty decent isekai where the mc finally isn't overpowered and have harem of chicks fall in love with him.

 

[La Luz Extinguido]

I got a great idea, how about you buy a katana, travel to a 3rd world shithole country where people don't speak any language you also speak, strip naked, burn your clothes and run into the closest village.

You can live your own weeb adventures from then on.

 

[Lackadaisy]

I kid you not, in middle school I read what I now realize was a Holocaust isekai. I can’t remember the title nor anything that happened, except that the main character is a Jewish girl celebrating Hanaka or some shit and suddenly wakes up during WWII. The book ends with her walking into a fucking gas chamber and then returning to her real life.

I read that shit too. I even saw it at a library recently.

 

[HeyYou]

I kid you not, in middle school I read what I now realize was a Holocaust isekai. I can’t remember the title nor anything that happened, except that the main character is a Jewish girl celebrating Hanaka or some shit and suddenly wakes up during WWII. The book ends with her walking into a fucking gas chamber and then returning to her real life.

Fuck, I know what you're talking about.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I kid you not, in middle school I read what I now realize was a Holocaust isekai. I can’t remember the title nor anything that happened, except that the main character is a Jewish girl celebrating Hanaka or some shit and suddenly wakes up during WWII. The book ends with her walking into a fucking gas chamber and then returning to her real life.

Wasn't the sequel to the book something involving her being sucked out into another dimension and finding dragon eggs and witnessing dragons fight medieval magical nazis who were also transported to this world after world war 2 ended and became some sort of powerhouse empire after decades?

Also does Utawererumono count as isekai? I mean Utawererumono is very good and if you can get the games, you should play them.

 

[Kiwi Jeff]

Here's something I watched before I found out that people call it isekai:

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

Okaasan Online,
obviously.

 

[The Great Chandler]

Wasn't the sequel to the book something involving her being sucked out into another dimension and finding dragon eggs and witnessing dragons fight medieval magical nazis who were also transported to this world after world war 2 ended and became some sort of powerhouse empire after decades?

How you get from the Devil's Arithmetic to the Devil's Bizarre Arithmetic?

 

[Pham]

I thoroughly enjoyed GATE. It's about a fantasy world interacting with a modern one. Dragons vs tanks. Knights vs helicopters. That kind of stuff. It also has a surprising amount of diplomatic stuff that I found interesting. It's fun seeing the different settings interact. The damned anime is too short, though.