Summary
The isekai genre of anime is so bloated at this point it’s comical. As things currently are, there’s some new isekai show every season (or multiple). And, these stories almost always feature the same old protagonists who suddenly find themselves in new or strange situations, which can have isekai fans feeling like every new adaptation is just another drop in the bucket.
However, every now and again there are standout adaptations such asRe: Zero,Reincarnated As A Slime,or more recentlyThe Great Cleric,but those are few and far between. Thankfully, there are still quite a few amazing isekai manga to pick from as far as future adaptations go. Here are some of the best examples for potential future shows.
Updated October 15th, 2024 by Jacob Buchalter:Despite the absurd number of isekai series out there (and the number is only growing more with each passing day) there aren’t actually a ton of high-quality isekai that haven’t been adapted into anime yet. Most of the more well-known isekai stories like Reincarnated as a Slime or Jobless Reincarnation have had a ton of money, work, and time put into their adaptations, for example. However, just because most of the best isekai stories have already been adapted, doesn’t mean that all of them have. With that in mind, let’s look over all the isekai stories with a fine-tooth comb and pick out some of the best remaining ones that have yet to get the anime adaptation treatment.
Krukru
Midnight Studio
Starting things off with an oddball choice, let’s talk about a manhwa by the name ofGenius Martial Arts Trainer. This is a pretty standard wuxia-based isekai where the main character suddenly falls asleep or passes out one day and wakes up in the story they were reading or the game they were playing. In this one, the main character is a total gym maniac who became obsessed with working out as a result of his recovery from an injury during his time in the military.
After going through physical therapy, the MC kept building up his muscles until it became his entire life. However, one day, after doing a stream (turns out the pandemic was pretty rough for his gym business) the protagonist wakes up as one of the Shaolin Monks in one of his favorite web novels he used to read as a kid. From here, one would think it would follow all the same tropes of most of these isekai stories with the MC introducing modern ideas to the Shaolin Monks and growing at an abnormally fast rate. However, while these tropes do pop up in this story, the focus on physical fitness, proper stretching, and just taking care of your body in general is very refreshing. Most of the time, the MC basically functions as a personal trainer or physical therapist for a lot of the old-fashioned practices of these Shaolin Monks, and it turns out this concept is a lot more interesting to read about than it sounds.
World Strongest Rearguard: Labyrinth Country and Dungeon Seekers
Touwa Akatsuki
Rikizou
Moving on to another isekai story with a relatively common ‘concept’ but a very unique ‘execution’, let’s talk about World’s Strongest Rearguard. This is a story that has all the classic signs of a very standard isekai such as the MC getting into an accident and being reincarnated into another world of magic and dungeons. However, in this new world, a large majority of the people have also been reincarnated here as ‘Seekers’ AKA adventurers who explore dungeons and advance their standing in life by earning Retribution Points with the guild.
To gain the abilities needed to explore these dungeons and fight monsters, Seekers need to pick a job at the guild. And, the main character of this story, Atobe Arihito, misunderstands how the job-picking system works and writes down ‘rearguard’ as his job, expecting the magical item to automatically pick a rearguard-type job for him. However, the item instead assigns the rearguard job to Atobe, an individual job called rearguard, which has never been done before. Now, Arihito has to make a living for himself in this new world with a mysterious job entirely designed around supporting his allies. It’s not the most unique or exciting read, but it’s a refreshing enough concept and the art is fantastic, so this is absolutely also deserving of an adaptation.
Korita
Girin Geurin
Now let’s talk about two very similar series, one calledI Killed an Academy Playerand the other calledThe Extra’s Academy Survival Guide. Both of these series have the same artist, Girin Geurin, and both of them feature protagonists reincarnating in an isekai world in the body of a video game side character. While there are a lot of differences between these two stories, primarily the general outlook of both protagonists and the way they go about developing their skills, both of them start out as nothing more than side characters but quickly work their way into becoming an integral part of the main cast.
The art in both of these series is fantastic, the humor is pretty great, there’s a ton of fantastic world-building, the action scenes are well-done, and there’s even a bit of romance in both stories too. So, without a doubt, either of these series would make for good anime adaptations, just probably not both of them at the same time.
Er Mu
Dr. Woodman
Next up is a series that takes a pretty unique approach to the standard reincarnation isekai format. InRelease That Witch, the main character reincarnates as a noble in a fantasy world (which is pretty common for these stories) but instead of developing his territory himself using some cheat ability, he decides to rely on the ‘taboo’ power of witches. However, he doesn’t do this by having the witches use their powers to fight battles or do anything all that absurd, rather the witches' abilities are basically used to complete a variety of modern-day tasks that otherwise wouldn’t be possible in this medieval setting.
Essentially,Release That Witchis a story where a reincarnated noble uses the power of magic to advance his territory in unique ways using the knowledge from his past life. If that at all sounds interesting, then this series is absolutely worth a read. And, as a final selling point forRelease That Witch, this series currently has over 500 chapters in publication, so there’s more than enough content for an anime adaptation to work with.
Back-Kyung Moon
Hyunsoo Kim
Moving on to a pretty unique inclusion, but not in any of the ones you’d probably expect.The Greatest Estate Developeris an incredible read, that’s for sure. But, it’s not really due to its plot, fights, or general story. Rather, what makes this Manwha endlessly entertaining is the main character himself, Lloyd Frontera, or more like Kim Suho, as that’s the actual person in the body of Lloyd. Yes, this is another one of those series where the character is transported or ‘reincarnated’ into the world of some fiction series they know.
The Greatest Estate Developerhas some fun characters, a lot of interesting story elements, and so on, but the comedy is leagues above other similar series. Kim Suho is such an absurd degenerate with the most twisted (for a good cause, most of the time) ideas and Lloyd was (before being taken over by Kim Suho) a degenerate who would die at the hands of the story’s main character. However, Kim Suho manages to avoid this fate, recruit the hero, and travel from city to city (and sometimes even between dimensions) doing all sorts of engineering and architectural projects to make himself rich.
Torutonen
Yanomi Saitou
This is absolutely one of the best isekai recommendations for those who want a ‘darker’ isekai story but without going overboard.Record of Highserk Waris a pretty accurate depiction of how an isekai would theoretically work, as Raizou Takakura was just ‘born’ into another world into a poor farming family and eventually had to join the military and becomewhat he would consider a serial killerjust to keep himself alive.
This story is gritty, it’s violent, and it also doesn’t shy away fromsome of the more horrifying aspects of war.However, there’s a lot of heart to the series too, as Raizou does have friends and compatriots in this world, and he’s not just killing for killing’s sake. Basically, if you want a manga that has fantastic art, some really interesting world-building, and a likable cast of characters,Record of Highserk Waris an easy recommendation.
Heuksujeo
This is a Manhwa series that hasn’t been updated in quite a bit but has more than enough content in what’s currently been told to last at least a couple of anime seasons. This isekai quickly gets its trope-filled setup out of the way where a bunch of people are suddenly brought to a new world and told to kill, level, and survive, which is already a plus. But, the real selling point ofHow to Use a Returner, like withThe Greatest Estate Developer, is with the MC. Lee Giyoung is the ‘hero’ of this story,and he’s a real piece of work.
Giyoung is manipulative, conniving, greedy, and selfish, but he’s incredibly clever. However, all of his other stats are pretty awful, so Giyoung must depend on his manipulation skills to make ‘connections’ with a whole host of powerful characters. And, the one who he cares about keeping close the most is one Kim Hyunsung, someone whom Giyoung knows is an actual ‘returner’ who’s come back from the future to try and rectify all of his mistakes. This story goes all over the place and always has some new goal in sight, but the ‘core’ of the series never changes, which is seeing how Lee Giyoung manages to outsmart and out-act everyone around him to reach the most comfortable position.
Garam Ryueun
Gyong
In recent years, it feels like the ‘gamer gets pulled into the game they’re addicted to’ subgenre of isekai has only become more popular. And, while a lot of these series end up recycling a lot of the same tropes and plot devices, a standout series calledTyrant of the Tower Defense Gametries a lot of new things while excelling at all the tried-and-true things that make this sub-genre so popular.
Essentially, a popular ‘retro game’ streamer who managed to beat this game for the first time ever after years of attempts is then pulled into the game world by the ‘developer’ to beat it all over again. However, this time, Retrotaku won’t be beating it as a player, but rather he’ll have to beat it in the body of one of the game’s most well-known characters. To be more specific he’ll be possessing the body of Prince Ash,one of the more useless plot-relevant characters in the game, who is also a character everyone else thinks of as scum. From here, readers will get to see just how Retrotaku manages to succeed in spite of Prince Ash’s reputation, how he integrates his knowledge from the game into surmounting seemingly impossible battles, and so much more.
Yungang Jeong
Nep
In much the same way thatTyrant of the Tower Defense Gamemanaged to capture the tactics and organization difficulties of a hypothetical brutally challenging RTS game,Surviving the Game as a Barbariandoes the same thing but with a more Western RPG style or dungeon-crawler-type game.
However, the aspect in which this series excels the most is in the way it introduces so many creative new concepts into an otherwise overdone subgenre of isekai stories. For one, almost all the ‘game mechanics’ that other similar isekai stories usually depend on work completely differently in this story. Two, the main character literally can’t reveal that they’re not who they say they are, as people who get ‘transported’ to this game world and are discovered to be possessing the bodies of others are killed on the spot. And three, the character may play a Barbarian, but he isn’t actually a Barbarian in terms of intelligence, so he uses all sorts of inventive solutions other Barbarians would never come up with. While the light novel has a sizeable amount of chapters,the manwha isn’t all that far along yet, so this may be a bit of an early recommendation, but anyone who has read this story will likely agree it’s more than worthy of an adaptation.
