Right then, time for another entry. Since fantasy and isekai are so similar, I'm just going to meld them into the same post. For the few who don't know, Isekai literally means 'Another World', and typically involves a person being summoned living from the real world to another one, or reincarnated into one with various amounts of memories intact. Occasionally, you have the opposite happening, with the fantasy world character ending up in the real world through Shenanigans. And as for Fantasy, in this case that's going to include all the fantastic elements that aren't covered in the previous sets (Mecha/Sci-Fi, Comedy, Shonen, Magical Girls, Healing), which brings us directly to...

Mob Psycho 100
Shigeo Kageyama is an average middle school-aged boy, nicknamed Mob. Although he looks like an inconspicuous person, he is in fact a powerful esper with immense psychic power. To keep from losing control of this power, he constantly lives a life under an emotional shackle. In order to help learn how to control his abilities, Mob works as an assistant to con-man Arataka Reigen, a self-proclaimed spirit medium. Mob wants to live a normal life just like those around him, but a barrage of trouble keeps coming after him. With his suppressed emotions growing inside Mob little by little, his power threatens to break through its limits as he eventually encounters other espers like the Claws.

--Another series by ONE, line One Punch Man, this series is in several ways it's opposite, a boy learning how to be happy as himself, without hiding parts of who he is, with a backdrop of ghosts, spirits, ESPers and psychics.

Log Horizon
By its eleventh expansion pack, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Elder Tale has become a global success, with a user base of millions of players. However, during the release of its twelfth expansion pack: Homesteading the Noosphere, thirty thousand Japanese gamers who are logged on at the time of the update suddenly find themselves transported into the virtual game world and donning their in-game avatars. In the midst of the event, a socially awkward gamer named Shiroe, along with his friends Naotsugu and Akatsuki, decide to team up so that they may face this world, which unfortunately has now become their reality, along with the challenges and obstacles ahead of them.

--Log Horizon is superficially similar to Sword Art Online in that a whole host of people are transported at once into the world of the game they were logged into - though it wasn't a VRMMO, and as far as anybody knows, they are actually in this world, with NPCs no longer being NPCs, and the resurrection temple actually working - though perhaps not as perfectly as one would hope. I haven't seen the latest season, yet, but what I have seen I liked, so, let's hope it didn't crap out while I wasn't looking.

Skeleton Knight in Another World
Upon awakening, an unnamed gamer finds himself in the avatar body and armor that he was using in his online game. Seeing his reflection in a river, he is shocked to discover that his appearance is that of a skeleton due to the special avatar skin『Skeleton』he used. In unfamiliar territory, the gamer decides that it would be best to hide his appearance by never removing his helmet and to search for inhabitants.

--A warning to maybe skip the first five minutes or so of the first episode if you're sensitive to scenes of sexual assault, I have NO FUCKING CLUE why they'd front load the FIRST EPISODE with THAT, especially since nothing like it comes up at all for the whole rest of the season, what the fuck, but ASIDE FROM THAT, it's a pretty fun show! Also? Amazing opening.

Ascendance of a Bookworm
The story follows Urano Motosu, a book-loving post-secondary college student and soon-to-be librarian who ends up crushed to death beneath a pile of books at her house during an earthquake. With her dying breath, she wishes to be reincarnated in a world where she can read books forever. Urano awakens in the body of a weak, five-year-old girl named Myne in a world where books are scarce and only available to elites. Myne, retaining her memories from her previous life, decides to create and print her own books so that she can read again.

--A surprisingly deep story about a girl who just wants to read books, even if she has to almost single-handedly invent the printing industry to do so. Gotta admire that level of dedication.

Goblin Slayer
In a world of fantasy, adventurers come from far and wide to join the Guild. They complete contracts to earn gold and glory. An inexperienced priestess joins her first adventuring party, but comes into danger after her first contract involving goblins goes wrong. As the rest of her party is either wiped out or taken out of commission, she is saved by a man known as Goblin Slayer, an adventurer whose only purpose is the eradication of goblins with extreme prejudice.

--Okay, remember what I said about Skeleton Knight's first five minutes? If that applies to you, skip this *entire series*, because it's kind of relentless about what goblins will do to female adventurers. If you can handle THAT though, what we have here is a pretty good version of a collection of (admittedly edgy-ass) D&D campaigns, complete with characters better known as their classes than their names, and their Adventurers Guild forms literally being character sheets.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear
Yuna is a bored teenage girl who spends her time as a NEET and living off money she makes in the stock market, being mooched off by her parents. While playing her favorite FPV online game World Fantasy Online, Yuna receives an embarrassing bear suit as a gift for playing so long. The administrator of the game turns out to be a God, who based the game on her world. She then transports Yuna into said world without a real warning with the bear suit, which she is powerless without.

-- Practically the polar opposite of Goblin Slayer, we have this show, which has your basic Isekai protagonist girl being insanely overpowered and just trying to live a comfortable life. A very light and fluffy series that I heavily debated putting in the Healing category, but decided to wait for the Isekai set.

I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level
After living a painful life as an office worker, Azusa ends up dying from overworking. She finds herself reincarnated as an undying, unaging witch in a new world, and now she vows to spend her days as pleasantly and stress-free as possible. She makes a living by hunting slimes, the easiest targets. But after centuries of doing this simple job, she has become extremely powerful and finds that she can no longer maintain her low-key lifestyle.

--This too was almost put in the Healing category, but I decided to wait for the Isekai one, this is likewise a light, fluffy series about a protagonist who's so overpowered (though it took her 300 years to be so) that nothing even slows her down, and lives with/around a metaphorical harem of cute girls.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Do you really need me to explain Utena to you people? Seriously?

Myriad Colors Phantom World
In the near future, the accidental release of an experimental virus causes an outbreak that changes the brain chemistry of every person in the world, allowing them to perceive extra-dimensional beings called "Phantoms". In addition, some children born after the outbreak have developed special powers that allow them to battle and seal Phantoms. Even though the vast majority of phantoms are harmless, many of these gifted children are placed in clubs, schools, and organizations dedicated to dealing with Phantoms that prove to be nuisances or threats to humanity. The story revolves around Haruhiko Ichijo and his friends in the Phantom-hunting Club of Hosea Academy, a private school for children with special abilities to seal Phantoms, and their everyday life and struggles, dealing with Phantoms.

--It's been a bit since I've seen this, but I also can't really think of anything much to say about it that the excerpt doesn't say already. It's pretty good, and everyone is pretty cute.

When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace
The story focuses on Senkō High School's Literature Club, whose five members; Jurai, Tomoyo, Hatoko, Sayumi, and Chifuyu, have all somehow developed superpowers. Their superpowers have now become a part of their everyday lives as they battle against others wielding similar powers while struggling through growing up.

--Superficially similar to Myraid Colors or the next entry in the list, this one's also pretty fun, especially the main male character's chuuni bullshit.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Also Disappearance of Yuki Nagato)
Kyon is a student at North High School in Nishinomiya. He is dragged along by his classmate, Haruhi Suzumiya, an eccentric schoolgirl who seeks supernatural phenomena and figures, such as aliens, time travelers, and espers. With Kyon's reluctant help, Haruhi establishes a club called the "SOS Brigade", short for "Spreading excitement all Over the world with Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade" (In the school's official paperwork Kyon renamed it "Support the Student Body by Overworking to Make the World a Better Place Student Service Brigade") to investigate mysterious events.

--Alright, you had to know this one was coming. Girl who basically warps reality into having all the fun aliens, time travelers, magic, espers, and so forth through sheer force of will because she's *bored* - Which, honestly, I'd totally do if I could too. Kinda sounds familiar in fact...did somebody slip her a copy of cluless? Not Kyoto Animations first, but arguably it's first truly well known project, the animation is amazing - yes, even in the infamous 'endless eight'.

Heaven's Design Team
Kami-sama ("God", in English) created the Earth and filled the world with natural resources. Though God originally was going to create the animals that would inhabit the world, the task was outsourced to a team of creative minds. God generally sends tasks to the team to fulfill ideas for an animal with unique and quirky features based on vague descriptions or design goals. Designs that he approves become animals while rejected ones go back to the designer to revise until he is satisfied. Other times, the team can freely create a new design on their own whims and preferences in aesthetic and physical designs. One of God's angels, Shimoda, is tasked with overseeing the crew and sending potential new animals for God's approval.

--A really interesting kind of 'what if things on earth really were designed (vaguely) intelligently' thing, actually very educational, using proper biology and physics to explain why animals are the way they are. Could have also been in the Healing category.

The Tower of Druaga ~The Aegis(And Sword) of Uruk
It has been eighty years since King Gilgamesh defeated "the tower" single-handedly (as depicted in the original game, The Tower of Druaga), and now the tower is reborn again. The "Summer of Anu" is a season that comes every few years during which the powers of the monsters within the Tower wane thanks to the grace of the great god Anu. Each Summer of Anu, the armies of the Uruk Kingdom secure their strongholds within the Tower, aiming to eventually conquer the upper floors. The story begins with the third Summer of Anu. The city of Meskia is the first stronghold built on the first level of the Tower. In addition to the Uruk Army preparing for their third campaign against Druaga, innumerable adventurers called "climbers" have been drawn to Meskia by rumors of the Blue Crystal Rod, a legendary treasure believed to be hidden on the top floor of the Tower. Jil, a young guardian, has traveled to the tower and Meskia, the last safe stop on the first floor of the tower. The story follows Jil, a new climber who wishes to reach the top floor of the tower. On the top floor is the evil lord Druaga, and numerous monsters and traps inhabit the floors along the way.

--It's been an age since I watched this, but I remember rather enjoying it, and I think others should check it out too~ Another one with a great opening, too.

Beyond the Boundary
One day, high school student Akihito Kanbara instinctively goes to save his fellow schoolmate, Mirai Kuriyama, from committing suicide. Following his pleas, Mirai suddenly stabs Akihito with a sword formed out of her own blood and is shocked to discover that Akihito is an immortal "half-youmu"—the offspring of a supernatural creature, called a youmu, and a human. After learning that Mirai is a Spirit World Warrior—specialists who protect humans from being affected by youmu—and the last surviving member of her spirit hunting clan, their lives become intertwined as Akihito seeks to help Mirai gain the confidence to kill youmu so that she may stop attempting to kill him as practice.

--A great show, another by KyoAni, don't have a lot to say about it, partly as it's been a while since I saw it.

Slayers (Best version I can find)
The protagonist of Slayers is Lina Inverse, a teenage wandering genius sorceress with many nicknames and much infamy attached to her that she refuses to acknowledge. Lina narrates (within the novels) the history of her various adventures, ranging from whimsical and silly to dramatic to even outright world-threatening crises, in which she becomes involved along with her traveling companions everywhere she goes.

--A true classic, from thousands of years ago in the 1990's.

Okay, that's about enough here. Honorable mentions that didn't make the cut for various reasons include; Chaika the Coffin Princess, Dragon Pilot, Reincarnated as a Sword, Ya Boy Kong Ming, Kino's Journey, How Not To Summon A Demon Lord, Reincarnated as a Slime, So I'm a Spider, Re:Zero, In the Land of Leadale, In/Spectre, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kemono Jihen, and The World Ends With You.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-05-22 AT 06:12 PM (EST)
 
O'm gonna recommend my favorite isekai of the moment, which is- deep breath now- My Next Life as a Villainess- All Routes Lead to Doom!

It tells us the story of Katarina Claes, haughty daughter of nobility in a posh european country, who has a destiny ahead of her- to grow up into a bully, a bitch, and a generally horrible person who wlll get involved in a boring engagement, torment a well-meaning but miserable girl who has greatness thrust upon her, and probably come to a sticky end.

Then one day she falls over on a walk and hits her head pretty badly, and a flash of memory comes running back to her- she remembers all of those things and more, because this is the world of the dating sim 'Fortune Lover', and after being hit by a truck in her normal mundane life she's been reincarnated in it- not as the hero, but the villain!

Now armed with a complicated foreknowledge of what's going to historically happen, Katarina goes out of her way to avoid the 'doom flags' and change her life or prepare for the worst, desperate to avoid a myriad of bad ends in her future. But what she doesn't know is that her earnest attempts to change her future, her irrepressible compassion, and her absolute vacuous stupidity will turn the worlds of the heroine, her 'capture targets' and even more people upside down!

It's a charming lite-fantasy comedy and romance show with a definite harem slant, and is very much one of those wish-fulfilment isekais where everything goes much better than expected, but you'll forgive it everything because it's just so wonderfully charming. It has two seasons with an upcoming movie and it's available on Crunchyroll!

Yes! The only reason that isn't on the list at all is because I've only read the Manga and not actually watched any of the anime!

It's *so* good watching her be SO focused on avoiding her Bad End and SO stupid at the same time - this is the same girl who finished like eight of the games routes? How is she that oblivious? :D

>Yes! The only reason that isn't on the list at all is because I've
>only read the Manga and not actually watched any of the anime!
>
>It's *so* good watching her be SO focused on avoiding her Bad End and
>SO stupid at the same time - this is the same girl who finished like
>eight of the games routes? How is she that oblivious? :D

1. Bakarina is game-smart, but her emotional intelligence is nearly nonexistent.
2. Her hyper-focus on avoiding her Bad End has reduced her ability to understand anything else.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

To get into the weeds a bit: it's actually kind of sad because the way it ends up, not to get into too many spoilers, but she's so fixated on the idea that she's supposed to be the villain that sometimes it feels like she's constantly fearing the worst and actively blinding herself to the idea that her life is about a hundred times better than she thinks it is?

But that's kind of an angsty spin on what is supposed to be a fun fluffy show.

Skeleton Knight in Another World

To give an idea about this series, Arc, the main character is at one point asked by his exasperated companion "do you have to jump in and help everyone you come across?" To which he says: "yes."

It is something of a crapsack world, but Arc is a paladin. And lives up to that. He's kind of an idiot at times, he's definitely a large ham. He likes to drink, smoke, eat and have long hot bathes. He will loot like the murderhobo that he is. If we get another series, there's a decent chance we may see him quest halfway around the world for tomatoes so he can make pizza. But I can't recall a single instance of him being mean to someone, much less hurting someone unless they pretty definitely had it coming. And if he sees someone in need, helping is literally the only reward he will ask for.

In short, he's not an edgelord. He's a nice guy who happens to look like a skeleton.

Yes, exactly!

Which kinda makes me wonder even harder why they opened the anime series with attempted rape. It's...why. (Not by him, I have to note, a group of bandits - which he ends up very definitively and very satisfyingly killing before they can *actually* do anything)

That decision is just so completely baffling to me. Luckily, they replay it later but with the questionable parts cut mercifully short so you can *completely* skip the first few minutes of the first episode and lose none of the experience by doing so.

My speculation is that since they want Arc to be just -that good-, aside from some hedonism, they wanted the audience to know in no uncertain terms that the bandits he deleted had it coming and then some.

Probably an unnecessary exercise in retrospect, but they were likely worried about audiences seeing Arc as an Ainz ripoff.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Now to see if the series can avoid the adaptation anime curse."

I call Skeleton Knight the "Anti-Overlord" anime. He and Ainz Ooal Gown are both skeletons, but completely opposite in morality. (Though Ainz might be influenced by his -999 Karma character sheet.)

I have to admit, though, the most fun "isekai" anime I've seen recently is Isekai Quartet, where the casts of Overlord, Konosuba, Tanya the Evil, and Re:Zero all have to partake in "high school life."

LAST EDITED ON Dec-06-22 AT 06:55 PM (EST)
 
I haven't checked that one out because I fell off hard on Re:Zero - it just became too much of a misery parade for me by the time of that long Evangelionesque shot - you probably know the one - and Overlord likewise got a bit too much for even me with my high tolerance for OP Isekai bullshit.

To each their own, of course. Heck, I enjoy Goblin Slayer, it's not like I'm above immature edgy horseshit myself, I just prefer a different flavor....if you'll excuse the mental image that may conjure.

Not seen any Tanya yet, which really just leaves my with the Konosuba aspect...and I can get that by just watching Konosuba :3

Edit: I know the tone is very different from those shows, but it’s about characters and such, I wouldn’t know who everyone is or what the series-specific jokes are.

Because I've started watching some older things I've already done in boredom, I'm adding this one to the list.

Upotte!!
he series takes place at a school known as Seishou Academy. Unlike an average school, all the students are actually personifications of guns, training to one day become a useful weapon, and is divided up into elementary school (submachine guns), middle school (assault rifles & shotguns), and high school (battle rifles & sniper rifles). They are capable of drawing the weapons they represent from out of thin air and using them, and any student or her manifested gun can suffer from any gun-related problem the other might have. All students in Seishou train to shoot their target (literally) using live ammunition. The series mainly focuses on an FN FNC assault rifle nicknamed Funco and her friends with their human teacher.

--This show is bizarrely horny, but also actually interesting and somewhat informative, at least to someone as firearms illiterate as I am.

Arifureta is something of a guilty pleasure for me.

And Cor's son decided that I AM "the Villain in Glasses". :D

LAST EDITED ON Dec-06-22 AT 07:00 PM (EST)
 
I couldn’t get into that series, despite on paper it being peak me. The jump between ‘did somebody push me?’ To ‘humanity is fucked, I hate everybody and I don’t care if humans live or die’ was just far too sudden, like, did I somehow skip a chapter where he learned things? It seemed to just happen in the space of like three pages, and that turned me off the whole thing.

I’m down with a good revenge story, (I gave Redo of Healer like thirty chapters before I went ‘yeah, no’) but that was too much of a jump for me.

>I couldn’t get into that series, despite on paper it being peak me.
>The jump between ‘did somebody push me?’ To ‘humanity is fucked,
>I hate everybody and I don’t care if humans live or die’ was just
>far too sudden, like, did I somehow skip a chapter where he learned
>things? It seemed to just happen in the space of like three pages, and
>that turned me off the whole thing.

The Light Novel goes into a LOT more detail. I actually read that first.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-06-22 AT 07:09 PM (EST)
 
Yeah, that’s absolutely reasonable. Alas, for some reason, I just can’t get into LNs. It’s weird, because I read fanfics and proper novels all the time, but I just....can’t LN.

For some reason the anime and did an incredibly bad job of pacing for the first few episodes, rushing through the build up towards Hajime falling into the depths of the dungeon. In the LN it's a full quarter of the way through the first volume, over 100 pages, before that happens (other than a 1 page prologue of him in mid fall).

As a result there's much less build-up of why Hajime has issues with even the nicer members of his class, not to mention with the authority figures in the world that he's in and the problems fall much flatter. I'm guessing they wanted to rush onto his supporting cast and the fan service. Because, you know, who needs character development?

Yeesh. Even Redo, as horribly mean spirited and generally vile as it is, at least gave really good reasons to root for the disgustingly assholish protagonist.

Season 1 of Arifureta is kind of infamous for being flubbed, so much so that I don't think anyone expected the season 2 that recently came out. That said, season 2 does a better job of showing that our pizza cutter protagonist Hajime is neither as huge of a jerk as he pretends to be, nor as obscenely overpowered as he appeared in most of season 1. He is still an isekai protagonist, so he's still absurdly strong, but there are enemies that push him hard and make him work for it.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "They also tone down the bawdy humor a few notches in season 2, that could be a positive or a negative depending on your tastes."

I have to expand the following recommendation to this list, because IMO it's one of the best out there:

That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime
From Crunchy Roll:
"Corporate worker Mikami Satoru is stabbed by a random killer, and is reborn to an alternate world. But he turns out to be reborn a slime!

Thrown into this new world with the name Rimuru, he begins his quest to create a world that’s welcoming to all races."

That's an -extremely- brief intro, but it's hard to do a more thorough one without spoiling any of the magic that is this show. It's a delightful spin on the Isekai genre, with a solid core of characters, a wide body of supporting and secondary ones, an (again, IMO) excellently designed and far more internally consistent world than is usual for the genre, and a very fun premise. Two seasons so far, as well as a spin-off series by a different studio called "The Slime Diaries" that takes the basic characters and setting, and turns it into an Isekai Slice of Life.

I fell off on the manga for that around....two years ago? Three? When...a certain character got very badly hurt and Rimuru Made A Decision. It just kinda stopped being that interesting to me. A touch too 'political', maybe. As in the in-universe politics of things. Nothing against the series, it just wasn't pulling me in any more at the time. Maybe if I started up again I'd be into it anew. I remember watching the...first season? of the anime. It's continued since then. Probably reached where I fell off by now, it was going at a considerable clip.

I suspect I know what you're referring to, and if I'm right the second season does indeed get that far. It...actually gets -even more awesome- immediately after that, imo? There's some fantastic sequences afterwards.

But yes, the political affairs of the world become a bit more prominent, so your mileage may still vary on it.