Isekai Manhwa That Might Be Difficult To Adapt Into An Anime

Key Takeaways

• Isekai manhwa’s high-eye detail animations & special effects make them difficult to adapt into anime.
• Animating flashy manhwa like
  Seoul Station Druid
  could be a nightmare for even experienced crews.
• Adapting manhwa like
  The Skeleton Soldier Failed To Defend The Dungeon
  is challenging due to animating skeletons.

Isekai manhwa has some characteristics that make it unique: they’re flashy, their battle scenes are always focused in close-ups with high-eye detail animations, and quite charged with special effects. All things considered, animating one of these pieces into an Isekai anime could result in a masterpiece (like Solo Leveling or A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special) or an absolute flop.

The risk is way too high, and the rewards are not as great as they seem. So, with that in mind here’s a list of Isekai Manhwa that might be difficult to adapt into an anime. From a Reverse Isekai tale about a crazy and powerful Druid/Bird Person, to a story about a skeleton trapped in an infinite death loop, which would be a killer series if not for the fact that animating skeletons is a nightmare and the cost would be too high.

Updated on November 9, 2024, by Lucas Simons: With The Beginning After The End delisted from this article due to it becoming an anime (against all odds), there was a need for some adjustments. First of many, a new contender joins the club of manhwa that would be difficult to adapt into an anime: Seoul Station Druid. On the other hand, we also have Seoul Station Necromancer, a similar series but with a different story and focus (They do love Seoul Station for some reason). A series that recently ended and has been in discussion to become an anime on its own terms, but due to the similarities with so many series (including Solo Leveling), it is hard to see it being animated any time soon.

6 Seoul Station Druid

The Art Style And Flashy Story Make It Nearly Impossible To Animate

• Genres: Action-Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
• Author: Jin Sol U
• Artist: Mun Sung-Ho, liveBear

Seoul Station Druid is about Park Seohoo, a normal human who was sent to a world full of savage beasts, where survival of the fittest is taken to the extreme. In this Beast World, he became the King of all Beasts, acquiring Druid-like powers and control over the elements. When, on a fateful day, he was pulled back to Earth for mysterious reasons, he discovered he was only one of many “Awakeners” who returned in a similar way.

Now he has become one of the most powerful beings in the world, a dangerous beast-like King who answers to no one, and whose only objective is to create a paradise for all beasts and humans to co-exist on a changed planet Earth. There are a lot of weird things about this manhwa; a mixture of Wuxia, action, and adventure that features vampires, zombies, and also Elves who happen to be from a Martial Arts world. The art style, as well as the effects of Seohoo’s spells, are extremely flashy, so animating this would be a nightmare even for an experienced crew. It’s hard to see this manhwa being an anime in the near future.

5 Seoul Station Necromancer

Similarities To Other Series Scare Producers

• Genres: Sword & Sorcery, Dystopian, Urban Fantasy
• Author: Jin Sol U
• Artist: Jin Sol U

With so many titles to pick from, manhwa authors seem obsessed with using the Seoul Station keywords. However, that’s not the main issue with this series, which recently ended (leaving fans with a bittersweet feeling), and has become one of the main topics of discussion among connoisseurs of the genre. Is it too similar to Solo Leveling? Or does it have its own identity? There’s no easy answer to those questions, but the truth is that although Seoul Station Necromancer might be similar to other reverse-isekai/Awakener stories, it also has some spice of its own. It’s a revenge story, unlike Solo Leveling, which centers around a struggle for power and survival.

Unlike Seoul Station Druid, this series has a more refined art style, and the story is more concise. The character developments are also arranged in a more polished way. The problem resides in who would dare to produce a series that needs to compete with a mega-hit like Solo Leveling? Worse still, there’s a new spin-off series based on the world created by Chu-Gong, so if this manhwa wants an anime, it will have to compete with that series too. It’s hard to see this getting anywhere close to an animated series anytime soon.

4 I Reincarnated As An Evolving Space Monster

Its Gruesome Scenes Would Be Toned Down For Sure, Plus The Legal Issues

• Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Gore, Terror
• Authors: FearTurtle (Gongpouigeobug-i)
• Status: Ongoing

The protagonist of this story is transported to a game reality where he is reincarnated as a space monster, quite similar to the Alien xenomorph, and immediately feels overjoyed by the opportunity to go on a rampage and start evolving into a full-fledged space monster. The manhwa is honestly great, with near-perfect designs, great atmospheric horror depictions, and well, lots of gruesome scenes.

And there resides the main issue of how to address a possible adaptation: Would the producers tone down the gore to prevent breaking the regulations, or will they stay true to the original material? Most of the fans of this series surely understand that body horror and gore go hand in hand, so, if they notice something like censorship in a possible animation of this series, they won’t appreciate it. On the other hand, the similarities between Ridley Scott’s Alien and I Reincarnated As An Evolving Space Monster could pose an obstacle to its production, though the story greatly diverts from the horror film, and the monster has a lot of different abilities such as human voice mimicry, something no xenomorph had manifested so far.

This One Would Break The Special Effect Budget

• Genre: Action, Isekai, Sword & Sorcery, School Life, Shounen, Drama
• Authors: Corita (Story), Girin Geurin (Art)
• Status: Ongoing

Reincarnated as the low-class villain from a game, Ed Rothtaylor, a Korean gamer starts to use his knowledge of the plot and episodes of the game to try to survive in a ruthless world of sword and sorcery. He openly decided that he would keep a low profile while barely intervening so he would not alter the course of history, thus, preventing bad endings from happening. But little does he know that even the slightest change can cause unpredictable effects.

Then, Butterfly Effect-style, his shenanigans start to alter the plot in catastrophic ways, making him take a preliminary role instead of a secondary one, and putting him in the center of a hurricane of trouble. Despite knowing all the outcomes and possible bad-endings of every act in the game where he was transported, he cannot help but be the center of attention, also knowing that this will absolutely alter the outcomes in unpredictable ways and twist the patterns in the most dangerous of situations. Adapting the many flashbacks, ins and outs of The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide would be naturally hard to accomplish. Besides, the main problem would be the sheer amount of summoning creatures, magic combat, and visual effects that need to be replicated. Toning it down could be a solution, but the author of this manhwa would need to compromise greatly to eliminate several parts that could result in a budget issue. Nevertheless, investing in doing so would result in a great isekai anime.

2 The Magic Academy’s Genius Blinker

A Great School-Life Isekai, But Animation Of The MC Could Be An Issue

• Genre: Action, Isekai, Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, School Life, Shounen
• Authors: Eunmilhi (Story) Seoyu (Art)
• Status: Ongoing

A gamer is transported to the game reality of a popular RPG with high fantasy content, and he is incarnated in none other than Baek Yu-Seol, a character that many consider trash for his unique playstyle: He is an expert in using the spell Blink, something hard to control and theoretically weak in comparison to other magic. Since the MC is aware of all possible future developments, he will do whatever it takes to prevent the ultimate bad ending, since that is his main quest and the reason why he was brought to the game world.

Though the story is great, fun, and easy to read, animating it could be a nightmare even for highly experienced studios. More so if they take into consideration that the ability of the MC is basically jumping everywhere at the speed of light and attacking with focused spellblade slashes. This story also shares a common point with The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide: Its flashy scenes could be hard to maintain inside a balanced budget and would need to be considerably toned down before anything.

1 The Skeleton Soldier Failed To Defend The Dungeon

Animating A Skeleton Is Not As Easy As It Seems

• Genres: Dark Fantasy, Drama, Isekai, Action, Adventure
• Authors: Sosori (Story), Ant Studio (Art)
• Status: Ongoing

For the audience experienced in Isekai and other Fantasy genres and tropes, seeing a skeleton is a common thing. More so when watching shows where adventurers delve into dungeons and encounter such creatures almost in every corner. And even so, when we see the animations of said creatures, these look clunky and tremendously low-budget. And why is that? Well, they’re usually cannon fodder for the heroes, or as they like to call them: XP bags.

But production-wise, animating a full skeleton can be nightmarish, trust me on this, so imagine having to animate a whole skeleton for hours and hours, and more so: showing it in different planes (besides a short fight sequence or close-up) fully armored, wearing capes, fighting like an expert warrior, and so on. If you pay even more attention, in combat scenes they barely show them moving, they’re practically static laying in waiting for the heroes’ attacks and sometimes they are shown walking in bulk, approaching in a medium-long shot. No feet, no knees, no full body shots. So, in the case of The Skeleton Soldier Failed To Defend The Dungeon which is one of the top-rated Isekai animes, and one with great storytelling and worldbuilding at that, it could be notoriously hard and unlikely for it to become an animated series.