Best Isekai Adventure Manga

Summary

• Isekai tales focus on various unique elements such as spreading literacy and developing eateries.
• Adapting light novels to manga can be tricky, requiring effective visualization to avoid filler.
• Isekai classics like Magic Knight Rayearth and modern hits like That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime offer diverse storylines.

To some, the title of this list might seem a little redundant. Aren’t most isekai tales adventures of some sort? Well, yes. But there are plenty that have more humble premises. Ascendance of a Bookworm is about spreading literacy in a fantasy world. Restaurant to Another World and Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits focuses on developing eateries, and Parallel World Pharmacy sells meds to the common folk.

So, this list will stick to isekai manga, whether they’re modern favorites or old-school classics, that focus on heroes going on a journey to fight monsters, overcome obstacles, and take on deadly foes to achieve their goals. Which usually involves saving the world or finding a way back to their original home, but they can vary depending on the story.

10

The Weakest Tamer Began A Journey To Pick Up Trash

MyAnimeList Score: 7.57

• Creator: Tou Fukino, based on Honobonoru500 and Nama’s original light novel
• 7+ Volumes, 25+ Chapters
• Available in English via Seven Seas Entertainment

Most isekai stories now start as light novels, then get adapted to manga later. It seems like a straightforward transition – just stick the dialogue in word balloons and add more pictures. But translating verbal storytelling into visuals isn’t always so simple. The extra panels could end up feeling like filler if they’re not done well.

Luckily, The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash made an effective leap to manga, as the “@comic” version has strong artwork that does a good job of telling the light novel’s story. Where, as the title suggests, Ivy makes up for her lack of tamer skills by using knowledge from her past life to make a living and avoid being captured by the villagers.

9

Magic Knight Rayearth

MyAnimeList Score: 7.59

• Creators: CLAMP
• 3 Volumes, 15 Chapters
• Available in English via Dark Horse Comics

Isekai stories aren’t a modern fad. Even in Japan, enthusiasts of the subgenre could trace it back to novels like Warrior from Another World, or folktales like Urashima Tarō. Even the manga industry was awash with examples as early as the 1990s, like Magic Knight Rayearth. It saw three high school girls, Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu get pulled into the world of Cephiro while on a field trip.

Their only hope of heading back home to Tokyo is to help save Princess Emeraude, the Pillar of Cephiro, from the high priest Zagato. If that wasn’t enough, CLAMP combined it with magical girl and mecha elements that gave the girls mechanical-looking Rune Gods to fight with. Though they’re magical in origin, it was enough to get them included in the Super Robot Wars games.

8

Fushigi Yugi

MyAnimeList Score: 7.63

• Creator: Yuu Watase
• 18 Volumes, 106 Chapters
• Available in English via Viz Media

Rayearth was big, and it became one of many stories that made CLAMP a household name in anime and manga. But it wasn’t the only 90s isekai strip that hit the big time. Fushigi Yugi lacks the magical girl mecha elements, but plays up the fantasy elements more, as Yuki and Yui end up transported to the world of a novel called “The Universe of Four Gods.”

To get home, Yuki must reunite the Celestial Warriors to summon the Vermillion Bird for the Suzaku clan. But the Seiryu clan has other plans and manipulates Yui into turning on her friend and becoming their priestess to oppose her. It’s since received a range of prequel strips that flesh out its world further, like Genbu Kaiden, where schoolgirl Takiko joins forces with the gender-switching Limdo to find the Celestial Warriors.

7

So I’m A Spider, So What?

MyAnimeList Score: 7.78

• Creator: Asahiro Kakashi, based on Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu’s original light novel
• 14+ Volumes, 73+ Chapters
• Available in English via Yen Press

Reincarnation has often been used in isekai as the reason its protagonists get to enter fantasy worlds as themselves or in other human forms. But who says they should stay that way? What if they ended up reincarnating as some other life form, like a spider? This was the unfortunate fate of one student who, like the rest of her classmates, got hit by a lethal spell from another world.

As the title, So I’m a Spider, So What?, suggests, she became the weakest kind of spider monster in a giant dungeon. Her only hope of survival lies in using what she remembers of her past life. Then she could contend with the dungeon’s other foes and find out what happened to her classmates and who (or what) they got reincarnated into.

6

The Faraway Paladin

MyAnimeList Score: 7.80

• Creator: Mutsumi Okuhashi, based on Kanata Yanagino and Kususaga Rin’s original light novel
• 13+ Volumes, 68+ Chapters
• Available in English via J-Novel Club

Protagonists don’t have to be aware they’ve slipped into another world for it to be isekai, as The Faraway Paladin shows. Its beginning already sees Will, a human boy, enter the city of the dead. He can recall how he lived his past life, and know they did little with their time in the real world. But he still has plenty of questions he needs answers to.

How did he end up in the city of the dead? Why did the skeletal warrior Blood, the sorcerer Augusts, and the mummified priestess Mary take him under his wing? Who or what truly runs this undead realm? The only way he can find out is by venturing beyond the city limits and following the path of the gods by becoming a paladin. This is just the first of many difficult decisions Will has to make.

5

Overlord

MyAnimeList Score: 7.97

• Creator: Satoshi Oshio, Hugin Miyama, and Matsuki, based on Kugane Maruyama and so-bin’s original light novel
• 19 Volumes, 78 Chapters
• Available in English via Yen Press

Isekais could be set anywhere, be it in another dimension, in a book, the realm of the dead, or in a video game. In Overlord, a salaryman called Suzuki thought he’d get to play one last session of Yggdrasil, a DMMORPG (Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), with his guild members before its servers shut down for good.

Instead, he finds himself sucked into the game as his online avatar, a skeletal lich called Ainz. He can’t rely on in-game mechanics to get ahead, as the world and its NPCs feel all too real. Instead, he must explore the new world to find out if anyone else got sucked in too, and see if there’s a way out before his new lich nature takes over completely.

4

KonoSuba

MyAnimeList Score: 8.01

• Creator: Masahito Watari, based on Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima’s original light novel
• 20+ Volumes, 125+ Chapters
• Available in English via Yen Press

With the isekai boom came isekai fatigue, as it seemed like a myriad of very similar portal fantasy manga and anime hit the market. Often telling similar stories to make the protagonist (and thus the reader) feel like a super-smart, super-strong, superstar. It also meant it was ripe for parody, like in Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufu wo (God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World), or KonoSuba for short.

When Kazuma Satou dies, the goddess Aqua says she’ll bring him back to life if he beats the Demon King in a fantasy world. But instead of taking the super-powerful items she offers, he takes Aqua instead, where she isn’t as helpful as her divine status suggests. Nonetheless, with the pyromaniacal Megumin and masochistic Darkness, they embark on a quest that defies isekai and RPG conventions by poking fun at them.

3

Silver Diamond

MyAnimeList Score: 8.20

• Creator: Shiho Sugiura
• 27 Volumes, 82 Chapters
• Formerly available in English by Tokyopop

Many isekai manga managed to make the leap into anime. However, even some of the more critically acclaimed strips have remained in print only. In Silver Diamond’s case, it might be because it’s a bit of a hidden gem. The strip ended just before the isekai boom took off, and it didn’t get much attention outside Japan as only nine of its twenty-seven volumes were officially translated before its publisher, Tokyopop, went defunct.

Rakan used to live a quiet life tending to his plants until a man called Chigusa burst in with several deadly creatures. After a face-off, he reveals to Rakan that he’s a “sanome” – someone who can cultivate plant life at will. As such, he asks Rakan to come back to his desert world with him and help it grow green again by destroying the Ayame, a creature that drains all life from the land.

2

From Far Away

MyAnimeList Score: 8.34

• Creator: Kyoko Hikawa
• 14 Volumes, 57 Chapters
• Available in English via Viz Media’s Shojo Beat imprint

Fushigi Yugi became one of the best-known early isekai manga, where its anime is said to have been so popular in the fansub community that Pioneer Corporation (now Geneon Entertainment) officially licensed an English translation. Though as popular as it was, some found its print-only rival, From Far Away, to be a more engaging tale.

It saw Noriko, a girl who often dreamed of fantasy lands, get sent to one after being caught in an explosion. However, it proves to be more dangerous than the one in her dreams. She’s defended by Izark, a swordsman who she soon falls for, despite not knowing his language. If she did, she’d learn why everyone was out to get her, and why she’s bound to Izark by more than just love and luck.

1

That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime

MyAnimeList Score: 8.37

• Creator: Taiki Kawakami, based on Fuse and Mitz Vah’s original light novel
• 28+ Volumes, 126+ Chapters
• Available in English via Kodansha Comics USA and K-Manga

Perhaps the most popular reincarnation-themed isekai saw its lead become the most basic of fantasy monsters. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime has gone from being a humble light novel to being a media franchise consisting of multiple manga spin-offs and an anime, alongside a mainline manga adaptation.

In life, Satoru was a humble salaryman who died saving his friend. After answering a mysterious voice’s questions, he is reincarnated as a slime, whose best skill is swallowing things to gain their appearance and skills. But with these simple abilities, they’re able to befriend a dragon, Veldora, and start their journey to establish a new kingdom for monsters. Not a bad objective for a tiny slime.