While giant robots and magical girls were once among the most prominent tropes in anime, the isekai (otherworld) genre has dominated the landscape in recent years. These days, there are dozens of isekai shows available to peruse, and an ample slate of new episodes and series are set for release in 2025.
With such a large quantity of titles, there’s considerable diversity in the genre, but the narrative typically revolves around at least one person from Japan (usually a salaryman or teenager) who is transported from their ordinary reality into another world — an isekai that often features the medieval settings of knights and dragons common in Euro-American fantasy fiction.
Generally, the protagonist is killed and reincarnated or otherwise unwillingly summoned into this world, sometimes even getting trapped in fantasy video games. Unsure if they will be able to return, the protagonist goes about building a new life: Making friends, defeating enemies and in the process learning about the world they find themselves in. Commonly adapted to TV anime from lengthy light novels (a genre of young-adult Japanese fiction) and manga, isekai shows’ episodic format and longer narrative arcs allow such subplots to unfold.