This Week in Anime

Maybe It's Isekai (Maybe It's LitRPG)

Chris
You're telling me, Sylvia. I can remember but a season ago when I felt that most of those offerings represented an upswing in the general quality of these unkillable, intertwined genres.

Turns out I should've knocked on a whole pile of wood with those thoughts. There are thirteen new isekai and/or LitRPG anime in the winter 2026 season, and it really says something about the overall quality that the schlock of Roll Over and Die was one of the more textural, half-interesting ones.

Given how often the straight dudes get their wish-fulfillment fantasies out of these genres, I felt it was only fair that other groups get indulged as well. The Executioner and Her Way of Life can't be hogging all the sapphic slashy isekai action.

And maybe it just speaks to how worn down I've been by the endless parade of dark-haired self-insert dudes, but Flum Apricot (incredible names in this show, by the way) pointedly not feeling like a cipher I was supposed to project my own insecurities and vindications onto. She's an actual character, and that made her more engaging to me as a protagonist—freed up to be engaged with on her own terms.

I'm thinking about those beans. Pointedly, this was the one I heard the most about going into this season, which is funny because the amount of talking up it got actually obscured the fact that it's not even the only BL-flavored show here! It is, pertinently though, probably the best one.

For me, at least as far as the first episode, it's because Isekai Office Worker feels like it might actually have been written for grown-ups. Yeah, it's funny that the transported guy's other-world super-power is just him being really, really good at office accounting work. But it affords questions about how the world works, how much summoned heroes should trust the ruling bodies therein, and the pure fantasy of a workplace with fair hours and time off! At that point, all the cute dudes are just gravy.

It's so funny when they claim he's unremarkable looking, completely missing all those charm points!

My dude geeks out over using an abacus. Seeing this sort of thing in this series made me realize, "Maybe there really can be an isekai for anybody's fantasy," and that, more than anything, might actually justify the continued propulsion of this genre.

I absolutely wanted to watch more of Isekai Office Worker to see how Seiichiro speedballing 5-hour Energies would lead to him getting laid. But alas, I ran out of time among all the other stuff we had to cover this season, plus I have someone in my life who actually does work in accounting who wanted to experience the fantasy of this show with me. So I will certainly be continuing to think about those beans, rest assured.

I'll probably be thinking less about A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation, which proves parallel to Bean Counter's superlatives that just being a BL isekai (?) isn't necessarily enough to stand out.

That question mark applies to both the BL and isekai descriptors; I'm really not sure about this show yet.

Okay, I admit, maybe it's not playing that coy.

I mostly noted being frustrated at how much information the show seemed like it was withholding on Lizel's situation, as to whether he was actually isekai'd from another world or just, like, from another continent. And that nebulousness wasn't filled with anything of intrigue; when it did start explaining stuff it was mostly the standard isekai adventurer's guild job/quest systems.

But on the other hand, it's got Yaoi Kirito here and some character names that give Roll Over and Die a run for its money, so maybe it does just balance out to inoffensive, as you said.

I'm glad this was a season I decided to take notes as I ingested each of these premieres, otherwise I don't think I'd have been able to differentiate between Easygoing Territory Defense and Noble Reincarnation if you held me at gunpoint.

Noble Reincarnation is the one with the Kotoribomb in the OP? That's the main part that stuck out to me.

I know it's down to the arbitrary choices in watch order, but Noble Reincarnation was also the first one of these I hit that had one of those dang stat sheets—where it showed up just 25 seconds in!

Other than that, yeah, there really isn't much going on with this one. It's not the only show with a reincarnated noble; it's not the only one with water magic. It's not even the only edgy one! I joked, but that OP with its sauce was pretty much the only thing that stood out to me, and after that, it started sliding off my brain into the Who Cares Zone. This coulda just been a music video.

No, no, no, he enslaves a boy, see! So it's okay!

I couldn't call anything Roll Over and Die did "tasteful" but at least it still didn't feel as shameless as this.

I'm glad you noticed that, and it wasn't just me, that was so weird. Never mind the tacit implication that our boy might be buying additional slaves from the fantasy Costko.

Maybe y'all out there think we're harping on the slave thing too much, but Easygoing Territory Defense is one of many that expends most of its first episode on otherwise uneventful or unoriginal early childhood grow-up montages. What else can we assess? The fact that he has the weakest magic that will definitely, absolutely, not turn out to actually be the strongest magic?

Yeah! It's got an actually original element that lets it stand out. It's also (as far as I can tell from the first episode) not an isekai, rather a straightforward fantasy LitRPG, so Kunon gets to be a character defined simply by himself and his world rather than inheriting baggage and perspective from a reincarnation. Incidentally, speaking of commonalities, it's not even the only show airing this season featuring a blind character, but The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife falls outside the purview of this particular column. I will say it's interesting to see Kunon the Sorcerer's take on how a fantasy world with its own history and background might view disabilities, though.

I am not qualified to comment on how a series like this is in representing a disability and Kunon's desire to possibly "fix" it with magic. But his turning on a dime as soon as he knew it was a possibility sapped the moodiness and that aforementioned friction to turn the first episode into another one of those too-breezy early childhood montages. I could appreciate the travails of the working-class magic teacher and maid, anyway.

Stands alongside Gentle Noble's Vacation in "shows starring nobles this season that didn't actively repel me".

Hey, at least he's keeping up the level of class trailblazed by Mushoku Tensei.

Really, the best way to quantify my reaction to Hell Mode was that I almost got a sensible chuckle out of the MC trying and failing to open the stat sheet...before he pulled it off anyway and we were right back in too-familiar territory.

I had to presume they were doing everything they could to keep themselves awake through this premiere, in which case, I feel for them.

It is yet another slow early childhood recounting, and really shows how this kind of obligatory start never works because there's just nothing distinctive or textural to make hanging out in these generic, repeated fantasy worlds feel cool or interesting.

There's probably something to be said that this writer/audience sees actual serfdom in a game set to the hardest difficulty as more appealing than the ennui of middle-class life, but I don't know that I expect it to be said by yet another show that thinks character sheets and stat numbers are just the most amazing awesome things ever.

I can't say I got a lot out of Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling, but I did get a goodly amount of egg-cellent out-of-context screencaps.

That was precisely what I was thinking through this premiere as well. Back when Spider Isekai itself came out, a lot of people's reactions (including my own) were "This flat-out wouldn't work any other way without this actor carrying this character," and this proves it. It also proved to me that there's actually something more annoying than an overly meta game-mechanics guy in an isekai, and it's someone who has no idea how video games work who fumbles around and has to question and repeatedly intone every new element that gets thrown at them.

Overlong tutorials in games are already no fun, so watching someone else do a clueless let's play where I had no input was even less fun.

The dragon may not understand how video games work, but at least they've got a handle on the egg life.

I wasn't sure what to make of Demon King's Daughter at first. And not just because I thought it might be stretching the definitions of what our editors relayed to us as counting for the categories for this column. LitRPG is when Demon Lords, I suppose. But regardless, this show also seemed to be pitching younger as a fantasy series, and with that in mind, yeah, it somehow works!

Makes sense, given the whole thing is about being won over by the power of Doux the demon daughter's cuteness.

Nah, you're right, I like to think anybody would be a little overcome if their Blåhaj sprang to life and said how much their affection meant. Demon King's Daughter is a series built on a baseline of effective sweetness, and it actually knows how to wield it.

It also shows how something doesn't have to feel overcomplex to be original. I knew the "puppet salt" was going to get used by Doux in some subversive way, sure, but I couldn't guess that she'd use it to bring plushies to life for sentimental reasons.

This show is Doux-ing its thing, and I can see it being an effective enough comfort watch for some in-between all the fantasy vindictiveness and number-crunching of its neighbors in this column.

I have to wash the taste of the aforementioned vindictiveness out of my mouth somehow.

At least we've got our second Kirito lookalike of the evening.

A swordsman with buffs? Now I've seen everything.

Orhun (what did we tell you about these names) is more just a jack-of-two-trades supplemented by more edge, but that's apparently enough to get him kicked out of his party and be really sore about it.

One of these days, these nerds are going to figure out the real reasons no one wants to hang out with them. Or failing that, that I'll be more entertained by their schtick if it's specifically subbed as "Everybody betray me! I'm fed up with this world!"

I got a pretty solid chortle out of the fact that "Bimbou" is in the title?

But I mean, this one wouldn't be recommendable under ideal circumstances, never mind that it's airing alongside Roll Over and Die, which handily outclasses it in the "being edgy" and "having actual characters" departments.

It's such a perfect way to signpost her as the player-insert character in the original otome game this world is based on. Though I can't in good conscience let you exclude my girl Philine Sunfist. God, I'm saving all of these for my next tabletop campaign.

I do wish The Villainess Is Adored had more going on besides bonkers nomenclature, though, especially since it's the sole entry repping the villainess genre this season.

I wish the villainess genre had progressed to the point that I didn't feel like I had to compare every lesser also-ran to our lord and savior Bakarina, but that's where we still are. Even absent that standard, Tiararose comes off too damn passive about her situation, not really exercising any engagement as a fan of the game or its villainess. She just waits around until Prince Seahorse swoops in and solves her problems for her by introducing the actual plot of the show at the last minute of the first episode, which feels more like a loading screen.

I will admit I've heard through the grapevine that the following episodes drop some additional complexifying details, namely that the "official" heroine Akari is also someone who got isekai'd, which explains some of her odder vibes here. But while the prospect of dueling isekai heroines holds some interest for me, not gonna lie, the execution on this first episode doesn't fill me with confidence about this anime's ability to make the most of that.

Oh yeah, this one didn't blow away my expectations, but it at least didn't live down to them. It's probably telling that I'd have taken this show's premise at face value without the isekai twist partway through, but I suppose authors have bills to pay. Yoki's humble goals mean he doesn't grate like other overpowered isekai protags. I enjoy the irritable dude who works at the adventurer's guild; there's a potentially good time here.

Appropriately, I applauded every time Cosmo Kramer walked on-screen here.

Yeah, the base enjoyment I got out of the premise and writing really made me wish Cute Girl in the Hero's Party looked better. I know a lot of these B-grade isekai entries are budget productions, but this one unfortunately looks extra-crusty, with the backgrounds in particular having a grainy, poorly composed look to them.

Not that a simple little fantasy sitcom like this needs to look amazing. But it did remind me of how the shows that get the nicer productions each season aren't necessarily the ones that deserve it, while others get shortchanged.

I'm not caught up on the Hell Teacher Nube anime at all, but I could use a subject like this to compel me to check out a new adaptation of a classic in the middle of its run. Keeps me honest.

To say nothing of how it can keep the whole isekai genre honest. "Another world" as an actual narrative device for exploring characters and the impact a story has on them? Imagine!

I can only imagine how this hits for fans who've been following these characters for the last 13 episodes, but it's a testament to the quality of the story that it worked for me absent that context. Like I was able to pick up on enough about Kyoko to get the impact of how she pulled an ERASED on herself here. Much like with the plushies in Demon King's Daughter, I wasn't expecting to experience any emotional resonance out of a second-cour follow-up with characters I don't know, but hey, that's the power of a solid yokai-of-the-week story using the isekai framework to say something.

It's worth the reminder that the isekai and LitRPG frameworks used to be home to fantasy series and episodic entries like this one that could pull out intrigue beyond easygoing wish-fulfillment. And sometimes they still are, of course. Maybe that reminder is why Hell Teacher got editorially entered on the docket while the bosses didn't insist we cover Sentenced to Be a Hero. That one's got the LitRPG qualifiers of fantasy hero classes and stupid names, anyway.

But then this column's already getting long enough, and we haven't even finished up the actual entries.

Well, this attempt at a Dry January had a good run.

I need the faithless readers who haven't actually seen this show yet to look at the premise of "Single adventurer adopts little girl adventurer" and try to imagine the wildest way they could think of to thoroughly Bunny Drop that setup. Go on, give it a shot.

I promise you will not manage outdo the actual creators behind An Adventurer's Daily Grind.

The main, uh, compliment I can pay it in this case is that it doesn't bury the lede behind any extra episodes. This is what you're getting into going in, so you can either hop off at the first stop or keep riding it out to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

And you know what, sure. If your show isn't going to look particularly good, and if it's going to be as much of a slog as you'd expect something with "Daily Grind" in the title to be, you might as well throw "Succubus Wife Husbandry" out there as a where-the-hell-is-this-going motivator to keep people watching. I'd be lying if I didn't say it didn't pique my own depraved interest.

I wish it had something more to pad out the dungeon-crawling tedium, and maybe that will be the case now that the trying-to-raise-a-daughter-before-she-jumps-your-bones-and-kills-you premise is fully out in the open. But the rest of this was just RPG Maker-flavored tedium, not helped by Rirui being the exact opposite of Demon King's Daughter's Doux in terms of endearment.

Yeah, rooting through all these isekai and LitRPG anime with you convinced me that they aren't all quite as dire as I felt at the beginning. But a thirteen-and-change series still leaves the law of averages supplying a whole lot of chaff alongside the wheat.

I guess the good news is that, since I already nearly forgot about several of these shows while we were working on them for this column, I absolutely won't remember most of them by the time we're through with the season. Just in time to go over all the new ones in the next season...