Isekai has come to be one of the broadest genres of anime. An isekai story, at its core, will involve being transported to another world—"isekai" in Japanese literally means "other world". There are also ways to play with this trope: so-called "reverse" isekai, for example, involve someone from another world coming to the "real world".

There's a lot of isekai out there, and the genre has grown to be quite huge. Unfortunately, that also means there's a lot of slop that one has to overlook and avoid. Whether one is a veteran isekai fan looking for a new watch or naive to the genre looking for a good place to start, these isekai highlights can be binged right now.

The Familiar of Zero (2006) The Humble Beginnings Of Modern Isekai

In a distant world, a teenage girl named Louise attends a school for the nobility to learn and master magic,...