Spring 2025
07 April, 2025
The winter 2025 anime season offered the most isekai anime since I’ve started running this blog, and possibly, given industry trends, the most in the history of the genre. In fact, my lengthy post from last season contained two notable (if unavoidable, given their airdates) omissions; both Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou and Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu opted for 16 episode 3rd seasons with lengthy winter breaks, adding even more popular isekai to an already crowded schedule.
The spring 2025 season is much sparser by comparison. One can talk about the dark days of winter making one want to leave the world entirely, or the optimism of spring… but really it’s a scheduling quirk not an industry trend, and spring 2024 was more than twice as crowded, and packed with popular franchises at that.
This season has a mere three new series, one of which is a reverse isekai with half-length episodes, along with one season 2 and one of winter’s anime continuing into spring.
Ore wa Seikan Kokka no Akutoku Ryoshu’s protagonist has perhaps the saddest Earth life I’ve seen (at least of characters fleeing contemporary Japan; World War 2 and Sengoku Jidai refugees don’t count) in a genre which is all about wanting to leave Earth behind. The married protagonist, an overworked salaryman, learns that his wife has been cheating on him for years and is framed for embezzlement by his boss, who also fathered the girl he raised as his daughter (she “wanted superior genes”). Despite his efforts, said daughter ‘liked the other papa better’, and the protagonist switches to working construction, unable to afford anything out of an agreement to repay the money he “stole”.
Unable to afford medical treatment, he dies, and then the fun part starts.
He’s offered a choice of worlds to reincarnate in, and opts for a sci-fi one, because the one real source of joy in his life was talking with his otaku friend Nitta. He’s reborn into an aristocratic family with its own planet, and his parents, fleeing debts, take off and leave him in charge at five years old. Naturally, he needs a regent, and turns to his AI maid... in spite of the laws of robotics (rewritten, in his case, with himself and only himself in the place of humans), and his butler’s protests.
Liam’s determined to take revenge on the world… but in practice, this has mostly meant revenge on the nobility, including one who pushes his own crimes onto subordinates in a way that brings back awful memories.
The peasants, three episodes in, actually think he’s a decent ruler. There are a fair number of battles shown in space, including an orbital bombardment akin to Star Wars’ Alderaan, complete with a princess forced to watch – albeit without physically destroying the planet. Its significance, at this point in the story, is not entirely clear, but between that and a nobility who gained their position by beating back AI, trouble is surely on the horizon… and he’s learning to pilot his great-grandfather’s mech to meet the challenges to come.
The combination of space opera and isekai in this title is unusual – I can think of parallels in things like the Super Robot Wars games and their dimension hopping, I’ve seen it in the manga Mezametara Saikyou Soubi to Uchuusenmochi Datta node, Ikkodate Mezashite Youhei toshite Jiyuu ni Ikitai and believe others in that vein existed, but there’s always that classic question: if you want to send someone to another world, why not just take a train or a spaceship? As mechs were extremely common in older titles, and as my knowledge of 20th century isekai, although considerable, is far from exhaustive, I can’t declare Akutoku Ryoshu wholly unique, but that aspect is at least unusual enough to be a breath of fresh air. I’m impressed by what I’ve seen, and I’m looking forward to whatever’s next.
The anime Saikyou no Ousama, Nidome no Jinsei wa Nani wo Suru adapts the English-language web novel and webtoon The Beginning After the End. As a native English speaker myself, I can not help but sit up and take notice when an English language work gets an anime adaptation, especially when from an author who (unlike, say, L. Frank Baum or Lewis Carroll, at the time of their respective works’ adaptations) is still alive and active. It’s not my *real* dream to do something similar, but it might be the closest thing to one that’s possible in this world, and I’m very happy for TurtleMe.
The first two minutes gives us a glimpse at the main character’s prior life with a great king fighting in armor with a sword and warplanes bombing a futuristic city.
Unfortunately, this may be more interesting than the main character’s new one. Reincarnating someone as a child prodigy with magic talent was part of Mushoku Tensei’s appeal, but by this point it’s been done to death. Also, the anime changing Arthur learning about magic from his mother healing his own bruise to healing his adventurer father just weakens the shock of learning it exists.
The first episode concludes with the main character, not yet three years old, accidentally blowing up the house with magic... and his loving family of ex-adventurers rescuing him.
I’m sure there’s more to TBATE - we’re early in the story, it’s attracted a sizable fanbase and all, and they’re surely setting something up. But they didn’t have enough time to get anywhere fun in the other world yet.
Chotto dake Ai ga Omoi Dark Elf ga Isekai kara Oikaketekita, much like last season’s Nihon e Youkoso, Elf-san!, features an elf named Mariabell(e) returning from the other world to be with her love interest and adventuring partner. This Mariabell, however, has already saved the world, is deeply and openly in love with our hero, who she calls her fiancé, goes by Bell for short, and, as the title suggests, is a Dark Elf.
She couldn’t bear to be without the hero, so she materializes in his bedroom and embraces him, and spends half the 12-minute episode naked. This is very much an ecchi series (make sure to track down the uncensored version), but then again, the beauty of elf women has moved men’s hearts since the time of Beren and Luthien...
Just like the title suggests, however, she might be a bit too much for our fairly typical (pejorative) anime romance male lead.
2021’s Slime Taoshite 300-nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level Max ni Nattemashita gets a second season this cour. The series is a bit on the slow life side for my taste, but for those of you into CGDCT, it spends the first half of the episode introducing otherworlders to the wonders of Japanese food. In this case, Manju, or “snack slimes” – because of the similar shape, they decorate them with faces.
And it certainly delivers on the ‘cute girls’ part as well - the main character, Azusa (center, in the above image), is forever seventeen. The Witch of the Highlands, complete with a mage hat, she's seriously good looking.
This episode, we run into the goddess responsible.
Goddesses in this setting are something like idols or other celebrities, competing with one another for worship; they refuted atheism many centuries ago by simply showing up in person to settle the debate. Megamega, the goddess who Azusa met upon reincarnation, is a natural at this role, selling cards which get stamped for good deeds… and was demoted from her prior interdimensional position for abuse of power.
I wonder if we’ll meet Azusa’s counterparts...
Finally, Mashin Souzousha Wataru continues from last season. The Seven Blocks arc which took up said season has been resolved – but the blocks, although strong in personality, weren’t able to defeat Enjoda on their own, though they did give Wataru a new mech.
Now it’s Kakeru’s turn.
The episode opens with Kakeru rolling out of a tent and off a cliff after seeing Mona’s face, which should show you about how serious a show we’re dealing with here; this is very much a children’s anime which runs on silly jokes. Unfortunately, Kirinmaru has not recovered from last episode’s fateful battle, and multiple attempts at disassembly and reassembly (with no manual) completely fail to put Kirinmaru's pieces where they belong.
So Wataru and Kakeru give up and they make a new Mashin for him to pilot instead.
The two rescue a family from yet another falling cliff, with the aid of teamwork between the two saviors/isekaijin, and then we finally solve the mystery of Kakeru’s episode one kidnapping – It wasn’t Offline, who had been suspected in an earlier episode, but his evil twin/Enjoda’s henchman, Online, who is very fond of saying Olé.
Though we’ll have to save the fight with the new boss for the rest of the season.
It’s not as much as we usually get, but there are still other worlds to have fun in, and I hope there will be enough for isekai fans to enjoy our time with as long as we're stuck in this one.