isekai
noun
a Japanese storytelling genre in which a person is transported to another world
What does isekai mean?
Isekai is a Japanese storytelling genre in which a person is reincarnated, transported, or summoned into another (usually fantastical) world. In these unfamiliar worlds, characters often gain newfound magical abilities or must fight to survive. Isekai can also refer to a book, show, game, etc. within this genre. While traditionally associated with Japanese folklore, novels, anime, and manga, isekai (sometimes capitalized Isekai) stories can come from any part of the world.
Examples of isekai
CLAMP’s Magic Knight Rayearth remains one of the coolest Isekai anime franchises that’s ever released, and it was a blend of magic, action, and even giant robots.
—Nick Valdez, ComicBook, 5 July 2026
A remake of a classic isekai where three teenagers are whisked away to a fantastical world where they must use their newfound powers to protect a princess and her realm from calamity as her magic knights.
—The series follows Yuuken Enma, a boy who finds himself summoned to another world through a magic mirror (yes, this is an isekai). He gets to know the school’s top students while looking for a way home.
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Jason Nieva, Player.One, 27 Oct. 2021
Where does isekai come from?
In Japanese, the word isekai (異世界) literally means “another world” or “different world.” It appeared in the title of Takachiho Haruka’s 1979 novel Isekai no yūshi (“Brave Warrior from Another World”), an influential example of what has come to be called the isekai genre. The narrative concept of transporting to another world dates back hundreds of years, likely introduced through the Japanese folktale of fisherman Urashima Tarō.
Isekai-type stories saw a major boom in the 2010s following the anime adaptation _Sword Art Online (2012). The earliest known non-social media usage of isekai in English to refer to the genre appeared in a 2018 Publishers Weekly article.
How is isekai used?
Isekai is sometimes used as a verb meaning “to get transported to, or submerged in, another world, environment, or situation.”
It’s here where Natsuko unceremoniously chokes on her food, dies, and is isekai’d into the fantasy world of said anime.
—For the past week, I’ve been facing the consequences of getting isekai’d into a digital pastiche of the entire history of dramatic allegory and contemporary humor, leading a whimsical quasi-sentient court of wildly unmedicated faeries to their doom.
—The first Sonic movie Isekais the speedy hedgehog into the real world ...
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