RELATED: Great Seinen Manga That Started In 2022
The genre has been at what seems to be peak popularity for the last couple of years, and all that means is that brand-new series about characters getting whisked away to fantastical (or horrifying) new worlds are debuting all the time. So, let’s look at some of the best examples of ones that have started in 2022.
9 The Crow’s Prince
This first entry is actually part of an isekai sub-category, which are isekai stories about a protagonist (boy or girl) getting trapped in the world of some Otome-dating game they were playing. Of course, the most obvious comparable example is My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom, of course, but there are actually quite a few examples of this sort of story setting, and all of them try to diverge from each other in different ways.
Reinel, who starts her new life in this world not as some beautiful maiden but as a crow (which is actually another trope), is constantly thinking that the Royal Prince Kamut doesn’t “belong” with her. Rather, he’s destined for the heroine of the game she used to play back on Earth, who doesn’t show up yet in the story, and once that heroine shows up, Reinel will be benched. Of course, this is absurd and is the primary reason Reinel is so oblivious to many of Kamut’s adorable advances on her, making for some truly cute moments.
8 Player Who Returned 10,000 Years Later
Now, there has been plenty of isekai where the main character is sent to some Hellscape and forced to adapt and survive there. But, there aren’t that many about what happens after they make it back home. In Player Who Returned 10,000 Years Later, the protagonist (by the name of Oh Kang-woo) literally takes over all of Hell, devours the authority of all the Demons commonly seen in The Lesser Key of Solomon, and manages to use Hell’s magic to figure out a way back to Earth.
That’s the isekai part of the story, and it’s basically over by the second chapter. But, for the rest of the story, Kang-woo returns to Earth to find it very different from how he left it. From here, the story basically plays out like many other Dungeon-type Manwha’s, but Kang-woo is constantly using the powers he earned from the isekai part of the story to grow at an absurdly fast pace.
7 Marriage & Sword
Here’s one for the romance lovers, Marriage and Sword. This story has both a Web Novel and a Webcomic so there are multiple ways to enjoy it. In it, a woman is born to a rich family and becomes incredibly skilled at fencing, but is sadly killed by a jealous colleague right before a big competition. But, this isn’t the end of her story, as she is reincarnated in a fantasy world as Ergenes, the daughter of a world-renowned Sword Family, the Targaels.
RELATED: The Best Anime On Hulu
The family falls on hard times due to her brother lacking the natural sword talent of her family, and Ergenes must use her sword skills while disguised as a man (AKA Elze) to earn money as a mercenary for her younger brother’s education. But, when someone she used to fight alongside, a man by the name of Shan Kiraxus, is contracted to marry her and become the new Count of her family, the story suddenly becomes much more about how long she can keep him from recognizing her. It’s cute, the characters act like adults, and the overall story itself is constantly keeping the reader on their toes.
6 The Novel’s Extra
It’s one thing for characters to get transferred to a world just like a game they were playing or a story they were reading, but it’s another thing entirely to get transported into a story you wrote. Well, this is exactly what the Novel’s Extra does for its setting. But, in this story, the author isn’t injected into his own written world as one of the main characters or anything like that. Rather, he’s just a side character “extra” that never even existed in the original story.
From here, the shockingly intelligent author, now known as Kim Hajin, has to survive in his own story of Heroes, Demonic Humans, Monsters, and more, all while an outside third-party “co-author” constantly modifies and changes aspects of how the story originally progressed.
5 To Hell With Being A Saint, I’m A Doctor
Again, because the isekai genre is pretty oversaturated at this point, almost every story setting one could possibly think of has been tried (and likely executed exceptionally well) by now. For example, there are plenty of stories about a medical professional who is either transported or reincarnated in a fantasy world and uses their advanced/otherwordly knowledge to save lives on a greater scale.
Doctor’s Rebirth does it, A Veterinarian in Another World does it, and so does To Hell With Being A Saint, I’m A Doctor. And while each of these stories has its own appeal, To Hell With Being A Saint’s story is extra appealing because it’s all about a guy trying to teach a world that only knows magic all about the wonders of medicine.
4 The World After The Fall
Anyone who reads a lot of stories about isekai settings, worlds where “gates” or “towers” suddenly appeared, or anything having to do with the “constellations” is likely familiar with Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint. It’s one of the most popular Webcomics out there, and the writing obviously has a lot to do with that. Well, The World After The Fall is an earlier story written by the same author duo by the name Sing Shong, that only started being adapted as a Webcomic in 2022.
RELATED: Demon Slayer: The Saddest Deaths In The Series, Ranked
Now, compared to ORV,tWatF is a lot more…cerebral, as a lot of the concepts in it are about what makes someone “human,” and sometimes the story puts more importance on this than on things making complete sense. But, even past that overly-conceptual nature the story has, this is just an incredibly beautiful comic visually and an all-around enjoyable read.
3 Depths Of The Otherworldly Labyrinth
This next story is much more like the classic fantasy setting where a character is mysteriously dropped into another world and has to figure out how to survive. In this world, there are levels, skills, status screens, labyrinths, hints of harems, basically all the beloved tropes of the genre. But, while it starts out very tropey and seems like it’ll just be another by-the-books isekai story, it gets better and better as it goes on.
The setting has fantastic world-building, the main character is calm and collected (though it’s not his choice at first), and the story is constantly introducing new elements that take the readers by surprise.
2 How To Survive At The Academy
In the Novel’s Extra entry, it was mentioned how often isekai stories love to have settings where characters are transported into the world of whatever game they were playing, and How to Survive at the Academy is another one of those settings.
The main character, Ed, is forced into a game world and in an attempt to survive and adapt, he tries to stick close to the characters/events that he knows from the game. But, with every decision, things get further and further away from what he knows and more unpredictable.
1 I Play Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game
With the Author of Yu-Gi-Oh, Kazuki Takahashi, passing away in July of 2022, there’s never been a better time to recommend this love letter-type isekai light novel.
Read the comments on any website that talks about this Web Novel, almost all of them have people who claim to have 10+ years of experience with the series, but even they are surprised by how faithfully the author of this story followed the franchise. This story takes place across three different eras of Yu-Gi-Oh, DM, GX, and 5DS. And, in each one, the story attempts to improve upon the problems of the original and connect them to each other more faithfully while also keeping people hooked.
MORE: Wholesome Anime That Will Put A Smile On Your Face
