My honest tier list of every isekai I watched this year (long post warning)

Alright so I've been putting this off for months but I finally sat down and ranked every isekai I watched this year. I went through like 30+ shows so this is going to be a long one. Grab a snack.

S TIER (Masterpiece, changed my brain chemistry)
— Re:Zero (rewatched)
— That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime S1
— Mushoku Tensei S1+S2

A TIER (Really good, would recommend to anyone)
— Frieren (does this count as isekai? I'm counting it)
— Ascendance of a Bookworm
— The Rising of the Shield Hero S1 only (S2 and S3 were a downgrade don't @ me)

B TIER (Enjoyable but forgettable)
— Overlord (S1-S3, S4 is a different story)
— In Another World With My Smartphone (nostalgia carry)
— Reincarnated as a Sword

C TIER (I finished it. That's all I can say.)
— Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody
— I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years
— Arifureta (first 2 eps were so bad I almost quit)

D TIER (WHY did I finish these)
— Master of Ragnarok
— The Master of Flowers
— Wise Man's Grandchild

F TIER (Crimes against animation)
— Isekai Quartet counted as a joke entry, actually it's S tier lol
— The one with the vending machine. You know the one.

Feel free to fight me in the replies

Frieren is NOT isekai and I will die on this hill. The main character was always in that world. There's no truck-kun, no reincarnation, nothing. She just travels. Incredible show though, easy S tier but in the fantasy adventure category.

Shield Hero S1 being A tier while S2/S3 are implied trash... accurate. Something happened in that writer's room between seasons and I still don't know what. S1 had actual stakes. S2 had... a speed whale? I think?

xalyut wrote:

S1 had actual stakes. S2 had... a speed whale?

The spirit turtle arc is genuinely one of the most boring villain arcs I've seen in any shounen adjacent show. They had Raphtalia go through character development offscreen and expected us to care about a fight against a turtle. A turtle.

Your Mushoku Tensei S tier is brave considering half the community refuses to watch it because of Rudeus. Not defending the guy, just saying it takes courage to put it that high publicly lol

Mushoku Tensei belongs in S tier and the discourse around it is exhausting. The show is about a terrible person trying to be better. That's literally the plot. If he was already good there would be no story. People want character growth but don't want to sit through the part where the character is bad first.

bro put Arifureta in C tier which is GENEROUS. That show had the most confusing production quality I've ever seen. The main character went from scared normal kid to edgelord god in literally one episode cut. I genuinely thought I missed an episode.

senpai_lisa wrote:

That show had the most confusing production quality I've ever seen.

The manga is actually really good??? The anime just straight up skipped the entire development arc that makes you care about him becoming edgy. The adaptation team just said 'yeah let's start with episode 4 of character development' and shipped it.

Overlord S4 mention. Now I'm curious. What happened with S4 specifically, I dropped it halfway through the lizardmen arc back in S3 and never came back

S4 is wild because the show finally commits to the bit that Ainz is accidentally a great ruler and the humans are genuinely suffering, but the execution is uneven. The Paladin girl's arc is fantastic. Everything involving the lizardmen is still insufferable. Mixed bag.

The vending machine one is called 'Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon' and it's actually... not the worst? Low bar but I've seen worse. The concept is stupid but the writer commits to the bit hard enough that it becomes kind of charming.

Your F tier is too harsh imo. Reserve F tier for Isekai Cheat Magician and that abomination.

okay you've convinced me. Vending machine gets moved to C tier. Isekai Cheat Magician is being inserted into F tier retroactively as the sole occupant. I forgot that show existed and I want to forget again.

The biggest crime of this tier list is no mention of KonoSuba. Where is KonoSuba. I will not be reading the rest of this thread until it's acknowledged

otaku_king wrote:

Where is KonoSuba.

KonoSuba is S tier but I didn't include it because I think at this point it transcends the isekai genre and is just... a comedy. Like calling it an isekai feels reductive. Similar to how I didn't put Grimgar on here because it's more of a drama than an isekai power fantasy.

But yes. KonoSuba. God's Blessing on this Wonderful World. S tier. Aqua is the best character in the show fight me.

Aqua being the best character is actually not wrong and I say this as someone who has a Megumin profile picture on every platform I own

This tier list goes hard. Bookmarked. The fact that Ascendance of a Bookworm is A tier shows you actually have taste and didn't just watch the popular ones. Most people sleep on that show because the first few episodes are slow but the payoff is insane.

Bookworm is criminally underwatched. The political intrigue in later arcs is better than most dedicated political anime. And she never gets a power spike that makes everything easy — she just uses her brain and her knowledge from being a modern person. That's refreshing.

Alright this thread went better than expected. Updating the list:

- Frieren removed from isekai tier list (goes into a separate 'fantasy masterpiece' category)
- Vending Machine upgraded to C
- Isekai Cheat Magician added to F tier as the sole true occupant
- KonoSuba formally acknowledged as S tier but excluded because it's too good to be in a tier list

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Season 3 of Mushoku Tensei can't come fast enough.