For better and worse, Sword Art Online is the most unforgettable and definitive isekai of the 2010s. In the wake of its success in 2012, countless anime about heroes being transported to video games aired. Sword Art Online became so synonymous to isekai anime that it's often mistaken for being the subgenre's progenitor.
Isekai, as a genre and narrative device, is a lot older than some anime fans realize. The idea of escaping or being transported to a fantastical world permeated all forms of popular fiction long before 2012. Sword Art Online may be the first isekai anime that comes to the mind of anime fans today, but it's far from the first of its kind.
Updated on March 31, 2023, by Angelo Delos Trinos: The isekai anime is one of the medium's oldest and most reliable genres. Even before Sword Art Online launched the genre into the mainstream, isekai anime were always there to give audiences the fantastical escape they yearned for. We've updated this list to include more isekai anime that came before Sword Art Online.
15 Battle Girls: Time Paradox (2011)
Battle Girls: Time Paradox starred Yoshino Hide, a normal teenager who wound up teleported to a land that, by all accounts, was Feudal Japan. But unlike the real Feudal Japan, this alternate history was only inhabited by women. Historical figures like Oda Nobunaga still existed here, only now they were all women.
Battle Girls: Time Paradox came out just a year before the highly divisive Sword Art Online. It continued the isekai tradition of having a large roster of attractive female characters. It was also yet another example of the popular type of isekai anime that transported its heroes to a fantastical version of a real historical era instead of a brand new world.
14 Dog Days (2011)
Dog Days followed Shinku Izumi: an athletic student who studied at Kinokawa International School. One day, he was randomly summoned by Princess Millhiore of the Biscotti Republic to become her country's champion. Shinku quickly accepts the offer, only to realize too late that he's unable to return to Earth and is stuck in a world of dog-like women.
Dog Days and Sword Art Online came out at roughly the same time, which is why they share many similarities. Their most obvious parallel is giving their unassuming but overpowered male hero a dedicated harem of archetypical love interests. The isekai harem is an old trope, and Dog Days is just one of its more recent examples.
13 Tenchi Muyo! War On Geminar (2009)
Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar was a spin-off OVA from the larger Tenchi Muyo! series. Unlike the rest of Tenchi Muyo!, this OVA took place in an alternate world, the Land of Geminar, instead of contemporary Japan. Kenshi Masaki (Tenchi's half-brother) is summoned to Geminar to become the realm's hero and legendary Sacred Mechanoid pilot.
The still ongoing Tenchi Muyo! is one of the most successful anime franchises from the '90s, but War on Geminar is one of its only isekai entries. This is par for the course since Tenchi Muyo! was a fantasy adventure set in modern times. To keep things fresh, it occasionally transplanted its cast into fantastical alternate realities and stories.
12 The Familiar Of Zero (2006)
The Familiar of Zero focused on Louise Françoise Le Blanc de la Vallière: a self-consumed and lackluster mage studying in the Tristain Academy of Magic. When tasked to summon a familiar, Louise accidentally summons a kid named Saito Hiraga. He was an ordinary student from Japan, but now Saito has to live his life as Louise's familiar.
The Familiar of Zero and Sword Art Online are two different kinds of isekai, but they share broad parallels. Both starred unassuming yet secretly powerful male heroes who viewers accused of being self-inserts. They also had inexplicably dedicated harems. In key ways, The Familiar of Zero really is Sword Art Online's predecessor.
11 Kiba (2006)
In Kiba, Zed was transported to a world run by nature while escaping the authorities of his reality. There, he meets a young Shard Caster named Roya. Not long after his arrival, Zed learns his dearest companion, Noa, traveled to the new world as well. Together, they go on high-stakes adventures while adjusting to their new lives.
Kiba was a different kind of isekai. Besides being based on a trading card game, Kiba eschewed similar adaptations' tropes. Kiba was more violent than the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, and it didn't bother promoting its source material. Kiba was a uniquely mature predecessor to the more juvenile Sword Art Online.
10 Marchen Awakens Romance (2005)
Marchen Awaken Romance (officially abbreviated to MÄR) introduced Ginta: a physically weak and academically lackluster student who dreamed about a strange land called "MAR Heaven." Unexpectedly, he gets transported there. Here, Ginta was basically reborn into a stronger and better version of his old self.
Ginta's adventures in MAR Heaven were the kind of wish-fulfilling fantasies that predated Sword Art Online's pandering to audiences. This didn't make Marchen Awaken Romance bad, but it's interesting to see one of Sword Art Online's most well-known flaws show up in an isekai anime that debuted seven years before it.
9 King From Now On! (2004)
Commonly referred to by its original Japanese title Kyou Kara Maou!, King From Now On! focused on Yuuri Shibuya and his normal life that got flipped upside down after his head was dunked into a toilet. Instead of waking up in the school infirmary, Yuuri found himself in The Great Demon Kingdom. He was also the realm's prophesied king.
Much like Sword Art Online, King from Now On! starred a blatant self-insert who was weak and unremarkable in his ordinary life but an almighty hero in the fantasy world. While it could be argued that Sword Art Online popularized shameless isekai wish-fulfillment, this was something isekai has been doing for a long time. King From Now On! proves this.
8 .Hack//Sign (2002)
A unique anime that explores psychological and sociological concepts, .hack//Sign was a unique take on isekai. The series centered around Tsukasa, an introverted teenager who woke up in an online role-playing game called The World. Tsukasa quickly befriends other characters who help him understand his surroundings and figure out a way to log out.
Sword Art Online sparked a gamified isekai anime boom in the 2010s, but its premise is older than most people realize. As proven by the criminally unheard of.hack//Sign, isekai set in a video game were present as far back as the New Millennium's beginning. That said, .hack//Sign was a notably more mature isekai story than the more recent Sword Art Online.
7 Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (2002)
In Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, lifelong friends Arumi and Sasshi raced across the multiverse to save the Abenobashi commercial district from demolition. To do this, they hopped from one alternate reality to another. Each new eccentric world is based on something Sasshi likes, and their liveliness hide something more tragic.
The forgotten Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi is the kind of isekai anime that only Gainax and Madhouse could make. Where Sword Art Online and its ilk indulged in gaming-styled fantasies, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi sympathetically interrogated escaping into another world while keeping things wildly entertaining.
6 The Twelve Kingdoms (2002)
Also known as Record of 12 Countries, The Twelve Kingdoms is an isekai based on Chinese mythology and history. Here, the ordinary teenager Nakajima Youko meets Keiki, who swears loyalty to her. Before she can fathom what is going on, Nakajima gets transported to the mystical Twelve Kingdoms, where she's fated to become a hero.
The forgotten The Twelve Kingdoms followed the classic isekai mold of being a fantasy epic, not a computerized modernization of one the way Sword Art Online is. Such isekai anime were the norm just a few years before Sword Art Online changed the genre forever. These days, isekai anime set in fantasy worlds that aren't RPGs are rare.
5 Now & Then, Here & There (1999)
Thanks to Sword Art Online, isekai anime gained a reputation for being insufferable power fantasies. This wasn't always the case for the genre, as proven by the likes of Now and Then, Here and There. Unlike most of its genre contemporaries, Now and Then, Here and There was a brutal deconstruction of isekai's wish-fulfillment.
When he's transported to a new world, Shu finds himself in the middle of a wartorn wasteland rather than a land of endless promise. Instead of having amazing adventures, Shu fought for his survival and escape. The tragic Now and Then, Here and There predated Sword Art Online not just in release date but in its darkness as well.
4 Digimon Adventure (1999)
Since Digimon was Pokémon's main competitor, it's easy to mistake it for just another adventure about befriending and fighting fantastical animals. In truth, Digimon was an isekai franchise. Besides predating Sword Art Online by more than a decade, Digimon's Digital World also beat the computerized Castle Aincrad to the punch.
The Digital World and the Digimon debuted in Digimon Adventure (which also had an amazing sequel). Here, the DigiDestined entered the Digital World after being given DigiVices. Because the DigiDestined spent most of their time in the Digital World, it was easy to forget that Digimon Adventure and its follow-ups were actually isekai stories.
3 Aura Battler Dunbine (1988)
After a vehicular accident, Sho Zama woke up in the fantastical kingdom of Byston Well instead of the afterlife. Byston Well was a medieval world filled with magic and giant mecha known as Aura Battlers. Aura Battle Dunbine's premise sounds derivative and unoriginal today, but it could very well be the progenitor of many isekai tropes.
Aura Battler Dunbine is historically considered to be one of the first modern isekai anime. While it's all but forgotten today, its influence can still be seen in newer isekai like Sword Art Online that followed in its footsteps. Aura Battler Dunbine is only really remembered today for its legendarily bad spin-off: Garzey's Wing.
2 Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission To Rescue Princess Peach! (1986)
While even the biggest fans of the legendary Nintendo franchise Super Mario Bros. may not remember it, Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! is an important milestone. It was one of the first movie adaptations of a video game and one of the earliest examples of a gamified isekai anime.
Here, Mario and Luigi get transported into a Famicom game where they have to save Princess Peach from King Koopa. Since the Mario Bros. are already video game characters, the movie's premise is a lot more meta than expected. It could be argued that Sword Art Online wouldn't even exist if not for this particular anime.
1 Paul's Miraculous Adventure (1977)
It's difficult to pinpoint the very first isekai anime, but one of the earliest is Paul's Miraculous Adventure. In this kid's anime, Paul is given a teddy bear that's secretly the guardian between the real world and the fantastical Land of Wonders. But when Paul's best friend, Nina, gets kidnapped by Belt Satan, he must save her from the other world.
By today's standards, Paul's Miraculous Adventure isn't that unique or interesting. However, it has the distinction of being one of the first anime to transport a hero to another world filled with excitement and danger. Sword Art Online was made for an older and modern audience, but its roots in Paul's Miraculous Adventure can't be denied.