Thanks to the Power of the Internet, a columnist says farewell...but not before doing one last isekai seasonal roundup!
Coop
Hey there, readers! Before we start today's column, I've got a little bittersweet news to share. This'll be my last regular appearance on This Week in Anime for the foreseeable future. I've had the good fortune of leaning a little more into the industry side of things, including my role as Features Editor over at the MediaOCD blog. You can still catch me over there every so often, but that doesn't mean I'm completely leaving ANN. You'll still be seeing the occasional manga review and investigation from me in this neck of the woods. So long story short: this is my last TWIA, but I'll still be around.
But before I go, Lucas... You've probably noticed that I've masterfully dodged a few recent Narou/Fantasy/LitRPG/Isekai/Whatever-Pedantic-Genre-Name-They'll-Give-It-Next round-ups through a deft combo of circumstance and coincidence. I'm well overdue to pay the piper (and Rebecca really wants to know what I think of Rayearth), and I couldn't think of a better compadre to bring it home with than you!
Lucas
Coop, while I'm thrilled for MediaOCD's next editorial era and wish you nothing but the best in this and all of your future ventures, you ain't getting out of the TWIA crew that easily! You gotta pay your pound of flesh if you want out of this posse, and one last isekai round-up is just the right price to pay, as well as a terrific exit initiation.
Thankfully, though, this is a better isekai season than most and a pretty good one for you to dip out on! While the Fall 2026 season doesn't have too many hits that break through the ceiling, this season has definitely raised the floor. So, while I wouldn't say any show we're about to talk about is an anime of the year contender, most of them are interesting and exactly the kind of works that get folks like you and me into the industry side of this biz!
Absolutely! With a few exceptions, these are the kind of shows you'd dream of as your first advertising or production job in the industry space. Maybe nothing earth-shattering, but a solid foundation for the rest of your career to come if things work out.
The World's Strongest Witch is a rock-solid example. The "banished from the family for having a weird skill we don't understand but is actually amazing" trope is a dime a dozen in anything approaching a Narou work, but when it's done competently and doesn't linger on established trappings, it can be a pleasant little time. Though, I'd say this one goes above and beyond the baseline by giving thoughtful visual representation to all its RPG influences, with multiple text boxes and a surprising amount of pixel art.
I used to be, and all I can say is...people better be backing up those wikis because it's felt like we're one bad quarter away from a tentpole of nerd knowledge on the internet going away for the past four years.
And speaking of backing things up, there are a good number of throwback isekai this season! One of which is the iconic shojo series From Far Away and, while it's thankfully better than this year's Red River adaptation, it still feels less than remarkable outside of a career-defining vocal performance from Tomoyo Kurosawa.
I've gotta tell you, Lucas... From Far Away might've been the weakest of the bunch, and it's no fault of the source material. There's been a bit of scuttlebutt regarding alleged changes to the language element at the heart of the series. Additionally, this one is not a looker in the slightest.
In the long-overdue jump to the small screen, it feels like the core creative team has treated From Far Away like just another Isekai series to churn through before moving on to the next. I know that's an incredibly uncharitable reading, but I always think back to something I was told when I got started in the industry: "Everything is someone's favorite." Even if I don't care for something while I'm working on it, I'm not going to let that bleed into my work. In fact, I'm going to perform my duties to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, I can't sense that ethos in From Far Away.
While watching Rayearth, I couldn't help but be reminded of Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai. This isn't only because both are classics with modern interpretations, but because they're wonderful little fantasy adventures aimed squarely at kids. Yes, the olds who grew up with the original series are along for the ride, but they're not the focus. I absolutely adore Rayearth for fully leaning into what it is instead of bending over backward to appeal to those older audiences like so many reboots do.
Is it also drop-dead gorgeous?
While I understand why people lambast remakes as being somewhat creatively soulless, the relatively green E&H production clearly understands how and why this series is special to so many people. Not to mention that today's young people deserve to have CLAMP character designs awaken something in them, too!
Not to mention that it has an English dub that's punching far above its weight class!
While the subtitled version of Overgeared didn't inspire much of a reaction in me, this is now my go-to example for how an inspired English dub can elevate an anime, and how English dubbing is an artistic craft in and of itself.
I know not everyone's a fan of it, but sometimes a little punch-up to the original dialogue (as long as it's true to the spirit of what's being said) works wonders on an otherwise fairly dry script. After scrubbing through those clips, I'm definitely up for revisiting Overgeared in English. Even if my initial impression of it was "better-than-average."
Hey, "better-than-average" is pretty good for an isekai! After all, this season it's competing with the likes of Full Clearing Another World under a Goddess with Zero Believers!
This anime...is bad! I wish it made enough of an impression that I could have a more nuanced opinion of it, but nope! Zero Believers feels like zero people wanted to work on it, and I want to devote about as much time and energy to talking about it!
I'm looking at my notes for this one, and it says, "Just incredibly rote stuff."
Again, the "my skills suck, and people treated me poorly until I learned this one weird trick" trope has been done to death.
At least the next one has an all-time classic theme song.
Oh wait... Goblin, not Alien.
Contrary to its title, there's a lot wrong with So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin?! It's aggressively sexist, contains a magic system that either doesn't hold up under scrutiny or is actively changed between episodes one and two, and feels like it was written by someone who has only ever experienced narou isekai media.
I'm afraid that the only explanation is that Reborn as a Goblin is bad, Coop. In fact, I'd call it the worst isekai of the season if Reborn as a Space Mercenary weren't also airing right now!
Beyond looking ugly as sin, the protagonist of Space Mercenary's primary goals include: 1. Owning a house someday and 2. (totally reluctantly) having sex with underage girls. Beyond being actively gross, it is incredibly grim that these would be the driving motivations of a male power fantasy protagonist for several social and economic reasons.
Space Mercenary's premiere made me think, "I could be watching Outlaw Star right now."
Particularly when there's a rather flaccid dogfight near the middle of the episode. CG dogfights in space can be done well, but that wasn't one of them.
Nothing is well done in Space Mercenary, and it's lucky to even be mentioned in the same breath as Outlaw Star. I quite literally would rather talk about any other anime...
Even if that anime is A Tale of the Secret Saint, which, uh, I watched via screeners more than a month ago now and don't really remember much about! That's probably not a good sign for its long-term popularity, huh?
Secret Saint pulls off a neat trick by presenting its flashbacks in 4:3, but yeah...it's another well-worn reincarnation story. Our heroine's secret identity as a saint will probably lead to some drama later on, but the opening episode isn't particularly thrilling. Oh, and she has a dragon buddy too.
If it's felt like we've rapid-fired through the last handful of titles, it's because watching most of these Narou-based titles has been like eating rice cakes. There might be slightly different flavors here and here, but eventually there comes a point when if you've had one cinnamon sugar rice cake, you've had them all. Worst-case, a cake is either stale or moldy; otherwise it's just a food-shaped object...or "anime-shaped object" if you will.
As such, I'd have to put Even Though I’m a Super Timid Noble Girl, I Accepted the Bet From My Cunning Fiancé in the anime-shaped object boat. It's cute that the main love interest kid is head-over-heels for Pia here, but eh?
Yeah, especially in a season that features the likes of I'm Dating a Dark Summoner and Even the Student Council Has Its Holes!, Magical Explorer would have benefited from going all in on the bit. Also, even in a more fallow year for sexually charged anime, eroge enjoyers will just go play another eroge instead of watching an anime that intentionally bails out before getting to what are often some of the best parts of an eroge!
It's the sort of premise you've really gotta go balls out for—literally.
It's crazy to think that Nia Liston's the only show in this round-up that's on HIDIVE—everything else is on Crunchyroll. However, that might be good for the physical media sickos out there since most of Sentai's titles get a home video release eventually, which you can't say for CR's offerings.
Nia Liston's also the only show here that lets its opening do all the talking if you're looking to sell someone on it. Little girl beating the snot out of thugs while becoming a TV star? Cool. I've also got to give the team at KONAMI animation (yes, that Konami) for not being weird about our very young heroine and her similarly young friends. It'd be all too easy for a show like this to hit creeper territory fast if in the wrong hands.
They kept us waiting, huh?
And with that, it's been a wonderful two years on This Week in Anime. I'd like to thank my amazing fellow columnists, Lucas, Chris, and Sylvia, for taking this ride along with me. Also, I can't forget our editors, Rebecca, Gunawan, and of course, Lynzee. I'm sure y'all will talk too much bugmen again without me. Finally, thank you to the readers for being around every week; it's been a pleasure to fill you in on these past hundred-and-some weeks in anime.
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