Over the past decade or so, anime's rapid and unending rise in popularity has given way to new trends and tropes that have quickly won over fans around the world. When one show finds success doing something new, countless follow attempting to capture the same magic, until organic evolution in storytelling gives way to the next big thing. In the 2010s and through the majority of the 2020s, Isekai was that hot trend.
The Isekai genre, consisting of stories that involve reincarnation or teleportation to a fantasy world, has ascended to heights like no genre has before. While battle shōnen series, like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Chainsaw Man in recent years, continue to dominate the spotlight, the genre cannot compete with the number of Isekai titles released every season. And only recently, the decade-plus-long debate about which Isekai series is best has officially been put to bed.
Season 4 Episode #11 of Re:Zero, the mid-season finale, achieved something only four other anime series ever had, debuting on iMDB with a perfect 10 out of 10 rating from viewers. Feedback from fans across the globe has been overwhelmingly positive, and, fortunately for those fans, the wait for season 4's return to Crunchyroll will not be long.
In the endless sea of Isekai shows readily available for consumption on any and all streaming services that offer anime, Re: Zero: Starting Life in Another World has managed to remain incredibly successful over the better part of the last 10 years. And that isn't without reason. The series follows Natsuki Subaru, an average shut-in who, one random day, crosses the street and finds himself transported to a fantasy world.
The concept alone doesn't stand out much from other popular Isekai titles, but what helps Re:Zero is how familiar it is with, and how it uses the genre's popular tropes. Rather than running over the same old ground, the series will often set up a trope, only to take itself in the opposite direction. Subaru, like the many other faceless Isekai heroes crowding the genre, gains a powerful supernatural ability after being spirited away, but it isn't a glamorous one. Instead, he's essentially given immortality, but is forced to experience traumatic and horrifyingly painful deaths before returning to a checkpoint of sorts in his journey.
Each time he dies, he loses precious time spent and experiences with others, being forced to retrace his steps in order to have events play out in the best way possible. He can form a strong emotional bond with someone, only for that person to lose any memory of the connection when Subaru dies. In Season 4, after years of experiencing such horrors, they're flipped back onto Subaru. He suddenly loses all the memories he made after being transported to the fantasy world, and must come to terms with his situation and the fact that others are now expecting great things from an average shut-in.
Episode #11, the highest rated in a string of 9.0 and higher rated episodes, saw Subaru regain his will to live. His plan on escaping the current tragedy awaiting him is unclear, though fans won't have to wait very long to see how Subaru gets out of this one. Re:Zero season 4 will return to Crunchyroll with its second cours in August 2026.
On iMBD, where Re:Zero recently made history, the series' fourth season boasts eight episodes rated 9.0 or higher, an incredible run for a TV anime series. On MyAnimeList, a site used by anime fans to review any and all shows and movies, the fourth season has climbed all the way to the #2 spot on the site's Top 100 anime list.
Even with the oversaturation of the genre, there are still plenty of excellent isekai anime shows that every fan should consider streaming.
While other shows have found undeniable success in recent years, none in the Isekai genre have received the sort of acclaim Re:Zero has in the years since its 2016 premiere. Fans won't want to miss the continuation of Subaru's story this coming August on Crunchyroll.
