Yui’s family looks after a shrine so she has always felt close to the gods… but nothing could have prepared her for what happened after her second year of high school ended! Yui hears a strange voice emanating from an enchanted sword and is suddenly whisked away to a school for the gods! With the relationship between gods and humanity growing weaker, certain gods need to be taught how to build relationships and empathize with humans. Her options are to either do nothing as the world falls to ruin or teach these gods what it means to be human.

It’s obvious from the beginning that this anime was based on a visual novel as each handsome boy comes on screen and different flowers bloom in the background. There’s a lot of hand-holding and faces close to each other in just episode 1, much like Meiji Tokyo Renka. While not based on real historical people, all the guys are figures many people would at least know the names of as they’re popular Greek, Japanese, and Egyptian gods. Both Mei and Yui have an affinity for the supernatural that helps them with hot guys!

A lonely girl heralded as a monster by the villagers and a threat to the peace of London longs only for eternal sleep alone in the dilapidated mansion where her father once raised her. She is forced by the royal guard to travel with them to the palace so they might keep her from becoming a future threat, but she is rescued by a gentleman thief and a wild inventor. She’s taken back to their hideout, where she meets other interesting members of the outlaw group and learns of their true intentions. A terrorist organization wishes to use Cardia’s acidic skin and untapped power to bring ruin to London, but this band of good-hearted criminals wishes to stop their nefarious plans.

Gentleman thief Arsene Lupin and Army Surgeon Ougai Mori are so similar in how they instantly take after the heroine, stunning her with their romantic words and physical closeness. Neither Cardia nor Mei grew up with such attention so they often find themselves completely overwhelmed. In both anime, our heroine is rescued but becomes an important comrade with their own unique abilities. Mei might be a little more easily flustered but she shares Cardia’s desire to be helpful to those around her and not just be taken care of by other people.

Yuzuki is a normal girl living an average life, or so she thinks before she’s whisked back to the Sengoku Era and is suddenly at the center of the war to unify Japan! In this world where warlords are creatures known as Getsugazoku (vampire and werewolf-like beings) and demons threaten to kill all who they come across, it’s a dangerous place for a girl who can’t defend herself. However, her blood contains a rare power that not only heals but powers-up Getsugakou making her both a wanted ally and immediate target.

Sengoku Night Blood is a little darker than Meiji Tokyo Renka as one might pick up from the title alone. While Mei is worried about finding spirits and acting like a proper fiancé, Yuzuki is basically kidnapped by different warlords with different intentions for her. Death is always looming in the background. For those that like a little imagined romance with their historical men, Sengoku Night Blood delivers with a similarly handsome crew to our Meiji-era cast. Also with a supernatural twist on events, it’s like an edgy cousin to Meiji Tokyo Renka.

Tsugumi and her younger brother were always close despite living with an uncaring father who expected them to suffer to keep up appearances as wealthy nobles despite slowly slipping into poverty. When Tsugumi finds her brother engulfed in flames seemingly by his own hand, she can’t believe he would do something like that. Indeed, she’s right. A special organization known as Fukurou admits to her the existence of Maremono, or books that take an incredible emotional toll on the reader compelling them to acts of violence or self-mutilation. As Tsugumi gains the rare ability to see the auras of these Maremono, they enlist her help in keeping these books out of innocent people’s hands. Wanting to know more about the events that led to her brother’s death, Tsugumi steps into an unknown world.

With muted colors and an almost storybook-like art style, it certainly feels like a different world. Indeed, in this version of reality, the Taishou Era lasted 40 years bringing down aristocratic families and feeding into negative feelings manifesting as deadly maremono. Both Nil Admirari and Meiji have government involvement with controlling a spirit problem and rely on girls who are among the only people who can see them. Instead of sentient being, the maremono are more just mindless powerful spirits with no agency of their own, but they aren’t as evil as some think they are.

A young girl awakens in a mysterious land full of strangers, and for some reason, a talking stuffed animal is calling her princess?? While Navi is not actually a stuffed animal, his strange form immediately alerts the Princess she’s in a different world. In this world, dream-eating monsters called Yumekui threaten the land ruled by 100 princes and she is the only one with the power to awaken them from their cursed slumber. Along the way, she meets numerous princes who are saved by and in turn, protect her. They must traverse the land together and build their numbers if they hope to stop the evil at its source.

Fantasy, a girl in a foreign world with the power to save the day, and multiple attractive guys that find themselves charmed? Check! Our main heroines in Meiji and Yume Ookoku also both suffer from amnesia being unable to recall their former lives well. Yume Ookoku is a bit more formulaic and predictable but it’s a light story with pretty-boy fluff good for girls who like to self-insert. It’s also very pretty with its different and magical kingdoms!

Ton and Shinyao are best friends eager to start their new lives in England together, the place Ton’s great grandmother loved so dearly she left her family to live the rest of her life there. The very day they arrive, a mysterious being snatches Ton’s luggage and in trying to chase it down she ends up at Café Forbidden. No one there understands how or why she could have made it there considering it’s a café run by Shadows or manifestations of human fears. Things start to make more sense as they realize who Ton’s great grandmother was and Ton learns how she was connected to the handsome men before her.

Instead of hot guys looking for spirits, the spirits ARE the hot guys. Shadows, much like the mononoke or spirits in Meiji, can be bad or good or really have no alignment. Ton’s not as easily accepted as Mei is in Meiji but her stead-fast conviction doesn’t leave the guys much room to argue. While some shadows are more vague spirits like ghosts or werewolves, some are specific like Dracula or Jack the Ripper. Not as entrenched in history as Meiji is, but if you like a fish out of water story with hot guys and magic powers, you’ll like Phantom in the Twilight.