One night, high school shut-in Natsuki Subaru decides to head over to the nearby convenience store in order to buy a few things, but when he steps out, he finds himself in the market district of a town in an alternate world. Modelled on the fantasy worlds he’s familiar with in the games that he plays, Subaru quickly takes to the hero role he believes he is there to fulfil, but not much longer after his arrival, he is attacked by bandits and subsequently killed. To his surprise, Subaru finds himself back in that same market and he’s attacked by the same bandits, but this time around, he is saved by a white-haired beauty named Satella. Satella is travelling in search of the thief who stole her family insignia, and out of gratitude for her help, Subaru decides to join her in her search. When they finally find the individual responsible, Subaru and Satella are both brutally murdered. Subaru awakens to the same sight: the same market, the same bandits attack him again and yet again Satella comes to his aid as history inexplicably repeats itself.

Natsuki Subaru and Iwatani Naofumi share the same initial joie de vivre that came with the realisation that they’re in another world. However, both characters undergo intense trial and misfortune which soon eats away at them psychologically. In this vein, Re:Zero and Rising of the Shield Hero are similar in how they throw curveballs into the generally assumed mix of Isekai tropes. The main difference here is the fact that Naofumi is specifically summoned to become a hero, while Subaru’s reasons for ending up in another world lie shrouded in mystery as far as the anime is concerned.

Bell Cranel is a young man living in the city of Orario hoping to one day become the best adventurer in the land. After coming across the goddess Hestia by chance, he gains her support in his dreams and embarks on a quest deep in the city’s monster-ridden catacombs, also known as the Dungeon. Survival is never guaranteed down there, but Bell is determined to make his dream a reality and make Hestia proud.

Much like Rising of the Shield Hero, DanMachi has a world that is extremely similar to video games like fantasy RPGs. However, with DanMachi, that is a feature of the world itself and nothing foreign to the characters in question. Much like Naofumi, Bell Cranel has to hone his skills and grow to a high level in order to fulfill his latent potential.

After dying a pathetic death on his way back from buying a game, high school student and social recluse Satou Kazuma finds himself in Purgatory, sitting before the beautiful goddess, Aqua. She gives him two options: move on to heaven as one normally would, or get a second chance at life in a fantasy world. Realising that he has the chance to live the life he’d lived in all his favourite games, Kazuma chooses the latter option. Tasked with defeating the evil Demon King in this world, he is given the choice to choose any item to help him in the quest and he chooses the goddess Aqua herself! However, he soon realises just how useless the obnoxious goddess is and to make things even worse, living in this fantasy world is different to how it would be in the games. Kazuma must work to earn a living just like everyone else, living the fantasy version of the kind of life common to the world he left behind!

After his pathetic death, Satou Kazuma finds himself given a choice between moving on to heaven, or having a second chance at life. He takes this second chance and expects to be the hero of this new fantasy world. However, this is where he and Iwatani Naofumi of Rising of the Shield Hero differ! What they do have in common is the fact that general public opinion of them does not cast a good light, for various reasons. Like Naofumi, Kazuma has a non-human female companion in the form of the goddess, Aqua.

Goblins are seen as lowly creatures, known for their ferocity, cunning and rapid rate of reproduction. Despite these facts, they’re often overlooked even as they raid rural civilisations to kidnap females of other species in order to breed. Adventurers simply turn to face more fortuitous pursuits. 15-year-old Priestess is commemorating her first day as a Porcelain-ranked adventurer, joining a band of enthusiastic young adventurers like herself to investigate a goblin tribe responsible for several disappearances. Their inexperience proving to be their downfall, Priestess’s entire squadron is brutally murdered and she resigns to her fate. However, the Goblin Slayer arrives just in time and destroys the entire goblin nest with minimal effort. Ranked a prestigious Silver, the Goblin Slayer allows Priestess to accompany him while he helps the Adventurer’s Guild with goblin-related issues. Together with Priestess, High Elf, Dwarf and Lizard-man, Goblin Slayer will not stop until every goblin has been exterminated.

Much like Rising of the Shield Hero, Goblin Slayer has elements from fantasy RPGs which are present in the presence of goblins, adventurers, monsters and the like. The difference here is that the events do not happen after the main character is summoned into the world, but rather, the world is simply as is. The other similar aspect lies in the antagonists or rather, the raison d’etre of the main characters – Naofumi from Rising of the Shield hero finds himself having to assume the role of the Shield Hero of legend and defend against the Waves of Apocalypse, while Goblin Slayer has the simple objective of, well, slaying goblins.

The once-popular online virtual reality game, Yggdrasil, is in its final hour. Momonga, a powerful wizard and master of the dark guild Ainz Ooal Gown decides to spend the final moments in the game as servers begin to shut down. However, to his surprise, he finds himself still logged into the game despite the servers being shut down and even more surprising is how he has become fully conscious as his character while non-player characters have seemingly developed personalities of their own! Stuck in this strange situation, Momonga commands his loyal servants to help him investigate and assume control of this new world in hopes of someday figuring out what happened and if there are others experiencing what he is.

Like Rise of the Shield Hero, Overlord falls into the Isekai categorisation which denotes anime where the main character is sent to another world or dimension. Momonga is a powerful and prominent wizard in the world of Yggdrasil prior to its shut-down, as well as during his time after the shut-down. This is similar to how Iwatani Naofumi is one of the four heroes of legend in his new environment, although the notable difference is how Naofumi was summoned and Momonga was not. Another notable similarity is how both the worlds of Rising of the Shield Hero and that of Overlord feature intrinsic elements akin to fantasy role-playing games.

A group of youths find themselves thrown into a foreign land with no knowledge of how they got there, who they are or what they are there to do. Trapped in this game-like world, they have to survive and accept the only paying-job – becoming a soldier in the Reserve Army, protecting the peace of the world of Grimgar. Despite the sheer similarity to a game, this world is just as unforgiving as the real world and death is just as permanent.

Similar to the world of Rising of the Shield Hero, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash uses components from video games in its world. The world of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash is similar to that of fantasy RPGs and the characters have categorisations akin to the classes we are presented with on Rising of the Shield Hero. Both anime feature life in alternate worlds that, much like ours, are still very much difficult worlds in which to live and have characters earning their keep in order to maintain basic survival.