Isekai Manhwa has some characteristics that make it unique: they’re flashy, their battle scenes are always focused in close-ups with high-eye detail animations, and quite charged with special effects. All things considered, animating one of these pieces into an Isekai anime could result in a masterpiece (like Solo Leveling or A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special) or an absolute flop.
The risk is way too high, and the rewards are not as great as they seem. So, with that in mind here’s a list of Isekai Manhwa that might be difficult to adapt into an anime. From a classic reincarnation tale, to a story about a skeleton trapped in an infinite loop.
5 The Beginning After The End
Its Battle Scenes Could Be Impossible To Adapt With 100% Fidelity
- Genres: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Sword And Sorcery, Isekai
- Author: Turtle ME
- Status: Hiatus (Until September 2024)
The Beginning After The End also known as TBATE is the story of Arthur Leywyn, a reincarnated monarch from another world, who spent his entire past life in absolute loneliness, carrying the burden of being the strongest in his world. For unknown reasons, the being known as King Gray is brought to life once more, in the flesh of the eldest son of a couple of retired adventurers.
And though the story is great, with solid worldbuilding and character background designs, the truth is that is also its major issue if we are talking about an animated adaptation. The expressions, movement, and overall flow of the art during battle scenes are magnificent, and it would be a disservice to replicate it with less than 100% fidelity. After all, one of TBATE’s strong points is war, the fight for survival, and the dominance of the MC over his enemies as he goes through several phases in his growth. The design of the creatures, especially of Sylvie would be hard to put on the small screen. With luck, a studio specialized in animating Isekai will take the leap and create a masterpiece.
4 I Reincarnated As An Evolving Space Monster
Its Gruesome Scenes Would Be Toned Down For Sure Plus The Legal Issues
- Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Gore, Terror
- Authors: FearTurtle (Gongpouigeobug-i)
- Status: Ongoing
The protagonist of this story is transported to a game reality where he is reincarnated as a space monster, quite similar to the Alien xenomorph, and immediately feels overjoyed by the opportunity to go on a rampage and start evolving into a full-fledged space monster. The manhwa is honestly great, with near-perfect designs, great atmospheric horror depictions, and well, lots of gruesome scenes.
And there resides the main issue of how to address a possible adaptation: Would the producers tone down the gore to prevent breaking the regulations, or will they stay true to the original material? Most of the fans of this series surely understand that body horror and gore go hand in hand, so, if they notice something like censorship in a possible animation of this series, they won’t appreciate it. On the other hand, the similarities between Ridley Scott’s Alien and I Reincarnated As An Evolving Space Monster could pose an obstacle to its production, though the story greatly diverts from the horror film, and the monster has a lot of different abilities such as human voice mimicry, something no xenomorph had manifested so far.
This One Would Break The Special Effect Budget
- Genre: Action, Isekai, Sword & Sorcery, School Life, Shounen, Drama
- Authors: Corita (Story), Girin Geurin (Art)
- Status: Ongoing
Reincarnated as the low-class villain from a game, Ed Rothtaylor, a Korean gamer starts to use his knowledge of the plot and episodes of the game to try to survive in a ruthless world of sword and sorcery. He openly decided that he would keep a low profile while barely intervening so he would not alter the course of history, thus, preventing bad endings from happening. But little does he know that even the slightest change can cause unpredictable effects.
Then, Butterfly Effect style, his shenanigans start to alter the plot in catastrophic ways, making him take a preliminary role instead of a secondary one, and putting him in the center of a hurricane of trouble. Despite knowing all the outcomes and possible bad-endings of every act in the game where he was transported, he cannot help but be the center of attention, also knowing that this will absolutely alter the outcomes in unpredictable ways and twist the patterns in the most dangerous of situations. Adapting the many flashbacks, ins and outs of this story could be naturally hard to accomplish. Besides, the main problem would be the sheer amount of summoning creatures, magic combat, and visual effects that need to be replicated. Toning it down could be a solution, but the author of this manhwa would need to compromise greatly to eliminate several parts that could result in a budget issue. Nevertheless, investing in doing so would result in a great Isekai anime.
2 The Magic Academy’s Genius Blinker
A Great School-Life Isekai, But Animation Of The MC Could Be An Issue
- Genre: Action, Isekai, Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, School Life, Shounen
- Authors: Eunmilhi (Story) Seoyu (Art)
- Status: Ongoing
A gamer is transported to the game reality of a popular RPG with high fantasy content, and he is incarnated in none other than Baek Yu-Seol, a character that many consider trash for his unique playstyle: He is an expert in using the spell Blink, something hard to control and theoretically weak in comparison to other magic. Since the MC is aware of all possible future developments, he will do whatever it takes to prevent the ultimate bad ending, since that is his main quest and the reason why he was brought to the game world.
And though the story is great, fun, and easy to read, animating it could be a nightmare even for highly experienced studios. More so if they take into consideration that the ability of the MC is basically jumping everywhere at the speed of light and attacking with focused spellblade slashes. This story also shares a common point with The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide: Its flashy scenes could be hard to maintain inside a balanced budget and would need to be considerably toned down before anything.
1 The Skeleton Soldier Failed To Defend The Dungeon
Animating A Skeleton Is Not As Easy As It Seems
- Genres: Dark Fantasy, Drama, Isekai, Action, Adventure
- Authors: Sosori (Story), Ant Studio (Art)
- Status: Ongoing
For the audience experienced in Isekai and other Fantasy genres and tropes, seeing a skeleton is a common thing. More so when watching shows where adventurers delve into dungeons and encounter such creatures almost in every corner. And even so, when we see the animations of said creatures, these look clunky and tremendously low-budget. And why is that? Well, they’re usually cannon fodder for the heroes, or as they like to call them: XP bags.
But production-wise, animating a full skeleton can be nightmarish, trust me on this, so imagine having to animate a whole skeleton for hours and hours, and more so: showing it in different planes (besides a short fight sequence or close-up) fully armored, wearing capes, fighting like an expert warrior, and so on. If you pay even more attention, in combat scenes they barely show them moving, they’re practically static laying in waiting for the heroes’ attacks and sometimes they are shown walking in bulk, approaching in a medium-long shot. No feet, no knees, no full body shots. So, in the case of The Skeleton Soldier Failed To Defend The Dungeon which is one of the top-rated Isekai animes, and one with great storytelling and worldbuilding at that, it could be notoriously hard and unlikely for it to become an animated series.
