Summary
Theisekaiboom in anime and manga has been going on for the past decade or so. There’s just something captivating about characters from one realm traveling into another, be it through time travel like inInuyasha, magic like inMagic Knight Rayearth, or through a video game like inSword Art Online.
Some isekai stories even change the hero in the process, like inMushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, andThat Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime. But others, like these anime series and manga, give their heroes new perspectives byswapping their gendersas well as their worlds just to add further intrigue.
Updated July 05, 2025, by David Heath:With nearly 30 entries, one would think there weren’t any more gender-bending isekai manga or anime out there left to include. But swapping gender and/or sex is always going to be a titillating topic for some, whether they aim to compare it to the journey trans people take, or just use it to spice proceedings up and give their work a funny flavor. Whatever their narrative, there are still plenty of ways for anime and manga to twist, turn, blur, and warp the lines between genders, class, society, sexuality, and more in interesting ways. Which is why this list has been updated with more quirky gender-bending isekai anime and manga, alongside a few info tweaks, rearrangements, and format edits.
1Magician Girl, Do Your Best To Return To Your World!
MyAnimeList Score: N/A
Magician Girl, Do Your Best to Return to Your World, or “Onna Majutsushi-san, Moto no Sekai e Kaeru Tame ni Ganbarimasu” in the ironically more search-engine-friendly Japanese, is one of the latest strips to hit the market. It still hasn’t received ratings on MyAnimeList or Anime-Planet, though it offers a neat turn on theFantasy Knockoutpremise, as its leads try to find a way home despite their transformations.
Rintaro and Haruto are friends who love playing the VRMMO ‘Eternal Maze Online’, which practically acts as a second life for its players. But things take a turn when Rintaro collects a mysterious item called the Reincarnation Jewel. When he uses it, he teleports himself and Haruto into the game as their playable avatars. Haruto did okay as his male Paladin, but Rintaro became his female magician character. Together, they have to survive EMO’s fantasy world in the first person, while Rintaro figures out a way to return to the real world and his male body.
2Gender X Bug
Developers in isekai anime and manga need to do more QA, as their hyper-immersive MMORPGs keep having bugs that mess up and suck gamers into their digital worlds. Then it turns them into their avatars, or messes up in other ways.Gender X Bug(akaSeibetsu Bug ga Hassei Shimashita!?) spells out pretty clearly how its video game switches things up.
Haruki is a meek boy who likes to wile away his time playing the fantasy game ‘Mirage Universe’. Though, much like everything else in life, he finds himself relying on his friend, Karen, to help him get out of binds. Then, thunder strikes, he falls unconscious, and wakes up within Mirage Universe as a distressed damsel, while Karen is the male hero. Given the way he’s lived his life, it’s a fitting role. Whether he’ll learn to buck the trend is another matter.
3Youjo Nobunaga no Isekai Touitsu
Oda Nobunaga has gone down in history as the brutal warlord who made the first big move towards unifying Japan. Moves which his successors Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Ieyasu Tokugawa had to complete as he was betrayed, and burned to death within the confines of Honno-ji Temple. Or so history says.Youjo Nobunaga no Isekai Touitsu(‘Maiden Nobunaga’s Isekai Unification’) suggests his soul had a different, stranger fate.
The manga says his soul went to another world, where it was reborn in the petite frame of Roselia Romanesco, the eldest daughter of an ailing lord. It took a while for her to realize who she really was before her rebirth, but the penny dropped almost as soon as her father passed on. Now, as the new Lady of the Romanesco family, and with her old memories returned, she aims to continue her conquering crusade in her new world.
4When I Reincarnated, I Was The Heroine, And He Was The Hero
MyAnimeList Score: 6.22
Moto Mizuno’sWhen I Reincarnated, I Was the Heroine, and He Was the Herois very similar toLife With an Ordinary GuyWho Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout, which came out a year prior. The difference is that the two leads were originally high school students rather than salarymen, and the manga began as a webcomic via Mizuno’s Twitter account. It made the leap to print via Comic Gardo, where it has yet to receive an official English translation.
In life, Keito Azumi is an ordinary schoolboy, but after he gets killed in an accident, he ends up as a fantasy heroine instead. Even worse, his best friend Taiga ends up as the main hero, slaying foes and other threats with ease when Keito struggles. It hasn’t caught on as well as its more popular rival overall, but its quicker pace and comedy-based shenanigans have earned it a fanbase.
5Reborn As The Hero’s Daughter! Time To Become The Hero Once More!
MyAnimeList Score: 6.31
Reborn as the Hero’s Daughter! Time to Become the Hero Once More(Eiyuu no Musume toshite Umarekawatta Eiyuu wa Futatabi Eiyuu wo Mezasu) isn’t strictly an isekai, as the hero doesn’t end up in a new world. But they do tackle it from a new perspective, as the half-human, half-demon hero Reid loses his life in battle. In the afterlife, a shady goddess says this isn’t the end, and that he will live again.
Once he wakes up, Reid discovers he’s now Nicole, the daughter of two of his old colleagues. Becoming a tiny girl seemed like a bad deal, but the goddess had a point. Back when he was Reid, his demonic heritage made it hard for him to overcome other demons and dark forces. Now, as Nicole, with her new life’s holy heritage and her past life’s combat experience, she has more potential to vanquish evil.
6She Professed Herself Pupil Of The Wise Man
MyAnimeList Score: 6.33 (Anime) 7.08 (Manga)
Anime adaptations of gender-bender isekai have been thinner on the ground compared to their print equivalents, and their adaptations aren’t necessarily the best either. MAL users certainly found the adaptation ofShe Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Manless preferable to the manga, which wasn’t as popular as the original light novel. But no matter the medium, they all tell the same story.
Kagami made his name in theVR MMO’Arch Earth Online' as Danblf, one of the game’s Nine Great Sages. But after he falls asleep while customizing his character, he wakes up and finds out that (a) Danblf’s been turned into a young girl called Mira, and (b) he’s become Mira! To prove herself all over again, she proclaims herself to be Danblf’s pupil and goes on a quest to find the 8 other sages.
7More Peace Than a Harem: In Another World, Let Me Be a NEET Princess in Peace!
MyAnimeList Score: 6.35
While there are a few select titles that avoid getting into fanservice, it’s pretty much ingrained in most gender-bender comics. It’s why most of them are male-to-female, and why many strips go beyond mere softcore glimpses and into territory too racy for this list to cover.More Peace Than a Haremjust about sticks to ecchi territory, preferring suggestive nudge-winks over being outright adult content. But it’s definitely more of a titillating read than an educational one, so to speak.
In his first life, Kishibe wanted to get out of his desk job to become a NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) with FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). He came close to it too, until he tried to save a little kid from being run over by a truck. Taking pity on him, a goddess of fortune reincarnated him in another world as Iris, a beautiful princess so rich and powerful she could live out her life without a single struggle. Shame her beauty has earned her a litany of female suitors. Desire truly is the cause of suffering, apparently.
8Final Girl
MyAnimeList Score: 6.42
The problem with the isekai genre is that it can be predictable. So many stories involve an ordinary person (or even a total outcast) becoming the key to everything in a new world. Sometimes they have to practice being the big hero, but other times they’re already great and just need to convince everyone else. Yō Kokikuji’s one-shot stripFinal Girlsticks its hero at a distinct disadvantage instead.
In it, a Japanese man has woken up as one of the characters in the slasher flick “18th Day Sacrifice.” Unfortunately, he’s been brought back as Summer, the sexy, flirty one who, according to horror movie tropes, usually dies first. But if she lasts until dawn, she’ll break convention andbecome the “final girl”who makes it out alive. Can she overcome the horror movie convention and make it to sunrise? Or will she be forced to stick to the script?
9Since I Have Been Reincarnated As The Daughter Of A Duke, I, The “Girl Inside,” Will Enjoy Being A Girl As Much As I Can!
With that mouthful of a title, it’s no surprise that this is an adaptation of a web novel. Like their light novel counterparts, their titles are almost as long as their synopses. But as it suggests,Since I Have Been Reincarnated as the Daughter of a Dukesees a man in his twenties get reincarnated as Miranda Mirandiehl, a child in an aristocratic family living in a fantasy world that resembles the 18th century.
For some, going from being a strapping young man to a tiny girl would take a lot of physical and mental adjustment. However, the protagonist was essentially “a girl inside” already, a trans woman who never got to realize it. Now that she’s become Miranda, she can live her new life to the fullest and be as girly as she likes. All she has to adjust to is her old-timey world and its use of magic. How hard could it be?
10This Is Screwed Up, But I Was Reincarnated As A GIRL In Another World!
MyAnimeList Score: 6.56
All kinds of transition are fair game for this list, but since most isekai involve magic or other phenomena, they tend to use them to shift shapes. Originally starting life as a light novel by Ashi and illustrated by Kaomin,This Is Screwed Up, But I Was Reincarnated as a GIRL in Another Worldwas adapted into a manga by Keyaki Uchiuchi.
The story follows Ren, a young girl in a fantasy world who is about to be enslaved by a corrupt merchant when she begins to have visions. She was able to recall living on a world called Earth, where she worked as a research scientist, and was a man. With her old science skills and her new magic knowledge, she breaks free and makes a name for herself in this new world.
