Anime

Crunchyroll’s Best Isekai Anime of the Summer Is Only Getting Better

Crunchyroll has a lot of anime taking over the Summer 2025 anime season, but its best Isekai anime is really only getting better. Each year brings with it a ton of new Isekai anime offerings, and that means that each seasonal schedule is packed to the brim with a lot of Isekai fighting for fans’ attention. It’s meant that many of them have gone to extreme lengths to separate themselves from the others with wild premises or gimmicks, but there’s actually been one series that has stood out for the opposite reason. It’s been a return to basics, and all the better because of it.

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The Water Magician is not the loudest Isekai anime series when compared to many of the offerings seen this Summer alone, but it’s already been one of the most compelling. As it continues to set up its interesting fantasy world and pushes its lead character to new heights of power, it’s the perfect time to jump into the anime series as now it’s starting to put together even bigger building blocks for what could be a legendary anime run when it’s all said and done.

Crunchyroll’s Best Isekai Anime Gets Even Better

Poster for The Water Magician
Typhoon Graphics / Wonderland

The Water Magician will immediately sound familiar to anyone who’s watched an Isekai anime before. The anime taking on Tadashi Kubo and Hana Amano’s original novel series introduces fans to Ryo, a 20 year old from Japan who dies and is reincarnated into a new fantastical world. Wanting to live a quiet life, he ends up waking up in a dangerous forest filled with monsters that he needs to fight against. But also given the gifts of eternal youth and the ability to use water magic, Ryo quietly trains for decades until he becomes a much stronger magician than he ever dreamed of.

But this series distances itself from the others immediately due to that slower pace. Much of the anime reveals that while Ryo has eternal youth, he wasn’t reincarnated with the kind of S-tier powers and abilities that fans have seen in other shows. He trains to the point where many decades go by, but Ryo himself never really has any kind of goal other than to just live and maybe explore the rest of the world. It’s not until he’s thrown into the world of adventuring later that he sees how big this world actually is (and how much stronger he is than everyone else).

Why The Water Magician Is Special

Abel and Ryo from The Water Magician
Typhoon Graphics / Wonderland

Rather than bog the anime down with some notable gimmick like invincibility or some other kind of world changing power, The Water Magician is taking its time to truly develop its own fantasy world. The series is showcasing Ryo’s rise to prominence as he takes on tougher opponents, but the real draw is finding out more about this world alongside of him. It’s less about Ryo himself, and more about how he’s actually impacting the world. It’s an isekai that’s truly exploring what a reincarnated person in this world would do to change it.

It’s not an angle that we see too often in Isekai anime offerings, and The Water Magician feels refreshing because of that. It’s a return to the core fantasy idea that Isekai first offered when it really took off, and it’s helped by the fact that many of its action sequences can look fantastic. It’s an anime that’s getting better with each new episode, so fans should make sure to check it out with Crunchryroll before it’s too late.