Anime has been around for more than half a century in the commercial sense; Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy launched a phenomenon that would go on to become one of the largest and most lucrative industries in the artistic and entertainment departments. Anime series come in all shapes and sizes, some of which are more famous, some of which are less. In this article, we are going to focus on the latter.
The topic of this article is going to be those anime series that are actually great but have never entered the spotlight in a way you’d expect, but with a twist. Namely, the anime series we have selected for you are not just underrated, they also have an overpowered main character, which is their common trait. The list is going to contain a total of 15 underrated anime series with overpowered main characters.
1. The Misfit of Demon King Academy
Original Run: July 4, 2020 – present
Number of Episodes: 13
Tired of the perpetual war with the other humanoid races, the king of demons, Anos Voldigoad, wishes for lasting world peace. So he offers to kill the human hero Kanon so that a powerful spell can be cast that separates the worlds of demons, humans, ghosts, and beastmen. Lying dying, Anos announces that he will be reborn in 2,000 years and hopes to meet the hero again, whom he promises in his last words to then want to be a friend to Kanon. 2,000 years later, Anos is reborn with memories of his past life.
Anos, though reborn as prophesied, attends a school for demons reserved solely for the descendants of the late demon king and purebred demons. There he has to realize that his descendants have become weaker due to the peace with the other worlds and that magic itself is steadily decreasing. He is also confronted with the fact that someone has changed history in the past 2,000 years and no one remembers his previous reign. As a result, he fails the proficiency test and is classified as an “outsider”, which is why other classmates avoid him. Anos decides to find out what has happened in the past 2,000 years and tries to regain his position as demon king.
2. Is This a Zombie?
Original Run: January 11, 2011 – June 7, 2012
Number of Episodes: 22 + 3 OVA
Aikawa Ayumu is a normal high school student until the day he is murdered by a serial killer. He is then reborn as a zombie thanks to the necromancer Eucliwood Hellscythe. Aikawa then becomes his servant but inadvertently absorbs the powers of a “masō-shōjo” named Haruna and in turn, becomes a masō-shōjo. The young man will then have to manage his schedule between his duties as a masō-shōjo, his studies, and the search for his assassin, with Eucliwood, Haruna, and a vampire ninja named Seraphim living with him.
3. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
Original Run: October 2, 2018 – June 22, 2021
Episodes: 60 (+ 5 OVA)
Thirty-something Satoru Mikami is an employee and has been happy with his life but would like a girlfriend. His colleague wants to brag about his girlfriend to him. When the two are ambushed, Satoru comes to their aid and is stabbed himself in the process. A computer voice speaks to him, and when he wakes up again, he can’t move or see anything.
After a while, Satoru finds that he has been reincarnated as a living blob of slime. Slowly learning his abilities, he can disintegrate and feed on other beings, acquiring their abilities in the process. He is always advised by the computer voice, which can give him answers and analyze everything. Eventually, he meets the dragon Veldora, who grants him the ability to see.
They become friends and go by the common name of Tempest. Veldora gives the slime the first name Rimuru. Veldora is scary but friendly and helpful to Rimuru. For 300 years, the dragon has been imprisoned in the cave where Rimuru was reincarnated by a heroine’s spell. Rimuru absorbs him so they can escape together. Outside, Rimuru finds himself in a world full of goblins, wolves, and dwarves. The powerful, talking slime appears as a god to the weak goblins, and Rimuru is ready to help them against the wolves.
When these are defeated, they recognize the slime’s power and accept Rimuru as their new leader. He names them all, which makes them significantly stronger. Together they should build a new village and defend themselves against other monsters that have become more active after Veldora’s disappearance. To find help, Rimuru travels to the city of the dwarves with some wolves and goblins. There, Rimuru helps the blacksmith, who has received an impossible task from the king’s minister.
4. The Irregular at Magic High School
Original Run: April 6, 2014 – September 25, 2021
Episodes: 52
The story takes place in a world in which magic has been scientifically described and therefore technically usable. Appropriately gifted people can use a device called a Casting Assistant Device (CAD) to charge it with psions – spiritual particles – by thought, whereby it activates the intended summoning sequence. The story is set in the year 2095, 35 years after a 20-year third world war decided by this modern magic.
In Japan, therefore, the 1st Magic High School was founded with the purpose of training young people gifted with magic. Each year, 200 students are admitted into two equal groups, with the first group (also called Bloom) being those who are receiving an actual education, and the second group (also called Weed) being those serves only as a reserve to compensate for deaths in the first group.
The male protagonist is Tatsuya Shiba, who is a genius when it comes to magic, especially of a theoretical nature, but was assigned to the second group in the entrance test due to poor practical performance – hence also referred to as rettōsei, “student with poor performance”. In fact, his talent lies on the one hand in analysis and on the other hand in irregular magic, which he can use to stop the magic of others. His younger sister Miyuki is the female protagonist and, in turn, is considered the most talented magician and model student.
5. Noblesse
Original Run: October 7, 2020 – December 30, 2020
Episodes: 13
Noblesse is about a powerful nobleman, Cadis Etrama Di Raizel (known as Rai), who has been asleep for 820 years without knowing the advancement of humanity and scientific successes. At the beginning of the webtoon, Rai wakes up in an abandoned building in South Korea,3 and begins to live by getting used to the modern world. He goes to a school, where he meets his loyal servant Frankenstein.
With Frankenstein’s help, Rai enrolls in high school and inadvertently befriends the athletic Shinwoo, the computer geek Ikhan, the girl Shinwoo has a crush on, Yuna, and a few others. Noblesse often follows the group’s dangerous adventures against a secret organization while discovering Rai’s past.
6. So I’m a Spider, So What?
Original Run: January 8, 2021 – July 3, 2021
Number of Episodes: 24
During a long fierce fight between the hero and the demon king of a fantasy world, their magic power was so intense that it crossed another world and formed a gigantic explosion in a classroom, killing the students inside. inside. The latter are immediately reincarnated in this world, while some became princes or prodigies, others were not so lucky.
The protagonist, who was the most antisocial of the group, discovers that she has reincarnated as a spider within a dungeon filled with vicious creatures. Currently at the bottom of the food chain, she must adapt to this new situation with great determination in order to survive in a world that is unknown to her. She thus goes through extreme trials, with only her human knowledge and her overwhelming positivity, to continue to persevere against creatures much stronger than her.
7. The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
Original Run: July 4, 2016 – December 28, 2018
Number of Episodes: 145 (+ 7 OVA)
Kusuo Saiki is a high school student who was born with all kinds of psychic abilities, including telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, and many more. Despite having all these powers, Saiki faces endless difficulties and tries to keep as low a profile as possible. The story follows Saiki as he attempts to secretly use his powers to live a normal high school life while dealing with his less-than-ordinary classmates at P.K.
8. The Saga of Tanya the Evil
Original Run: January 6, 2017 – March 31, 2017
Episodes: 12
For insulting God, an arrogant Japanese salaryman, at the time of his sudden death on February 22, 2013, is doomed to be reborn in another universe similar to the Europe of the 1910s, in an empire torn by countless wars with all its neighboring countries.
The salaryman is reborn in the guise of an orphan girl, Tanya Degurechaff, who at age 9 becomes a second lieutenant in the Imperial Army. According to God, whom Tanya calls “Being X,” if she is unable to die a natural death or refuses to have faith in Him, her soul will leave the circle and be sent to Hell for the countless sins that Tanya has committed in his previous life.
9. Mushoku Tensei
Original Run: January 11, 2021 – December 20, 2021
Number of Episodes: 23
A 34-year-old Japanese NEET is kicked out of his home following the death of his parents. After some soul-searching, he concludes that his life was ultimately useless. Seeing a truck driving at high speed heading towards a group of teenagers, he decides to intervene to try to achieve at least once something significant in his life, and manages to put one of them out of danger before dying.
Waking up in the body of a baby, he quickly realizes that he has been reincarnated in a world of Heroic fantasy, where an atmosphere of medieval Europe reigns. He then sets out to succeed in his new life, discarding his old identity for that of Rudeus Greyrat, son of the minor nobility. Due to his genetic factor and early training, Rudeus becomes extremely skilled in magic.
10. To Your Eternity
Original Run: April 12, 2021 – present
Number of Episodes: 20
An immortal, disembodied being is sent to earth. There it takes the form of the things it encounters: first a rock, then moss, and finally a wolf lying on the moss to die. In the form of the animal, it meets the boy, the friend of the wolf. The boy lives alone in an abandoned village on the tundra after the residents have made their way to a promised paradise and he has stayed behind to care for the elderly. Now the boy sets out to follow them together with the creature in the form of the wolf. But he soon dies and the being takes on his form in which it tries to continue its search for other people. As before as a wolf, it first has to find its way around the completely new body and learn to understand its needs.
11. The Saint’s Magic Power Is Omnipotent
Original Run: April 6, 2021 – present
Number of Episodes: 12
One evening, 20-year-old employee Sei Takanashi is unexpectedly summoned to a strange world: the kingdom of Slantania. This is regularly visited by monsters, which is why a “holy maiden” has been summoned to help. However, Aira Misono, who is considered a saint instead of Sei, has also appeared alongside Sei. She cannot be sent back and receives accommodation and support in the castle, but is otherwise ignored.
So she looks for a job herself and finds it in the herb garden and with the pharmacist Jude. He teaches her how to brew potions with magic, for which Sei shows a special talent. Her arts are soon needed when many potent potions are needed in an emergency. This shows Sei’s benefit to the soldiers and the court, while Aira is still spared by Prince Kyle.
12. I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level
Original Run: April 10, 2021 – present
Number of Episodes: 12
After living an arduous life as an office worker, Azusa passed away from overwork at a young age. A goddess grants her wish to be reborn into a quiet life. So she finds herself as an immortal, non-aging witch at the age of 17 in a new world. She vows to spend her days as stress-free and as pleasant as possible. She has a house and a field that she can cultivate, and there is everything else she needs in the nearby village.
She joins the Adventurer’s Guild and regularly hunts down slimes in the area, which drop crystals to make a living. But after three centuries of doing this simple work, she has reached the highest level of witchcraft. When this becomes known and Azusa becomes famous as the powerful “Witch of the Plateau”, all sorts of adventurers and powerful beings suddenly appear who want to compete with her. The witch’s quiet life is now over.
13. How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
Original Run: July 5, 2018 – June 11, 2021
Number of Episodes: 22
Takuma Sakamoto is an ordinary human who is mysteriously transported to the world of his favorite MMORPG, Cross Reverie in the guise of his own character, the mighty Demon King Diablo. The two young girls who summoned him, Rem and Shera, attempt to use a spell to make Takuma their servant, but the spell is considered and they end up with magical necklaces tied around their necks, thus becoming his slaves.
With a serious case of social anxiety, Takuma still decides to take on the role of his character while interacting with others and uses his high stats and vast knowledge of Cross Reverie to survive in his new environment, traveling with him.
14. Wise Man’s Grandchild
Original Run: April 10, 2019 – June 26, 2019
Number of Episodes: 12
One night an employee, due to hard work, inadvertently crosses the road in red and is hit by a vehicle, only to reincarnate in a fantasy-type universe while keeping his memories. Having survived a massacre as an infant, he is adopted and raised by the powerful wizard Merlin Wolford, known as the wise man, who takes him with him, deciding to raise him as if he were his own nephew and giving him the name Shin.
Shin discovers that he possesses innate magical abilities, and under Merlin’s guidance he gains enormous power. However, when the boy reaches 15, Merlin admits that he has taught him everything except common sense, having raised him in a forest far from his peers and from the city. Diseum, king of the Kingdom of Earlshide, recommends that Shin attend his Academy of Magic, with the agreement not to use it for political warfare. In the capital, Shin saves two girls, Maria and Sicily, and will later open a club that includes him and his other new friends.
15. Overlord
Original Run: July 7, 2015 – present
Number of Episodes: 48 (+ 1 OVA and 34 ONA)
In the year 2126, it is decided to discontinue the DMMORPG Yggdrasil, a game that has been the most popular for the last twelve years, but has fallen out of use over time. On the day the game’s servers were to be shut down, Momonga, leader of the Ainz Ooal Gown guild, once made up of 41 members and credited as one of the strongest guilds in the game, decides to stay online until the game is shut down.
After the servers close time, Momonga discovers that impressive and mysterious things have happened. He is still in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, which is the base and home of the Ainz Ooal Gown guild, he has also truly become his character with all the powers and abilities that this implies, the NPCs who serve him now are sentient beings and the great tomb is no longer in the swamps of Yggdrasil, but has been sent to a fantasy world where magic and mystical creatures exist.
Momonga decides that if he is to exist in that world he will aspire to greatness and find out if any other players were dragged there like him. Therefore, he changes his name to Ainz Ooal Gown and decides to become someone so famous and feared that he is known throughout that world. Thus, in addition to achieving glory, any other lost player will know that there is someone from such a powerful guild there.
Now, as Ainz Ooal Gown, the protagonist begins to travel the world disguising himself as an adventurer, sorcerer, mercenary, savior, or conqueror making use of the experience and skills he has gained in the game. Him making the Great Tomb of Nazarick a place in the history of that world.
