The time travel genre is a heavily unexplored genre when it comes to anime. Even when the subject of anime is examined, the science is almost always abandoned in favor of the usual anime gimmicks. Even when time travel anime are created, they often follow the same path – step back in time, fix a mistake, return to a better future.
While some fans enjoy watching anime with similar storylines, there are understandably others who crave something different. For those fans interested in seeing time travel anime with unique twists, they can take a look at this fantastic anime.
10 InuYasha: Schoolgirls don’t want an evil demon to wreak havoc in feudal Japan
Teenage boy Kagome Higurashi was accidentally pulled by a demon five hundred years ago. She is now in the Sengoku period and has a magical jewel in her that was the demon’s true target.
Eventually the jewel breaks into several pieces. A rushed and desperate one Kagome turns to Inuyasha for helpwho is part human, part dog to collect the whole gem before the demon can get it.
9 Iroduku: The world in colors: girls are sent back in time and can suddenly see colors
Hitomi Tsukishiro’s grandmother uses a spell and sends her back to 2018 when her grandmother (Kohaku) was a student. Hitomi is confused at first, but her grandmother assures her that she will find her purpose soon enough.
True to Kohaku’s words, Hitomi ends up in Yuito’s room. Seeing his pictures immediately ignites a fire in her and floods her black and white life with its own colors (in the truest sense of the word).
8th Meiji Tokyo Renka: Teenager travels to the Meiji era and becomes a ghost hunter
One fine day high school girl Ayazuki Mei opens her eyes in what appears to be the Meiji period. The magician who transported them brings them to Rokumeikan. There she meets some notable personalities from Japanese history who explain the dynamics of this world to her.
It turns out that Ayazuki is a Tamayori, a rare guy who can see the mononoke (ghosts). Together with these men, she takes on her newfound responsibility for purifying spirits from the Meiji period.
7th Occult Academy: A girl from the past and a boy from the future work together to stop an alien invasion
Aliens invade the world in 2012 and take it over completely. Time travelers must travel until 1999 to find and destroy the one key prophesied to bring about the destruction of humanity.
The teenager Maya (from 1999) is convinced by time traveler Fumiaki (from 2012) to help him find the key and destroy it. Although Maya does not fully trust his intentions, she agrees to help him. With the help of Fumiaki’s special cell phone, the duo must quickly find the key before it’s too late.
6th Drifters: A warrior travels to an alternate timeline where historical Japanese warriors live and kick
Toyohisa Shimazu belonged to 17th century Japan, but a day after winning an important battle, he’s pushed into a world unlike any he’s seen before.
This land is populated with Toyohisa’s heroes, all of them should have been dead! To make matters worse, magic and supernatural creatures seem to be the norm here. He will soon be drawn into the war and world politics, and after all, the future of this world rests in the hands of a small group of individuals known only as the Drifters.
5 Sakurada Reset: Girl-boy duo helps people, but gets caught up in an evil conspiracy
Thanks to his photographic memory, Kei Asai is the only person immune to Misora Haruki’s ability to reset the time by three days. The two decide to join forces and set up the Service Club to help people from their city.
Their adventures begin innocently, but with each person they help, the duo realizes that something more sinister is going on in their quiet little seaside town.
4th Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon: Time-traveling demon girl is raised as a human, but cannot escape her past
The half-demon Towa from feudal Japan suddenly finds herself in what is now Japan, where she is adopted by a kind man who raises her as a a normal human girl. A decade later, her human life turns upside down when she knocks people off her timeline on her doorstep.
Among them is Setsuna, her twin sister, but for some reason she has no memories of Towa. So begins Towa’s journey to restore her sister’s lost memories.
3 Buddy Complex: Schoolboy travels into the future only to be caught in a mecha war
One fine day, student Aoba Watase is attacked by a futuristic-looking mecha robot and rescued by a girl named Hina. She then takes him seventy years into the future to avoid his death.
But it’s not that the future is better – Aoba controls a mecha caught in the middle of a terrifying battle between two sides. Who are these people, why was he in a mecha and what is Aoba going to do with his newfound life now?
2 Thermae Romae: Roman Inventor copies modern Japanese inventions to sell for home
An architect from ancient Rome named Lucius Modestus suddenly finds himself in what is now Japan. The time travel machine or rather a time hole, connects bathhouses from ancient Rome with today’s Japan.
Fascinated and often overwhelmed by everything he sees, Lucius wastes no time in being “inspired” by everything he sees in Japan. Then he goes back in time and recreates the very things he saw to make a name for himself among his people.
1 DELETED: Man travels to his kindergarten to solve his mother’s murder case
Satoru Fujinuma is a 29 year old who is able to skip time even though he has never been able to control it. One day he himself travels years into the past in the body of his child. Now he has only one job left: to find out who killed his mother so that he can finally free himself from being unjustly accused of her death.
It doesn’t open too many doors for kids looking for detective stories, however, which turns out to be a tough nut to crack for Satoru.
About the author
Sarika Mittal
(173 articles published)
Sarika is obsessed with anime manga and she can’t believe she is living her dream of writing about things that she is obsessed with!
