The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

My Ribdiculous Reincarnation

In an alternate world where one can choose the form in which one is reincarnated—but choices like the "demon king" or the "hero with cheat skills in a harem" are so popular that one would have to wait in line for one to 50 thousand years. So, our protagonist chooses to be reincarnated over and over again into other bizarre forms, such as the rib of a hero with cheat skills in a harem story's happy ending, a hermit crab, or a vegetable.

My Ribdiculous Reincarnation is based on the light novel series by author Antai and illustrator Mebaru. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

There are some people who think that if you make enough jokes fast enough, it will be hilarious. It doesn't matter if the jokes are actually clever or well-thought-out. These are the people behind this anime.

My Ribdiculous Reincarnation is a show built around trying to take the piss out of the isekai genre in general. Over the course of this episode, there are digs at how isekai protagonists die, some of the big series, and the popular sub-genres—i.e., being reincarnated as a demon lord or inanimate object. The jokes are the ultimate of low-hanging fruit—mainly reference humor—so even M.A.O's great attempt at being the best deadpan snarker around wasn't able to pry a laugh out of me.

Things surprisingly turn around when the show actually attempts to become an original isekai story itself. It's clear that being reincarnated as the hero's rib is supposed to be yet another dig at isekai by creating the most outlandish possible idea for one such story. The problem is, I regularly watch an isekai anime where a man is reincarnated as a non-verbal vending machine—which is way more ridiculous than what this anime is attempting. Yet, with the intended shock value cast to the roadside, we actually get a legitimately novel isekai story that incorporates the Judeo-Christian creation myth of all things.

This is bolstered by the only truly standout aspect of this anime: the various animation styles used. Not only do they work to great effect, creating the otherworldly realm beyond death, but in the hero's rib story, the animation style chosen looks more like something done by Æon Flux's Peter Chung than any modern anime out there.

In the end, I can't say that I enjoyed My Ribdiculous Reincarnation. Yet, just as a fan of animation in general, I want to see what being reincarnated as a hermit crab will look like—what non-standard animation style they will use. Of course, to do so, I will need to deal with even more of the show's attempts at slapstick dialogue, which, I'll be the first to admit, is one hell of a daunting task.

Everything about My Ribdiculous Reincarnation, from its premise to its hatefully stupid title, is precision-engineered to give me an aneurysm. That might be why I cannot help but admit a begrudging respect for it. This, my friends, is a degree of willful, precision-engineered idiocy that can only be accomplished by a team that is putting in some goddamned effort. Sure, that effort is being directed towards the isekai-anime equivalent of the Ludovico Technique from A Clockwork Orange, but I've been gazing into the abyss for so long at this point. It's about time that the abyss stared back.

I take it as a sign of the industry's general cowardice that we don't have more isekai parodies that blatantly call out how stupid most of these shows are. My Ribdiculous Reincarnation isn't quite cynical or pointed enough to satisfy my personal bloodlust, but I will accept as a compromise this show's willingness to explore the simple, painfully neglected concept of “What if we (and our hero) had to actually think for more than thirty seconds about the life he was getting isekai'd into.” Unfortunately for our unnamed protagonist, too many losers are stuck waiting in line to get their lame fantasy harem dreams fulfilled, so he's decided to settle on experimenting with the reincarnation prospects that no sane person would consider. We shouldn't feel too bad for Hero Boy, though, since he's a freak-ass pervert who lives to sniff strange women like he was an unneutered dog. His suffering should absolutely make for our pleasure.

And here is where I have to report the most infuriating thing about this stupid, stupid anime: It's actually pretty great. Or, at least, the way it facilitates bonkers stories and genuinely impressive stylistic shifts is unambiguously awesome. Whether or not you'll actually find any of its funny or entertaining is a matter of taste. I have brain damage from watching so many different shows with the words “Strongest Class” and “Kicked out of the Party” in the title, so I found myself aughing at Main Idiot Dude's misadventures pretty often (even if he could really stand to turn the “Scream Like an Insufferable Idiot” dial down a couple of notches). This is, as I hope you have come to understand, an unforgivably moronic premise for an anime, and the amount of creative energy and inventiveness the creative team has poured into bringing this premise to life demands, if not respect, then at least acknowledgment. I love the way that the silly gacha-game hubworld of the afterlife allows Pathetic Puppy-kun to be Spirited Away to different universes represented by novel art styles and even entirely different mediums. I cannot believe I am saying this for a show titled My Ribdiculous Reincarnation, but the possibilities are literally endless for where we go from here.

If anything, I want more weird diversions to strange, new worlds. I found the scant amount of time we spent in RibLand to be a bit disappointing, given the title of the show. Now that we've gotten the exposition out of the way, I hope future episodes will devote more time to punishing our Gary Stu for his crimes by sending him to the most ridiculous and pointless universes hitherto imagined by a human mind.