A Galaxy Next Door is a brand-new romance anime of the Spring 2023 anime season, and it may become one of the season’s most lovable hidden gems. It isn’t a flashy headliner like Demon Slayer or Dr. Stone, but the Galaxy anime does a lot of things right, including its tasteful restraint with wish fulfillment and subtle reverse-isekai elements.
Many isekai and reverse-isekai anime hit fans over the head with their premises and are just an assortment of genre staples, which often leads to shallow and formulaic stories. Fortunately, A Galaxy Next Door makes use of reverse-isekai elements while also being a grounded, relatable everyday romance story that anyone can enjoy. It’s similar to TONIKAWA: Over the Moon For You in that regard, but with slightly older and more engaging protagonists.
How A Galaxy Next Door Follows TONIKAWA’s Blueprint for Sweet Romance
A Galaxy Next Door may not become an instant romance classic like Kaguya-sama: Love is War or Fruits Basket, but in the Spring 2023 season, it’s the best pick for a tasteful and intriguing love story that avoids some of anime’s most gratuitous excesses. Anyone who wants a character-driven and grounded romance is sure to enjoy A Galaxy Next Door because it shows restraint with its wish fulfillment and supernatural elements, making it a fair compromise between the mundane and flights of fancy. It’s a seinen anime, after all, so there’s no room for cartoony magical girls or ecchi harems. The characters have mature, sophisticated depth that any older anime fan may enjoy.
In many ways, A Galaxy Next Door might remind anime fans of TONIKAWA: Over the Moon For You, another romance anime with minimal conflict and relatable everyday scenarios in a modern Japanese setting. Both Galaxy and TONIKAWA feature lovable, mysterious kuudere girls who are ideal romantic partners but not a source of heavy-handed fan service or wish fulfillment, meaning they strike a careful balance as Best Girls. Shiori, like Tsukasa before her, is a charming and likable young woman who’s loyal to the main lead without being the first ingredient in a bawdy harem. She’s a rare and good example of tasteful male wish fulfillment — an ideal female friend and potential lover who’s best defined by her polite and mature personality and skills.
In return, the male leads of A Galaxy Next Door and TONIKAWA are respectful, selfless and friendly young men who are worthy of their new female friend’s affection and loyalty. Just like Nasa Yuzaki, the manga author Ichiro Kugo shows the gentle, caring side of modern masculinity and appreciates Shiori as an assistant without any R-rated antics or desires. Together, he and Shiori create a subtly sweet and wholesome romance that, by design, doesn’t do anything fancy or bizarre to draw readers in. It trades fan service for sheer realism and reliability, similar to TONIKAWA’s main romance, and the two characters have little drama between them. Instead, they’ll stand as a team against external challenges and threats, mostly pertaining to money and Ichiro’s career as a manga artist.
A Galaxy Next Door Smartly Restrains Its Reverse-Isekai Elements
Many anime fans agree that the isekai subgenre is oversaturated and formulaic, complete with problematic tropes and recurring themes, and not even reverse-isekai is immune to that. Fortunately, any anime fan who likes stories about an ordinary person meeting a supernatural character may enjoy A Galaxy Next Door because it shows restraint with all this. Flamboyant reverse-isekai anime like Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid can be fun, but a little of that goes a long way. So, A Galaxy Next Door is refreshingly subtle not just with its central romance but also its reverse-isekai elements, just like TONIKAWA before it.
Both anime series feature a mysterious girl who’s from another world, and these shows are coy about it, enticing the viewers with the mystery while not overplaying their hands as yet another generic reverse-isekai anime. Tsukasa was implied to be centuries old and related to the moon princess, while Shiori in A Galaxy Next Door seems perfectly human but has a stinger tail that, when touched, compelled Ichiro to marry her. As Shiori briefly explained, she is a princess of the Star-People, and whether they live in outer space or just another part of Japan, this background gives her just enough reverse-isekai elements to be compelling and unusual, all while avoiding the worst excesses of the isekai and reverse-isekai subgenre.
