This one asks for your patience before it gives you anything, and it never really apologizes for that. A flame shows up in front of an ordinary high schooler, and suddenly Himiko Himejima and her classmate Masahiko Kutani are standing in Yamatai while the Kune empire tears through a queen selection ritual that six candidates were supposed to survive. The hook is genuinely good, an isekai wearing feudal Japan instead of a fantasy RPG skin, and the six candidates leading a resistance against an undead army raised by a Kune general is the kind of premise you want someone to nail. Nobody nails it. The art wobbles, proportions go strange, and the cast stays exactly as deep as the plot needs them to be and not one inch deeper. If you collect 1999 curiosities and forgive a lot for a good idea told quietly, twelve episodes is a cheap bet.

A mystical flame whisks two ordinary high school students, Himiko and Kutani, into the war-torn kingdom of Yamatai. There, a ritual to choose a queen from six candidates has been disrupted by an attack from the Kune empire, whose general raises an army of the undead to gain power. The six candidates lead a resistance against Kune, and Himiko and Kutani soon join them in the fight to save the kingdom. As they gain new powers, the pair begin to uncover their ties to this ancient world and the secrets of the sacred flame. Himiko learns she is heir to that fire, a power that may save its Guardians if she can survive the danger, betrayal and war around her.