also: せかいけい
noun
sekai-kei (genre of manga, anime, etc.)
A subgenre of Japanese fiction (manga, anime, light novels) where the personal relationship between the protagonists is directly tied to the fate of the world, often with apocalyptic stakes.
『ほしのこえ』はセカイ系の代表作の一つとされている。
'Voices of a Distant Star' is considered one of the representative works of the sekai-kei genre.
セカイ系の物語では、主人公たちの恋愛が世界の存亡に直結することが多い。
In sekai-kei stories, the protagonists' romance is often directly linked to the survival of the world.
空気系 is a related term emphasizing atmosphere and mood over plot, sometimes overlapping with セカイ系 but without the explicit world-ending stakes.
Standard katakana-kanji hybrid spelling for this genre term.
Kanji spelling; less common than the katakana form but still used.
From セカイ (sekai, 'world') + 系 (kei, 'type' or 'system'). The term emerged in the early 2000s in otaku discourse to describe a narrative pattern in anime and manga.