After the Fourth Industrial Revolution, cutting edge technologies have taken over and the old way of doing things is left in the dust. For childhood friends Serufu Yua and Miku Suride, they both applied to the elite Yuyu Girls’ Vocational High School that excels in teaching new technology.
However, due to her grades, care-free accident-magnet Yua could only get into the neighboring Gatagata Girls’ High School.
After getting into an bike accident, Yua has a run in with a passerby who fixes her bike effortlessly and later finds out that she is a member of the Do It Yourself Club. With the club in danger of shutting down due to a lack of members and becoming enchanted by the old way of fixing and building things, Yua hopes to gather new friendships and build new crafts by joining it.
Cute girls doing cute things is a solid genre for people that like it, but I always appreciate when cute soothing shows also add some educational elements in there. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Do It Yourself, head on down below.
Anime Like Do It Yourself
For Fans of Cute Girls Doing Practical Things
Slow Loop
As a young girl, Hiyori’s father taught her the joys of fly fishing. Even after he unexpectedly passed away, she still uses fishing as a way to feel connected to him.
One day while fishing, she meets and energetic new girl in town named Koharu who ends up fishing and eating said fish together.
However, when she returns home, she discovers that Koharu is also her new step-sister.
While Do It Yourself and Slow Loop are about physical activities (fixing things in DIY and fishing in Slow Loop), Slow Loop isn’t a school club series.
However, what these series most have in common is that there is a bit of a rift between several of the main characters in the beginning. It is by doing the activity that the show focuses on that they close the rift and become close to each other. However, Slow Loop focuses on new stepsisters rather than distant friends like Do It Yourself.
Super Cub
Koguma is a student who has nothing. She lives alone, has no hobbies, and no friends. However, one day she stops by a vehicle shop in hopes of getting a motor scooter for her commute.
Disheartened by price tags initially, she is sold on an old pre-owned Super Cub. However, what she didn’t know is the many different ways that the scooter would open up her world.
Both of these series start off with characters who are often by themselves. Yua doesn’t often seem so bothered by it though, unlike in Super Cub. However, one fateful incident sees the main characters in both series trying something they have never done before, and loving it!
It is this new activity that opens up their whole world socially. However, Super Cub isn’t about bonding in a club, as motor scooters are a distinctly outside school activity.
Laid-Back Camp
After moving, Nadeshiko decides to go see Mount Fuji. She manages to bike pretty far, but has to turn back because of the weather and ends up fainting.
When she wakes up, she finds herself somewhere she has never been and no way to find her way back. It is in this wilderness where she is saved by Rin, a girl who was out camping by herself.
Both of these series follow a group of girls who are doing practical things in a cute, soothing way. While Do It Yourself is about fixing and building things, Laid-Back Camp embraces the joys of camping.
However, neither are just cute girls doing cute things shows alone. Instead, they sprinkle in educational information on the topics in a way that is entertaining. They also both feature rather clumsy yet enthusiastic main characters that are mentored by a more stern veteran.
Are You Lost?
After a plane crash, four girls are left stranded on a desert island. Luckily, one of them is a hardcore survival enthusiast thanks to being trained by her father.
Fixing things and crafting in Do It Yourself is practical, but there is little more practical than being stranded on a desert island and having to test your outdoor survival skills. That’s Are You Lost for you.
Like DIY, Are You Lost is a lightly educational series where the information on the topic is given through the group of cute girls doing it. That said, it feels distinctly more odd in Are You Lost since such a serious situation is perhaps not treated with as much gravity and urgency as it should be.
Comic Girls
Kaoruko Moeta is a manga artist that wants to make a manga about high school girls. However, due to her lack of interaction with girls her own age, her manga is terrible!
Her editor suggests that she moves into a dormitory full of other female manga artists who are also in high school.
Through living with these other manga artists, hopefully she can find the hit manga inspiration that she needs.
Both series are about school girls that end up bonding over a single task that they all excel at in different ways. Do It Yourself focuses on more physical work while Comic Girls is fully about making manga. However, each girl specializes in different genres of manga.
The real charm of these series is watching the different personalities interact with each other. They provide fun insight on the activities, but the character relationships are the most entertaining thing while still keeping a relaxed atmosphere.
For Fans of Relaxing School Clubs
Let’s Make a Mug Too
Himeno Toyokawa’s mother was considered a legend in the world of pottery, but passed away when she was a child. Her memory lives on in the series of mugs that Himeno brings with her as she moves back to her mother’s hometown.
Bringing these mugs to her new school, she instantly attracts the attention of the Pottery Club that ropes her into joining.
Both series are wholesome, soothing series about a girls in a school club making things with their hands.
Let’s Make a Mug Too is about making pottery, Do It Yourself is about woodworking and fixing things. They both feature a rather energetic main character as well as a group of girls who all find acceptance from each other in their club.
Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater
Hina Tsurugi has just moved to a quiet seaside town with her family.
While visiting the ocean, she stumbles upon a girl named Yuuki who invites her to join her while fishing. Hina manages to land an octopus, but being afraid of bugs and big creatures, she begs Yuuki to remove it when it lands on her.
Yuuki uses this as an opportunity to try to get her to join the Breakwater Club, a club where members catch and eat fish.
Both series follow school clubs that are made up of cute girls, but they are doing more physical activities. However, Do It Yourself has Yua somewhat force her way into the club while Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater is the opposite – someone forces her into the club.
Both shows are relaxing and often very cute with solid character dynamics. They also enjoy sprinkling some educational information in there too.
GJ Club
Through random circumstance, Shinomiya Kyouya is forced to become a member of the obscure and rarely acknowledge GJ Club. Within, he is surrounded by girls, but what is the point of this club?
While Do It Yourself has activities that the club actually does, GJ Club is more about the characters just goofing around. It also features a male character joining a club of all girls, but doesn’t make it a harem.
What these series have in common is they are both cute comedies and little else. You come to watch the character enjoy their club, and you stay because they make it fun to watch.
For Fans of Enjoying the Simple Pleasures Instead of Technology
Yurei Deco
The city of Tom Sawyer is an augmented reality society where citizens buy and sell services and appearance augmentations with Love, a currency akin to likes on social media. The Decos implemented in their eyes from early childhood allows them to enjoy augmented reality and also allow the government to control it.
One day, a girl named Berry with a malfunctioning Deco in one eye manages to see a boy invisible to everyone else. Following him, she ends up in a Love-draining event pulled off by the mysterious Phantom Zero.
After the government catches the boy believing him to be Phantom Zero and she helps his friends free him, Berry begins to unravel a never-ending spiral of society’s secrets as she is pulled into the fringes of society where people live without Decos and Love.
The world shown in Do It Yourself is probably about 20 years from becoming the world in Yurei Deco. They are both technologically advanced worlds where characters rely on technology for almost everything and embrace that.
However, what really makes these series similar is the main character happens across people that do things the old way. She then learns the joys of doing things the old way too.
While they are similar in those respects, Yurei Deco does follow a serious plot rather than just being a slice of life show like Do It Yourself is.
The Flying Witch
The young Makoto Kowata is a witch, but her skills in magic leave something to be desired. To further train her craft, she moves to rural Aomori to live with her cousins.
This area, rich in nature, is the perfect place to commune with natural forces and hone her craft.
While The Flying Witch is more just our modern world and not the technologically advanced near future like Do It Yourself, it is a series where the main character actively seeks to move to a rural area with less technology.
Both series are about embracing doing things the slower/harder/older way because it is more rewarding than just having technology do it. However, The Flying Witch is about magic, but it is also a relaxing sort of show.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Do It Yourself? Let fans know in the comments section below.
