Keisuke Nijima built at happy life with his wife, Takae, and his daughter, Mai. However, that is all ripped away from them when Takae is killed in an accident.
Ten years later, Keisuke and Mai have still not moved on from the death of Takae. They live their bleak lives stuck in their grief until a elementary school girl shows up at their door claiming to be the reincarnation of Takae.
With his deceased wife’s memories and personality intact in the body of Marika Shiraishi, a young girl with a troubled home life, the Nijima’s are ecstatic, but no miracle comes without consequences.
Suspicious title that had every potential to turn that special brand of anime-style gross, but thankfully went the great poignant way it did. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like TsumaSho: If My Wife Becomes an Elementary School Student, head on down below.
Anime Like TsumaSho: If My Wife Becomes an Elementary School Student
For Fans of Domestic Drama
Higehiro – I Shaved The Brought Home a High School Girl
Office worker Yoshida finally worked up the courage to ask his boss out, only for her to swiftly reject him. On his way home from getting completely drunk to drown his heartbreak, he sees a high school girl sitting outside by herself late at night.
After discovering that she was a runaway, he ends up taking her home while constantly shutting down her efforts to pay for her stay with her body. Talking to her further, he discovers that she traveled for six months from Hokkaido trading sexual favors for what she needed.
While trying to figure out what to do, he puts her to work cooking and cleaning instead so she can have a place to stay.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Higehiro
- Adult man has a suspicious relationship with a younger girl
- Adult man doesn’t cross any romantic boundaries, but instead helps the girl with her difficult home situation by giving her a safe place to live
- Suspicious stories that explore surprisingly deep topics
Differences Between TsumaSho and Higehiro
- TsumaSho disarms any suspicions fairly quickly while Higehiro keeps threatening romantic feelings between an adult man and a teenaged runaway and abuse victim that lives with him.
- TsumaSho has its child abuse element get a little better and lose focus while it is a large part of Higehiro
Kotaro Lives Alone
Unsuccessful manga artist Shin Karino has his daily routine interrupted one day with the introduction to his new neighbor – a four-year-old boy who moved in next door, lives by himself, and talks like a samurai.
While this boy is more put together than most of his neighbors, living alone has its difficulties at any age.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Kotaro Lives Alone
- Surprisingly young children navigate difficult lives and often do so independently
- Children from an abusive situation bond with neighbors and form a sort of found family connection.
- Both tackle darker topics in serious ways, but don’t let the story remain too heavy for too long.
Differences Between TsumaSho and Kotaro Lives Alone
- Kotaro Lives Alone is about a four year old who rents an apartment alone. To its credit, it does try to explain such a difficult to believe situation and approaches it more realistically than you might expect.
- Kotaro Lives Alone bonds with his neighbors who are not any sort of family. TsumaSho obviously has Takae depend on her past life family.
- Kotaro Lives Alone has a plot that is more frequently just slice of life struggles.
For Fans of Moving Forward Through Grief
Plastic Memories
Tsukasa Mizugaki has failed his college entrance exams, but he manages to land a job at the Sion Artificial Intelligence Corporation.
This corporation is responsible for the creation of Giftias, or highly advanced androids which are almost indiscernible from normal humans. However, unlike humans, Giftias have a maximum lifespan of around nine years and four months.
Terminal Service One, the station Tsukasa was assigned to, is responsible for collecting Giftias that have met their expiration date, before they lose their memories and become hostile.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Plastic Memories
- Stories about grief and what people do to move forward – or who don’t move forward
- Blossoming new love, and also loss
- Deteriorating memories fuel some of the drama
Differences Between TsumaSho and Plastic Memories
- Plastic Memories is about a world where people sometimes replace people with androids, but those androids only last nine years before their memories deteriorate and they can turn violent.
- Plastic Memories is a workplace romance between a new employee and the android that helps him retrieve androids at the end of their lifespan.
Usagi Drop
Daikichi Kawachi is a 30-year-old bachelor that works long hours at a respectable job. However, upon hearing the news of his grandfather’s death, he returns home for the funeral only to find out that his grandfather had an illegitimate daughter named Rin.
Shy and unapproachable, this young child is shunned by the other members of the family.
In his anger that no one will take her in, Daikichi steps up himself and begins his days anew as a single father with no prior childcare experience.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Usagi Drop
- Young children involved in mature topics
- Children with difficult home situations find safety with an adult that are tied to in a small way
- Wholesome! But also, heart-breaking.
- Adult characters finally taking steps forward with their life and relationships after being stagnant.
Differences Between TsumaSho and Usagi Drop
- Usagi Drop is more a found family / building a safe environment for a child who had a tough life situation.
- The kid in Usagi Drop is a normal kid and deals with grief, abandonment, and rejection like a kid would.
- Only the child is dealing with grief in Usagi Drop. The adult is mostly dealing with having to suddenly parent a child after being a bachelor.
Violet Evergarden
After the Great War and her time in it came to an end, Violet Evergarden is adrift. Her purpose was once only battle, and now she must find a new one.
After recovering from the loss of her arms, Violet takes up a job at the CH Postal Services. Here she transcribes people’s thoughts into what should be emotional letters. While the “emotional” part seems to greatly escape her, she aims to learn how to move people with words.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Violet Evergarden
- Both Violet Evergarden and TsumaSho are emotional stories about moving forward after a loss.
- Emotionally-rich stories with a decent amount of depth
Differences Between TsumaSho and Violet Evergarden
- While Violet Evergarden is exploring the main character’s own fresh start after losing someone, much of the series is about her helping other people express their emotions in letters. So there is heart-breaking tales within heart-breaking tales here.
- Violet Evergarden takes place in a fantasy Post-War industrialized sort of uniquely crafted world rather than just a modern world with reincarnation like TsumaSho.
- TsumaSho is uses drama to drive character growth, Violet Evergarden is more subtle, slower, and emotional with the growth of its main character. There is less dramatic screaming matches and angry tears in Violet Evergarden.
Anohana
One hot summer day, recluse and truant Jinta Yadomi is approached by his childhood friend Menma that comes to pester him about a wish he had long forgotten. However, Menma has been dead for some time.
Thinking he is hallucinating at first, eventually Jinta accepts her as a ghost and begins to work towards fulfilling her wish with his friends that had long drifted away from each other.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Anohana
- A group of characters experienced a devastating death, and even years later have not fully processed or moved past it.
- That dead person came back to help their loved ones move forward
- Occasionally cute, even funny, but ultimately emotional tearjerkers
Differences Between TsumaSho and Anohana
- Anohana follows a friend group that is now seeing their long-dead friend again as a ghost. So it is a bit of different dynamic than a family that lost their matriarch.
- As Anohana’s friend group is sizable, you see more diverse character drama as each person deals with the loss in a different way.
Your Lie in April
Although once a child prodigy in the music world, pianist Kousei Arima is left in a downward spiral after his mother’s death, unable to even hear the sound of his own piano.
Even after two years, Arima has all but left the music world behind, disappointing fans and rivals alike, and living in a colorless world. Then one day that that all changes when he is introduced to the beautiful violinist Kaori Miyazono who brings color into his world once more.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Your Lie in April
- People processing the grief of a family member, and not doing so well.
- A person is helping that grieving main character learn to move forward and reignites their passion for life.
- Heavy character drama and highly emotionally-charged stories designed to give you a cathartic cry.
Differences Between TsumaSho and Your Lie in April
- Your Lie in April follows a boy in a depression after losing his abusive mother, which is, obviously a bit of a different situation to someone like Mai losing a mother that she had a great relationship with.
- As it follows a gifted musician, Your Lie in April is a music anime
- Your Lie in April has a stronger romantic element, and it uses that to hurt you too.
For Fans of Age Regression
Erased
Recently, the detached, struggling manga artist Satoru Fujinuma finds himself going back in time to just minutes before tragedy strikes around him.
He has saved many lives with this power of “Revival,” but when he is wrongly accused of murdering someone close to him, Fujinuma finds himself sent back to his childhood. As he discovers, the recent death in his life is somehow connected the kidnap-murder of three children in the area that is about to happen.
This time, he may be able to use his power to save more than just one life, easing his past regrets in the process.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Erased
- Adult turns into a child with a still-adult mind
- Stories about moving past regret and/or grief
- Both feature a child abuse situation and characters that give those people a safe place to retreat to.
- Occasional surprising twists in the story
Differences Between TsumaSho and Erased
- Erased is a time traveling murder mystery, so far more serious, dramatic, and dangerous than TsumaSho.
- The character who has age regressed doesn’t have another personality trying to fight its way out like Takae.
- TsumaSho is all about the message it is exploring about grief and moving past it, Erased is all about the intricate mystery plot.
Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again
Shouzou Saitou and Ine Saitou have been married for 60 years and blessed with children and grandchildren. However, as rural farmers they had to live their life quite frugally, but their marriage helped them through the hard times.
While tending to the apple tree that they planted as newlyweds which had been damaged in a recent storm, they discover a golden apple. Sharing it, the next morning they wake up to find out that they have turned young again.
Realizing that they can turn young and old again in their sleep, but that their lives are still finite, the pair enjoy the time with their family and do all the things that they could not do when they were young the first time.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again
- Older people turn into young people again while retaining their present-age minds
- They use this opportunity to spend time with their family in cute, wholesome, and occasionally sad moments
- Husband and wife that deeply love each other with children that grew up with that.
- Explores that pain/potential pain of losing a spouse
Differences Between TsumaSho and Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again
- While Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again takes stabs at your emotions, it is often more of a cute and wholesome story.
- TsumaSho is more drama, Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again is more comedy
- Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again is about exactly as it says. They weren’t reborn like Takae in TsumaSho.
Orange
On the first day of a new semester, Naho Takimiya oversleeps. On her way out after being late for school, she finds a letter waiting for her that says it is from herself ten years in the future.
The letter ardently states her regrets that she has surrounding a new transfer student Kakeru Naruse. Thinking it is a prank at first, Naho ignores it, but when the events described within begin to come true, Naho decides that she will try to help her future self.
Similarities Between TsumaSho and Orange
- Characters with grief and regrets get a chance to address and/or rectify that
- Emotional stories involving a compact cast of characters that are struggling with something
- Romantic elements that play a large role, but aren’t the plot.
Differences Between TsumaSho and Orange
- Orange is not quite typical age regression/reincarnation/time travel. It is about older characters writing letters about their regrets to their younger selves, their younger selves getting those letters, and a new timeline being created where they try to stop the event.
- Orange is high school drama rather than adults
- Orange features a group of friends that have more complicated relationships with each other, and as such, goes at drama with a heavier hand.
Do you have more anime recommendations like TsumaSho: If My Wife Becomes an Elementary School Student? Let fans know in the comments section below.
