In this world, there is only a small amount of magic left. Hitomi is a descendant of an old witch family who lost her emotions and ability to see color at a young age. Feeling bad for her granddaughter, the great witch Kohaku sends her into the past where interactions with her young self and Kohaku’s friends will hopefully foster some growth in her granddaughter.
Whimsical and emotional, Iroduku doesn’t have a lot of flash that stands out, but it was great to unwind with. If you are looking for similar anime recommendations like Iroduku, then head on down below.
Anime Like Iroduku – The World in Colors
For Fans of Lightly Magical Modern Worlds
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. However, the “emotional” part seems to greatly escape her, but she aims to learn how to move people with words.
Iroduku is about color and emotions, and Violet Evergarden is about emotions and words. They are two sides of the same coin, and these series are two emotionally-moving anime with a dedication to stunning visuals. Iroduku does its best to evoke emotion, but Violet Evergarden really brings the emotional pain with its larger variety of story arcs.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride
After being abandoned by her family, Chise Hatori is a 16-year-old teenager without hope. In order to not have to worry about herself, she sells herself to slavers, only to be purchased by Magus Elias Ainsworth. There she is told she will become his apprentice and, in the future, his bride. Together they work together to build a relationship and work to control her own magus powers that will eventually result in her early death.
Obviously both shows are about modern settings where magic still exists to some extent. However, Iroduku is less about magic and more about life and connections. While Ancient Magus’ Bride has more outwardly magical moments, they are both ultimately series about teaching emotionally-damaged girls to move forward.
A Lull in the Sea
Long ago, all of humanity lived underwater. However, a portion of them soon left to live on the surface, losing the ability to breath underwater. With this gap between them, the two societies grew apart. A Lull in the Sea tells the story of a group of kids forced to attend school above the water where they come to terms with themselves and the discrimination against them.
Both Iroduku and A Lull in the Sea create worlds with magic in them, but that magic isn’t the focus. It is the emotional character problems that drive the plot in each show with the magic used to accent that. It is also worth noting that if you enjoy love triangles, A Lull in the Sea goes above and beyond in that respect.
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.
Whereas Iroduku has a modern world where magic is all but gone, and a past version of that where it was more of a parlor trick, The Flying Witch has more intense and practical magic. Despite that, it has profoundly little effect on how the modern world flows, likely by design. The way they handle very real magic allows a sense of whimsy in both series without transforming modern worlds into more fantasy-set worlds. They are also both pretty wholesome slice of life shows, but Iroduku leans more towards the emotional.
The Tatami Galaxy
At a mysterious back alley ramen stand, a lonely college student in his final year accidentally bumps into a man that calls himself the God of Matrimony. There he pours his soul out to the god about all the regrets he has about his college life, which he spent bitterly trying to break up couples. However, soon he finds himself back at the very start of his college career. Can he change the past or will he just repeat past mistakes?
The obvious similarity here is the time travel element at play in Tatami Galaxy, but it is more than that. It is not just time traveling “just because,” but both shows explain it with magic. Furthermore, they both feature characters going back in time trying to fix something within themselves.
Someday’s Dreamers
Yume has move to Tokyo to apprentice under a professional mage. There she learns not only magic, but helping people and other things are on the route to being a good mage. However, she is also learning that magic alone isn’t enough to make someone truly happy.
As shows about mages, there is some automatic similarities here. However, Iroduku puts less focus on learning magic. They share a similar theme of exploring how other things in life are more important than what you would expect, such as friends and actually caring about people. The large potential caveat here is that Someday’s Dreamers is rather old, and even for back in its time, not a great beauty in terms of animation quality.
For Fans of Time Travel
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.
If you enjoyed Iroduku being about a group of friends bonding and sorting out their various drama, then Orange is a natural next choice. It is rife with drama and has a similar time traveling elements. However, it is less about building relationships, and more about erasing regrets.
Island
On the island of Urashima, the three major families once suffered misfortune. Afterwards, the island cut off contact from the mainland and began a decline. The key to fixing this island lies with the three girls of the major families, but they are bound by tradition. However, when a lone man washes up on the island, claiming to be from the future, could their fortunes turn?
Island has a similar sort of whimsy to it like Iroduku, but it presents itself as a mystery series. Like Iroduku, however, it is primarily about addressing the emotional problems of young girls with an element of time travel.
In Search of The Lost Future
While ostensibly the five members of the Astronomy Club study the stars, a few members of the club also study each other. However, what had the potential to be a touching romance soon gets sidetracked by a series of bizarre events that have the club coping with tragedies and mysteries alike.
Both series utilize elements of time travel that were used on a character by someone else. However, whereas Iroduku is all about uncovering emotions (and color), In Search of Lost Future sets itself up as a mystery. It kind of flubs its mystery plot up until the ending, which is actually fine in this case for those looking for anime similar to Iroduku, because it ends up as more like a school romance with otherworldly elements much of the time.
For Fans of Awkward Characters Addressing Their Emotions
Just Because
Due to his father’s work, Eita Izumi is used to moving around. In the final semester of high school, he moves back to his hometown. There, Eita reconnects with his old best friend Haruto who is obsessed with baseball for an unknown reason. He also reconnects with Mio, a girl he once had unrequited feelings for. As their high school years rapidly approach a close, Eita’s arrival seems to spur on a series of anxieties and buried emotions in everyone around him.
If you took out the magic element of Iroduku, you would end up with a series much like Just Because. It is a “coming-of-age”-tinged romance about a series of awkward and emotionally dishonest characters fumbling their way through their last high school days. While his love interest is a bit more fiery than Hitomi, the male main character in Just Because has a very similar personality to Aoi in Iroduku.
ReLife
Arata Kaizaki is an unemployed 27-year-old that has thus far been living with the financial support of his parents and part-time jobs. After leaving his first job after only three months, he has not been able to find proper work. However, after a night of drinking with his friends, he meets a mysterious man that offers a drunk Arata a pill that will turn him 17 again so that he can redo a year of his youth, all expenses paid. Will Arata find what he needs to live a happy life after one year in high school again?
While ReLife is innately different in that it is not a time travel series, like Iroduku, it provides a unique way of giving people a chance to experience youthful moments again. Both series end up as high school romances where there seems to be a very large barrier to a happy ending. Iroduku forces you to live with that while ReLife finds a way around it.
Tada-kun Never Falls in Love
Mitsuyoshi Tada has never known love in his life, shutting himself down emotionally after his parents died. However, when taking pictures of spring cherry blossoms, he meets Teresa Wagner, a transfer student from Luxemburg that got separated from her travel companion. Tada takes her to his grandfather’s coffee shop, and finds that, just maybe, love is in bloom, too.
Both Iroduku and Tada-kun Never Falls in Love have main characters that are emotional stunted in a variety of ways. As such, the series both focus in on them falling in love and seeing the world as a brighter place, sometimes literally. Tada-kun Never Falls in Love has its emotional moments, but is overall a lighter, less bittersweet series.
After the Rain
Akira Tachibana used to love running, but after an injury, she can’t run like she used to. Now, she passes time by working in a family restaurant where she finds herself slowly falling in love with the divorced manager.
Iroduku is a time travel romance while After the Rain is an age-gap romance. As such, both hurdles are an almost an impassible bar for a happy romantic ending. However, they ultimately aren’t about happy endings either. They are shows focused on beginnings! Both shows are about opening up the female main character to her own emotions so she can move forward.
Do you have any more anime recommendations like Iroduku? Let fans know in the comments section below.
You have some interesting recommendations, some I have watched and some am adding to my to watch list. Great recommendations