Despite having different personalities, four boys in various stages of young adulthood all have one thing absolutely in common – clumsiness.
All four boys are naturally clumsy, but often cover their small slip-ups with a smooth recovery to keep the cool air they have cultivated around themselves in front of others.
Sometimes you just want a cheerful and relatable anime to enjoy without the need to have a plot to follow. This is that, and this is amazing at being that. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Play It Cool, Guys, head on down below.
Anime Like Play It Cool, Guys
For Fans of Relatable Awkwardness
You and Me
To four high school boys, school life is nothing but repetitive classes, arguments, and orientations that are constantly preparing them for careers too distant in the future. However, after realizing the right group of friends can help brighten things up, they seek to bring excitement to their dull school days.
While there is no anime series exactly like Play It Cool, Guys, You and Me comes perhaps the closest.
Both series don’t follow overall plots, but rather focus on the slice of life activities of a group of handsome boys who are still very much in the fumbling stages of youth.
Play It Cool, Guys often leans more towards comedy while You and Me dabbles in a number of genres like comedy, romance, and just a bit of drama.
Rainbow Days
When Natsuki’s girlfriend spontaneously dumps him on Christmas Eve, he breaks down into tears in the middle of the street.
However, when a girl in a Santa suit offers him tissues, he instantly falls for her. As he tries to pursue this girl, his friends also try to help, but their meddling makes their relationship much more difficult.
While Play It Cool, Guys never heads into romance, Rainbow Days is all about the love lives of four handsome boys. The similarity between these series lie in the awkwardness of the characters.
Rainbow Days sticks a bit closer to character archetypes, but they do still stumble as young characters should. It just isn’t to the same comical degree as Play It Cool, Guys.
Bocchi the Rock
Having social anxiety but still wishing to make friends, Hitori Gotou started learning the guitar to help lure people into talking to her. Years later, she has amassed great guitar skills, but is in high school with still no friends.
One day, she happens to meet an outgoing girl who just so happens to need a guitarist for her band. Gaining the nickname Bocchi, Hitori is recruited in and puts her heart into improving her stage skills to make the band a success.
Socially awkward cute anime girls is a recently growing trend, but what makes Bocchi the Rock great and often more beloved than other shows about socially awkward cute anime girls is how relatably it is presented.
Bocchi knows exactly what she is, and tries her best to be graceful with her flaws, not unlike the boys in Play It Cool. That said, Bocchi the Rock does follow a music-based plot whereas Play It Cool, Guys is more short skits.
For Fans of Cute Boys Doing Cute Things
Yotsuiro Biyori
Kyousui Tougoku has inherited a Japanese-style cafe called Rokuhoudou from his grandfather. The staff of the cafe does their very best to ensure service that will turn one-time customers into long-time patrons. However, pleasant days turn into chaotic ones when the cafe turns into an overnight sensation.
Both series are about handsome men, but about handsome men who are more awkward than they look.
While Play It Cool has the guys just going about regular life, Yotsuiro Biyori pens them all up in a cafe to keep their shenanigans more focused.
Regardless, the awkward comedy in both shows is the charm here.
Sanrio Boys
Kouta Hasegawa is a completely normal high school student who likes his Pompompurin stuffed animal, a Sanrio character modeled after a Golden Retriever, which his grandmother gave him when he was young.
However, after being made fun of, he became ashamed of them. That all changes when he starts meeting other boys that like Sanrio characters.
Both series are lower plot slice of life anime series surrounding the life and interests of handsome young men.
Sanrio Boys, as it is a series about boys that like cute plushies, dips a toe into drama at times because of gender stereotypes.
Both series feature young men who seem like flawless perfect men but are presented as more dynamic characters than the standard handsome man anime stereotypes.
Gakuen Babysitters
After the death of his parents, teenage Ryuuchi becomes the caretaker of his younger brother Kotarou. After meeting a chairman of an elite academy at his parent’s funeral, they are given room and board in exchange for him becoming the school’s babysitter – a role established to support the female teachers.
While innately different in content, what Play It Cool shares with Gakuen Babysitters is a passion for making cute guys be quite wholesome.
Gakuen Babysitters has them interacting with small children while Play It Cool is wholesome in its relatable awkward situations.
They are both great stress-free series to unwind to.
Sasaki and Miyano
Much of his life at his all-boy’s school for Miyano is worrying about how girly his face looks and hiding his secret love of boy’s love manga.
However, after witnessing a fight, he has a clandestine meeting with an older delinquent student named Sasaki. Afterwards, Sasaki seems to jump at every opportunity to be around Miyano.
To be transparent, Sasaki and Miyano is a boy’s love series. However, it is part of the newer wave of boy’s love where the characters act like normal people instead of horny animals.
With that out of the way, while Sasaki and Miyano aims towards romantic moments as things go on, something Play It Cool lacks, it is about wholesome moments between a group of boys where they stumble through their awkward youth.
Both series have a certain coziness to the content and are often shows you just relax and enjoy.
For Fans of Cute, Bite-Sized Stories
Rainy Cocoa
Rainy Color is a cozy cafe known for its hot chocolate. Aoi works as a server there and locals are charmed by his good, but girlish looks. When two college students start frequenting the Rainy Color, Aoi finds himself drawn into their more interesting lives.
Both series have short-form episodes, though Rainy Cocoa is much shorter at about two minutes per episode.
Regardless, what they have in common aside from that is they are both about handsome, friendly men interacting with people in their daily lives in comical situations.
Tsurezure Children
Tsurezure Children depicts the many different scenarios of young love.
From the relationship between the student council president and a rebel girl to a boy so crippled by his own lack of self-confidence that he can’t accept that a girl confessed to him.
You follow their triumphs and failures throughout the relationships of half a dozen young couples.
Both series have short-form episodes that are about twelve minutes each. In those twelve minutes, they both pack a decent amount of characters that are just having wholesome and comedic slice of life moments.
While Play It Cool, Guys is about smoothly recovering from your standard awkward moments, Tsurezure Children is about romantic moments, many of them awkward as well.
You want a series to watch just to make you feel happy? They are both that.
Super Seisyun Brothers
This is the tale of two sets of elder sisters and younger brothers. The Shinmoto’s are a bit narcissistic while the Saito’s are a bit mysterious. This is the story of the various ways the two sets of siblings intertwine comically with each other.
Both anime series feature short episodes about more realistic characters just living their lives. What these series both have in common is they often feel like they will develop into romance series, but never do.
Instead you just get light slice of life comedy situations between friend groups.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Play It Cool, Guys? Let fans know in the comments section below.
