Got fired from your job? Got an F on a test? Got dumped by your someone? There are a lot of reasons to feel down. Sometimes you don’t even need a reason, it just sort of happens. However, while you can stay in bed all day, you mind as well do something while lying there, right? Watch some anime. You never know, it might help.
Maybe you turn on a series and suddenly you find yourself laying there, holding your gut because those deep, satisfying belly laughs really hurt your side. Perhaps you find yourself watching a series that really resonated within you, offering up a much needed solution to your problems. Perhaps the series just gives you that much-needed kick in the butt so that you can lift yourself up by your own bootstraps and go fight another day.
If you can barely muster the energy to keep on living. Watch these anime series in an effort to cheer yourself up.
Best Cheerful Anime
Toradora
Love is a fickle thing. Sometimes you think you want one thing, but what you really want is right there in front of you. That is essentially what Toradora is about. It is about love, but it is also about being you even when everyone else thinks you are something else based on how you look.
Taiga looks like a doll, but has a fiery temper. Ryuuji looks like a thug, but it is as polite, responsible, and motherly as they come. While trying to overcome what people have pegged them as and attract the people they have crushes on, the pair become friends and realize that the people they want to love them might not actually be who they actually love. It is a pretty touching and, at times, funny, story that even those who don’t enjoy romance anime will enjoy.
The Flying Witch
The Flying Witch is a series you don’t need to try to hard with. it doesn’t have a complicated plot to keep on top of. There aren’t dozens of characters. It is the type of show that relishes in nature, simple happy moments, and a little bit of simple magic.
Non Non Biyori
Much in the same vein as The Flying Witch, Non Non Biyori is about nothing in particular. It focuses on a group of young girls trying not to be bored. While there is no supernatural bint to it, there is magic in this show in the form of its soothing environmental visuals. It’s happy, it’s silly, and it is overall very cute. Sometimes that is the best medicine.
Usagi Drop
Most parents in anime are drama fodder, ending up dead or absent. However, Usagi Drop gives you a heart-warming look at family, even if that family is made up between a man and a child that is technically his illegitimate aunt. After a bachelor agrees to take in his grandfather’s illegitimate daughter, you get to see the pair overcome grief and all the hurdles and sacrifices that come with adjusting to life with a small child. It’s hard, but it is rewarding. If nothing else, it will show you how to savor the small moments.
Ghost Stories
The enjoyment of this anime is strictly limited to watching only the dub. At some point, someone wondered how to make a relatively sub-standard anime more likable to foreign audiences, and the Ghost Stories dub is the result. Ghost Stories is about, well, ghost stories, or rather a group of kids sealing a bunch of ghosts that were let loose around their school. However, they ended up turning it into a comedy by not taking the show quite so serious.
It’s hard to explain, but the dub is a show that will have you rolling around with laughter if you let it. It also helps that you can really hear the voice actors having fun with it, and that is something that doesn’t shine through in many series.
Nichijou
Nichijou is simple in every possible way, from animation to story. It follows the daily lives of three high school girls. Throughout its run, it blends simple slice of life stories that are accented with something innately strange, like the principal suplexing a deer or getting bitten by a talking crow. It is the simplicity combined with the big dash of unpredictability that makes Nichijou so much fun to watch.
Silver Spoon
You know how you would never want to play a game about farming like Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, but then you play it and it becomes your whole life for awhile? Silver Spoon is like that.
You really don’t see yourself liking an anime about farming, but then you start and you can’t stop laughing and suddenly feel like you are ready for whatever hard work the world throws at you. Aside from being charmed by the vibrant setting and quirky cast of characters, Silver Spoon will also give you a brief, but accurate glimpse into where your food comes from too.
Welcome to the NHK
Welcome to the NHK is a tricky recommendation. The anime is actually about depression and is rather black in its comedy about it. For some, it gives them hope. For others, it makes things worse. It is all about how you look at it, I suppose.
However, for those that have issues with anxiety, I highly recommend it. It may give you a new outlook on how to deal with it through a character so relatable it is like looking at yourself in a mirror.
B Gata H Kei
The premise of B Gata H Kei is a girl wants to sleep with 100 guys, but wants to lose her V-card first. While this is an easily solved problem, she is bashful about it and chooses an equally shy guy. While it sounds pretty suspect, the anime is actually very wholesome, but may not be best for people who aren’t amused by sexual humor.
Barakamon
The premise of Barakamon alone will not win anyone over. In fact, it sounds downright boring. It is about a calligraphy artist that moves to a rural town in order to get his artistic inspiration back but get endlessly pestered by kids.
There is no love triangle, no giant mechs, and, from the beginning to the end, nothing much changes at all. However, it is one of those perfect slice of life anime series that you turn on when you want to relax and have a few laughs. It is one of those series that you watch when regular life is kind of getting to be too much.
Konosuba
Isekai is a pretty saturated genre now, likely because people crave the escape that those plots offer. However, for all the many isekai series, Konosuba still sits as king of the comedic ones.
While it lacks an overall plot aside from not falling to the menace that is extreme poverty, it focuses on the adventures of a group of misfits that would not fit in any proper adventuring party. Their normal adventures often go wrong in the most entertaining of ways.
Tsurezure Children
When it comes to getting that little boost in your brain, most romance series are a pretty solid bet. However, if you need that boost as fast and as frequent as possible, Tsurezure Children is for you. It is a show that focuses on half a dozen couples, concentrates on all the cute moments in each episode, and skips all the drama that most romance anime feels necessary to have.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Now, here me out. It doesn’t matter what is going on in your life. It isn’t something that can’t be helped with a little absolute ridiculousness. That is what much of Jojo is. Ridiculous. It is why it has so many memes and such an insanely passionate fan base. It’s strange and funny in the most unexpected ways.
It also helps that it is a show long enough that you can really lose yourself in there for awhile.
ReLife
Who doesn’t wish there was some way to redo their life? The plot of ReLife is essentially that, but the main character is given the ability to look like a teen and return to high school for a time. This program hopes to rehabilitate him after an incident left him a NEET and general failure as an adult.
Hinamatsuri
As it follows a strange girl with supernatural powers who ends up living with a gangster, you might think Hinamatsuri’s charm is being weird. While it can be exactly that, it is Hinamatsuri is indescribable, but effective comedy that is the charm. The randomness of the jokes are really what makes it so addicting, and sometimes all you need is to be hit off-guard just right.
The Devil is a Part-Timer
If you ever feel like your life trajectory is way off course, just watch the antics of a Demon Lord who isekai’d his way to our world and has to work as a fast food worker just to pay rent. It is amusing, if nothing else.
Natsume’s Book of Friends
This series is like a soothing cup of tea and a fluffy blanket. There isn’t anything heavy to think about and nothing to bring you down. It is just a kid helping spirits and, in some ways, helping himself.
Shimoneta: A World Where Dirty Jokes Don’t Exist
Lewd comedy isn’t for everyone, but a solid dirty joke can hit just right sometimes. Shimoneta, with a title like that, is of course a non-stop barrage of dirty jokes. It is actually really impressive how many they do wedge in there.
My Roommate is a Cat
A depressed author gets a cat accidentally. That’s it. That’s the plot, but it ends up better than you expect. The guy is learning to take care of a cat when he barely takes care of himself, and about half of every episode is from the cat’s perspective about how she is taking care of him. It’s very wholesome.
Assassination Classroom
It seems like a show about a bunch of students trying to kill their monster teacher, but it is more than that. Their teacher is actually a pretty competent molder of young minds. He takes these students that their ultra competitive school gave up on, and helps them see their worth and skill. Most students have their own little arcs, and it ends up being very touching at times as well as a solid comedy and drama by the end as you develop attachments.
Did we miss one of your favorite anime series that always cheers you up and puts you right? Don’t keep it a secret. Share it with the world in the comments section below.
