I enjoy engaging plots and tautly paced storytelling as much as the next person, but sometimes you just have a day, you know? You have a day, and you no longer wish to think about anything, even whatever entertainment you choose to unwind with.
You just want to sit down and enjoy something that is nice. Like thousands of people who come home and play peaceful cozy games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, you need yourself a cozy anime.
These cozy anime recommendations aren’t exactly rich with plot, but they are rich wish good vibes, likable characters, and a pleasant setting.
Cozy Anime
Laid-Back Camp
Cozy anime has a deep relationship with the Cute Girls Doing Cute Things genre of anime. While this list is not exclusively populated by CGDCT anime, it is a great broad genre to look into for further cozy anime.
Regardless, Laid-Back Camp is easily the most popular of both CGDCT and the cozy genres of anime at present because of how effective it is at presenting its characters and its soothing subject matter.
The “thing” that these “cute girls” are doing in Laid-Back Camp is winter camping. The series often splits focus between a reserved girl that likes winter camping alone and a more outgoing new girl in town who wedges her way in with hard-to-hate enthusiasm and clumsiness.
Regardless, while the characters are likable, normal girls, the star of Laid-Back Camp is the visuals. It highlights the beauty of Japan’s natural landscape in the ultimate soothing way. It is a great show to unwind with if you enjoy the outdoors, but definitely don’t want to put the effort into going out there like, right now.
Sweetness and Lightning
All settled in with some dope snackies? Good, because Sweetness and Lightning is not for those determined to watch their waistline.
While calorie-free in and of itself, Sweetness and Lightning follows a school teacher and recent widower who does his best to care for his young daughter on his own. In an effort to provide her healthy, delicious food, he starts learning to cook with one of his students whose mother owns a restaurant.
Not only do you get a dose of adorable kid antics that also doesn’t completely shy away from the realities of parenthood, but you get to watch them make a lot of great food using real recipes.
Like most – if not all – food anime, Sweetness and Lightning has the side effect of making you quite hungry with is visuals of not just food, but of the people so happy to eat it.
The Flying Witch
Not all supernatural and fantasy anime needs to be about flashy magic and exciting fights, sometimes the real magic is found in the world around us.
The Flying Witch follows a young witch who is staying with her cousins in rural Japan because the area is known to be conducive to magical energy. Each day, she spends time with her family and hones her witchcraft by interacting and exploring the natural landscape.
The Flying Witch is really a witch anime for the Wiccans out there as it presents magic as something not flashy and destructive, but deeply steeped in the natural world.
My Roommate is a Cat
You know what they say, “If you are lonely, get a cat.” While that sage advice doesn’t factor in actually having proper time and money to care for a pet, it is an effective way to combat loneliness, and exactly what My Roommate is a Cat is about.
My Roommate is a Cat follows a novelist whose parents passed away when he was young and who has been supporting himself ever since. However, as he had to do it at such a young age, he is not exactly very good at self-care. When he finds a stray cat at the grave of his parents, he take her home since it seemed to be struggling.
From there, the each episode is split in two halves. One half is about the human learning to take care of a cat, the other half is about a cat feeling the need to take care of this strange human who can barely remember to feed himself.
Non Non Biyori
Non Non Biyori is for those seeking a peaceful escape to the country without actually having to put in the effort of planning the logistics and leaving the house.
This CGDCT series follows four girls in rural Japan, in a town so rural that the four girls of different ages are all taught in a one-room school. As for the plot, well, there’s isn’t any plot. The adventures of the day that these girls use to entertain themselves is the plot.
While plotless adventures of girls in the country is good enough for some, what really sells Non Non Biyori to people is the setting. Even in its very first episode it gives you solid minutes lingering on vibrant countryside visuals with the peaceful rush of streams and hum of cicadas in the background. It captures summer vibes with ease, making this a great watch for those dreary winter days.
Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You
If romance anime is your idea of cozy anime, then you have likely found it hard to find nice romance anime that also isn’t dense with drama. While newer romance anime is definitely saying goodbye to the ham-fisted shoujo drama tropes of older times, most romance anime still needs to have hurdles in the relationship to keep it interesting.
Tonikawa is a cozy romance anime without hurdles.
Tonikawa follows the married life of a man who was so taken by the beauty of a girl that he got hit by a bus jaywalking to try to talk to her. While he survives this, he asks her to marry him. After disappearing for some time, she shows back up with marriage papers – all in the first episode.
So, these two literal strangers adjust to marriage life. While that sounds like actually a pretty valid recipe for drama, Tonikawa is more fluff than anything else. They do nice things together, they never fight seriously, and they grow closer to each other in an all-around pleasant way.
Barakamon
Imagine if things got to be just too much and you threw such a hissy-fit about it that your family sequesters you to a peaceful rural Japanese island to play with neighborhood kids.
That’s Barakamon.
This series follows a calligraphy artist that had an angry outburst at a critic. To sort out his attitude, he was sent to a rural Japanese island to cool off. While he intended to just “serve his time” and work on his art, he ends up constantly pulled into the adventures of the curious neighborhood kids who swarm his house.
Barakamon is everything that you might need in a cozy anime at this particular time. It has a peaceful setting, fun characters, and it is really about a man using a stress-free environment to work out his emotional issues and get to the root of why is was so angry.
Aharen-san is Indecipherable
While school-set romance can be a little bit too drama-focused to be considered cozy, Aharen-san is Indecipherable provides a satisfying romance anime experience while still primarily being a goofy comedy.
The series follows Raido, a stoic and scary-looking guy who is excited to try and make new friends in high school. He starts optimistically by saying hello to his seat neighbor, Aharen, who seems to snub him. He learns later that she wasn’t snubbing him maliciously or out of fear, but because she is very quiet and has a hard time appropriately judging personal space. This means when she tries to talk, she often is in everyone’s personal bubble, putting them off immediately.
Raido tries to help her reach out and make new friends with the pair of these too-similar goofballs getting into a lot of comical shenanigans along the way.
While everyone enjoyed Aharen-san is Indecipherable as a comedy, no one expected there to be actual romantic progression – but there is, and it makes it all the better.
Do It Yourself
Similar to Laid-Back Camp, Do It Yourself is about Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, but is also about the characters being more “actual complex characters,” and less “moeblobs of pristine cuteness.”
Do It Yourself is set in a not-too-distant future where capitalism has won a little more and most people just buy the hottest new tech instead of build or repair the things that they already own. For one cheerful, accident-prone girl, she happens upon a shed on the school grounds and finds a reserved girl who enjoys fixing and making things. Taking an increased interest in the activity, a number of other outcasts get drawn to the club and discover a love of doing crafts and repairs instead of learning new technology.
The series is separated from our reality by slightly more futuristic technology, but it still rings true to our modern world where repair – and even the right to repair – is becoming less common when you could just go buy a new, allegedly better, thing. However, while that subtext lurks in the background, it doesn’t seep too far into the peaceful enjoyment presented in this series about building strong friendships over building things.
My New Boss is Goofy
Cute Girls Doing Cute Things is a well-established, long-adored genre, but Cute Boys Doing Cute Things is fast-growing as more and more women dive deep into the weebier corners of anime and men embrace more sensitive natures.
My New Boss is Goofy follows an office worker at a new job. His previous boss was so exploitative and cruel that it left him with not just mental trauma, but physical side effects like ulcers. When he is assigned to work under a serious-looking man at his new office, he is concerned, but ultimately so happy to find that this stoic guy is kind of adorably clumsy.
From there, it introduces an array of dour-looking salarymen who all have a lovable cute side to them as they go about their daily lives at work and beyond.
Gakuen Babysitters
What is more cozy the getting to enjoy the cute antics of young toddlers that you are in no way responsible for?
Gakuen Babysitters follows a high school boy who took over care of his infant brother after the sudden death of his parents. Struggling to take care of everything financially, he is offered room and board at school in exchange for taking care of the young children of the teachers in a support program.
While Gakuen Babysitters is often just little kids being cute – as they do – it is also about the main character expanding his own social support circle and unpacking the large amount of emotional baggage being an orphan and new parent has left him with. That said, it never becomes too heavy with the heavier moments, but instead explores them in a distinctly wholesome way.
Mr. Villain’s Day Off
Is it your day off? Time to learn about how this “completely average, excessively normal, not at all a space alien” spends his days off when he is not trying to destroy humanity.
Mr. Villain’s Day Off is about just what it says on the label. A general in an alien organization that is fighting to destroy humanity is very dedicated to his job, but is just as dedicated to his time off.
You watch him as he does normal things like chores and shopping, but also get to see him wholesomely interact with the community. After all, it’s his day off. There is no need to be mean and confrontational when you are just going to see some pandas at the zoo.
Mr. Villain’s Day Off is quintessential slice of life with a fun fantasy/Super Sentai twist to it. It makes a point of having this tough, unfriendly-looking guy do the cutest things in the most normal-seeming way, and that is a huge part of its charm.
The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today
Overworked, underpaid, but just doing it everyday anyway to survive? Well, that is, unfortunately, most people.
The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today offers no solutions to the grind, but it does provide a balm for it in a form of a giant cat that takes care of his office lady like a fluffy housewife.
Not unlike My Roommate is a Cat, The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today follows an office lady who is a bit of a hot mess and struggles to take care of herself. She finds a stray cat in a snowstorm and brings him home to her trash-laden apartment where he decides to take care of her.
He grows above and beyond even the size of his human master and starts to act more human-like as he takes care of the house chores and cooks for her while still providing all the companionship that a fickle cat can offer.
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague
Romance anime about adults is rare, and romance anime about adults that feels like it is going on between two normal people is even more rare. While The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague adds a big dose of supernatural to the world, it is probably one of the most modern-feeling romance anime to date.
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague follows two new office workers that started at the same company at the same time. One is a somewhat nervous young man who is the descendant of a Yuki-Onna, a yokai that produces snow when flustered. The other is a woman so reserved that most people think she has a cold and unfriendly personality, but instead she just doesn’t know how to reach out to people.
As they end up desk neighbors at work, they form an increasingly close relationship with each other as they go about their day-to-day in the office. As this isn’t a romance series that dabbles in drama at all, The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague keeps things interesting by introducing new potential couples around the office, all made of up of normal humans and those descended from various Japanese yokai.
Natsume’s Book of Friends
If you are looking for something of significant length because mustering up the effort to constantly find new anime to watch is becoming a chore, Natsume’s Book of Friends provides a long and soothing exploration of low-to-no action yokai problems.
The series follows a boy who has been able to see spirits since birth. As an “odd kid,” this ostracized him from most people until one day he discovered he inherited his grandmother’s Book of Friends. She could also see spirits and had defeated and subdued many of them through contract by naming them in the book.
While her grandson has no interest in the immense power the book provides, he endeavors to set free the more harmless spirits in the book by helping them with their problems.
With six seasons, a movie, and an upcoming seventh season, you no longer need to summon the energy to breach into Gintama or One Piece. It provides all the cozy you will need for awhile.
Do you have more cozy anime recommendations for the chronically stressed to enjoy? Let fans know in the comments section below.
