Slice Of Life Anime That Will Warm Your Heart

Key points

• Slice-of-Life anime offers welcoming, wholesome content for viewers looking for a break from the action and fantasy.
• Laid-Back Camp, Restaurant to Another World, and The Way of the Househusband are the best slice-of-life anime to watch.
• Sweetness & Lightning combines heartwarming moments, delicious food and the love of family.

When fans hear the word anime, the first things that usually come to mind are action, martial arts, and fantasy. After all, the most popular titles this medium has to offer—Dragon Ball, Naruto, One piece, Demon slayer, AND My academic world of heroesjust to name a few, belong to these genres. That's why these are the genres that most anime fans love.

However, there are times when viewers are simply not in the mood for such loud, busy and fast-paced action fantasy stories. All they want is a cozy anime without overly complicated stories and flashy effects. Something nice and simple to soothe tired bones. For such a situation, Slice-of-Life anime is the best option.

7 Relaxed camp

Cozy camping in scenic locations

One of the best things you can do to relax your tired bones and soothe your weary soul is to sit outside next to a warm campfire while gazing at the countless stars above your head with a cup of hot chocolate in hand. In other words, camping. If this sounds like your type of jam, then fans should check it out Relaxed camp.

This anime is about a couple of friends from their school's camping club who are crazy about camping. Here fans will see how they plan their trip, the different camping destinations they'll visit (all based on real places, by the way), and the kinds of fun and relaxing activities they do when they camp together.

6 Restaurant in another world

Delicious cuisines for magical creatures

One of the fastest ways to heal your heart is to fill your stomach with delicious foods. Luckily, a lot of anime revolve around foods released in the last couple of years, so viewers have quite a few to choose from. One of the most interesting of all it has to be Restaurant in another world. Why? Because it is the perfect combination of slice-of-life and isekai.

In Restaurant in another worlda Western-style restaurant called Nekoya in Tokyo has a mysterious door that connects this fine dining establishment to a world full of magical creatures, such as elves, dwarves, beastmen and the like. So every Saturday, Nekoya closes its doors in Tokyo and focuses on serving good food to its magical customers who have never eaten such fine cuisine before.

5 The way of the housewife

Ex-Yakuza becomes devoted stay-at-home husband

There's something healing about seeing two people who are genuinely in love and want to do the best for each other. The Household Way fits that description perfectly. Not only that, this title also offers a lot more good things in it, which makes it stand out from other similar titles.

As a former member of the Yakuza, Tatsu is an intimidating man. His brazen language, the tattoos that can be seen on his loose-fitting shirt, the sharp look behind his sunglasses and his menacing attitude, all this is enough to scare people. What most people don't understand, however, is the fact that Tatsu is a kind househusband who loves to cook delicious food for his wife. Not only that, he is also very knowledgeable about home life. Which store sells the cheapest vegetables? How to clean a stubborn stain from clothes? How to prepare a healthy and delicious hot dish? He knows everything.

4 Polar bear cafe

Daily life in a bar owned by a cold polar bear

When it comes to things that can warm your heart, fluffy animals have to be in the top five. And when it comes to fluffy animals, bears are definitely at the top of the list, especially pandas and polar bears. Sure, a real polar bear is a dangerous animal and should only be admired from afar, but that doesn't change the fact that they are among the most adorable-looking creatures on Earth.

So it stands to reason that anime revolving around pandas and polar bears will be absolutely wholesome and heartwarming. But what if the polar bear in this anime is a bar owner who likes to play puns with his customers? Not only that, what if the panda is a lazy boy who works part-time at a zoo because his mother nags him to get a job? If this sounds like your kind of slice-of-life comedy, then you should watch it Polar bear cafe.

3 Hakumei and Mikochi

A healthy life of small people in a big world

• Japanese title: Hakumei to Mikochi
• Seasons/episodes: 1 season/12 episodes
• Release date: January 12, 2018
• MyAnimeList Score: 7.69/10

The real appeal of a slice-of-life anime, and what makes it so wholesome in the first place, is that it's a snapshot of the characters' daily lives. In a way, this genre is about portraying mundane things in interesting and wholesome ways. In this regard, Hakumei and Mikochi is one of the best this genre has to offer.

At its center, Hakumei and Mikochi it's a story about little people living in a big world. Viewers follow the two main characters as they go through their days. They see them riding a pair of cockroaches in search of a giant bird that resides at the top of a hill. There's also the time they shop at a city-sized market, visit a cafe offering local delicacies, meet a monkey shop owner who asks Mikochi to try his newest soy sauce, have lunch downstairs a giant tree in the heart of the market and stand on the harbor to watch the sunset.

2 Tantalizing Master Takagi-san

A heartwarming interaction between two pranksters

Among all the storytelling genres, romance has to be at the top of the list when it comes to producing stories that can warm your heart. Unfortunately, in addition to heartwarming, romance also offers pain to make for gripping drama. And this is where slice of life comes into play. So fans need an anime that has the heartwarming element of romance, minus the drama, and the wholesome slice-of-life element.

The one title that most fits that description has to be Tantalizing Master Takagi-san. This is the story of two middle school students, a boy named Nishikata and a girl named Takagi, who clearly like each other but are too shy to admit their feelings. So they resort to teasing and playing games instead. Nishikata will challenge Takagi to all kinds of little games every day, only to be defeated by Takagi and made fun of for it. Their interaction is so sweet and heartwarming that viewers can't help but smile during each episode.

1 Sweetness and Lightning

A wholesome story of love, family and food

Sweetness and Lightning is somewhat of a culmination of the previous entries. It's the story of a single father, Kohei, who tries to do his best for his young daughter, Tsumugi, so fans get that sweet, innocent love of The Household Way AND Tantalizing Master Takagi-san.

Kohei does this by learning to cook his daughter's favorite dishes from one of his students, Kotori, whose mother is a chef but is rarely home to eat with her. So there's the realistic element of Relaxed camp and the delicious foods of Restaurant in another world in it too. The sight of little Tsumugi enthusiastically eating the Hamburg steak that her father prepared for the first time is simply an overload of cuteness, on par with the bears and pandas in the Polar bear cafe.

This anime is lighthearted, funny, heartwarming, and just the perfect thing to watch after a tiring day. If there is only one anime that fans can watch from this list, then they should definitely check it out Sweetness and Lightning.