Welcome to the Anime Grab Bag! In this series, we’ll dive into the depths of specific anime subgenres and hunt, perhaps futilely, for hidden gems. Each month, long-time otaku and old friends Leah and Bridget will spin a custom roulette wheel composed of qualifying anime and watch three random pilot episodes. You can find this volume’s wheel here!
While the wheel will contain almost every possible title in the subgenre, your hosts must abide by the following rules:
- Each show must be an anime that at least one host has never seen.
- Each show must be available to stream somewhere so readers can join in if they want to.
- We are forbidden from doing any research on the show before viewing it, although a simple Google search and some Wikipedia-ing during and after are fair game.
We’ll react to our selections and share our thoughts on where they fit into the anime landscape. We’ll comment on everything from music direction to character design, make comparisons to other series, and finally ask the most important question: Would we watch more of this?
Feel free to play along by watching these shows (if you dare), spinning the wheel to meet your fate, or sharing your thoughts below.
This week, we invite you to relax as we focus on shows that showcase the fleeting joys of daily life. Iyashikei is a subgenre that developed as a response to traumatic world events, created with the specific intention of comforting and healing its audience. It began in the wake of WWII, but saw a huge resurgence in popularity after a terrorist attack and a devastating earthquake rocked Japan in the ’90s. This week is all about atmosphere over story, and soothing imagery takes center stage. Cuddle up with a blanket and a cup of hojicha; it’s time for Iyashikei Cozy Corner.
L: Okay, do we have a wheel to spin?
B: We do. And I’ve thought about it. I’ve decided that iyashikei can be divided into a few subgenres. One is spec-fic-meets-slice-of-life. Another is cute (moe), usually 4-koma. And another is, like, something to do with a father.
L: Wait, what?
B: You know what I mean. The genre of single fathers. Shows where a sad guy unexpectedly becomes a dad and finds meaning in life.
L: …ah, and then we all make sure to never, ever watch the second season or read the problematic manga ending.
B: Not all of them go that way. But there are at least ten shows in the sad-dad category.
[Both Bridget and Leah remember the Usagi Drop debacle. Two great sad-dad shows that dodge that gross bullet are Barakamon and Poco’s Udon World.]
First Spin: Sora no Woto (A-1 Pictures/Aniplex, 2010)
L: The military brass band girls show. We’ve both seen it, right?
B: I enjoyed it.
L: I was pretty bored.
B: It’s very much, “We’re going to stop a war by playing ‘Amazing Grace’ on the trumpet!”
L: Military-kei just isn’t really my aesthetic.
B: Honestly, it’s not really mine, either.
Sora no Woto was disqualified for breaking the first rule of Anime Grab Bag.
Second Spin: Danchigai (Creators in Pack, 2015)
B: This is one I have never heard of before. But it looks pretty… bad.
L: Danchigai? Let’s see. Based on a four-panel comic, and it’s about a brother… and… oh. His four sisters.
B: Yeah, that was my worry.
L: Is it a little…“Oh, I might kiss my sister!”?
B: That might be the case. And that is not iyashikei.
L: The wheel has decided on a dark fate for us today. What is that Tumblr term for, um, consensual incest?
B: …statutory r*pe?
L: I totally agree. Oh man. I am not about it. Oh god, what if the wheel gives us only incest titles today?
B: Noooooooooo.
L: Oh, wait, it’s a short. Four minutes of torture only.
B: Oh, thank god.
Viewing Summary
A teenage boy wakes up with his little sister clutching him. He helped her study all night. When she wakes up and feels him underneath her, she blushes and screams and calls him a pervert. This is such good comedy! We learn that his older sister is hot, and their Mom is on vacation. While the brother brushes his teeth, his two younger sisters grab hold of him and do not let go. Ha, ha, ha!
B: I don’t feel healed.
L: whatthefuckisthissss
The tiny siblings soon remind brother-kun that they aren’t little kids anymore. But they are little kids. Ah, ha ha? Meanwhile, his hot older sister is hot. They head for school.
Credits, thank fuck.
Conclusions
L: You ask yourself, “Why does this exist?” and then you think, “I know why, and I don’t like why this exists.”
B: That one show My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute really ruined anime for a few years.
L: This was pretending to be a cute comedy but it’s just thinly veiled fetish material. “How many ways can we get his sisters to grab him and pretend it’s innocent?”
B: I have to say that did not qualify as iyashikei. This does not fulfill the main tenet of the genre. And the genre is more a feeling you get than a strict genre. Sometimes slice-of-life just gets lumped in.
L: It was not cozy. It was sinister.
Would we watch more?
Third Spin: A Place Further Than the Universe (Madhouse, 2018)
B: This is one I have been wanting to watch. It’s about girls on an Antarctic expedition.
L: That sounds great. It doesn’t sound like there are any brothers there.
B: It is probably Brother-Free.
L: It looks like Yuru Camp in the snow.
B: I know! That’s why I wanted to watch it!
Viewing Summary
We open on a beautiful nautical scene. Seabirds perch on ropes, the ocean laps against the hull of an orange ship. Our narrator, high school second-year Mari Tamaki, tells us how much she has always loved watching water overflow from stagnant pools, liberated. An orchestral score stirs our hearts. Leah sighs, “This is so pretty…”
But now we are in Mari’s cluttered room, and her Mom is waking her with a wet rag to the face because Mari can’t seem to drag herself out of bed. Mari is frustrated. She had such grand ambitions for her teen years, according to her diary. She wanted to skip class, embark on a journey with no plan, and live an eventful youth. Unfortunately, she lacks the confidence to commit to any of these ambitions. Despite the support of her friend, who offers to cover for her when she plays hooky, Mari can’t commit to breaking the rules.
Bridget is already saying, “Aw,” approximately every ten seconds.
Mari packs an extra change of clothes and tries to board a train to the seaside the next day. All too soon, she backs out and blames the rain. “I got scared like I always have. I did what I always do and chickened out.” She is disappointed at herself for being so afraid of trying new things. Her mind is always plagued by what could go wrong. Anxiety is a real pain in the ass.
B: She is so relatable.
L: Very.
Mari heads home dejected, but at the train station a long-haired girl runs by and drops an envelope. Inside is 1 million yen (about 7,000 USD, give or take.) Mari is a good egg, and knows that the girl attends her school because of her uniform. She finds her the next day, crying over the lost money in a bathroom stall. Her name is Shirase Kobuchizawa and she embraces Mari and thanks her for returning the money.
Though beautiful and kind, Shirase finds herself socially alienated because she harbors a unique passion: she is determined to travel to Antarctica in search of her mother, an explorer who went missing on an expedition three years prior. Shirase works part-time jobs and talks about nothing but her future trip. Other kids think she is delusional.
B: She’s so passionate.
L: She’s going to get there.
B: Also, the coloring in this anime is so good. Everything is drab except for the Antarctica stuff.
After school, the pair reconvene after Mari chases some mean girls away from Shirase. Mari tells Shirase that she thinks her dream is wonderful and she wants to support it. Shirase is not convinced, so she puts Mari to the test. “Okay, then come with me!” She tells Mari that if she’s serious about supporting her dream, she should meet her at a ship exhibition in Hiroshima prefecture. The girls live in Gunma, and Hiroshima is at least 7 hours away, even by bullet train.
Even so, Mari wakes before dawn the next morning. She has cleaned her room and packed her bags. She boards the Nozomi shinkansen to Hiroshima on a Saturday morning, and Shirase beams when they collide onboard. A wonderful friendship is born.
B: Mari is the kind of person who can do it for someone else if she can’t do it for herself.
L: Go, girls, go!
Conclusions
B: They are going to form an Antarctica Club! And you can’t have a club with just one person, so they’re going to make some new friends.
L: That was lovely. Very inspiring. I just got back from a trip, and the first thing you want to do is book another one. This show understands the love travel instills in a person.
B: It has that thing that I love about Aria and Yuru Camp, which is people being passionate about something. And sometimes people think your dreams are crazy, but you have to commit anyway. You have to do your own thing.
L: When I got my job here (in Japan), because it was COVID and the borders were closed and the move kept getting delayed, people started to believe I was delusional and that I would never get here. I remember feeling a little insulted by that. If I say I am going to do it, I am going to do it. Sometimes people have this weird, toxic mindset that their dismissal will make someone else give up on a dream. I wonder if it’s like a defense mechanism, or because a dream can be threatening to those who can’t bring themselves to pursue one. You and I both know these girls are absolutely going to make it to Antarctica. Forget the haters.
B: I think it’s going to be a wholesome little group of friends. And it’s such a unique premise.
L: It’s a tangible dream, and it’s cool that it is motivating Mari to sort her life out.
Would we watch more?
B: Totally, it is so up my alley.
L: It’s more up your alley than mine, but I agree.
B: It’s very beautiful and life-affirming. It acknowledges that sometimes things are hard but dreams are still worth pursuing.
L: Yeah, because we already know her mother went missing.
B: That’s a staple of iyashikei. Like, a tragedy in the past or someone missing. It’s not always described in detail, but there’s this idea that the characters are recovering from something. In Aria, Akari goes to Aria Company (on terraformed Mars, to work as a gondolier), and the show only mentions Earth sometimes. And Earth sounds bad. Drab, disorganized, and maybe dystopian. No natural food, concrete cities, everything’s artificial. Everything is on a grid. The iyashikei genre is about distancing yourself from the bad in your life.
L: It’s hard to heal without looking at a bad thing from outside of it. Distance helps with objectivity.
B: People have written about how iyashikei emerged to cope with the trauma so many people were left with following WWII. Iyashikei is comforting, but only because of the existence of sadness. You have to be hurt to be healed. This show has that vibe.
L: Sometimes you need a little assistance to cope with something awful. It is really lovely to think that artists invented a whole genre in the hopes of easing people back into a sense of normalcy.
We will be watching more of this one.
Fourth Spin: Ikoku Meiro no Croisée The Animation (Satelight, 2011)
This is a show about a little Japanese girl working as an assistant to an ironworker in Paris, circa late 1800s. It’s also about negotiating cultural differences and decent people learning to respect each other.
B: Ah, this is one we have both seen and talked about recently.
L: Yeah, because we think we might enjoy it more now that we’re older. It is charming.
B: When I first watched the show I had never been to a Parisian Galleriea. Now I have. I think I can appreciate the details more.
L: “These are really nicely drawn arches.”
B: Yes, and I love this period for a setting.
L: “Look at the details on that baguette!”
Ikoku Meiro no Croisee was disqualified for breaking the first rule of Anime Grab Bag.
Fifth Spin: Hidamari Sketch (Shaft, 2007)
L: I have no knowledge about this show but I feel like I used to hear about it all the time. Like, maybe it used to be recommended a lot?
B: I haven’t seen it either, and it qualifies. So that means we should watch it.
L: Ahaha. Why are we hesitating? Because we just follow the rules of the wheel. But I think we are both itching to spin again because we were each hoping we could share a show we love with each other. Like you were hoping we’d land on Aria, and I was hoping we’d get Poco’s Udon World.
B: 100 percent, haha…
L: But we don’t get to choose our fate, Bridget. We can just watch our favorites together on our own time.
B: It’s true. Grab Bag is supposed to be a little bit painful.
Viewing Summary
The episodes are named after days, and they are not in order. We suspect this won’t matter in a slice-of-life 4-koma anime.
Right away, Leah’s studio senses are tingling. “Wait, this has got to be Shaft.” The textures, the rapid directorial cuts, and the occasional rotoscoped realistic object layered atop the usual animation. The show looks like a scrapbook, which was the Shaft M.O. of the early-to-mid 2000s era. The show is also 18 years old, but looks sharp as heck, other than dated character designs.
Shaft, best known for the huge impact its central creative team, nicknamed Team Shinbo, made on the medium, established a unique directorial aesthetic in the early aughts. Shinbo and his associates are responsible for Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Nisekoi, the Monogatari franchise, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, and later gems like March Comes in Like a Lion. Say what you want about Shaft; the studio has cultivated a signature style that appeals to many.
L: It is a little jarring to watch Shaft do something so chill. They used to be more like this, in the pre-Madoka era. But ever since Madoka and Bakemonogatari, they’re pretty edgy.
B: There are some rough faces going on. But I kinda like it.
L: It is stylized as hell.
Four girls who are friends go to school. It’s the first day back after winter vacation, and our protagonist has forgotten to do her homework! Also, their teacher is a cosplayer and, for some reason, texts them on their flip phones sometimes. Sensei wears squeaky shoes. She’s cute.
The girls chat. Nothing is happening. That is probably the point.
Leah, disengaged, starts googling.
L: Ah, the creator of this manga did the character designs for OG Madoka.
B: Yeah, that tracks. I am enjoying this.
L: It doesn’t have to be about anything, but for me, given the choice between watching this and the last one? No contest.
For the most part, we have little to comment on. We remark again that the show looks great for its age, and only the character designs hint at 2007 origins. The girls wax poetic about growing old, even though they are kids. We think this is a joke. That is the kind of show this is.
The girls play in the snow. One of them misspells the word “Peace” and later tries to pass it off as intentional. After school, the girls hang out around a kotatsu.
B: I like the detail of the warmth of the kotatsu.
L: That curry looks good. I want curry.
B: I ate two curry breads today. These kinds of shows always make me want whatever they’re eating.
L: Shows like this make me want to nap.
Conclusions
L: Nothing is going to happen in this show.
B: Yeah, and that’s why it’s comforting.
L: But it’s also why someone like me will never be super into it. I don’t mind episodic, but I like a story even if it’s confined to a single episode. This is not trying to be that, which is fine.
B: This serves a different purpose.
L: It’s relaxing, and that’s what people want from it. I could sleep to it.
B: Yes! I would put this one before bed.
L: With a cup of hojicha.
B: Exactly. It’s a vibe. 4-koma is very different from a story about traveling to Antarctica. They are both soothing but in different ways.
L: The bossanova is nice.
Would we watch more?
B: I enjoyed that. I would watch it before bed, though, as a wind-down.
L: I don’t think I would ever watch more of that. I appreciated it; I don’t need more.
B: Moe really isn’t for everybody.
L: For me, the characters were not funny enough to keep watching more, or interesting enough, or cute enough. The direction is lovely, and Shaft is a great studio. It’s just not my jam.
B: Other shows in the genre are funnier. Azumanga Daioh, Nichijou. There are moments in Nichijou when I cry-laughed so hard I had to step away. For me, I’ve rewatched iyashikei favorites several times already. If I wanted something new, I’d put this on.
Sixth Spin: Mushishi (Artland, 2005)
B: We’ve seen it and it’s one of your faves.
L: Yeah, I think I can just link to my last essay on Mushishi here. Because everyone should watch Mushishi, period.
B: Do you know where I first watched Mushishi?
L: No, where?
B: I was on Gaia Online. It was 2009. They had a virtual movie theater where they were showing episodes of Mushishi and you could sit your character in a little seat and watch it on a shitty tiny screen.
L: Oh my god. But I bet it was still beautiful.
B: It was the episode where the girl gets the darkness in her eyes.
L: Disqualified or not, I am glad Mushishi appeared so you could tell me this wild story, and we could sing its praises one more time.
Mushishi was disqualified for breaking the first rule of Anime Grab Bag.
Seventh Spin: Amanchu! (J.C.Staff, 2016)
B: My beloved scuba lesbians! Have you seen it?
L: I watched the first episode.
B: I know. I made you watch it. So let’s spin one more time.
Amanchu! was disqualified for breaking the first rule of Anime Grab Bag. But Bridget really loves it, and once did an awesome Hikari cosplay, so you should give it a look.
Eighth Spin: Glasslip (PA Works, 2014)
L: What does this mean? That your lip is glass?
B: I read it as Glass-Slip. Like, glass slipper.
L: Like a Cinderella thing? I thought it was about glassblowing!
B: Who knows? But anyway. We both love PA Works.
L: When PA Works hits, it hits hard. Some of the top shows ever. Eccentric Family.
B: We both love Angel Beats!. And we are both Charlotte apologists.
L: Absolutely. Gotta love Charlotte because it’s all about mishandling depression. And Another is one of the best horror anime, and Nagi-Asu is gorgeous. And we really need to finish Ya Boy Kongming! because it is gold.
B: One of my favorite iyashikei shows ever is by PA Works: Hanasaku Iroha. It’s about a girl who gets sent to live with her grandma, and she starts working at Grandma’s traditional inn. And her grandmother learns to be softer and the granddaughter starts to enjoy family traditions and the two bond. It’s great.
L: Oh, and hey! The vampire lesbian anime someone recommended under our last Grab Bag is also PA Works!
B: Oh, I am going to watch all of that.
Viewing Summary
No studio animates water like PA Works. We are treated to an immediate visual feast. A summer festival is commencing in a seaside town. Sunset, people in yukata, food stalls, and ramune abound. The atmosphere is tangible, the cicadas are calling. Our attention is drawn to a few teenagers in the crowd, two boys and two girls, as well as a boy arriving in town by train.
L: These kids are going to be so messy, aren’t they?
B: Yeah, this is PA Works.
Future drama is likely, but so far unclear. For a while, things are just pretty. The train pulls into the station at dusk. The girls play festival games and admire the fireworks. The boys climb a steep set of stairs to a shrine. For some reason, when one girl, Touko, tries on her prize of paper glasses, she hears a disembodied voice. Why? We don’t know, and Glasslip sure ain’t telling.
So far, the show seems pretty happy to be cryptic for no reason. In fact, the show doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on what role mystery should play in a story. The kids have some personal grudges amongst themselves, even though they are friends, based on glances shared between interactions. But as an audience, we don’t know why, and Leah, for one, can’t figure out why we should care. We don’t know these kids, so why should we feel invested in their drama?
L: I once had a writing instructor say that a story should be told linearly unless there’s a really good reason for it not to be.
Glasslip should have taken this note. For instance, we notice two of the teens are scowling at each other at the festival, but the reason for the animosity is unknown. A few minutes later, or a few days after the festival for the kids, we’re treated to a flashback to the instant before the kids started scowling at each other. We learn that one girl is jealous of the attention the boy is paying to Touko. But why the hell didn’t we see this scene as it happened, in real-time? There is no reason this scene should have been shoehorned into an emo flashback.
The show is far too focused on tensions we don’t know the origins of.
Anyhow, the transfer student arrives and time freezes or something as he looks at Touko in her yukata. It is supposed to be meaningful. There’s a lot of this as the episode proceeds: Why is she reading Camus? Why is she drawing chickens in the school yard? Why is he calling her by her first name without honorifics? Why are they both getting philosophical about whether chickens should be held in captivity? Why is he glaring at her like a creep?
All of this plays out as if it is supposed to be deep. But it isn’t deep, because the characters are still puddles from what we can see. Maybe the pacing is just off. Maybe the elements just need time to align. But it’s really hard to get invested in this pilot.
Anyhow, the frenemies hang out at a kissaten where they deliberately don’t say what they mean. The show is still pretty, but man, the groundwork is slow going. Tensions rise again when the handsome transfer student approaches. Okay.
Conclusions
L: That is no way to lay out a pilot. I don’t feel like we have an anchor in any of these characters.
B: I know that PA Works can be slow but the payoff is usually worth it. But agreed: that was not a strong pilot.
L: I don’t know who or what I am supposed to be attached to. Like, Touko likes drawing and the newcomer is weird and the other kids have unrequited feelings, but I could not tell you any of their names but hers. They put too much faux mystery and too many chickens into this pilot, and not enough characterization.
B: There was a lot of philosophy about chickens and captivity. It kind of reminds me of the early episodes of Charlotte, where you have an idea what’s going on but there’s intrigue.
L: I still got invested in Charlotte. The kids were immediately compelling. In this one, I have to ask: “Where is the hook?”
B: They have another show, Red Data Girl, which is like this. It takes a while to find its footing or its hook. I find it interesting because I’m used to these kinds of shows, and I have confidence it will find its way.
Would we watch more?
L: I would give this three episodes, but I am not super confident.
B: I think this is going to be one that is more for me than for you. Obviously, I like a narrative show, but for me atmosphere is very big. In shows like this, you jump in right during a moment in life for these characters rather than the start of something. It’s not about liking them or not, but falling into their world as it is now.
L: Fair. But I would say don’t be convoluted for no reason. If there are also going to be spec-fic elements later on, don’t overcomplicate the basic elements or characters unnecessarily. Keep it linear, so the SF stuff can be the strange part.
B: Sometimes, iyashikei shows go heavy on atmosphere and don’t initially lay enough groundwork underneath. I think it could become a good show.
L: Maybe. We give the benefit of the doubt, always, to PA Works.
L: For me, the clear standout today was Danchigai.
B: Shut up.
L: Jokes aside, A Place Further Than the Universe was the real highlight.
B: Yeah, and I would say if you’re not familiar with the iyashikei genre, that would be the perfect starter.
Overall, we realized how hard it is to define what makes a show iyashikei. It is almost intangible, a mood rather than a strict category. Basically? You know it when you feel it. And we were both a little bummed that the wheel didn’t offer us more of the supernatural iyashikei subgenre.
As for next time, Bridget made a good suggestion: Why don’t you folks weigh in on what you’d like to see?
Right now we’re considering two possible wheels: Should we spin the dreaded isekai wheel or the far-less-dreaded dystopian wheel? Let us know your thoughts, and also tell us which cozy shows are your go-to favorites!
In This Article:
- Danchigai (Creators in Pack, 2015) Available on Crunchyroll.
- A Place Further Than the Universe (Madhouse, 2018) Available on Crunchyroll.
- Hidamari Sketch (Shaft, 2007) Available for Purchase on Amazon Prime.
- Glasslip (PA Works, 2014) Available on Crunchyroll.
I say go with isekai. You’ll be done with the pain sooner, and you might be lucky and land on The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic.
Looking at the wheel, I would not call Amagi Brilliant Park an isekai. At best, it’s a reverse isekai, and I would argue is an urban fantasy. Bit surprised that The Eminence in Shadow and Combatants Will Be Dispatched (which are definitely isekai) don’t appear to be on there.
I knew there were a lot of isekais, but now I know that there is an infinite number that cannot be calculated 😂 adding these to the wheel!
I purposefully chose to include amagi because it’s a reverse isekai and I think that concept is funny. I was actually a big fan of the first season of hataraku mao-sama, which is also a reverse isekai. I’d love for us to be able to see more than just the classic “hit by a bus now I’m a fantasy warrior” isekai.
A caveat regarding Eminence in Shadow if you spin the isekai wheel and land on it. I would suggest viewing the second episode instead. The first episode is this weird prologue-esque thing largely unconnected to the series and doesn’t have a payoff until the final episode of the second season. Meanwhile, the second episode adapts the opening chapters of the light novel series it’s based on and establishes the major characters and their motivations.
Amagi Brilliant Park is definitely and appropriately brilliant. During the rather barren Winter 2025 season, I must have watched it through at least five times and it still makes me laugh.
“Magic Knights Rayearth” was not on the wheel either. But I suspect that one has been seen by our hosts already.
Weirdly, no. Right before my time 😂 it’ll be added to the list.
With the isekai wheel you might get the recent Zenshu or Escaflowne. However, you also might get one of the innumerable power fantasy jRPG-likes. I’d vote dystopian.
I think the unfortunate thing is that we couldn’t watch Escaflowne, because we’ve seen it 😔. But I do think it’s a genre of chaos that could truly bring us anything. There’s something exciting and scary to that 😂
Leah and I are both huge fans of dystopian anime, it’s something we connected about early on in our friendship actually! I will say, out biggest issue on that wheel will be finding a show we haven’t seen 😅
I think people want us to suffer, ahaha. The comedic potential of being tortured with isekai seems to appeal to our dear readers. Ahahha.
You forgot “…with harem”. power fantasy jRPG-likes with harem.
When I was trying to think of isekai I like they almost all ended up all being reverse isekai. Maybe reverse isekai are better on average because they drop the salaryman wish fulfilment component.
I’m with Bridget, I was hoping for Aria, too. It’s such a beautiful, gentle anime. (And I see Natsume Yuujinchou on the wheel, too, which would’ve been another wonderful pick.)
As for the question of isekai or dystopian… I’m voting for isekai, simply because there’s plenty of dystopia going around in meatspace right now.
I have already written about Natsume because it is an all-time favorite! It would have been gloriously disqualified.
I don’t know whether “meatspace” is internet slang or a typo but man either way I agree.
…I read your article on Natsume when it was first published and had forgotten. So it was a treat to read it again!
Maybe it’s internet slang, but I prefer “meatspace” to “irl”, because what happens on the internet is still real.
Look imagining the world as a meatspace is equal parts gay and scary and funny so I am here to be educated. Ahahah
Also, there are a couple of categories that did not show up on the isekai wheel. Most likely because the wheel is over-flowing at this point.
One is the ‘opening a shop in another world’ genre. More than a few depend on being gateways, like “A Restaurant in Another World” ( Isekai Shokudou ). And I might have missed them, but there is also the ‘reborn as a game character’ genre like “My Next Life as a Villainess! All Paths Lead To DOOM!” ( Otome Gēmu no Hametsu Furagu Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijō ni Tensei Shite Shimatta )(light novel -> manga -> anime)
my usual process for building the wheels is to go on MAL and sort by genre, then read through and copy and paste into the wheel. I do it by hand so no season twos or non genre picks get in (it still happens tho 😅)
I’m gonna be honest…… I got to a point where I was going through and said “I definitely put that on already” and now I’m pretty sure they were different shows and I missed a bunch 😅. I DO know the restaurant from another world is on there because I have actually watched it! I have an obsession with cooking anime and always try to watch the new ones.
I’ll pop any brought up here in the wheel! Like you said, it’s gonna be an overflowing wheel, I hope everyone spins for themselves too!
The sheer proliferation of the genre and all its subgenres has probably been a daunting trial for Bridget, who makes the wheels. I do not know what depths she has trawled through to make this one and there are bound to be some dropped balls, ahaha
I was able to find and watch Danchigai and A Place Further. It looks like Crunchyroll doesn’t have Glasslip in the US.
The way I approach your articles is to skim for titles, then watch, then go back and read. So I went into Danchigai cold. I ended up also watching the second episode because I was sure they would explain this bizarre rom-com-but-siblings setup but nope, they seem to just run with it. I did like the vibe of the two youngest siblings and their mischievous double act. I’d watch a normal family dramady show with those two as the focus.
Since it came up, I really liked Usagi Drop as an anime and the half of the manga run the anime covers. If someone hasn’t seen it but has heard about it I think the anime is worth a watch. In the manga you get halfway through the run and there’s a time skip where it becomes a high school drama and honestly I don’t think it’s very good after that point. You can drop it without missing anything. The ending is fairly notorious. I don’t know if that was a Minky Momo middle finger to someone or just cultural dissonance but I felt it was very much a bizzare 11th hour left field thing and isn’t representative of the work.
Wow, A Place Further seems really good and I’m in 100%. I’m a fan of Laid Back Camp but it leans into cute-girls-doing-cute-things genre-wise. Still iyashikei but a hybrid. That Universe and Aria have a plot framework strengthens both. I think the Laid Back Camp movie has a much stronger mono no aware vibe than the show does—that these close high school friends struggle as adults to maintain relationships is very relatable and brings a melancholy that the core show doesn’t really have and it elevates it a bit because of that.
I discovered Aria after reading Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou and went looking for something similar. I liked Aria, especially as a manga, but I really connected with YKK and it’s a title I’d strongly recommend. The OVAs might be something one might find on the world’s most popular video service if one were to look. The two works are interesting to look at as a pair because I think the melancholy aspects of Aria come from the passage of time and the parallels between the mentors and the apprentices reminding the reader that the friendships of youth are fleeting. And in YKK the melancholy comes from the protagonist being essentially frozen in time and how the bonds she makes are impermanent because everyone else isn’t.
But probably my favorite iyashikei is Girls Last Tour and it is a really hard sell. “It’s about the last two girls on Earth slowly starving to death as they travel through and endless empty frozen city, but it’s really warm and affirming! Honest!” I haven’t come up with a credible sales pitch.
Gosh, it seems like I like my iyashikei with a side order of melancholy.
For next time I totally agree with kymirakythe but I’m suggesting dystopia on the basis of this edition being upbeat and having an up/down cadence feels right. And you might end up doing Ergo Proxy :)
I don’t know if meatspace originated with William Gibson but it’s a thing that comes out of old school cyberpunk lit.
Back in the day, YKK and Aria often went hand in hand in discussions! It was a show I was really hoping would show up on the wheel, because I’ve actually not seen all of YKK (it was tough to find back then!). I think melancholy is actually a defining trait of iyashikei! I think the best ones blend sadness and comfort together in one package.
I think where this separates is for shows like yuru camp and hidamari sketch, where the show is asking its viewer to “slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment”. The movie does do a good job of bringing that more melancholy side of the genre though. I’ve been trying to get Leah to watch Yuru camp for a while now, maybe we’ll watch the movie!
girls last tour was another I was hoping we’d come across! I’ve always heard good things about it.
thank you for your lenience in picking dystopian 😂 we did find one issue with the wheel which is we think we’ve seen everything on it 😅 as much as I love keeping out up/down we might be up/up/ down this time……… Or up/up/up if Leah and you dear readers let me do idols next time 😈
A Place Further from the Sun is a great anime, well worth watching. Glasslip though… I’m sorry you’re going to waste your time if you continue. There are some great visuals every so often, but that’s it. There is nothing more. I watched it all and there was just no point to it and I regretted not dropping it way sooner.
A suggestion for a show I found very iyashikei, and unexpectedly so was Super Cub. Yes, it was originally submitted to Honda’s celebration of having produced 100 million units*, but apart from the Honda logo being immensely detailed on occasion, you wouldn’t even know they were involved. And it is so very, very detailed animation, with such a wonderful story about a girl cautiously growing out of her shell and starting to actually live life, rather than just going through the motions every day. It’s just very quiet and simple slice of life, but produced with such skill and love that you rarely see.
(*) I’ve gotta say, that is a shockingly impressive number of sales, even over 60 years!