Slice of Life anime aren’t exactly one of my preferred genres and yet as I find myself getting a little bit older (I won’t suggest wiser) I am finding that calm and relaxing anime are definitely welcome in amongst some of the more plot driven fare I usually consume. 2019 gave me quite a few titles that I watched largely for that calm and stillness after a crazy day at work and so choosing my favourite from the year was definitely harder than I initially thought.
Please note, the nominees and winning choice are entirely my own opinion and are not based on any rigid criteria. Feel free to nominate your own winners for the categories in the comments. Help other readers find some awesome anime from 2019 to watch.
Best Slice of Life Anime of 2019
The nominees for Best Slice of Life Anime are:
Affiliate Link
And the winner is…
Senryu Shoujo
This was a hard decision between Senryu Shoujo and My Roommate is a Cat. Then again, My Roommate is a Cat already won for my favourite relaxing anime so maybe that influenced my view a bit. Anyway, Senryu Shoujo was perfectly adorable with the main character only communicating through writing poetry. There’s a bit of romance driving through the series but otherwise it really is just the daily lives of the two main characters as they go to school and get involved in school club activities.
There’s all the standards such as a beach episode, a test of courage, a trip to the amusement park and so on. Nothing overly earth shattering but with this cute cast it is very digestible. It was definitely my pick from the slice of life anime I attempted last year.
Okay, I know I’m not a slice of life guru, it isn’t a genre I actively seek out. So let’s get some recommendations from others. What was the best slice of life from 2019?
Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
Nicely done.
*Cat* and *Senryuu Girl* would be my top two, and I think I’d choose “Senryuu Girl” as my top one as well.
After being a faithful manga reader for years, I wanted “Joshi Kausei” to take the honors… But the adaptation was horrid and really missed everything charming about the manga.
Like Dawn, I’d also give nods to “Dice Club”, “Wasteful Days”, and especially “Mix”. The last did not get near enough buzz when it was airing.
I still haven’t tried Mix.
Slice of Life is one of my favourite genres, but I have to say it’s been in a bit of decline. Very few shows are pure slice of life anymore. I’d agree with your top two favourites, actually, and I also agree that it’s a tough decision. I think I slightly prefer Cat, but in the end who knows?
2018 actually started out strong for the genre with Yuru Camp, How to Keep a Mummy and Hakumei to Mikochi, and spring had a great piece that could easily serve as as a genre benchmark in Rokuoudou Yotsuiro Biyori, but since then I feel like most slice of life shows either don’t appeal to me as much, or they have a bit too much develpment – be it plot or character (like Cat).
Take Slime: I distinctly remember it watching for my slice-of-life fix, mostly because dedicated shows were missing. I think, in the end, Senryu Shoujo really is the best show, since the romance is mostly fluff and doesn’t completely take over. Mix had strong slice-of-life elements as well and could have gotten a nomination from me, but it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a slice-of-life show in the end. Wasteful Days of Highschool Girls worked pretty well as a slice-of-life show, but there weren’t any moments that weren’t dominated by its brand of comedy. Shows that did have a more conventional slice-of-life balance were Colourful Pastrale and After School Dice club, but the former was more endearing than good, and the latter was pretty solid but not good enough to beat out either of the not-so-clear fits. And a lot of that is subjective, in that it’s about where in my watching I set the accents. I don’t expect people to quite understand why I find one show qualifies and another doesn’t when they’re really quite similar. Also, I will never ever be able to consider Fruits Basket slice of life, even though I do see it on best-of-genre lists. It’s intuitively obvious, but when I try to explain why, I find that I have no underlying reasoning. Heh.
In the end, there hasn’t been a really great example of the slice-of-life genre in 2019 (2018 had two, and they were both in the first half of the year). But both Cat and Senryu Shoujo are close enough to fit. The year I’d vote for Slime in that genre would see me desperate, though (and I liked Slime mostly for its slice-of-life aspect).
The trend continues this season, where Eizouken is great and satisfies some of the itch, but is ultimately too goal driven. And Bofuri is solid but not actually special. Slice-of-life’s a good flavour in Somali.
And then there are the shorts: There’s Room Camp, which is a good teaser for season two of Yuru Camp, but slice-of-life often needs more time to breathe. And Natsunagu seems quite good, but is similarly too short and seems to have a loose plot. Shorts work better as slice-of-life when they’re scene based; Room Camp can at least work with allusion and “summon” mood from Yuru Camp; Natsunagu can’t – and needs you to remember some continuity.
Slice-of-life has been more an ingredient than a genre for around 1 1/2 years now, and I’m not seeing a trend reversal this season. It’s not that much of an issue for me, though, since it remains a pretty solid ingredient in a lot of shows.
I feel like this about romance. Pure romance anime have ed been few and far between over the last few years.
I came in here fully expecting to have not seen any of them and Slime was there… On reflection, it was probably closer to slice of life than fantasy or isekai. Are you looking forward to season two or slightly anxious about it?
Not really either. I’ll watch the second season because season one was pleasant enough but Slime kind of peaked for me around episode 7 and never really got me super excited.
I’d agree with that, although the moment I really switched off was when the giant flying monster that everyone one was so terrified of (one demon lord included) was one-hit killed by another demon lord. I loved the fantasy side of things, but they really failed to make it compelling enough.
“I loved the fantasy side of things, but they really failed to make it compelling enough.”
Yeah, that was a persistent problem with Slime. No matter how much they amped up the “threat”, it was invariably dealt with almost trivially.
The final arc was the worst for it where Rimuru became a teacher and basically just walked everyone through it without so much of a concern. There are good ways to do overpowered characters and I think Slime failed in that instance.
That final arc was really weak.