AniChan

The AniChan design

The design is measured from the archived anichan.net home page and style sheet of August 2026. The page is a deep near-black, #07070B, with layered surfaces in #0E0E16, #14141D and #1C1C28 and fine borders in #242436. Text is a soft white, #F1F1F7, with lavender-grey tones for secondary lines. The signature is the gradient: a hot pink, #FF5FA2, flowing into a bright violet, #A855F7. It colours the wordmark, the play buttons, the bars beside every heading, the Watch Now buttons and the active theme pill. The typeface is Inter, a clean modern sans-serif with sturdy bold weights for titles.

The wordmark reads Ani Chan with a small gradient dot in front: Ani in white and Chan in the pink-to-violet gradient, just like the original. The favicon is a glowing gradient play button on a dark tile, taken straight from the cards.

Default, Midnight and Light

The original site offered three themes, and their exact colours survive in its style sheet. AniChan brings them all back through the switch in the header. Default is the pink-and-violet night described above. Midnight turns the whole page into a deep navy, #01030A, and swaps the gradient for a cool cyan, #4DD0FF, flowing into periwinkle, #6B7CFF, which suits late-night viewing beautifully. Light turns the page a soft white, #F7F7FB, with crisp white cards and a richer raspberry-to-violet gradient that stays readable in daylight.

Each theme also recolours the little episode tags, the chips, the borders and the play buttons, so the whole page changes mood at once. Pick the one that suits your screen and your room; the switch works instantly on the page you are reading.

The header

The header stays at the top of the window as you scroll, a translucent bar with a gentle blur. On the left sits the wordmark, which always returns you home. Next come the main links: Home, Browse, Series, Movies, Tops and Genres, the same set of destinations the original offered. Browse opens the full A to Z, Series and Movies open the two largest collections, Tops opens the highest-rated titles and Genres opens the collections page, where every shelf on AniChan is listed. On the right you will find the pill-shaped search field, the three-way theme switch and a gradient My List button in the place where the original put its Sign In button. On a phone the links tuck into a menu button, and the search field moves inside that menu.

Studios behind the cosiness

A few studios appear again and again on AniChan. Kyoto Animation made Nichijou: My Ordinary Life, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and Sound! Euphonium, each with the studio's famous attention to small gestures. P.A.WORKS, known for its luminous backgrounds, made Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow, SHIROBAKO, Sakura Quest, Tari Tari and The aquatope on white sand, a remarkable run of stories about young people finding their place in the world. Doga Kobo brings bright energy to NEW GAME! and Gabriel DropOut, and CloverWorks gave Akebi's Sailor Uniform its breathtaking detail.

Following a studio is a lovely way to find your next favourite. Type its name into the pill search and every title it made on AniChan appears together.

Three eras of cosy anime

The era shelves trace the genre over three decades. The 1996 to 2009 shelf holds classics like Baby and Me, Magical DoReMi, Hamtaro, Sgt. Frog and Kamichu!, from the years when many of these shows aired on weekday afternoons for families. The 2010 to 2017 shelf is the golden age of club comedies and iyashikei, with Nichijou: My Ordinary Life, Polar Bear Cafe, Tamayura: Hitotose, Encouragement of Climb and SHIROBAKO. The 2018 onward shelf is the largest, full of new comedies and gentle fantasies such as A Place Further than the Universe, Super Cub, Slow Loop, Akebi's Sailor Uniform and My Deer Friend Nokotan, and it grows every season.

The Top rated shelf, reached through the Tops link in the header, gathers the titles that audiences rate most highly, and it is a reliable place to start when you want a sure favourite.

A cosy weekend

For a cosy weekend, pair a short series with a film. Start Saturday with the first four episodes of Super Cub, cook something from Today's Menu for the Emiya Family for lunch, and finish the afternoon with Okko's Inn. On Sunday morning, share Pui Pui Molcar and Chi's Sweet Home with the youngest members of the family, then settle in for A Place Further than the Universe in the evening. Switch the page to the Midnight theme after dark, make a pot of tea and let the stories do their gentle work.

For a comedy night, line up Nichijou: My Ordinary Life, Daily Lives of High School Boys and Hinamatsuri, and keep snacks close at hand. For a quiet morning, Hakumei and Mikochi and Aria the Benedizione are perfect with coffee.

Hobbies to try at home

Many cosy anime inspire real hobbies. After After School Dice Club, viewers often buy their first modern board game; after Slow Loop, some try fly fishing; after Encouragement of Climb, a local hill starts to look inviting. Asteroid in Love sends viewers out at night to look for planets and constellations, and Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club makes a bicycle ride along the coast feel like the best idea in the world. It is part of the charm of the genre: these shows invite you to live a little more like their characters, curious, patient and kind.

Seasons in cosy anime

Cosy anime pays close attention to the calendar. Spring brings the entrance ceremony, cherry blossoms along the riverbank and the nervous excitement of a new class list pinned to the noticeboard. Early summer brings the rainy season, when characters shelter under shop awnings and share a single umbrella on the walk home. High summer is the season of festivals, fireworks, cicadas, shaved ice and trips to the beach, and many series place their most memorable episode here. Autumn brings sports days, culture festivals, roasted sweet potatoes and the first cold mornings, and winter wraps everything up with heated kotatsu tables, New Year shrine visits, snowball fights and the bittersweet approach of graduation.

Watching a cosy series in the same season it depicts can be a small joy of its own. A summer series feels even brighter on a warm evening with the window open, and a winter series feels cosier with the heating on and a blanket over your knees. Many fans keep a seasonal rotation of favourites, returning to the same comforting shows each year as the weather turns, much as some families return to the same holiday films every December.

Why cosy anime feels so good

Part of the appeal of cosy anime is its generosity. The characters usually want the best for each other, and conflicts are resolved with patience, honesty and a shared meal. The camera lingers on details that busy lives tend to skip past: steam curling from a teacup, sunlight moving across a classroom floor, the sound of a bicycle bell on a quiet street. By noticing these things, the shows invite viewers to notice them too, and many people find that a few episodes leave them calmer and kinder for the rest of the day.

Cosy anime also celebrates competence and care. A cook who takes pride in a perfect omelette, a mechanic who keeps an old motorbike running, a production assistant who makes sure every drawing reaches the studio on time: these characters find meaning in doing ordinary work well, and their pride is infectious. It is a quiet, hopeful way of looking at the world, and it has won these series devoted fans in every country.

Watching with friends

Cosy anime is ideal for a watch party. The episodes are short and easy to follow, the jokes land for newcomers and long-time fans alike, and there is plenty of time to chat between scenes. Pick a short series that everyone can finish in an evening, prepare a snack inspired by the show, whether a bowl of ramen, a plate of onigiri or a pot of hot cocoa, and take turns choosing the next episode. Comedies work especially well in a group, since laughter spreads, and gentle iyashikei shows make a peaceful close to a long day together.

For long-distance friends, the same series can become a shared ritual: watch an episode on the same evening each week, then send each other a favourite moment. Many friendships have grown stronger over a weekly cup of tea and a cosy show.

Any screen

AniChan works in any modern browser on phones, tablets and computers. On a phone the header folds into a menu, the Spotlight becomes a swipeable banner and the rows scroll with a thumb. Official services have apps for smart TVs, streaming sticks and consoles, so you can browse AniChan on your phone and then play a title on the big screen. Apps and devices has more tips.

Free and legal options

Some services stream anime free with ads in some countries, and JustWatch marks those options with a Free label after you press Watch now. Public libraries in some regions lend anime films through apps such as Hoopla and Kanopy. Free cosy anime explains where to look.

Watching safely

Official apps and websites keep your account and payment details protected and support the studios and artists behind every episode. Keep your browser and apps updated, use a different password for each service and switch on two-step sign-in. The short checklist in Streaming safely covers everything.

The official AniChan

The real AniChan is easy to spot: the Ani Chan wordmark with its gradient dot, a Spotlight slider at the top of the home page, rows with pink-to-violet bars beside their headings and cards with a glowing play button in the middle. The official AniChan site describes it in detail. If a page ever looks unusual, Is AniChan working? lists quick fixes, and Where AniChan titles stream introduces the official services behind every Watch now button.

Sharing the cosiness

Cosy anime is wonderful to share. Watch a gag comedy with a friend who needs a laugh, introduce a younger sibling to a gentle animal show, or send a relative who loves travel the first episode of an outdoor adventure. Every shared recommendation spreads a little calm and happiness, and keeps these small, kind stories finding new viewers season after season.

The Spotlight

The home page opens with the Spotlight, a wide banner slider modelled on the original's number-one spotlight. Five featured titles take turns in the frame: Nichijou: My Ordinary Life, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, A Place Further than the Universe, SHIROBAKO and Polar Bear Cafe. Each slide shows a large piece of artwork with a dark gradient on the left, a pink rank label, the title in bold capitals, small chips with the type, year and score, a few lines of story, a gradient Watch Now button and a dark Details button. Round arrows on each side and a row of dots in the corner let you move between the slides, and on a phone you can simply swipe.

The five were chosen to show the range of the site: an absurd gag comedy, a warm fantasy about a dragon who becomes a maid, a road-trip adventure to Antarctica, a working-life drama inside an animation studio and a gentle animal comedy set in a cafe. Between them they cover almost every flavour of cosy anime.

Browsing by feeling

Below the Spotlight comes a row of rounded chips, modelled on the original's Browse by Genre row. On AniChan the chips sort titles by feeling and hobby rather than by strict genre: Gag comedy, Iyashikei, Club days, Food and cafes, Outdoors and travel, Animals and mascots, Work life, Family time, Gentle fantasy and Music and dance. Hover over a chip on a computer and it fills with the pink-to-violet gradient; tap it and the full collection opens, sorted with the most popular titles first.

Rows and cards

The rows follow the original's design closely. Each begins with a heading beside a short gradient bar and a small emoji, just as the original marked its Trending Now, Airing This Season and All-Time Popular rows. AniChan's home page carries Trending now, Newest arrivals and All-time favourites, followed by rows for gag comedy, iyashikei, animals and cosy films. Every row scrolls sideways and has a See all link on the right.

Each card is a rounded poster with a thin border. A small TV or Movie tag sits in the top-left corner, the audience score in gold stars sits in the top-right corner, and a round gradient play button glows in the middle, exactly like the original. Along the bottom edge, a green tag shows the number of episodes for a series, and a blue tag marks a film; these use the same green and blue colours the original gave its SUB and DUB tags. Below the poster come the title and a short line with the type and year. Hover over a card and the artwork grows gently while the play button swells a little, inviting you in.

How to watch

Watching takes three steps. Open a title from any row, chip or search. On the title page, read the story, check the episode list and choose your country. Then press Watch now, and JustWatch opens with every official service that carries the title where you live, whether by subscription, rental, purchase or free with ads. The title then plays in that service's own app. The walk-through lives in How to watch with AniChan, and the country list covers fifteen countries from the United States and the United Kingdom to Japan, Brazil, the Philippines and India.

Title pages list every season and every episode with its first air date, so you can see at a glance how long a series runs. Short series such as Super Cub or Slow Loop fill a single weekend, while long family favourites like Hamtaro, Magical DoReMi and Sgt. Frog run to hundreds of episodes and can keep a household happy for months.

Search, Browse and My List

The pill search in the header understands English titles, Japanese titles and many alternate names, so Nichijou and 日常 lead to the same series. Add a season and an episode, such as Encouragement of Climb S2E3, and the search lands on the right show. It also finds voice actors and studios, so typing Kyoto Animation or P.A.WORKS brings up everything those studios made on the site. The Browse link opens the full A to Z, with filters for type, genre and year. The guide Finding a title has more tips.

My List keeps the titles you want to watch. Press Add to My List on any title page, and tick episodes as you go; My List remembers exactly where you paused. It lives in your browser, works instantly and can be exported to a small file for another device. My List explains every feature.

Subtitles and dubs

Almost every title on AniChan streams with English subtitles, and many family favourites and popular comedies also have English dubs. Some viewers love the original Japanese voices, with their bright comic timing; others prefer a dub for relaxed family viewing. The available tracks depend on the service and your country, and you switch between them in the player's audio menu. Subtitles and dubs covers the details.

What makes anime cosy

Cosy anime has a few familiar ingredients. The stakes are personal and small: finishing a club project, learning a recipe, getting to know a new neighbour. The settings are warm and specific: a seaside town, a family inn, a school club room with a kettle in the corner. The characters are kind to each other, and even the grumpiest of them has a soft side. Music is gentle, colours are soft and the pace lets you breathe. The guide Cosy anime basics gives a short tour.

Japanese fans have a handful of words for these shows. Nichijoukei, everyday-life anime, follows ordinary days. Iyashikei, healing anime, aims directly at calm and comfort. Many cosy series are also called cute girls doing cute things, a phrase for ensemble comedies about friends and their hobbies. AniChan gathers all of these, alongside gag comedies and gentle fantasies that share the same warm heart.

Gag comedy

The Gag comedy collection holds more than thirty of the funniest anime on the site, and Gag comedy on AniChan suggests where to begin. At the top stands Nichijou: My Ordinary Life, Kyoto Animation's glorious comedy about three high-school friends, a robot girl built by an eight-year-old professor and a talking cat, in a small town where a dropped sausage can become a cinematic tragedy and a wooden kokeshi doll can cause an explosion. Its twenty-six episodes are packed with visual jokes, and every one rewards a second viewing.

Daily Lives of High School Boys turns the ordinary boredom of three schoolboys into grand, imaginary adventures, and Squid Girl brings a small invader from the sea to a beach restaurant, where she ends up waiting tables. Hinamatsuri drops a girl with psychic powers into the apartment of a young yakuza member, who soon finds himself raising her like a daughter. Gabriel DropOut sends an angel to a school on Earth, where she discovers video games and happily forgets her heavenly duties.

Some comedies fit a coffee break. Joshiraku follows five young rakugo storytellers chatting backstage, Kill Me Baby pairs a teenage assassin with her cheerful best friend, and Yuyushiki catches three friends who form a data-processing club mostly so they can chat and search the internet together. Chio's School Road turns one girl's daily walk to school into an action movie, and Handa-kun follows a young calligrapher who is admired by everyone and misreads every compliment as an insult.

Iyashikei, healing anime

Iyashikei is anime designed to calm the heart. The Iyashikei collection gathers the most soothing titles on the site, and Iyashikei on AniChan introduces the genre. These stories move slowly and warmly, with quiet music, soft light and characters who notice the small beauty in everyday life.

The Aria films are a cornerstone. Aria the Crepuscolo and Aria the Benedizione return to Neo-Venezia, a city on a terraformed Mars built in the image of Venice, where young women train as gondoliers called undines. The films follow the next generation of trainees through canals, festivals and sunset rides, with the gentle wisdom the series is famous for.

Hakumei and Mikochi follows two tiny women, only a few centimetres tall, who share a home inside a tree in a forest full of talking animals. Hakumei is a restless handywoman, Mikochi a calm cook and shopkeeper, and their small adventures, from buying a new kettle to singing at a festival, are pure delight. Super Cub tells of a lonely high-school girl in rural Yamanashi who buys a used Honda Super Cub motorbike, and with it discovers freedom, friendship and the joy of the open road; the show makes the simple act of riding feel like a gift.

Tamayura: Hitotose follows a girl who returns to the seaside town of Takehara with her late father's camera, and gently rediscovers her love of photography with a circle of kind friends. Rainy Cocoa is a series of tiny episodes set in a cafe, where handsome young staff serve hot drinks on rainy days. Sketchbook ~full color's~ follows a quiet girl in a high-school art club who sketches cats, clouds and her classmates, and it is one of the calmest shows on the site.

By the sea

Several iyashikei series take place by the water. Amanchu! follows two girls on the Izu peninsula as they learn to scuba dive, discovering the quiet world beneath the waves and the joys of friendship above them. The aquatope on white sand is set in a small aquarium in Okinawa, where an eighteen-year-old caretaker and a former idol find new purpose among the fish and the visitors; its twenty-four episodes, from studio P.A.WORKS, glow with tropical colour. Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater follows a school fishing club on the coast of Kyushu, full of sea breezes, grilled fish and friendly teasing.

Spirits and small gods

Konohana Kitan is set in a traditional hot-spring inn run by fox-spirit girls, where guests from the spirit world come to relax, and the youngest maid learns about kindness from every visitor. Kamichu! follows a middle-school girl in Onomichi who wakes up one day as a goddess and must balance divine duties with homework and a first crush. The Eccentric Family tells of a family of tanuki in Kyoto who disguise themselves as humans, trade barbs with tengu and wizards, and hold together through loss and laughter; it is warm, funny and deeply moving.

Club days

School clubs are the heart of many cosy series. The Club days collection gathers them: tea clubs, art clubs, fishing clubs, board-game clubs, astronomy clubs and dance clubs, each a small home for a group of friends. The pleasure lies in watching a club grow from one or two hopeful members into a real team, and in the everyday rituals that fill its room.

Slow Loop follows a girl who fly-fishes alone by the sea in memory of her father, until a cheerful new stepsister joins her, and the two build a bond over rods, rivers and home cooking. After School Dice Club follows a shy girl in Kyoto who discovers modern board games with two classmates and a friendly game-shop owner, and every episode introduces a real game you can try at home. Asteroid in Love merges a school's astronomy and geology clubs into one earth-sciences club, whose members hunt for fossils and stars with the same enthusiasm.

HaNaYaMaTa brings the colourful yosakoi dance to a small school club, as a shy girl is swept up by an energetic exchange student from America. Anima Yell! follows a girl who loves helping others as she founds a school cheerleading club, and This Art Club Has a Problem! is a sweet comedy about an art club whose most talented member devotes himself to painting the perfect anime girl. GJ Club packs a tiny club room with tea, snacks and cheerful teasing in short, playful episodes.

Cute friends and small adventures

Some series simply follow a group of friends through the school year. Kinmoza! tells of a Japanese girl who once did a homestay in England, and of the English friend who follows her to Japan, and the gentle culture-swap comedy continues in the film Kinmoza the Movie: Thank You!!. Slow Start follows a girl who begins high school a year late and quietly worries that her new friends will find out, until she learns that friendship is generous. Comic Girls shares a dormitory among four young manga artists, and Urara Meirocho sends four girls to train as fortune tellers in a lantern-lit town of divination.

YuruYuri: Happy Go Lily is a relaxed comedy about a group of middle-school girls who take over a disused tea-ceremony room and fill it with games, jokes and sweet crushes. A-Channel and Wakaba Girl are short, sunny comedies about best friends, and Anne Happy♪ follows a class of unlucky students whose school aims to teach them how to find happiness. Akebi's Sailor Uniform is one of the loveliest recent examples: a country girl dreams of wearing a sailor uniform to her new school, and her joy at every new friendship is captured with extraordinary care by studio CloverWorks.

Music and dance

The Music and dance collection gathers the musical side of cosy anime. Sound! Euphonium from Kyoto Animation follows a high-school concert band as it chases a place at the national competition, with gorgeous performance scenes and real warmth between its players. Blue Orchestra follows a former violin prodigy who rediscovers music in a high-school orchestra, and Tari Tari follows five students who form a choir club in their final year, singing their way through the seaside town of Enoshima. Sound of the Sky takes a young bugler to a remote border town, where she joins a small unit of soldiers who spend most of their days making music and tea.

Food and cafes

Food is one of the great comforts of anime, and the Food and cafes collection gathers the tastiest titles on the site. Today's Menu for the Emiya Family follows a young cook and his friends through a year of home-cooked seasonal meals, each episode a recipe you can follow in your own kitchen. Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles follows a quiet transfer student with an encyclopedic love of ramen, and her classmate who tags along to every noodle shop in Tokyo.

Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food from Another World opens a cosy Japanese pub in a medieval European town, where knights, merchants and nobles discover karaage, oden and cold beer; each episode ends with a short live-action segment showing the real dishes. Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant! follows a cook who leaves an adventuring party and opens a small restaurant of his own, and Pan de Peace! is a set of tiny episodes about friends who love bread. Case Closed: Zero's Tea Time gives a famous detective series a gentle spin-off, following a secret agent who works part-time at a cafe and cooks with loving attention.

Inns are a cosy staple too. Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow follows a Tokyo girl sent to work at her grandmother's hot-spring inn in the countryside, where she grows up among demanding guests, strict chefs and loyal friends; the story continues in the film Hanasaku Iroha the Movie: Home Sweet Home. Okko's Inn tells a gentler, younger version of the same idea, as a girl who has lost her parents helps her grandmother run a country inn with the help of friendly ghosts.

Outdoors and travel

The Outdoors and travel collection is an invitation to put on your walking shoes. The guide Hobbies, food and the outdoors suggests where to begin. A Place Further than the Universe is a masterpiece of the genre: four high-school girls, each with her own reason, join a civilian expedition to Antarctica. Their journey from a small town in Gunma to the frozen south is funny, brave and deeply moving, and many viewers call its thirteen episodes among the best of the decade.

Encouragement of Climb follows two childhood friends who rediscover each other through mountain hiking, starting with small hills near their town and working up to Mount Fuji; its short episodes grew into several seasons. Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club and Long Riders! take friends on bicycle rides along the coast, while Room Camp is a playful mini-series from the world of the much-loved camping show, and Laid-Back Camp the Movie reunites its campers as grown-ups who build a campsite together.

Animals and mascots

The Animals and mascots collection is pure joy. Polar Bear Cafe is set in a cafe run by a laid-back polar bear, whose regulars include a lazy panda who works part-time at a zoo, an earnest penguin and a stream of animal and human friends. Its hundred and two episodes are full of puns, gentle jokes and the most relaxed atmosphere imaginable. Chi's Sweet Home follows a grey-and-white kitten who wanders away from her mother and is taken in by a young family, and its tiny episodes capture every mew, pounce and nap with loving detail.

Pui Pui Molcar is a stop-motion wonder: guinea pigs who are also cars, with wide eyes and happy squeaks, driving through a city full of human drivers who rarely behave as well as their vehicles. Each episode lasts under three minutes and makes an ideal treat. Rilakkuma and Kaoru, another stop-motion series, follows a young office worker who shares her apartment with a lazy bear, a tiny chick and a white bear, and it is full of quiet seasonal charm.

Hamtaro is a family classic: a brave little hamster who sneaks out while his owner is at school and has adventures with the Ham-Hams, a club of neighbourhood hamsters. The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today tells of a giant, capable cat who cooks, cleans and shops for his owner, a tired office worker who adores him. Bananya features a kitten who lives inside a banana, and Uchitama?! Have You Seen My Tama? imagines the secret lives of the pets in a Tokyo neighbourhood as friendly young men and women.

Pokémon Concierge is a gentle stop-motion series set at a Pokémon resort on a tropical island, where a new concierge learns to care for guests who need to relax, and Heaven's Design Team follows a team of designers who invent animals for a god who keeps sending unusual requests. My Deer Friend Nokotan is a happily absurd comedy about a girl with antlers who claims to be a deer, and Kemono Friends sends a lost girl on a journey through a safari park where the animals have taken human form.

Dragons, witches and gentle fantasy

The Gentle fantasy collection gathers magical stories with a cosy heart. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is its best-known title: a hardworking programmer in Tokyo rescues a dragon one drunken night, and the dragon, Tohru, appears at her door the next morning as a devoted maid. Soon a little dragon girl called Kanna moves in too, and the three become an unusual, loving family. Kyoto Animation brings warmth and brilliant comic timing to every episode, and the story continues in the 2025 film Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: A lonely dragon wants to be loved.

The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch follows a young witch living with her strict older sister, and Management of a Novice Alchemist follows a newly qualified alchemist who opens a shop in a small village. Farming Life in Another World sends a man reborn in a fantasy world to clear land, build a village and gather a friendly community of elves, vampires and dragons. Sweet Reincarnation follows a boy reborn as the son of a poor noble family who uses his memories of a pastry chef's life to bake his way to success.

Elegant Yokai Apartment Life places an orphaned high-school boy in a cheap apartment building whose residents are yokai and magicians, and he finds the warm family he has always wanted. Interviews with Monster Girls follows a biology teacher who befriends students who are a vampire, a headless dullahan and a snow woman, along with a colleague who is a succubus, gently exploring what it means to be different. Endro! is a bright comedy about a party of young heroes who accidentally send their demon lord back in time as a schoolteacher.

Work life

Cosy anime also loves a good workplace. The Work life collection gathers stories about studios, offices, shops and small towns. SHIROBAKO is the jewel: five friends from a high-school animation club promise to make an anime together one day, and the series follows one of them, Aoi, as a production assistant at a busy studio in Tokyo. Its twenty-four episodes show every step of making a television anime, from storyboards and voice recording to last-minute deliveries, with warmth, humour and real respect for the people who do the work. The story continues in SHIROBAKO the Movie.

NEW GAME! follows a young woman who joins the game company that made her favourite childhood game, and learns to design characters alongside a team of talented, eccentric colleagues. Sakura Quest sends a young job hunter to a fading mountain town, where she becomes its tourism queen and sets out, with four new friends, to bring visitors back. My New Boss Is Goofy is a warm comedy about a young office worker whose new manager is kind, clumsy and completely devoted to his team.

Aggretsuko follows a red panda accountant in a Tokyo office who copes with her difficult boss and colleagues by singing death metal at a karaoke bar after work. Behind its cute design lies a sharp, funny and caring story about work, friendship and growing up, and the holiday special Aggretsuko: We Wish You a Metal Christmas is a treat. A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace and RPG Real Estate take the workplace comedy into manga studios and fantasy estate agencies, and Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost follows an overworked office worker who finds comfort in the tiny ghost who haunts her new apartment.

Family time

The Family time collection is ideal for sharing with children, and Family time on AniChan suggests where to start. Magical DoReMi follows a clumsy girl who becomes a witch's apprentice after uncovering a secret in a magic shop; its two hundred and fourteen episodes across five seasons are full of friendship, spells and lessons about kindness. The film Looking for Magical Doremi tells of three young women who grew up with the show and meet on a journey to the places it loved.

Yo-kai Watch follows a boy who receives a watch that lets him see yokai, the playful spirits behind everyday mishaps, and befriends a cat spirit and a floating ghost butler. Shugo Chara! follows a girl whose would-be selves hatch from eggs as tiny guardian characters, and Sgt. Frog brings a platoon of alien frogs into the house of an ordinary family, where their leader spends more time building model kits than planning an invasion.

Baby and Me is a gentle classic about a schoolboy caring for his baby brother after their mother passes away, and The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting follows a fearsome gangster assigned to look after his boss's quiet little daughter, with heart-warming results. Hanamaru Kindergarten follows a young teacher and his class of lively pre-schoolers, and Alma-chan Wants to Be a Family! tells of a robot girl who learns what family means with the scientist who built her.

Cosy films

The Cosy films collection gathers more than thirty gentle anime films for an afternoon or an evening. Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window adapts one of Japan's best-loved memoirs: a curious, lively girl is welcomed into a wonderful school in 1940s Tokyo where lessons are held in old train carriages. Its hand-drawn artwork is beautiful, and its message about the joy of learning and the value of every child is timeless.

Summer Days with Coo follows a boy who finds a fossilised stone that cracks open to reveal a baby kappa, a water spirit from Japanese folklore, and the two share a summer of adventures. Penguin Highway follows a precocious fourth-grader who investigates the sudden appearance of penguins in his suburban town, and the mysterious young dentist's assistant who seems connected to them. Child of Kamiari Month sends a girl on a journey across Japan to deliver a feast to the gods who gather in Izumo each autumn.

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko tells of a big-hearted, cheerful mother and her thoughtful daughter living on a boat in a small fishing port, and Mai Mai Miracle follows two girls in 1950s Yamaguchi who imagine the ancient city that once stood beneath their fields. Poupelle of Chimney Town is a bright fantasy about a chimney sweep and a man made of garbage in a town covered in smoke, who dream of seeing the stars. The Wonderland sends a girl through a basement door into a magical world that needs her help.

Film sequels round out the shelf for fans: Non Non Biyori: Vacation takes the country girls of the beloved series on a trip to Okinawa, Is the Order a Rabbit?? Dear My Sister returns to its cafe town for a summer of changes, and Tamayura: Graduation Photo Part 2 - Hibiki follows its photographers into their final school year. Natsume's Book of Friends the Movie: Ephemeral Bond and Natsume's Book of Friends: The Waking Rock and the Strange Visitor continue the story of a gentle boy who returns names to spirits, with his round cat bodyguard.

Films for younger viewers

Sumikko Gurashi: The Pop-up Book and the Secret Child brings the shy corner-dwelling characters of the famous stationery line into a picture book full of fairy tales, and Animal Crossing: The Movie follows a girl who moves into a village of friendly animals, just like the game. Goodbye, Don Glees! follows three boys who set out into the countryside in search of a lost drone and find a summer they will remember for the rest of their lives. These films are gentle enough for young children and thoughtful enough for the grown-ups beside them.

Questions