The new anime season marches on, giving us quite a large number of quality anime series enjoy during these strange times. One show I was happy to see return was Is the Order a Rabbit? Bloom, the third season of the popular and relaxing “cute girls doing cute things” series about slow life in a coffee shop. Let’s look at why fans love these stress-free relaxing anime series so much!
Is the Order a Rabbit Season? Season 3 Arrives
We all have more than enough stress in our lives, between managing work, school, human relationships that might add friction to our lives…to say nothing of the stresses Corona has added. Stress is not always bad, and it can often be the thing that helps us grow into better versions of ourselves in the future. But when it comes to anime, it’s nice that there are stress-free options that allow us to sit back and watch a cute slice-of-life show about cute girls doing mundane things, or learning valuable life lessons, or generally being adorable, like GochiUsa.
Gochumon wa Usagi Desu Ka? (shortened to GochiUsa accord to the standard four-syllable abbreviation method fandom employs) is a pun on gochumon wa ikaga desu ka? which is a standard phrase meaning “what would you like to order?” It’s based on a 4-koma manga and follows the cute happenings of Cocoa, Chino, Rize, Syaro and Chiya, who just…run a coffee shop cutely.
In a lot of ways, cute-girls-doing-cute-things or similar slice-of-life shows are the opposite of what called me into anime fandom originally: fantastic galaxy-spanning tales of danger and drama with transforming mecha and exciting space battles as whole planets hang in the balance, the stories unfolding episode-to-episode. You could pretty much any episode of GochiUsa at random, because nothing really happens to the story.
Six More Relaxing Anime To Watch
If you’re a fan of relaxing anime that doesn’t stress you out, happily there are a lot of great shows to discover. Here are some!
Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense
An anime about a cute girl joining a popular online game, the heroine of The Rising of the Shield Loli Bofuri maxes out her defensive skills because she’s afraid of taking damage. It turns out she’s discovered a bug in the game that enables her to become the strongest player in the system, who no one can defeat.
Read my separate review of the Bofuri anime here.
Non Non Biyori
Translatable as something like “fine weather for lazing around doing nothing,” Non Non Biyori is the story of a city girl from Tokyo who comes to an extremely inaka (rural) village and finds the true meaning of friendship.
Flying Witch
A comfy anime about witches secretly living in Japan’s Tohoku region, who use their incredible powers of magic to do…pretty much nothing. Maybe some farming if they feel like it. Flying Witch is highly regarded as a quality relaxing anime by many fans.
Yuru Camp
A smash hit anime that cause thousands of shy otakus to leave their rooms and experiment with the joys of campingn the winter. You can’t find a more calming and comfortable anime to watch than Laid-Back Camp.
Azumanga Daioh
An extremely important anime because it created the genre of the 4-koma manga-derived slice-of-life anime. Loaded with fun characters who do cute things in a relaxing way.
Kakushigoto: My Dad’s Secret Ambition
A soothing show about a single father with one mission: to make sure his daughter Hina never finds out he’s really a famous creator of an off-color mature manga. Despite being such a relaxing show, it’s also a long-running mystery as Hina of the future finally opens the door that will teach her the secret her father had been hiding from her for so long.
For any more awesome relaxing anime that fans should have on their radar? Tell us in the comments below, or on our Twitter!
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