Suggestions for short slice of life series?

Hello! I'm looking for something to watch where I don't have to make a huge investment and watch billions of episodes. Umm so like those short 12-episode summer animes and stuff would be great.

I like slice of life anime with cute romance or humor. Nothing too sad. Ummm I haven't seen anime in a while but series I liked were Nodame Cantabile, Ouran High School Host Club, and Lucky Star.

Got any recommendations? Especially newer stuff would be good since I'm a little bit out of the loop. ;v;

Hmm. Of those I have only seen Lucky Star, but from the series I've watched, K-On is a very funny and cute slice of life about a girls' light music club. It's very well-known and, like Lucky Star, it's basically "cute girls do cute and funny things".

Usagi Drop is a very beautifully done slice of life that I'd recommend to anyone. It's a short series about a 30-year old man that adopts his niece, and it's very sweet and heart-warming.

As far as newer series are concerned, I have not watched any of these, though they are on my to-watch list, but Barakamon and Shirobako are both very recent anime that received a lot of praise. Non Non Biyori is also well-received and I've heard it compared to Usagi Drop in terms of how calm and pleasant it is.

I've already listed quite a bunch, so I'll avoid overwhelming you further! x_x I don't really know of any good romance slice of life, since I tend to avoid those for the most part. I have heard of a few that might fit the bill, but I don't feel comfortable recommending romance anime without knowing how it rates on the dreaded fanservice scale. =-=

Hmm! Short slice of life with cute romance or humor...

Tamako Market—12 episodes, same (art) style as K-On!, and it stood out to me because even though I don't specifically look for romance, I still found the series and the characters surprisingly enjoyable! There's a few ova's and whatnot for it too, if you ended up liking the main series

Hyouka—22 episodes (it's quite a bit longer than 12 episodes, sorry!), and again, very similar art style to K-On/Tamako Market (oops!), but this time there are ~mysteries~ involved, which I thought I should mention because this is a mafia forum, haha. The romance is a little lighter in this one, but again, I'm putting it forward because I thought you might appreciate the mystery aspects of it.

Rolling☆Girls—12 episodes, and one of the few animes I bothered to follow along as it aired this year! I super highly recommend it, especially for the art and character designs which are definitely on the cute side. I really don't the think it's official summary does it justice, so if you have time to spare, maybe watch the first episode or two and see if you like it from there? I'm actually horrible at summarizing oops sorry. :'D

I think that's all I'll list for now, but if you'd like more, I can definitely provide more suggestions!

P.S. I can semi-vouch for Barakamon! I used to keep up with the manga (though that stopped a few months ago b/c of school), and I quite liked that, and seeing some gifs here and there around tumblr, it seems to keep pretty in line with it! (Though I don't know about how/if they ended it.)

Coincidentally, Mr. Alice recommended two of the other slice-of-life anime I was considering mentioning: Tamako Market and Hyouka. I believe those two and K-On are all produced by KyoAni (Kyoto Animation), and they're pretty well-known for utilizing the same character styles. So, that'd be why they look similar! I had both of those on my plan-to-watch for some time, though I took Hyouka off recently.

Hmm, I forgot about Rolling Girls. I'm only on episode 4 or 5. I started it when it first began airing, but I never got around to completing it. Thanks for reminding me! I loved the colors in the first two episodes, though it seemed to go down in animation quality a tiny bit in the following episodes.

Ooh, yeah! I keep forgetting production companies are a thing, but you're probably right in that they're all produced by the same...company, haha!

As for Rolling Girls, oof yeah, I also feel like animation quality did drop, though I'm not surprised at all that it did. The backgrounds and scenery still always catch my eye though, and that watercolor-y feel is just so pretty! :D

Ah! Thank you for the suggestions! I'll check them all out. Usagi Drop was actually on my list of things to watch, but I forgot about it until now.

Wow, the people on this forum really know their anime, hehe. ;v;

I want to throw Blue Spring Ride out there. It's only twelve episodes long, but I really like it. There is romance, but I say it's mostly about learning to love yourself the way you are. The main girl Futaba pretends to be someone she isn't until she accidentally meets her first love again.

Not really a slice of life but I've been watching Love Live and it seems like something you'd like.

Older topic, and you might have gotten to some of these by now, but.

Luxaria wrote:As far as newer series are concerned, I have not watched any of these, though they are on my to-watch list, but Barakamon and Shirobako are both very recent anime that received a lot of praise.

I started watching Shirobako, and though I am still a handful of episodes away from finishing it, I have to say it is easily one of my top five series of all time. It will be the second ever anime I rate at 10. It's 24 episodes about adults and adult life in the anime production industry, while still having cute and funny moments. It's great and deserves all the praise it has gotten. Highly recommend. ;w;