As the old saying goes, the way to somebody’s heart is through their stomach. So what better way to start this wholesome list than talking about a cooking anime. There are tons of cooking anime that you can choose to fill this spot, but since the goal is to make you smile, then we should go with Izakaya Nobu. As the name suggests, Izakaya Nobu is an anime about an Izakaya, a traditional Japanese dining place. What makes this particular Izakaya special, however, is the fact that the front door of the restaurant is connected to another world. A world of knights, swords, and magic, just like the ones that you can find in most isekai stories.

This means every customer that comes to Izakaya Nobu is somebody who comes from another world. Each episode will feature new characters who will try certain Japanese foods that they have never tasted before. Seeing the beaming face of a tired soldier as he enjoys a cold beer and savoring a warm vegetable soup will instantly melt your stress away and make you crave some good foods.

Continuing on the theme of foods, this time around we add a dash of parenthood and an adorable little girl to the mix to make sure you get all the warm feelings that you need. The story of Sweetness and Lightning revolves around Kohei who has to raise his daughter, Tsumugi, by himself. He is bad at cooking, but he’s willing to learn so that his daughter can enjoy healthy and tasty foods. Kohei is a teacher, and thankfully, one of his students, a girl named Kotori, is a great cook. She always eats alone due to her mother’s busy schedule. So Kohei asks Kotori to teach him to cook some meals for Tsumugi, and in return, Kotori will get the chance to eat together with Kohei and Tsumugi.

Seeing Kohei’s earnest efforts to cook Tsumugi’s favorite food, Kotori’s delighted face as she teaches Kohei and plays with Tsumugi, and Tsumugi’s beaming smile as she eats her father’s home-cooked meal will instantly warm your cast iron heart.

From heartwarming, we now move on to something absurdly interesting. Tonari no Seki-kun is an episodic story about Seki-kun, a boy who always feels bored during classes. So how does Seki-kun kill his boredom? Well, he does it by turning his desk into a stage where he can do whatever he likes, no matter how absurd it might seem.

He creates intricate multi-level domino shows, produces dramatic stories out of shogi pieces, and builds an elaborate mini post office system to deliver notes between his classmates. He would create different kinds of crazy yet incredibly interesting things in every episode. It is practically impossible for you to not smile and maybe even scratch your head a little bit whenever you see Seki-kun in action.

In Teasing Master Takagi-san, Takagi is a girl who loves to challenge her crush and classmate, a boy named Nishikata, to all sorts of little games. Things like guessing her new year’s prayer, making Nishikata unintentionally fan her during a scorching day, or saying things that she knows will make him blush. Needless to say, all of their harmless games will always make Nishikata flustered. That being said, he would always challenge Takagi back on some games that he thinks he’d win, such as guessing the number of the stairs that they’ve just climbed or asking her some tricky questions. But the end result remains the same. He will blush and feel embarrassed. After all, Takagi can read him like an open book.

Seeing their interaction and the innocent games that they play while trying to hide the fact that they do like each is just so wholesome and adorable. What’s more, since it is an episodic anime, you can pretty much jump on any episodes and get your daily dose of smiles and warm feelings.

If all of the previous entries were designed to make you smile and feel warm inside, then Nichijou was made with the sole purpose of making you burst out laughing. It may be just a story about the daily life of a group of high school girls, but there are so many random and absurd things happening all the time that you’ll find yourself in stitches in every episode. There’s a dignified student who rides a goat to school. A robot girl tries to hide the fact that she is a robot despite a removable USB stick on her thumb. And a bald principal who wrestles a fully grown deer at the schoolyard and ends it with a flawless German Suplex, just to name a few.

You will be bombarded with nonstop hilarious absurdities to the point that you’ll stop questioning all the nonsense you see and just enjoy the show. If you want something fun to remedy your weary bones after a hard day at work, then you won’t go wrong with Nichijou.