Polar Bear Café is an adorable slice of life anime set in a Japan in which sentient animals and humans live side by side. about Panda, who enjoys eating bamboo and lazing around all day. After his mother forces him to get a job, he applies to the Polar Bear Café but is ultimately denied due to his lack of experience and work ethic. Nonetheless, he becomes friends with the restaurateur, Shirokuma, and many of the other patrons, including a sarcastic penguin.

Polar Bear Café is simple and episodic, featuring Panda going about this day with his friends. Panda also eventually gets a job at the zoo, servicing mainly school children by acting cute in his exhibit. It’s a charming anime that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There are a lot of silly puns as well as situational humor and repeated gags. As an added bonus, the characters and the art style are adorable. If you are looking for a relaxing time, check out Polar Bear Café.

Dealing with themes of loss, loneliness, and hope, My Roommate is a Cat is an emotional yet cute story about a human and a cat forming a bond of friendship and being there for each other. After his parents died, Subaru, a painfully shy and isolated 23-year-old man, runs into a small grey and white cat named Haru and ends up taking the cat home with him despite not having any experience looking after an animal. Haru bonds instantly with Subaru, grateful for giving her a comfortable life full of food and happiness, completely different from the street life Haru lived before. But even Haru realizes Subaru is struggling to take care of even himself!

My Roommate is a Cat is a well-liked anime for a reason. It is relaxingly paced and gives you a sense of comfort after watching. In terms of production quality, the art is gentle and light, a perfect fit with the sentimental themes of the series, and the character designs and music choices are tasteful. If you are looking for a heartwarming animal anime, My Roommate is a Cat might be the perfect fit for you!

As the title might suggest, the main character is a taxi driver. He also happens to be a walrus named Hiroshi Odokawa. Odokawa meets a variety of interesting individuals while working, including Taichi Kabasawa, who wishes to go viral, and a mysterious nurse named Miho Shirakawa. The plot picks up when Odokawa unintentionally gets involved with a case of a missing girl who has been kidnapped by the yakuza and who is being searched for by the police.

Odd Taxi is a mature series with strong writing. While at first the characters that Odokawa meets and the events that unfold seem unrelated, they are actually all interconnected. As the plot builds up little by little, all the elements of this story come together in a major event at the end. The only potential negative is that while some fans claim that the dialog is unforgettable, others argue that the series relies too heavily on exposition. In terms of aesthetics, the art style and animation are realistic considering the all-animal cast. If you are looking for a good realistic mystery, you should check out Odd Taxi!

Being an adorable red panda is harder than you think! Retsuko endures great stress from her job from both her misogynistic boss and her condescending coworkers who often exploit her diligence and humility, pushing extra work onto her or forcing her to stay late. Being under so much pressure, Retsuko finds a unique method of letting off some steam: singing aggressive death metal karaoke.

While only being a single minute per episode, Aggressive Retsuko manages to be hilarious and fun through its portrayal of Retsuko’s relatable reactions to her insufferable coworkers and her insane singing. Many fans find it easy to emphasize with Retsuko as working in a stressful environment is something that many people go through today. Adding to the enjoyment, the character designs are simple and adorable and the colors are vibrant. As the anime centers around singing, there are also songs inserted in each episode. If you only have a minute to spare and you’d like to have a good-natured laugh, give Aggressive Retsuko a try.

Set in an imaginative world filled with intelligent anthropomorphic animals, Beastars centers around Legoshi, a wolf attending Cherryton Academy. There is an inherent distrust between the carnivores and the herbivores, and this is exacerbated after the killing of Tem, an alpaca. One night while Legoshi is on school grounds, he has a fateful encounter with the small white rabbit Haru, who is unpopular among her peers. Legoshi ends up falling for Haru, but their relationship seems ill-fated considering Legoshi’s predatory instincts and the rising tension caused by the recent death of Tem.

Psychological, dark, and unique, Beastars is a gem for the right audience. The worldbuilding dives deep, attempting to give us an accurate portrayal of what life might be like for anthropomorphic animals who are still subjected to animal instincts. The plot unfolds bit by bit, keeping fans on the edge of their seats as they learn about the true nature of the murder of Tem and the issues pervading this animal civilization.

Featuring prejudice and even violence between the carnivores and the herbivores and the inherent troubles of the two groups coexisting, the themes of this anime can be interpreted in a multitude of fashions. Beastars is certainly an anime that encourages you to think about what goes into making a healthy society when the groups living in it are so different from each other. Given the plot, it is slightly dark and depicts things such as underground societies and black markets for illegal products, so this anime might not be the best for light-hearted viewing, but if you are looking for an animal anime that is dark, well-written, and mature, we highly recommend Beastars.