Overall, Hanasaku Iroha is a calm and lighthearted anime set in a small inn; however, the premise is astonishingly dark! A teenager living in Tokyo with her single mother, Ohana Matsumae's life is turned upside down when her selfish parent decides to jump ship with her new boyfriend, abandoning Ohana in a rural village with a somewhat unapproachable grandmother. Parental negligence is hardly the most comfortable way to launch a series!

Thankfully, once the protagonist settles down in her new home, Hanasaku Iroha quickly adopts an approachable slice of life tone. Working as a maid and constantly meeting new people from all walks of life, Ohana grows as a person while developing a support system at the local school. Despite centering around an inn and starring primarily teenage girls, Hanasaku Iroha seldom injects any fanservice into proceedings, and the handful of scenes that made the cut are tame.

Compared with some other entries, Hanasaku Iroha is more dramatic than most and boasts an incredible amount of character development.

Occasionally, a premise comes along that sounds almost too ridiculous to be genuine. Really? Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon is truly about an ancient dragon who decides to transform into a voluptuous girl to serve as a maid for a programmer! Who conjured up this idea?

Based on a manga by Shinja Cool-kyou, Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon injects fantasy elements into a tried and tested slice of life formula. Essentially, this is a "cute girls doing cute things" series, just with the added bonus of boasting mystical creatures and the most adorable anime character ever put to screen. Seriously, Kanna Kamui looks like a stuffed toy and her mere presence is enough to eviscerate any traces of tension or frustration!

Embracing its wacky premise, Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon delivers laughs in spades! Be it the energetic Tooru or the jaded Kobayashi, the cast consists solely of likable characters with impeccable designs!

Nobody wants to feel like they are being left behind, especially during their formative years. While not limited to adolescence, teenagers especially seem to hate sticking out for any reason that is beyond their control. Due to an odd turn of events, Hana Ichinose inadvertently misses the opportunity to apply for high school, forcing the 16-year-old girl to skip a year. Consequently, the timid student will have to enter a new school and play catch up. Electing to keep this fact hidden from the rest of the class, Hana strives to overcome her slow start.

Skipping a year is obviously not ideal, but we doubt Hana's friends will care too much about the girl's age. Regardless of personal opinion, Hana's fears should not be dismissed. Wisely, Slow Start avoids focusing too much on this tiny white lie and mainly prioritizes strengthening the central bonds between the four main girls. Whether struggling through some homework or dealing with Kanmuri's anxiety issues, these friends work through any problems together and mature in the process.

While there are a couple of weird subplots, primarily Eiko Tokura's strange infatuation with her teacher; for the most part, Slow Start is a delightful slice of life series about overcoming one's fears and embracing life!

Look, this anime literally has the word "bunny" in the title. Frankly, anything less than the fluffiest experience will be deemed a disappointment! Usagi Drop is simultaneously sweet and heartbreaking. As a genre, slice of life tends to take a more grounded approach than most other categories, but Production I.G's anime took things a step further. Based on Yumi Unita's manga, Usagi Drop deals with death, parenthood, and grief.

Attending his grandfather's funeral, the 30-year-old bachelor Daikichi Kawachi meets the young Rin Kaga, who happens to be the elderly man's illegitimate daughter. Shunned by the rest of the family, the shy girl cannot even properly grieve over the death of her father. With nowhere to go, Daikichi opts to temporarily adopt Rin, and the two end up forming an unlikely family.

Usagi Drop boasts its fair share of tearful moments; nevertheless, the anime is principally a relaxing and heartwarming sit. Rin and Daikichi act like real people, and mistakes are made as they try to make the best of the situation.

Admittedly, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou sounds like it should be the title of a reverse harem, but that could not be further from the case. An adaptation of Hajime Kamoshida and Keiji Mizoguchi's novel series with the same name, J.C. Staff created an earnest anime that lacks even the tiniest mean-spirited bone. Not convinced? Okay, then how about this: the protagonist rescues homeless cats.

Due to breaking the school dorms' no pet policy, Sorata Kanda is forced to move into Sakura Hall, an infamous household home to a bunch of artistic miscreants. Even though the residents are quite talented and seem determined to go far in their respective fields, they are also quite uncontrollable and prefer to move to the beat of their own drum. Initially, Sorata seeks to offload his cats and return to the regular dorms; however, the teenager develops doubts after the socially inept Mashiro Shiina moves into Sakura Hall. Human-shaped but acting more like a pet, Mashiro forms an attachment to Sorata and becomes dependent on the teenager.

A rom-com with a fantastic array of delightful characters, Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo avoids many of the genre's cliches. While the romance element could have been better, Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo is a success in every other department!

Sora yori mo Tooi Basho is such a brilliant series, for a brief second, we wondered whether visiting Antarctica is feasible in real life. Yes, this anime possesses so much heart and passion, it succeeded in warming up the coldest place on the planet!

Naturally curious but tied down by personal fears, Mari Tamaki wishes she had the determination to visit Earth's most exotic or dangerous locales. The teenager wants to reach for the stars but has yet to settle on a specific objective. On the other hand, Shirase Kobuchizawa knows exactly where she wants to go! Motivated by her mother's disappearance and undeterred by anyone's opinion, Shirase has worked around the clock to fund a trip to Antarctica. Inspired by the girl's dream, Mari decides to accompany Shirase on this journey.

A Place Further Than The Universe tells a complete narrative. Madhouse's anime falls within the slice of life classification, but there is an overarching plot and the characters are always pursuing a goal. Bolstered by a strong cast and a ton of laughs, A Place Further Than The Universe is a masterpiece!

Talented but arrogant, Seishuu Handa is an aspiring calligrapher who could benefit from a touch of humility. After punching a critic in the face for dismissing his work as derivative, Seishuu is exiled to the Goto Islands by his father. Away from Tokyo's bustling streets and comfortable apartments, the obnoxious calligrapher hopes to use this opportunity to focus on his work. Sadly, the island's residents have other things in mind.

The previous paragraph's final sentence might imply Barakamon is some sort of horror anime, but that is not the case. Barakamon's main theme is the importance of belonging to a community, and the individualistic Seishuu is repeatedly pestered into playing along with the island's customs. Whether coming in the form of energetic children or middle schoolers obsessed with yaoi relationships, Seishuu will not have a moment of peace. Luckily, that is exactly what the artist needs to grow up!

Blending shoujo, supernatural, and drama components; Natsume Yuujinchou is a truly singular package. A subdued 15-year-old boy, Takashi Natsume possesses the ability to see youkai, a skill inherited from his grandmother. Understandably terrified by this turn of events, Natsume often acted out and attracted the attention of bullies. After the death of his parents, Natsume spent the best part of the next decade jumping from one foster home to the next, but the kid would soon find himself pushed out into the cold.

Finally, Natsume settles down with a genuinely caring couple and even starts to develop some friendships. Unfortunately, he also finds his grandmother's "Book of Friends", which carries the names of dozens of youkai. Due to the book's owner exhibiting control over the listed spirits, Natsume becomes the target of several ghosts, and the only thing standing in their way is a feline spirit called Madara. Rather than striving to use this power to slaughter his enemies, Natsume wants to free any youkai listed in the book.

Despite the somewhat shounenesque premise, Natsume Yuujinchou is quite a calm and subdued anime. While there are a handful of battles, Natsume's character growth is the central focus. Across multiple seasons, the audience watches as the timid protagonist gains confidence and helps countless youkai who simply desire to be free.

Non Non Biyori is soothing. Watching this anime is akin to sitting by a riverbed and listening to the calm flowing water. What is the premise? Born and raised in Tokyo, Hotaru Ichijou moves to the small rural village of Asahigaoka and begins to attend the local school. Due to the limited population, the school has only one classroom and a total of five students, which includes Hotaru. Covering an entire year, Non Non Biyori chronologies the everyday lives of these children. That is it.

Asahigaoka is carefree. Willing to leave unmanned shops unlocked and barely aware of modern technology, this is a village that embodies the simple life. Non Non Biyori is devoid of any unnecessary fluff. Without even a shred of melodrama, Silver Link.'s anime follows these students as they unearth ways to entertain themselves. Be it the setting or the lethargic pacing, Non Non Biyori is practically therapeutic!

Laid-Back Camp lives up to its name! Camping might not be for everyone, but sleeping at the base of a mountain and waking up to be greeted by Mount Fuji seems like a fabulous way to start the day. Yuru Camp follows four girls as they travel to different campsites across Japan, cook some tasty looking food, and stare at the magical scenery.

Rin Shima loves camping. Whenever the weekend comes around, the teenager is always seeking to mount a tent and enjoy the solitude afforded by nature. At first, Rin considers camping to be a solo activity, but she ends up spending a night with the lost Nadeshiko Kagamihara, a similarly-aged girl who recently transferred to the same school. Enamored by the activity, Nadeshiko joins a club dedicated to camping and begins to plot ways to convince Rin to join them on one of their trips.

Gorgeously animated and endlessly endearing, Laid-Back Camp is likely to convince a few people to give camping a try!

K-On! is an anime about an extracurricular high school club of girls doing not much of anything; performance scenes are few and far between, but comprise many of the most memorable moments of the show. Regardless, watching K-On! is to witness Yui, Mio, Ritsu and Tsumugi’s entry into high school life and their meandering episodes of cute nothingness.

Kyoto Animation shows could easily occupy over a third of this list, but we decided that most had moments of intense drama that made it difficult to justify over other anime that we came up with. As a result, it came down to deciding between K-On! and Lucky Star for the tenth spot, of which it wasn’t too hard to settle on the former. Unlike Lucky Star, K-On! is accessible to anime fans of all experiences and is one of TV anime’s best examples of characters simply coming to life. If you enjoy a hot beverage observing well-directed character interactions and a low-key coming-of-age story, K-On! may very well be just your thing.

Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou is one of the few shows in recent years that has dorm tenants of multiple age groups and occupations, leading to one of the more dynamic slice of life experiences in anime. The viewer follows the thoughts of Kazunari Usa, who falls in love with a girl he catches sight of in the school library. Moving into the Kawai Complex, he learns that he will be living with Ritsu, the very same girl, along with a strange combo of a promiscuous office lady, provocative college girl and a masochistic NEET as fellow dorm mates. As they all project their everyday troubles and onto one another, the unconventional bonds they form end up being what they rely on most.

Kawaisou is an anime that ends up being sweeter than one might expect at first sight. It is comparable to a hot cup of lemon tea dunked in sugar. In the same way, each character’s dichotomous outlook on life might just end up putting a smile on your face as you see them go through their troubles together.

The show’s narrative is centered upon a trio of newcomers, Hasebe, Yamagami and Miyoshi. While Hasebe is talented enough to immediately becomes a useful member of his workplace and Miyoshi struggles due to her popularity among the elderly guests, Yamagami embarks on a quest of personal vengeance to find the ward office worker who allowed her parents to give her a ridiculously long given name.

Despite there being countless TV anime titles out there, the Japanese workplace is rarely used as a setting in any of them. Servant x Service breaks this trend by covering the lives of government workers inside a city ward office, following not only their personal interactions but also touches on how they deal with being in a professional environment. Servant x Service may sound like an anime that reminds older viewers of the source of their stress, but manages to give the workplace environment enough of a positive spin that no viewer could possibly find the show a painful watch. Instead, we are treated to small revelations of each character’s background and the growing romantic relationships that appear between unlikely pairs.

Riding the wave of the Haruhi Suzumiya boom is an anime first aired in 2008 called Kannagi, which rehashes some of the same narrative features of the aforementioned megahit anime while somehow being even more light-hearted, even more crazy, and to many an even more fun experience.

Kannagi starts with high schooler Jin carving a statue from the trunk of a sacred tree. When he returns to the completed statue a while later, Kannagi is met by Nagi, a goddess on a mission to cleanse the impurities of the world but had been under years of slumber. Don’t let this fool you though, as Kannagi is really about the shenanigans that Jin is forced into partially by Nagi eccentricity and the other parts by the sheer weirdness of all the people around him. They even manage to fit in a karaoke episode in there.

Filled to the brim with energy, Kannagi is an anime that is sure to bring you to laughter without forcing you to attach emotionally to any lasting dramatic consequences. Kannagi as a manga adaptation doesn’t reach deep into the source material’s core story, and is much better thought as a delivery of light humour by appealing characters.

Like Kannagi, Konosuba is also a comedy with great characters. Unlike Kannagi, you might end up loving Konosuba precisely because you ended up loving to hate its characters and had a fantastic time laughing at their misfortune.

Real world high schooler Kazuma is met with an unexpected early death, bringing him to the care of goddess Aqua. There, he is given the choice either to ascend to heaven or to be given another chance at life, this time in a RPG-inspired world of mortal combat against an oppressive demon king. As an avid gamer himself, he and Aqua embark on his own quest towards becoming a hero.

Or so it should have went.

Konosuba quickly reveals its intention to subvert any and every expectation a viewer can have for an RPG-based action-adventure story. Instead, the show is absolute comedy gold in how Kazuma’s genre-savviness is destroyed by the idiocy of his party-mates and his own hilariously mean-spirited personality. Really, although Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin and Darkness may act antagonistic towards one another, it only takes the show’s 10 episode run to make us believe that there is a part within all of them that undeniably cares for one another, and that is an absolute joy to see.

Sousuke Sagara is a militant youth who, for the reasons of protecting her, attends the same high school as the beautiful Kaname Chidori. However, having lived his entirely life surrounded by war and conflict, Sousuke often overreacts or even fails to comprehend the most basic aspects of living peacefully in Japan much to Kaname’s dismay. Fumoffu brings this a step further by framing the entire series around the most ridiculous misunderstandings between Sousuke and his classmates, always leading to moments of hilarity that cannot be matched easily by anime before or since.

Spin-off series occupy an interesting space in anime, where they are often not taken seriously by fans of their respective franchises. For the purpose of our list, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu being a comedy spin-off of the action-romance Full Metal Panic series plays in its own favour as we can get a full taste of the romantic hijinks and situational comedy of the franchise. Perhaps the best part about this show is its ability to make any viewer comfortable with its writing. Fumoffu’s jokes have a low entry barrier, making it a simple, comfortable watch for all who are interested, making it an approachable starting point for today’s anime fans who have heard of Full Metal Panic but never gave it a try.

Yuuki Hase is in love with Kaori Fujimiya. However, she is an enigma to everyone around her, keeping secret her condition of being unable to retain memory for over a week. Discovering this, Yuuki makes it his personal mission to become Kaori’s first real friend, no matter how difficult that may be.

Memory loss is a strong narrative tool, often used by many titles as a way to create drama. That being said, it makes it all the more impressive that One Week Friends managed to weave a light hearted, low calorie tale of heartwarming friendship. At its core, One Week Friends is a celebration of friendship as a teenager with all the hopeful emotions and occasional awkwardness it brings. For the stressed viewer, One Week Friends is pure fluff with only the lightest of drama, an optimistic message and a beautiful rendition of a classic Japanese rock song waiting for you episode after episode.

Just like the four main high school light music club members of K-On!, So Ra No Wo To revolves around the meeting and interactions of Kanata Sorami and her three fellow unit members in the 1121st Platoon, led under platoon captain Filicia Heideman. The setting of this anime is a war-torn world, one in which each character is faced constantly with the prospect of having to fight for their lives. At this point you may ask, how in the world can such a tense show be comfy? To that, So Ra No Wo To answers through music.

Some say that So Ra No Wo To is K-On! with a fresh coat of paint and a military theme. We at Honey’s Anime believe that there are things either series do better than the other, but nothing in K-On comes close to the immersive viewing experience that So Ra no Wo To provides. As much as this anime is an immersive war story, it is framed around the Kanata’s desire to play the bugle in remembrance of a beautiful soldier who once inspired her with a breathtaking rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’. As a result, So Ra No Wo To actually spends more time showing Kanata and co. struggling through their day-to-day life (be it on the military side or playing their instruments) and fits well within the boundaries of a slice-of-life show. What So Ra No Wo To does best, which many anime have tried and failed to do, is make a connection between the concepts of a meandering daily life and how precious it really is. Sit back and get comfortable with this anime, but beware that it is one that will elicit strong emotions and thoughts.

Nearly everyone has seen a clip of Nichijou. It’s that gif-able. At first split between two narratives, Nichijou sees the antics of pre-teen Hakase Shinonome, her robotic caretaker Nano and their talking cat Sakamoto in one set, but also the wacky school life of female high schoolers Yuuko, Mio and Mai. Nano, despite being a mechanical being, aspires to be a human but is constantly dismayed by Hakase’s whims. The high school trio on the other hand go through the motions of their daily life, but mess with each other in increasingly ridiculous way that often ends up in hilarious situations. As an adaptation of a 4-kona manga, Nichijou does an exemplary job.

What puts Nichijou above all other anime in this list is a truly magnificent presentation, top-tier production values and a sense of progression never seen for an anime that is entirely about silly characters doing silly things. Nichijou is the equivalent of anime’s ultimate Saturday morning cartoon show, pushed to the limit of what anime is capable of. Prepare a warm mug of cocoa for this one, as you might just need the sugar.

If Aria the Animation is an introduction to Neo-Venezia and Origination is a concluding arc to all of the cast’s character development, Aria the Natural is certainly when the viewer grows to love both Neo-Venezia and the people inside it.

Akari Mizunashi decided to go to what we call Mars, a place in Aria’s world that has been colonised and made into a planet of water. The newly named Aqua houses the city of Neo-Venezia, constructed to recreate the image of Venice. In Neo-Venezia, Akari is committed to pursuing her dream of becoming an Undine, a female tour-guide who makes it their job to share their love for Neo-Venezia to whomever boards their gondola.

If anime has ever been concerned with portraying a paradise on Earth (or Mars in this case), Aria may be the closest to accomplishing this. Absolutely every single character is a joy to see in this show, ranging from the romantic Akari, the blunt but friendly Aika and the snotty but lovably childish Alice to all who makes up a part of the intricate jigsaw puzzle that is Neo-Venezia. It is in Aria the Natural that we may become convinced that Neo-Venezia itself may be as much of a central character as any other individual, having the power to bring out the best of everyone treading upon it and connecting through fateful meetings those who become better people because of it.

For its expansive setting and a delightful collection of lovable personalities providing no shortage of comfort for the heart, Aria as a franchise deserves the top spot for our list of ‘Top 10 Comfy Anime’. There is no bad day that can’t be made better with Aria, and there is no place in anime that can be held as dear as the paradise that Akari and co. made Neo-Venezia into. If there’s anything that’s unfortunate about the show, it’s that there is an inevitable end to the story of Aria Company, but even then such is only a way to connect to a new beginning.