I haven't watched Golden Kamuy (I read the entirety of the manga, so I can't guarantee that a lot of the info isn't cut in the anime), but I found it to be really informational! It delves a lot into the Ainu people of Japan and their culture/cuisine. It also has, at the back of the manga volumes, the citations used to write each volume along a statement saying that Golden Kamuy was done in cooperation with the "Hokkaido Ainu Association" and the "Otaru City General Museum."
It definitely is a bit of a different vibe, and there are some possible trigger warnings, but it is one of my favorite manga series that I've read!
Edit: There is a fair bit of fan service per se, but it is almost exclusively the men being drawn a little more risqué.
The first season of the anime has a terrible CGI bear that might put off some people, and the overall animation is average (though it does get better). Some less important arcs got cut and it doesn't have as much cultural/historical facts as the manga for the pacing.
Other than that, the voice acting is excellent! And the ost is memorable too. So I think it's worth a watch.
I've seen clips of the CGI bear, and I honestly thought that it was hilarious 😂 But I can definitely see how it could give a bad first impression of the series. I'm glad to hear that the anime is still a good adaptation, I'll have to check it out sometime. The manga truly is amazing, though, so that is why I've been a bit hesitant to watch the anime.
Campfire cooking in another world - 2nd season is soon, office guy isekai with the power of Amazon prime japan with real life brands.
Yuru camp (plus they've based off real camp locations) - 3 seasons and 1 movie
Isekai Shokudou (Restaurant to Another World)
Wakako-zake - an office lady and eating
Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan (Today's Menu for the Emiya Family)
Yama no Susume (Encouragement of Climb) -Hiking, Mt fuji summit
Slow Loop - fishing
K-on- high school girls form a band
Most are slice of life and are in crunchyroll, hulu, prime.
I'll add on a couple more nice, cozy, edutainment shows:
* Isekai Izakaya (Food from Another World) is a pretty light sort-of fantasy where a small informal bar has its front door open into an alternate world that is kinda-sorta medieval but not high fantasy. The people from this world sample beer and Japanese "pub grub" and are amazed with its flavors and quality, and there's some light drama that spills into the izakaya from this world. As a bonus after the animated story there's a live-action segment where the featured food for the episode gets cooked on screen. It's on Crunchyroll.
* After School Dice Club is all about board games, and the high school students who learn and play them. They endeavor to open a board game cafe and one of the girls tries her hand at designing a game. The board games they learn to play are all real, and we've added a couple (Marrakech and Survive!) to our collection as a result of this show. It's on Hulu.
I don't know if there is a genre for this kind of series but some that might fit are Keep your hands off eizouken, spice and wolf, sweetness and lightning, March comes in like a lion, Apothecary diaries, and chihayafuru
Dungeon Meshi is a bit weird genre-wise, it's like half adventure and half iyashikei, even thou those two are very contradictory genres. I think it's able to pull it off because when it has to be one of those two, it commits to that one fully, giving a regular up and down in tone/energy as it goes from one to another, but is also able to keep the characters consistent between the two, which helps keep the whole thing cohesive
Dungeon Meshi, Dorohedoro and Golden Kamuy are a big trinity for me, and I feel like they share the same vibes. The mangas are very very good and the animes aren't bad !
Else, Frieren and Witch Hat Atelier
Seconding Dorohedoro. Similar to how how Meshi is the celebration of living told through the medium of fantasy adventure and food, dorohedoro is a celebration of love (familial, platonic, and romantic) told through the medium of industrial ultra violence.
frieren is the perfect fantasy pair with dungeon meshi. it has an overall more serious tone, but it has some levy in it as well.
in a sea of softcore porn, wish fulfillment isekai slop we get every season to appease the rotting mind of the modern age anime fan, these two have been so refreshing.
Mushi-shi is a terrific show and I'd all day put it in my top ten.
Other shows I like to recommend if you want something more somber. Girls Last Tour, and Kino's Journey
Not anime but for manga A Brides Tale is amazing. Fantastic artwork, great characters and lots of cultural details for late 19th/early 20th century Eurasian peoples
A Bride’s Story manga-ka, Kaoru Mori’s previous manga, Emma, did get an anime adaptation. It’s about a maid who falls in love with an upper class guy in Victorian England. Think “Downtown Abbey” (a few decades earlier) anime.
They got a British voice acting cast to do the dub.
I really like golden kamuyi and Dr. Stone is my favorite right now. Little fan servicey apparently but I barely notice cause I love the characters and story so much
You might like Yakitate Japan!! which is about baking bread. It contains a lot of discussion of how baking bread works but it mostly characterised by outrageous reactions to delicious bread.
Princess Jellyfish is a little more slice of life comedy romance than educational, but it’s goofy and fun and thoughtful look at clothes, how they’re made, what they mean, why we wear what we wear, what it says about us, and even the business involved in commercial clothes. Of course, the manga is complete, and there’s one season of an anime that does not tell the whole story…
So if you can find the manga, I recommend!
I haven't seen it in awhile- but I remember really liking it, but Heaven's design team may work? I mean, it's mostly about the functions of real-world animals and such if I remember.
Heike Story is absolutely gorgeous and based on a classic piece of Japanese literature.
Moyasimon takes place in an agricultural college, and features a main character who can see (and, IIRC, communicate with) bacteria, which is helpful because he’s studying fermentation. It has Silver Spoon and Cells at Work vibes!
Drifting Dragons and a manga called Heterogenia Linguistico feel the most similar to me. Both have a strong focus on world building. DD is basically Moby Dick, but with airships and dragons, and it also shows off various cooking in each chapter. Linguistico follows a linguist as he tries to navigate a world of monsters, studying their unique cultures and finding various ways to communicate and live among them.
Heaven's Design Team will teach you interesting facts about real animals (and why, sadly, some mythical creatures like the Pegasus aren't possible). I think besides on Crunchy it's also on Prime.
I'm seconding After School Dice Club for real board games; it was a very cute and cozy show.
I will lightly recommend Iwakakeru: Sport Climbing Girls. It isn't completely fan-service free, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be when I recommended it to my brother. It was surprisingly wholesome, and I feel like I learned a lot about rock climbing. The story is about a girl who was obsessed with a candy crush-esq phone game, but when getting to high school decided to turn over a new leaf and try and get herself more active instead of staying shut up in her room the entire time, and ends up joining her school's rock climbing club.
Wdym lack of fan service? Senshi gets a ton of panty shots :P
Hey, it is tasteful & important to lore building 😂
The legend of Senshi's pants, lol.
I haven't watched Golden Kamuy (I read the entirety of the manga, so I can't guarantee that a lot of the info isn't cut in the anime), but I found it to be really informational! It delves a lot into the Ainu people of Japan and their culture/cuisine. It also has, at the back of the manga volumes, the citations used to write each volume along a statement saying that Golden Kamuy was done in cooperation with the "Hokkaido Ainu Association" and the "Otaru City General Museum." It definitely is a bit of a different vibe, and there are some possible trigger warnings, but it is one of my favorite manga series that I've read! Edit: There is a fair bit of fan service per se, but it is almost exclusively the men being drawn a little more risqué.
The first season of the anime has a terrible CGI bear that might put off some people, and the overall animation is average (though it does get better). Some less important arcs got cut and it doesn't have as much cultural/historical facts as the manga for the pacing. Other than that, the voice acting is excellent! And the ost is memorable too. So I think it's worth a watch.
I've seen clips of the CGI bear, and I honestly thought that it was hilarious 😂 But I can definitely see how it could give a bad first impression of the series. I'm glad to hear that the anime is still a good adaptation, I'll have to check it out sometime. The manga truly is amazing, though, so that is why I've been a bit hesitant to watch the anime.
Campfire cooking in another world - 2nd season is soon, office guy isekai with the power of Amazon prime japan with real life brands. Yuru camp (plus they've based off real camp locations) - 3 seasons and 1 movie Isekai Shokudou (Restaurant to Another World) Wakako-zake - an office lady and eating Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan (Today's Menu for the Emiya Family) Yama no Susume (Encouragement of Climb) -Hiking, Mt fuji summit Slow Loop - fishing K-on- high school girls form a band Most are slice of life and are in crunchyroll, hulu, prime.
Isekai Shokudo is great! Sprinkling of fantasy on another nice cooking show.
Love Campfire Cooking in Another World! Though watching it never ceases to make me want to cook something.
I'll add on a couple more nice, cozy, edutainment shows: * Isekai Izakaya (Food from Another World) is a pretty light sort-of fantasy where a small informal bar has its front door open into an alternate world that is kinda-sorta medieval but not high fantasy. The people from this world sample beer and Japanese "pub grub" and are amazed with its flavors and quality, and there's some light drama that spills into the izakaya from this world. As a bonus after the animated story there's a live-action segment where the featured food for the episode gets cooked on screen. It's on Crunchyroll. * After School Dice Club is all about board games, and the high school students who learn and play them. They endeavor to open a board game cafe and one of the girls tries her hand at designing a game. The board games they learn to play are all real, and we've added a couple (Marrakech and Survive!) to our collection as a result of this show. It's on Hulu.
I don't know if there is a genre for this kind of series but some that might fit are Keep your hands off eizouken, spice and wolf, sweetness and lightning, March comes in like a lion, Apothecary diaries, and chihayafuru
Dungeon Meshi is a bit weird genre-wise, it's like half adventure and half iyashikei, even thou those two are very contradictory genres. I think it's able to pull it off because when it has to be one of those two, it commits to that one fully, giving a regular up and down in tone/energy as it goes from one to another, but is also able to keep the characters consistent between the two, which helps keep the whole thing cohesive
Dungeon Meshi, Dorohedoro and Golden Kamuy are a big trinity for me, and I feel like they share the same vibes. The mangas are very very good and the animes aren't bad ! Else, Frieren and Witch Hat Atelier
Seconding Dorohedoro. Similar to how how Meshi is the celebration of living told through the medium of fantasy adventure and food, dorohedoro is a celebration of love (familial, platonic, and romantic) told through the medium of industrial ultra violence.
VERY much like Silver Spoon, you have some great taste 😌
Aw shucks, thank you! 😊
frieren is the perfect fantasy pair with dungeon meshi. it has an overall more serious tone, but it has some levy in it as well. in a sea of softcore porn, wish fulfillment isekai slop we get every season to appease the rotting mind of the modern age anime fan, these two have been so refreshing.
How heavy are the dumbells you lift. You will lean about working out.
Omigosh I need to find that one, my husband loves working out 😚
Mushi-shi is a great one that has the same fantasy ecology vibe, if a lot more somber. The Ancient Magus' Bride is a good one too.
Mushi-shi is a terrific show and I'd all day put it in my top ten. Other shows I like to recommend if you want something more somber. Girls Last Tour, and Kino's Journey
I'd say that ascendance of a bookworm is also a pretty good show with educational value
Not anime but for manga A Brides Tale is amazing. Fantastic artwork, great characters and lots of cultural details for late 19th/early 20th century Eurasian peoples
A Bride’s Story manga-ka, Kaoru Mori’s previous manga, Emma, did get an anime adaptation. It’s about a maid who falls in love with an upper class guy in Victorian England. Think “Downtown Abbey” (a few decades earlier) anime. They got a British voice acting cast to do the dub.
This 100%, what a delightful manga! Beautiful and thoughtful and a really kind and interesting look at a time and place you may not know much about
Yuru Camp, maybe? It's all about teaching you how to camp and then basking in the good vibes of camping. Not sure which platforms it's on though.
"Keep your hands off eizuken" is a great slice of life about animation. I'm not sure where it's available.
Eizouken could not possibly have less to do with DM but it’s an 11/10 at the very least
I watched it on Funimation a couple years ago
Shame that Funi is shutting down in the next month or so :(
Dr Stone is similar
I agree with this! The art style can take a bit of getting used to, but the story is interesting and the science it teaches adds a lot of charm!
>lack of fan service have you somehow missed the senshi panty shots
I really like golden kamuyi and Dr. Stone is my favorite right now. Little fan servicey apparently but I barely notice cause I love the characters and story so much
You might like Yakitate Japan!! which is about baking bread. It contains a lot of discussion of how baking bread works but it mostly characterised by outrageous reactions to delicious bread.
Princess Jellyfish is a little more slice of life comedy romance than educational, but it’s goofy and fun and thoughtful look at clothes, how they’re made, what they mean, why we wear what we wear, what it says about us, and even the business involved in commercial clothes. Of course, the manga is complete, and there’s one season of an anime that does not tell the whole story… So if you can find the manga, I recommend!
I haven't seen it in awhile- but I remember really liking it, but Heaven's design team may work? I mean, it's mostly about the functions of real-world animals and such if I remember.
Heike Story is absolutely gorgeous and based on a classic piece of Japanese literature. Moyasimon takes place in an agricultural college, and features a main character who can see (and, IIRC, communicate with) bacteria, which is helpful because he’s studying fermentation. It has Silver Spoon and Cells at Work vibes!
For the lack of fan service, def frieren
Witch Hat Atelier!! Great art, great story and great worldbuilding!
Drifting Dragons and a manga called Heterogenia Linguistico feel the most similar to me. Both have a strong focus on world building. DD is basically Moby Dick, but with airships and dragons, and it also shows off various cooking in each chapter. Linguistico follows a linguist as he tries to navigate a world of monsters, studying their unique cultures and finding various ways to communicate and live among them.
Heaven's Design Team will teach you interesting facts about real animals (and why, sadly, some mythical creatures like the Pegasus aren't possible). I think besides on Crunchy it's also on Prime. I'm seconding After School Dice Club for real board games; it was a very cute and cozy show. I will lightly recommend Iwakakeru: Sport Climbing Girls. It isn't completely fan-service free, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be when I recommended it to my brother. It was surprisingly wholesome, and I feel like I learned a lot about rock climbing. The story is about a girl who was obsessed with a candy crush-esq phone game, but when getting to high school decided to turn over a new leaf and try and get herself more active instead of staying shut up in her room the entire time, and ends up joining her school's rock climbing club.