15 Best Anime About Daycare
We have already talked about the various ideas and concepts embodied in various manga and anime titles. Whether it’s an actual (sub)genre or just a motif that is recurring in the series, you’ll find anything that comes to mind in anime. Some of these motifs might not be that common, they might be quite rare, but we’re certain that you’ll find a couple of titles, at least, to satisfy your needs. One such topic is daycare or, in a more broader sense, child care, and that is what we are going to talk about in this article.
Namely, this article is going to be a list of the 15 best anime about daycare and child care (since daycare is too specific of a motif to be present in so many titles individually). They won’t be ranked in any way specific way, rather just listed with some basic production and plot-related information so that you know why you should watch them and what they are about.
1. Baby & Me
Original Run: July 11, 1996 – March 26, 1997
Number of Episodes: 35
Baby & Me has a truly interesting plot. After the death of his mother, little Toshio, despite his young age, is the “second mother” of his younger brother Midori, helping his father as much as possible in this difficult task. The two siblings are very close, and even if at times Toshio realizes that the task of raising a two-year-old is not at all easy for him, who is still a child, after all, he tries in every way to keep the promise he had made to his mother to take care of his little brother in every situation.
Toshio, despite the events of his life had forced him to grow up quickly, is still a lively and cheerful child who likes to play with his best friends Gon and Akihiro, who in turn have two younger sisters (Nako and Ichika) and to whom he asks for advice in moments of despair. Often the three friends meet in the park or out of kindergarten and discuss their little-big problems related to their respective younger siblings.
2. School Babysitters
Original Run: January 7, 2018 – March 25, 2018
Number of Episodes: 12 (+ OVA)
Ryuichi Kashima, a high school student, and his younger brother Kotaro, a preschooler, are left orphaned and without a place to live after their parents pass away unexpectedly. On the condition that Ryuichi assists with the school’s nursery and work there as a babysitter while simultaneously attending courses, the president of the famous Morinomiya Academy offers to take both boys into her care, provide them with a new home, and waive their tuition. during the school day.
3. Usagi Drop
Original Run: July 7, 2011 – September 15, 2011
Number of Episodes: 11
When 30-year-old Daikichi visits his grandfather’s home for his funeral, he learns that Rin, his grandfather’s illegitimate 6-year-old daughter with an unidentified mother, exists. This girl is considered an outsider since she makes her entire family uncomfortable. Daikichi, who lives alone and has never reared a child, decides to take care of Rin himself out of frustration with their attitude.
After then, Rin enters his life, and Daikichi deals with the challenges of being a single parent. Kouki Nitani, a friend Rin met in kindergarten, is raised by a single mother whom he befriends and who offers him parenting counsel. Daikichi discovers a year later that his sacrifices for Rin were worthwhile. The focus of the first half of the series is on Daikichi’s perspective and his challenges in rearing Rin. After ten years, Rin is a high school student, and the remainder of the series centers on her, her attempts to deal with her love for Kouki, and her decision regarding her line of work.
4. Barakamon
Original Run: July 6, 2014 – September 23, 2016
Number of Episodes: 24
Seishū Handa is already a professional calligraphic artist at the age of 23 and has had some success. However, when a curator judges his work to be too conservative and in line with the textbook, he rejects it out of effect. His father, also a successful calligrapher, then sends him to the Gotō Islands so that he can learn humility and his own style there. When he gets there, Handa is initially astonished at the backwardness of the village and the expressions of the villagers.
But he is also shown a lot of hospitality. However, his house is “occupied” by seven-year-old Naru Kotoishi, who plays there with her friends. Handa is able to move in, but Naru and others keep returning to the house, causing unrest.
Naru himself quickly takes a liking to the loner Handa and wants to cheer him up. Although this keeps him from work, Handa also begins to like the girl and her friends. Hiroshi Kido, the village chief’s teenage son, often brings the artist food that his mother has cooked for him and also befriends Handa.
5. Sweetness and Lightning
Original Run: July 4, 2016 – September 19, 2016
Number of Episodes: 12
The young teacher Kōhei Inuzuka lives alone with his daughter Tsumugi since his wife died of an illness. Tsumugi still wishes her mother would come back and make them good food again. Her father regrets that he is not very good at cooking and can only offer his daughter ready meals. When they both meet a student of Inuzuka in the park for Hanami, she invites them both to her mother’s small restaurant.
Arrived there in the evening, the shop was empty, and only the student Kotori Iida was there to entertain them as her mother was away. She always stands in for her mother, who is usually on the road as a consultant or cooking expert, because she wants to keep the restaurant going. Her father separated from his mother a long time ago. But Kotori can’t cook well either – mainly because she’s afraid of knives.
Together with Tsumugi, who has a lot of fun in the small inn, she convinces Inuzuka that the two of them come over more often to cook together. So each time, they try to cook a new dish – Inuzuka for his daughter and Kotori for the restaurant – to get better at cooking.
6. Kakushigoto: My Dad’s Secret Ambition
Original Run: April 2, 2020 – June 18, 2020
Number of Episodes: 12
As a single father, Kakushi Gotō strives to ensure that his daughter Hime has a happy childhood. He tries to fulfill every wish of his daughter, whom he loves dearly, and to replace the missing mother. Above all, he hides from her that he is a mangaka who draws erotic comedies. He pretends to his daughter that he goes to the office in a suit every morning before changing into casual clothes on the way, without which he cannot work.
Together with his four assistants and his editor Satsuki Tomaruin, Gotō experiences the strenuous but often entertaining everyday life of a mangaka who works for a large magazine. He always has to fend off new threats to his secret and tries to strictly separate work and private life.
7. Poco’s Udon World
Original Run: October 9, 2016 – December 25, 2016
Number of Episodes: 12
The 30-year-old son of udon restaurant owner Sota Tawara left Kagawa Prefecture, where his hometown is located, and relocated to Tokyo in order to work as a web designer. He did not want to work in his father’s restaurant. However, upon her father’s passing, Sota makes the decision to go back to the community in order to settle everything, gather her belongings, and close the restaurant.
8. Aishiteruze Baby
Original Run: April 3, 2004 – October 9, 2004
Number of Episodes: 26
The boy Kippei Katakura is swarmed by girls and loves to play with his charms and flirt. But that also gets him into trouble at school and elsewhere. One day, however, his cousin, Yuzuyu Sakashita, who is five years old, turns up at his house, and he has to care for her from now on. After the accidental death of her father, her mother was completely overwhelmed with the upbringing, so she took the child to her relatives and disappeared without a trace. A bit reluctant at first but soon captivated by Yuyuzu’s charm, he lovingly takes care of the little girl, taking her to kindergarten every morning, making her lunch, and the like.
Over time, he becomes more and more responsible, which also impresses his classmate Kokoro Tokunaga, who begins to take an interest in him. However, because he takes too much time raising Yuyuzu, they don’t get together for a long time. Towards the end of the series, Yuyuzu’s mother reappears but asks for more time to recover from her husband’s death, leaving Yuyuzu with Kippei until further notice. However, he has now come to terms with the situation quite well and still gets together with Kokoro.
9. Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father!
Original Run: January 11, 2012 – March 27, 2012
Number of Episodes: 12 (+ 3 OVA)
The story centers on the life of a freshman who has just started a new life at Tama College of Literature. While he grew up with his sister, he left and lived on her own when she married a man who had two daughters from a previous marriage. He tried to distance himself from that family, and that was the reason why he moved to live on his own.
About 3 years later, they told her to visit his sister and take care of the three girls. However, this would change their situation when the plane where her sister and her husband were traveling suffered an incident, and now they are dead. Now he has to live with his sister’s three daughters, so two (from a previous marriage) are not related: a tsundere, Sora (14 years old), a little girl named Miu (10 years old), and a little girl, Hina. (3 years old), in a small room.
10. Chibi Devi!
Original Run: October 10, 2011 – February 17, 2014
Number of Episodes: 75
Honoka Sawada is a lonely young woman who endures a lot of bullying. When she wakes up from a weird baby named Mao falling from the sky, she finds him under her blanket and is now responsible for raising the little imp. She will soon come to realize that this child is nothing more or less than a demon infant, but she will also demonstrate to him his ability to defend her.
11. UFO Baby
Original Run: March 28, 2000 – February 26, 2002
Number of Episodes: 78
Miyu Kozuki is hosted at the home of a family friend, Mr. Saionji, when her parents go to America as part of a NASA project. However, Mr. Saionji soon departs for India on a pilgrimage, leaving the girl and her son, Kanata, all by themselves. A baby alien named Lou and his alien nanny BauMiao arrives on Earth from the planet Otto as a result of a space-time distortion, upending the lives of the two boys who are the same age.
Miyu and Kanata agree to house them while they wait for BauMiao to be able to fix the spaceship so they may travel back to their home. Miyu has grown quite fond of Lou and thinks that he and Kanata are his parents. However, coexistence will result in awkward and funny situations.
12. Natsume’s Book of Friends
Original Run: July 7, 2008 – June 21, 2017
Number of Episodes: 74
Natsume is able to see youkai and ayakashi (Japanese supernatural spirits), while those around him do not perceive them. When he was little, he didn’t particularly like them because the apparitions tended to put him in embarrassing, even dangerous, situations and led him to behaviors that normal humans could not understand.
Categorized as “weird,” the orphan is lonely, rejected by other children, and goes from foster family to foster family. After yet another move, many youkai start chasing him without his understanding of why. While trying to flee an attack, he one day enters a sacred place and inadvertently releases Madara, a “cat” who had been trapped there.
13. Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
Original Run: October 15, 1992 – September 30, 1993
Number of Episodes: 52
Jeannie is a happy young girl who lives a carefree life, likes to play with her friends Stephen and Bill, and loves music. But when her mother dies, that joy changes. At first, she finds it very difficult to cope with the situation, but she receives support and encouragement from her friends. Jeannie’s father is the village doctor and marries the rich Diana.
However, this ensures that Jeannie has to go to a girls’ boarding school far away from home. There she has to contend with many injustices and has to assert herself against others. In order to help her, Bill can be employed there as a servant. Stephen goes to school near her. Later she completes an internship in a children’s home, and the three of them become young adults, whereby deeper feelings are also involved.
14. Kotaro Lives Alone
Original Release: March 10, 2022
Number of Episodes: 10
Kotaro Lives Alone centres on Kotaro. Four-year-old Kotaro moves into a new apartment alone. He meets his new neighbor Shin Karino, who is a penniless successful mangaka. Kotaro is mature and independent for his age.
15. Beelzebub
Original Run: January 9, 2011 – March 25, 2012
Number of Episodes: 60 (+ OVA)
The story centers on Tatsumi Oga, the “strongest juvenile delinquent,” who is in his first year at Ishiyama High School, a school for delinquents. One day, while beating up other bullies near a river, he witnesses a man appear floating in the river, who suddenly splits in two, and a baby emerges from him.
This baby is the son of the Demon King, who was sent to destroy the earth, and Oga was chosen to raise him along with the baby’s servant, Hilda. The story tells of Tatsumi’s life with the child and the school for delinquents, although the story really begins when he begins to tell his best friend, Furuichi Takayuki how he found the baby.