College is a coming-of-age experience with time for self-reflection and growth. Despite this, even many slice-of-life anime focus on high school instead of the ups and downs of early adulthood. While anime about high school clubs, sports, and young love can be comforting because of their familiar tropes, there can be something equally reassuring about exploring characters’ college experiences.

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In an anime with young, college-age characters, one’s certainty, ambition, and independence, or lack thereof, can significantly impact the rest of their life. While watching them work around their dreams is disheartening, it’s fulfilling when they achieve them. Young adult stories may not be the most common, but anime that tackle the transition around college often acknowledge it is an influential time for their characters.

10 Moyashimon

Six characters from Moyashimon and lots of microorganisms

Check it out on Crunchyroll!

Moyashimon follows Tadayasu Sawaki, a first-year student at an agricultural university infamous for his ability to see and communicate with microbes. Although Sawaki is initially indifferent to the school and his studies, he soon realizes the value of his skill and builds a community with the others around him.

While Moyashimon has many light-hearted moments, the series also focuses on its characters’ finances, the importance of research, and the threat others will exploit Sawaki’s powers. Still, as Sawaki’s community learns about bacterial fermentation, he becomes better equipped to find his place in college and life.

9 Golden Time

Kouko from Golden Time in a stylish blue dress with her friends beside her

Check it out on HIDIVE!

After recovering from an accident that made him lose his memories, 19-year-old Banri Tada decides to pursue law school. There, he meets many people, including old flames, who remember him for who he was. While he realizes they want his personality from the past to return, he enjoys his new life and values the chance for a fresh start.

At different moments in Golden Time, the past seems to come forward, and managing his transition is challenging for Banri. Still, his self-discovery is a quintessential college experience that reveals the different paths his life could take.

8 Welcome To The N-H-K

Tatsuhiro Satou from Welcome to the NHK

Check it out on Crunchyroll!

Shortly after entering college, Tatsuhiro Satou drops out because of his crippling anxiety and belief that everything is part of a conspiracy. His mental health struggles make it hard to hold down a job, keep his home clean, and motivate him to change. However, after nearly four years of living as a reclusive hikikomori, the 22-year-old meets a high schooler who wishes to help him recover from his life as an unemployed NEET.

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Welcome to the N-H-K acknowledges that Satou’s mental health reinforces the challenges of transitioning to a more independent lifestyle and that recovering from fear or shame is difficult. Even though he reevaluates his life years after high school, the show acknowledges growth is possible at any age and time.

7 Science Fell In Love, So I Tried To Prove It

science fell in love so i tried to prove it main couple

Check it out on Crunchyroll!

In Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It, two young yet extremely logical science graduate students with crushes on each other work together to understand love rationally. If they can’t prove their feelings with numbers and data, they fear that they are not only making up their emotions but are failures as scientists. Determined, they measure each other’s heart rates, movements, and thoughts during numerous romantic experiments.

Other graduate students find their situation strange and hilarious, but they agree to help to prove that love is explainable through science. Although the series is a light-hearted rom-com, their passion for science and each other is reflected in their research.

6 Nodame Cantabile

A large group of characters from Nodame Cantabile

Shinichi Chiaki studies at the top music academy in Japan to pursue his dream of becoming a conductor. However, after arguing with his advisor, the skilled pianist was demoted into a class of peculiar characters who teach him that music is about more than precision by supporting his dreams and helping him overcome his fears.

Nodame Cantabile primarily focuses on the connection between Chiaki and an underclassman who only plays by ear and how they inspire each other to improve and seek help in and out of class. Together, life becomes more vibrant, and their college years are more meaningful than if they were alone.

5 Run With The Wind

Three characters stretching from Run With The Wind

Check it out on Crunchyroll!

Haiji Kiyose is a fourth-year literature student at Kansei University who dreams of running in the Hakone Ekiden, a prestigious relay marathon for university students. However, he suffers from a knee injury and doesn’t have enough team members to run the race until he convinces a first-year named Kakeru Kurahara to live in the club’s dormitory.

After Kakeru moves in, Haiji announces his dream to the other roommates. However, many have little interest in running the race at first. They haven’t been training, not realizing they lived in club dorms. Still, their respect and care for Haiji convince them to help him reach his dream. As they work together in Run with the Wind, they realize the discipline they learn as a team will help them thrive later in life.

4 Death Note

Light Yagami of Death Note

Check it out on Netflix!

Death Note is a well-known psychological thriller anime where a student named Light Yagami finds a notebook that belongs to a shinigami. Writing someone’s name while picturing them allows Light to kill whoever he wants. With this power, he aspires to become the god of a new world where only the just survive.

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Although Light is a high schooler when the series begins, Death Note follows his killings throughout college and early adulthood. Outside of being a serial killer, Light lives double lives as an average college student and rookie detective to mislead the renowned detectives assigned to solving his case. While his ordinary life is a charade, Light’s intelligence and ambition drive his actions.

3 Tatami Galaxy

The two main characters from The Tatami Galaxy holding umbrellas

Tatami Galaxy follows an unnamed college student who wants an ideal college life and romance. However, years pass him by without making many friends except a sly, demonic-looking man named Ozu. The student has many regrets, but he particularly regrets not joining a different social circle and failing to pursue a romance with a distant yet kind underclassman named Akashi.

Luckily for him, a series of mind-bending events sends him back in time to correct his actions. Without the miraculous ability to try again, college would have been a painful time instead of a fulfilling transition into adulthood for the student.

2 Honey And Clover

Five characters from Honey and Clover smiling in the snow

Check it out on Amazon Prime Video!

In Honey and Clover, five students from the same art school spend their youth together, enjoying their days to the best of their ability. However, their days are not as carefree as they wish. Love triangles, financial difficulty, and college graduation loom over them. Even as they strive to overcome hardships, they don’t know what the future holds for them or their friendship.

At first, Honey and Clover seems to take a light-hearted look at art school and romance, but its complexity and realism helped the josei series rise to popularity. As the show goes on, the college-age protagonists of the story realize that they have to take the good with the bad.

1 Steins;Gate

Rintarou and Kurisu from Steins;Gate

Check it out on Hulu!

Rintaro Okabe is a college student and self-proclaimed “mad scientist.” While he creates inventions with his roommates, their creations seem to have little success until they discover they can send text messages to the past through a modified microwave. Each message has the ability to change the world and create a new timeline. However, doing so puts Okabe’s friend group in danger. To save himself and his friends, he attempts to use the microwave to restore the original timeline.

Based on a visual novel, Steins;Gate has a complex world with high stakes. As Okabe and the others determine the fate of the world, their inexperience, morality, and bonds make all the difference to the messages they send.

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