10 Easy Anime to Learn Japanese With (Based on Subtitle Data)
People often recommend "easy anime" to Japanese learners based on things like genre or simply the target audience age.
That is not completely wrong, but it is also not very precise. Two shows from the same genre can use surprisingly different vocabulary. One might repeat a small set of everyday words, while another constantly introduces new expressions, names and technical terms. Also, most people simply don't want to watch boring anime for children.
So we decided to look at the hard data instead, subtitles.
We analyzed the Japanese dialogue from the first season of every anime in our dataset (70 anime) and compared its vocabulary with a large Anime/Drama frequency list. The result is this list of ten shows that should be relatively approachable for learners.
A quick warning before we start, "easy" is relative. None of these shows will magically become understandable after a month of studying Japanese. The ranking only tells us that their vocabulary is easier than the vocabulary in most of the other anime we analyzed.
What the coverage numbers mean
We use the 50,000 most common anime words as our benchmark, the point where vocabulary has stopped being the thing holding you back. Every percentage below is progress toward that benchmark within that particular show, not a share of the dialogue. A top-10,000 coverage of 94% means the 10,000 most common anime words already get you 94% of the way to what all 50,000 cover there.
Read across a row and you are seeing how quickly vocabulary pays off in one show. Read down a column and you are comparing shows at the same stage of study. What the numbers cannot tell you is whether you will follow the plot, because grammar and listening decide the rest.
The ten easiest anime in our dataset
| Anime | Top 1,000 | Top 3,000 | Top 5,000 | Top 10,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai | 73.1% | 84.5% | 87.8% | 94.1% |
| Horimiya | 75.7% | 84.9% | 88.2% | 93.9% |
| Another | 75.7% | 84.3% | 89.2% | 92.8% |
| You and I are polar opposites | 72.4% | 85.2% | 88.7% | 92.3% |
| Love Live! School Idol Project | 73.3% | 85.6% | 89.8% | 94.2% |
| Flying Witch | 74.5% | 83.7% | 88.5% | 92.5% |
| Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! | 74.2% | 83.4% | 86.5% | 93.1% |
| My Home Hero | 73.4% | 83.5% | 88.1% | 92.4% |
| My Dress-Up Darling | 72.9% | 84.6% | 88.4% | 93.6% |
| Fairy Tail | 72.0% | 82.7% | 88.2% | 93.3% |
The full ranking, all 70 shows including the ones we would not suggest starting with, is on the anime difficulty list.