10 best anime to watch if you like Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary

Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary has garnered praise for its slow-paced yet emotionally intense portrayal of high school students who yearn for normal lives but end up solving mysteries.

With lush visuals that convey subtle themes of curiosity, introspection, and the illusion of simplicity, this anime has resonated with many viewers. For fans drawn to these internal struggles masked within slice-of-life calm, here are 10 highly-rated anime to queue.

Blending everyday relatability with mystery, philosophy, or a touch of the strange, these titles may just hold up a mirror to show normalcy's extraordinary side.

10 best anime to watch if you like Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary

1) Hyouka

Hyouka follows high schoolers who would rather keep their heads down but end up unraveling curious incidents that capture their attention.

Known for its beautiful animation, the series masterfully builds mysterious plot threads around a missing club anthology, a decades-old school mystery, and a strange festival. Viewers join an unmotivated boy named Oreki as he gets embroiled in these cases when the lively Chitanda insists they solve puzzles that bother her.

Fans of Shoshimin will recognize Oreki’s detached reasoning in Kobato, while Chitanda’s curiosity mirrors Osanai’s hidden depth—making them a compelling pair. With its subtle, everyday suspense and interpersonal tension, Hyouka scratches a similar itch as Shoshimin.

2) The Tatami Galaxy

For viewers who appreciated the nuanced emotional study in Shoshimin, The Tatami Galaxy delves even deeper into the psyche of its central character. Through stylized animation and a Groundhog Day-esque premise, it explores regret, youthful mistakes, and the difference one decision can make.

As the unnamed protagonist relives his college years across parallel universes, he gradually evolves, while befriending typically eccentric anime side characters. Despite its metaphysical premise, the series remains grounded in relatable emotions and interpersonal relationships.

Much like Shoshimin, there is brooding introspection under cheerful hijinks in The Tatami Galaxy.

3) Monogatari

While more surreal in its visual presentation, Monogatari shares Shoshimin’s flair for everyday mystery and nuanced characters. As high schooler Koyomi Araragi encounters humanized oddities from Japanese folklore, he unravels supernatural incidents that subtly underpin reality.

From forgotten crab deities to mischievous cat spirits, these paranormal events blend seamlessly into school life, revealing emotional truths beneath the surface. Like Kobato, Araragi has a fiercely analytical mind. And like Osanai, many of the female leads hide insightful complexity behind initial tropes.

For viewers who enjoyed uncovering depth in modest mysteries, Monogatari delivers profound weirdness.

4) The Perfect Insider

The Perfect Insider (Image via A-1 Pictures)

The Perfect Insider takes Shoshimin’s psychological tension and dials it up several notches into a darker, techno-thriller mystery. When Professor Souhei Saikawa and his student Moe Nishinosono visit a research lab run by the brilliant but enigmatic Shiki Magata, a locked-room murder mystery ensues.

With visuals that shift from stark to surreal, this anime unfolds its plot through cryptic clues, discussions of philosophy and identity, and intellectual battles between equally matched minds. Its quiet framing heightens horrific reveals when they arrive.

Fans of Shoshimin’s slow-building emotional drama will find familiar, but more sinister, layers in The Perfect Insider.

5) Beautiful Bones: Sakurako’s Investigation

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako’s Investigation (Image via TROYCA)

For viewers drawn to Shoshimin’s community-based mysteries, Beautiful Bones grounds its investigative drama in a small-town Japanese backdrop.

When high schooler Shotaro Tatewaki meets the eccentric osteologist Sakurako Kujō, they tackle a new unexplained case in each episode—often related to human remains. Rather than leaning into sensationalism, this anime focuses on regional customs, underlying emotions, and the human stories behind the bones.

With gorgeous scenery and endearing leads, it delivers intimate slice-of-life plots elevated by pattern-crunching mystery. Much like Shoshimin’s modest cases made striking through inventive cinematography, Beautiful Bones makes local legends hauntingly humane.

6) ReLIFE

Where Shoshimin questions the tension between normalcy and curiosity, ReLIFE probes the assumption that adults must outgrow youthful potential. When down-on-his-luck Arata signs up for a secret scientific study, he is transformed back into his 17-year-old self to relive high school—and learn lifelong lessons.

Through vibrant characters and emotional storytelling, this anime explores rediscovering passion, overcoming trauma, understanding different perspectives, and seizing second chances—all from an unlikely premise. Like Shoshimin’s leads, Arata hides his true analytical skills under a simplistic surface.

For fans who enjoyed watching mystery and meaning emerge from the everyday, ReLIFE delivers profound growth from familiar settings.

7) A Silent Voice

A Silent Voice (Image via Kyoto Animation)

While more outright dramatic than Shoshimin, this acclaimed film explores similarly resonant themes of family ties, understanding others' pain, and finding catharsis through opening one’s eyes to the truth.

When former elementary school bully Shoya reencounters his classmate Shoko—now 16 and deaf—years after driving her to change schools, he sets out on a path of redemption. Through vivid sound design, inventive visuals, and emotional writing, the film highlights different forms of communication.

As Shoya confronts the full weight of his past cruelty, the story unravels the complex perspectives of all involved, reminding viewers that no story has just one side. Fans of Shoshimin’s layered perspectives and insight into trauma’s legacy will find aching familiarity and hope in this movie.

8) Erased

For those craving Shoshimin with higher stakes, Erased brings urgency while preserving its emotional core. When tragedy strikes, 29-year-old Satoru finds his consciousness transported back to childhood moments before disaster, granting him repeated chances to save loved ones by changing the timeline.

Despite the sci-fi twist, emotion anchors everything: from family bonds to the resonance of small actions. Even more than Shoshimin, this anime highlights protagonist Satoru’s keen perception, problem-solving skills, and drive to protect others at great personal cost.

While more violent than the slice-of-life mystery, Erased retains a similar thematic soul with exponentially heightened dramatic tension.

9) Mushishi

If the biggest draw of Shoshimin was its patient worldbuilding and intellectually satisfying mysteries grounded more in philosophy than theatrics, Mushishi provides an even richer exploration of those similar strengths.

Through vignettes following “mushishi” Ginko as he investigates supernatural entities called Mushi, the series compiles Japanese mythos into a meditation on the interconnection of dark and light. Is the supernatural frightening if it’s part of nature’s design? Is life worth clinging to over accepting death?

With its inventive spirit biology and Ginko’s understated wisdom, each episode investigates human struggles. For viewers who enjoyed their mysteries with an extra side of profound insight, Mushishi presents life’s unknowable questions through moving allegory.

10) Bunny Drop

After 30-year-old Daikichi attends his grandfather’s funeral, he meets six-year-old Rin—his grandfather’s previously unknown illegitimate daughter. On impulse, perpetual bachelor Daikichi assumes guardianship, launching into single fatherhood.

What unfolds through their interactions, awkward adjustments, and run-ins with judgmental onlookers is a heartwarming depiction of intergenerational connection. Despite decidedly lower narrative stakes than Shoshimin, it shares sincere moments blossoming into resonance.

As Daikichi transforms from a cranky loner into a devoted caretaker, his personal growth echoes Kobato and Osanai’s in scaling. Through Rin’s infectious joy and honesty, Daikichi learns to accept help from others, to take pride in developing domestic skills, and to redefine his conception of family.

Conclusion

Beyond edge-of-seat thrills or conventionally high stakes, shows like Shoshimin exemplify a rare mastery: infusing profundity into subtler stories. Through patience, insight, and care for smaller human moments, they elicit investment in personal transformations over spectacle.

Much like Kobato finds meaning through quiet deduction rather than chasing renown, the shows above underline that richness blooms in understanding the people and moments most intimate to us. However ordinary daily life may seem, meaning always waits there to be uncovered.