Slice of Life as an Exercise in Mindful Thinking

"Slice of Life" is a way of telling a stories that can exist in many different forms, but there's one kind of story it is almost uniquely equipped to tell: ones about characters becoming more connected with the world. They can do this by having characters learn to notice and value the tiny things and moments in the world around them, by intentionally building communities and relationships through collections of tiny moments rather than drama, or even by learning more about the land and nature that surrounds them.

Fiction can be a great and low-stakes way to be introduced to new ideas and ways of thinking, and these are series that can lead by example in being more genuinely mindful of the world and people around you.

This is closely related to 癒し系 and series here are generally going to be for the 青年 and 女性 demographics. List will be updated as I read and think more, but erring on the side of being more picky, since it's easy enough to just search for the "slice of life" tag and be overwhelmed by stuff that is not quite what I'm after here. If something doesn't have a review, then I'm still trying to best articulate how it relates to this, but I'm certain it does in some way.

Difficulty Warning - some of these series are rated lower than the difficulty of their actual language because they are fairly text-light, ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 especially (only level 21, but was an Intermediate Book Club pick, who normally read stuff in the high 20s/low 30s)

This list comes as an extension for a book list I made in my study log on wanikani, and was originally inspired by the idea of "training attention" in How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell.

If you have any other recommendations for this list, feel free to drop into my study log on wk, or message me on the natively forums!