I’ve always been an advocate on how much you can learn from anime. However, you can learn more from some anime more than others. There are series that teach life lessons and morals, but there are actually quite a few anime series out there that teach legitimate academic knowledge. When educational topics are all wrapped up in an otherwise entertaining anime series, it is really the best way to learn.

Cooking: Food Wars

For all of its fan service, and there is a fair bit for comedy, Food Wars does present an educational take on cooking and being a chef. Certainly if you go to cooking school, you won’t be having many shokugeki, but it does touch on what it takes to be a good chef and the philosophy of food service. Furthermore, it presents the science behind recipes and the recipes themselves. However, due to time constraints, they usually just give the basics of the recipes so you will have to find the finer details to really recreate it.

Agriculture and Food Science: Silver Spoon

You’d be surprised how many people don’t know where their food comes from or how much work goes into getting it to you. However, as an anime series surrounding an agricultural school, you can get a taste from Silver Spoon. Similar to cooking anime series, it also presents a few recipes as well. However, it has more of a focus on the finer details that go into farming and animal husbandry.

Human Biology: Cells at Work

Cells at Work is essentially Osmosis Jones on speed. It presents a similar tale of cells fighting against germs, but it goes into infinitely more detail about the different cells and the types of jobs they do inside your body. It presents a very interesting presentation about what happens inside your body when you get a cut or have the flu. Furthermore, you get a pretty detail oriented scientific explanation when a new cell is introduced.

Economics: Spice and Wolf

While not the first anime series to have a main character as a merchant, it is the first anime to fully go into the details of economics. While Spice and Wolf is set in a medieval world and thus focuses on medieval level economics, you’ll find that they are still very applicable today in many ways. Watching Holo and Lawrence’s escapades is certainly more interesting that Macro 101, let me tell you.

Mixology: Bartender

Bartender can win awards for being one of the most mellow anime series, but there is much to learn from it as well. Bartender not only goes into how to make the cocktails in the show, but it also delves into the history behind each cocktail. It is a stance that works considering the show is about healing people with the right cocktail. As a side note, also a fun show to drink to.

Creating Anime: Shirobako

Remember when you were young? You saw a few anime series and you were like “I want to make one.” Oh, how naive. While Shirobako isn’t meant to be a dream crusher, it is meant to show the hardship and many people that go into creating an anime series. You can’t quite appreciate it until you see it unfold.

Creating Manga: Bakuman

Similar to creating anime with Shirobako above, there are a lot of different considerations that go into creating a manga. Bakuman goes into a surprising amount of detail when it comes to drawing. It can’t teach you to draw, but it can show you the differences between the different tools and how the industry works over in Japan.

Volleyball: Haikyuu

Not always, but in general, sports anime is the most educational genre. Sure, it shows some drama, but there are a lot of technical aspects and techniques that go into playing a sport. Haikyuu has many and it explains them all. Even if you played volleyball on a team, there is still probably more to learn here.

Microbial Science: Moyashimon

Germs and bacteria are bad, icky, and gross, right? Well, Moyashimon wants you to know the truth of it. Bacteria is essential to everything from digesting food to brewing beer. While it has an agricultural bent similar to Silver Spoon, Moyashimon explores how bacteria plays a role in so many things and can be just as good as it can be bad. Oh, it also makes bacteria look cute.

Japanese History: Hyouge Mono

There are lots of anime series that touch on historical topics, particularly Japanese history. However, many are not always historically accurate, and many more are embellished for…Fun? National pride? Hyouge Mono takes a more realistic approach to the Sengoku period. Samurais were warriors, yes, but they were also men of culture and various hobbies. Furthermore, there no embellished attractive people here. Instead, they are all designed in what would be considered attractive at the time.

Did we miss another good educational anime opportunity? Let us know in the comments section below.