Difficult question. I recently passed N4, and still have a hard time with kids shows like Doramon or chibimaruko-san. They use lots of kid words, which are not in N4/n5. Plus, Doraemon talks FAST, which is simple for Japanese kids, but really tough for second language learners.
My kids used to watch Shima-Jiro and Anpan man which are directed to a preschool audience, and the language is pretty simple. The problem is, I can’t imagine an adult being terribly entertained by the shows.
Yea absolutely, i remember having to slow down Doraemon to understand anything at first and you’ll definitely have to force yourself to watch some shows. Doraemon was at least somewhat interesting to me though. Bottom line is there’s probably nothing any n5 learner can watch that they’ll actually understand unless its made for a Japanese learner in mind, but even then that could get boring since there’s not enough ways to express things at that level. I do remember watching Shirokuma cafe when I was around N4 and that was slower conversations and easier vocab + not aimed at a super young audience, so that’s an option to check out.
For short tv show, you have Hajimete no otsukai, a bit fast but the vocabulary is pretty basic.
Bluey - some of the stuff is kinda interesting and easier to understand.
Pokémon concierge- a bit more difficult but it has cute Pokémon and you can kinda understand what’s going on regardless.
Rilakuma series - a bit more difficult than Pokémon concierge but again you can kinda understand what’s going on anyway.
Chi’s sweet home - has a mix of easier and more difficult language but still around N5-N4 level.
Alternatives, watch something you already know in your native language and just see how much you pick up over time. I picked up Pokémon and I’m steadily understanding more as time goes on.
Also, try “Comprehensible Japanese” (they have a site and YouTube but some of the website is pay locked). I used Comprehensible Japanese to begin with when I was struggling with other things and she draws things out or shows a picture onscreen so you connect images with the words. They have an N5 playlist and an N4 play list and the site also has it separated into different N levels as well.
I also searched for “Comprehensible Japanese videos N5” (just swap out the N level for the level you need) on YouTube and got a fair amount of different content that I found interesting. Short easy to digest videos.
I recommend stuff for little kids, too. I watched a lot of Sesame Street in Japanese when I first arrived, and Dora the Explorer. I watched some other shows, too, but I don’t remember the names of them as it’s been awhile.
Of course, everyone will recommend watching shows meant for children. I can personally vouch for Pokémon as a learning tool (it’s especially interesting if it’s a show you’ve watched in English).
Another option is watching basically any romance/slice-of-life anime. The conversations are usually quite simple and many of them are rooted in everyday situations and use realistic Japanese (for the most part).
Other than that, I just recommend watching what you actually like. I remember at the start I tried watching Sazae-san, but I just couldn’t get into it. In the end I went with something that was a bit more challenging, but because I enjoyed it so much I could rewatch episodes easily.
This!
To be honest, I think N5 is early to watch anime and expect to understand much. Your level of enjoyment will depend on how comfortable you are with not understanding most of the show.
However, I’d recommend watching something you have already seen before (subbed or dubbed). Already knowing the story helps a lot with understanding through context. It also feels very different to watch without subtitles, so it’s an enjoyable experience.
The effectiveness will depend on how much work you put in. Do you plan on looking up words you don’t know? Breaking up sentences to understand the grammar? I think there is value to just watching and practicing your listening in a more free/low effort manner. But that may be less effective in advancing your japanese than cramming on Bunpro or listening a more beginner friendly podcast that can review what you are learning.
If you find anime a bit hard, I recommend podcasts!
Many popular podcasts now have automatic transcriptions on spotify. You can read along while listening. Also, many of them aimed at new learners are very short, so it’s easier to listen again and again without feeling overwhelmed.
Nihongo con Teppei is a popular beginner podcast, but for some people can be a little boring.
Personally I recommend listening to 5 minutes every morning (or whenever you have time) and if you feel like it, listen to the same 5 minutes again and try answering any rhetorical questions that come up, or repeating after the podcast host.
Well, at that point I was just watching Frieren on repeat (managed to watch it 15 times).
It’s quite satisfying to see how your comprehension grows from not even catching を、が、と to basically understanding the piece. Basically, every time you rewatch the thing you notice that your level is somewhat higher, you catch more words.
Ye, that was my experience
Not sure if it’s the answer you’re looking for, but at around the N5 level of studying I couldn’t understand much at all so I watched and listened to absolute beginner podcasts. Didn’t understand much in the beginning there either, but eventually I started picking up words and sentence patterns I had studied. Once I could understand the beginner podcasts they immediately got boring so I switched over to slow paced romance anime.
Expect to not understand that much, but be happy with everything you do understand and keep studying and the comprehension will slowly increase. There will always be some topics that are hard to understand with too many unknown words, just gotta accept it will come eventually and stay positive (and study diligently!)
Maybe you’ll like からかい上手の高木さん
It’s not that high level. Still a looot of unknown words for beginners though so don’t get demotivated if it’s hard.
My advice would be pick something simple. Slow it down if need be, use Japanese subs for sure, but then grind 1 episode until you can recite it in your sleep (shadowing is really useful).
I used to hear about people learning through watching stuff, and like others here, I struggled even with kids shows. I think I was approaching it as a way to be entertained and get some passive reinforcement, but that didn’t really work out.
The method I described above came to me when thinking about Pimsleur alternatives. What it does is get your brain used to common sentence patterns and likely responses to those sentences. Shadowing builds those patterns into muscle memory. It isn’t the most fun, maybe, but I think it can be quite a useful skill builder.
FWIW, I reckon しろくまカフェ is quite good for this.
My hot take is don’t bother and stick to conversational focused Youtube videos. Huge fan of Ken and always recommending for beginners - https://www.youtube.com/@kensanokaeri
Problem with kid materials, be it anime or otherwise, is that they expect you to know what Japanese kids know, and that’s a completely different kind of knowledge than you need starting out. Things native to Japan like playground games, bugs, plants and animals are hard to learn without the foundational stuff.
so. much. onomatope.
i’m currently studying N3 (“upper” N3, i guess…? been here a while and feel mostly comfortable with it) and have been watching chibi maruko-chan, i would say it’s definitely around N3 level and i wouldn’t recommend it for N5-N4 learners (but i would recommend it in general! it’s adorable and funny ^_^)
that being said, as others have said, i too would recommend you watch stuff you’re already familiar with in your native language, and more specifically shows aimed at kids/younger audiences
This is a site that users on the forums (and elsewhere) have talked pretty positively about, but YMMV of course:
A lot of great insights already provided in this thread though, but for strictly anime-related stuff this could potentially give you some ideas on what to watch.
There’s also jiten.moe, which is becoming more and more active and better supported by other tools. There’s this nice script that @zyaga made to get a list of all the vocabulary learned in Bunpro. You can upload it directly to your Jiten account and see the coverage that you have for different shows, novels, VN…
EDIT: For anyone interested, after exporting your Bunpro data into a CSV file, you can go to Settings > Manage Vocabulary, choose Anki file, click on Parse words instead of importing directly and upload the CSV.
Thanks a ton for sharing! Feels like everyday there’s a new and better tool than the one I had previously known. Years ago I stayed up to date with the newest stuff but I’m finding it harder and harder to do it recently 
I think learnnatively Japanese Videos Difficulty List | Natively should also be mentioned because they allow you to filter Japanese media (books, anime, movies, etc) by JLPT level\
there was also this thread I made last year when I was in a similar situation and the recommendations I received, helped a lot Recommendations for early immersion sources?
Yeah, I think the same haha
But that’s a good thing, right? AJATT projects developers are the most dedicated creatures
For beginning, I recommend watching something that’s still fun if you can’t understand what you are saying.
Admiring the scenery in Ancient Magaus Bride, the food in dungeon Meishi or the fight scenes in Kimestu no Yaiba are still beautiful with little comprehension.
As a beginner, immersion is to build good habits and have fun. If you aren’t going to understand anything anyways, pick an anime because you like the pictures. Worry about ‘useful’ or ‘understandable’ next year.
