Summer Days with Coo - Recommendations

Alt title: Kappa no Coo to Natsuyasumi

If you're looking for anime similar to Summer Days with Coo, you might like these titles.

My Neighbor Totoro

My Neighbor Totoro

Satsuki, her younger sister Mei and their father have just moved to their new home in the countryside, where grand adventures await them. One day while playing outside in the garden Mei encounters a small creature and decides to follow it. After chasing it through the bushes Mei eventually finds herself at the base of a large Camphor tree and as she drops through a hole in its roots, she lands on the stomach of a large, sleeping forest spirit named Totoro. The two sisters befriend the gentle spirit and are soon introduced to a world more fantastical than they could ever imagine, from playing with soot spirits to meeting a Catbus, to flying through the air and even making the trees grow. However when Mei disappears, Satsuki must call on the help of her new friends if she wants any hope of being able to find her sister...

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Reasons you might like My Neighbor Totoro...

cassiesheepgirl cassiesheepgirl says...

The main focus of both of these films is the friendship between a young child and a supernatural creature. While Totoro has a more light-hearted nature to it, noth show an everyday adventure with a supernatural twist. If you enjoyed one it is worth at least trying the other.

Colorful (2010)

Colorful (2010)

A boy arrives in purgatory after dying, where he is informed that in his past life he committed a terrible sin, and cannot be reincarnated until he can remember what it was. Until he does, he is placed in the body of a middle school student named Makoto who committed suicide three days ago, and is instructed to live the deceased boy’s life. New Makoto quickly becomes fed up with his host body's situation, as the boy doesn't have any friends, his family life is in shambles, and his mere presence makes everyone around him nervous. But giving up is not an option, and if the spirit ever wants to move on, he must adjust to Makoto's life and understand what happened in the past.

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GuardianEnzo GuardianEnzo says...

Keiichi Hara's Colorful was one of my favorite anime films of the last few years,  but don't overlook its predecessor, 2007's Summer Days With Coo.  While it doesn't have the complexity of Colorful and the animation is clearly a couple of levels below, Hara packs the same narrative skill and unerring eye for family dynamics into both films.

Don't be fooled into thinking "Coo" is a light, cheery family film.  It's a pretty dark story full of difficult themes and rather dim views of the human race.  As is Hara's style, however, the movie is ultimately optimistic in its take on the ability of good people to affect good results.  Clearly influenced by Miyazaki, "Coo" is less refined but more gritty than the master's films.  Highly recommended.

As to "Colorful", it's quite simply one of the best theatrical anime of the last half-decade.  This is a serious, thoughtful movie that pulls no punches - dealing with topics such as teenage suicide, enjo kosai, and bullying.  Hara takes pains not to sugarcoat his hero into a sweet, lovable cherub - Makoto is a complicated, difficult teenager whose path to darkness is portrayed with startling realism.  Yet ultimately, the film is life-affirming and hopeful in a thouroughly Buddhist way.

Sarazanmai

Sarazanmai

The setting is Asakusa. One day, second-years in middle school Kazuki Yasaka, Toi Kuji, and Enta Jinnai meet Keppi, a mysterious kappa-like creature, who steals their shirikodama and transforms them into kappas. "To return to your original forms," Keppi tells them, "you must fight the zombies and take the shirikodama from them." Can the boys connect with each other and steal the zombies' shirikodama?! At the same time, something is happening at the police box where Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu work. This is the story of three boys who can't connect with someone important to them, learning about what it truly means to do so.

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How to Keep a Mummy

How to Keep a Mummy

Kashiwagi Sora is living a normal high school student life, when his "adventurer" father sends him a mummy from his travels in Egypt! Sora balks at the letter from his crazy dad ("I found a cool mummy, so I decided to leave it with you, son!") at first, but the mummy that emerges from inside the huge coffin is a mere 12 centimeters tall--small enough to fit in the palm of his hand... Not only that, it's shy, a crybaby, and most of all, heckin' cute. And so, Sora and ends up keeping the mummy, naming his new little buddy "Mii-kun." But living with a mummy might be easier said than done...!

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Spo-chan Taiketsu: Youkai Daikessen

Spo-chan Taiketsu: Youkai Daikessen

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The Eccentric Family 2

The Eccentric Family 2

Second season of The Eccentric Family.

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Child of Kamiari Month

Child of Kamiari Month

A year after losing her mother, a young girl learns that she must journey across Japan to the annual gathering of gods in the sacred land of Izumo.

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The Eccentric Family

The Eccentric Family

In Kyoto, youkai have adapted to an urbanized lifestyle, and are often indistinguishable from humans. Among them is Yasaburo, a brash young tanuki who wants nothing more than to live an exciting life with his family: a mother obsessed with Takarazuka theater, a frog stuck in the bottom of a well, a kid brother who works at the brandy factory, and an older brother who’s just trying to hold them all together. But two things stand in the way of Yasuburo’s dreams: the tanuki community has shunned the boy’s eccentric family since his esteemed father died, and the ever-present threat of being cooked and consumed by humans! Can the young tanuki manage to have fun without besmirching his father's legacy or meeting an untimely death by hot pot?

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Midnight occult civil servants

Midnight occult civil servants

When Miyako Arata joins the Shinjuku Ward Office, he thinks he's gotten a normal civil servant job. But it turns out he's joined the Night Community Exchange Department, one of which operates secretly in each of Tokyo's twenty-three ward offices. Their job is to resolve occult issues concerning non-human beings. Accompanied by his senpai and department head Sakaki Kyoichi and the occult obsessed Himetsuka Seo, they work night after night, facing off with beings whose existence defies the laws of our world.

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A Letter to Momo

A Letter to Momo

The last time Momo saw her father, they had a fight. Now all she has left to remember him by is an incomplete letter penned with the words "Dear Momo," but nothing more. Moving with her mother to the remote Japanese island of Shio, Momo soon discovers three Yokai living in her attic, a trio of mischievous spirit creatures that only she can see and who create mayhem in the tiny seaside community as she tries desperately to keep them hidden. But these funny monsters have a serious side and may hold the key to helping Momo discover what her father had been trying to tell her.

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