Time of Eve

Genre: Drama
Score: Excellent

Robots are everywhere. They look like people, but are bland and emotionless. Like everyone else, Rikuo takes this for granted. But one day he finds an erroneous entry in the logs of his family’s robot. He ends up following her to a cafe with a strange rule: within its doors, you aren’t allowed to ask whether somebody is really a person or a robot.

In just a tiny series, this manages to conjure up a fascinating little tale with twists and emotional subtlety. Plenty of anime have done this theme before, but none quite so charmingly. And it manages to jump from comedy to heart-wrenching weepiness in about 10 seconds, while still staying subtle.

At just six episodes of 15 minutes (so actually about four episodes), this is more than worth an hour and a half of your life.