History Main / SliceOfLife

* ''Literature/WelcomeHome'' is largely about a family and their friends going about their daily lives as they adjust to their new living situation. It addresses topics such as living in the moment, prejudice, understanding your past, and self-acceptance.

Art films and indie/experimental films also often use the "slice of life" approach, as these films tend to have a looser, more open-ended structure and they are not goal-directed like Hollywood blockbusters (where the hero is always chasing a {{MacGuffin}} or trying to achieve a PlotCoupon). The art/experimental films would rather show the slow-moving textures and interactions of everyday life in a meditative fashion. [[note]]Newbies to art/experimental films may walk out of the movie theater in annoyance after sitting through 45 minutes of watching some Norwegian guy make breakfast and wash his floor.[[/note]]

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' is set up like this... [[SurpriseCreepy until the horror elements begin showing up and it more or less drops the pretense by Kai.]]

* Georges Seurat aimed to capture the everyday lives of Parisians in ''Art/ASundayAfternoonOnTheIslandOfLaGrandeJatte'', and so the painting shows people milling about and relaxing on the riverbank.
* Several of Creator/TarsilaDoAmaral's paintings, such as ''The Fisherman'', ''Hill of the Favela'', ''Carnival in Madureira'' etc. depict mundane events from Brazil's day-to-day life from an idyllic point of view.

** Some are ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, like "Sounds Like Life to Me" by Darryl Worley, about a guy who goes to DrownMySorrows, and when he tells his buddy why, his buddy tells him the things he's complaining about--bills, teething baby, broken appliances--are just normal life things and he needs to get over himself.

** Some are ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, like "Sounds Like Life to Me" by Darryl Worley, about a guy who goes to DrownHisSorrows, and when he tells his buddy why, his buddy tells him the things he's complaining about--bills, teething baby, broken appliances--are just normal life things and he needs to get over himself.

[[/index]]

[[/index]]

[[quoteright:304:[[Webcomic/ApricotCookies https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/slice_of_life_apricot.png]]]]

* ''WebAnimation/ShareMyStory''

What separates slice of life as a genre from the literal meaning of the phrase (which would encompass nearly all fiction) is the emphasis on the very moment, with the intent of focusing the audience on that moment rather than using that moment as part of a narrative. For example, a story about hilarious roommate hi-jinx may depict the mundane life of roommates, but these mundane events are usually the set-ups and punchlines of jokes or part of the conflict between the characters, which takes away their slice-of-life-ness and cements them firmly in the realm of comedy or drama.

Surprisingly popular in Japan, so a lot of {{Anime}} fills this category. In longer-running action-based shows it is also becoming fairly common to incorporate SliceOfLife episodes to flesh out the characters by placing them in a more mundane setting. This often gets combined with a MoodWhiplash when the pace of the action picks up. See SchoolgirlSeries for a specific type of SliceOfLife. See also {{Iyashikei}}, which often overlaps with this trope. Compare and contrast with SoapOpera. Since [[ImprobablyFemaleCast the casts of such shows tend to be mostly if not entirely female]], English-speaking fans sometimes refer to them as "cute girls doing cute things". Also compare BreatherEpisode.

In some ways, Slice of Life overlaps with stories generally considered LitFic in the west, since both genres cover ordinary human lives, motivations, and emotions, though Slice of Life doesn't always imply the stereotype of intellectual snobbery or elitism that surrounds works of LitFic, as well as the impression that LitFic somehow has to be "depressing" or have {{Downer Ending}}s.