I don’t think I need to explain the “romance” genre to anyone. These are shows which focus on relationships between characters that go beyond friendship and into romantic love. Simple enough, right?
However, I have to warn you that my list of recommendations in this genre look a little different than those you’d typically hear about on recommendation lists. That’s because I personally can’t stand romantic anime that’s too contrived, which unfortunately is quite a few of them.
There are also some shows which really deserve to be on this list, but which I placed on other genre lists. Honestly, Toradora!, Crest of the Stars, and Mysterious Girlfriend X also have fantastic romantic plotlines, but were too strongly associated with the other genres to put them on this list. So consider them honorable mentions.
Chobits
If you’ve read my personal top five you’ll know that Chobits is also there. This show is from CLAMP, which has also made some of my other favorite titles. Their cutesy style can be a little deceptive. If you give CLAMP a chance they might surprise you with the depths their supposedly “light” comedy storylines can achieve.
Chobits is a romantic comedy set in a world where “pasokons” or “personal computers” are human-looking robotic assistants. Just about everyone in the world has one. They do all computer stuff like browse the web or let you play video games, but they also help around the house, take care of the kids, and so on.
The main character in this story is a farm boy named Hideki. This country bumpkin comes to the big city to attend a cram school after he was rejected from university. He’s a sweet, innocent guy who still lacks street smarts. He’s also never owned or used a pasokon.
As he’s walking to his apartment one night he finds a deactivated pasokon in the trash. Assuming that she’s thrown away, Hideki takes her home with the thought that she might be salvaged. Later that night he manages to activate her, but she’s a blank slate and almost childlike. Since he knows so little about pasokons, Hideki sets out to learn more about Chi, who rapidly starts to learn about the world. The more he discovers, the more it seems that Chi is not a typical pasokon, but a special unit with a deeply mysterious past.
Chobits is a weird romance, given the nature of the characters. In fact, some might object to the nature of the relationship between Hideki and his new pasokon, Chi. Interestingly though, that’s the central conceit of the show – the social upheaval that pasokons have caused, and some deep philosophical questions about free will and consciousness.
It’s getting a little on in years, but I love Chobits. It’s a sweet story with great characters, and if you have a human bone in your body you’ll probably like it too.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride
As I write this The Ancient Magus’ Bride hasn’t even finished airing season one. Yet I feel totally comfortable recommending it as an essential romantic anime. This show is a fantasy series that’s based mainly on European folklore; specifically that of the UK. It’s set in England and follows the story of a young girl named Chise. She’s what’s known as a “Sleigh Beggy”, which in this program refers to a person with powerful magical powers but physical frailty as a result.
She’s bought at an auction (to which she submitted willingly) by an ancient fairy mage, known as Elias among many other names. He’s a tall dark creature with horns and a skull for a face, but he can appear as a normal human to outsiders. Chise comes to live with him and his fairy housekeeper Silvy. Elias takes Chise as his mage apprentice, but he also wants her to help him understand humanity. He’s been living among humans for thousands of years, but still can’t quite get them. So he takes a human in to finally crack the mystery of human existence.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride is a beautiful program with amazing music, art design, animation, and more. This is very much a romance for an older crowd and the show is filled with both whimsical and dreadful magical entities. This is a world just below the surface of the mundane, where you could be in a fairy paradise one moment and facing a Lovecraftian horror the next. The relationship between Chise and Elias is also a strange, unfolding mystery. This is not some high school crush. This is a measured, adult look at the human heart through the lens of urban fantasy.
Ore Monogatari!
This is another recent show which immediately drew my interest. Takeo Goda is a high school student who is also an utter hulk of a man. He’s a nice guy, although more than a little naive. His brutish face and figure have meant that few women are interested in him. Rather, they all prefer Takeo’s best friend Suna.
One day Takeo sees a groper harassing a girl on a train and immediately confronts him, saving her from the assault. As their eyes meet, Takeo immediately falls for her, but assumes that she’s going to fall for his friend Suna just as every girl has before. It’s no spoiler to say that obviously this time proves to be the exception. The main part of the series deals with this odd couple and how they handle a society that won’t accept them as a pair upon first glance. I like <.i>Ore Monogatari (also known as My Love Story) for having a main character who is not a pretty boy and a female lead who is much more realistic in her emotional life and daily anxieties than is usually portrayed. Yes, this is still a fun and lighthearted show with plenty of hyperbole, but it stands out from the sea of shows that have main characters that look like Takeo’s friend Suna. For that radical trope subversion alone, it belongs on my list.
My Little Monster
My Little Monster is another odd one, which is why it inevitably ended up on my list of oddball choices. It tells the story of a (very kuudere) girl named Shizuku, who only cares about studying and having a high-paying job one day. The empty seat beside her in class should be occupied by a boy who is known as a major troublemaker who cares nothing for academics. As luck would have it, Shizuku is tasked with taking homework to this Haru Yoshida. Her encounter with him is anything but businesslike. Before she knows it, she’s pulled into Haru’s world and they both experience growth away from their extremes.
My Little Monster is a great character exploration and looks at two people who both have very different types of antisocial problems.
Ah! My Goddess! (OVA)
If my top five list of personal best anime extended to ten, then Ah! My Goddess would be lurking just below the number five spot. I love almost everything related to this franchise, so why isn’t this anime on my top five list? The truth is, my love affair is with the manga and not the anime. Author Kosuke Fujishima wrote and published this story from 1999 to 2014, spanning 48 volumes in total. Yes, I have read each and every one.
There have been several anime adaptations, and here I’m recommending the five-episode OVA that was released in 1993. It consists of five 30-minute episodes and introduces the story effectively. This is just the place to start. There have been several TV series and a movie. Heck, there’s even been a novel. The manga is the core of the fiction, but if you watch the OVA and one of the newer reboots you’ll have the gist of it.
The main premise of this show is that the world is governed by the celestial tree Yggdrasil. It’s like a massive supercomputer that monitors and adjusts reality. This tree is maintained by gods and goddesses. Our short and not very attractive hero Keiichi Morisato gets put in touch with the “Goddess helpline” while trying to order takeout. Moments later a goddess appears to him and tells him that he qualifies for one wish in order to counter the bad luck he’s had in his life. Keiichi is pretty skeptical (as an engineering student would be) and calls her bluff by wishing that the goddess, Belldandy, would stay with him forever.
What follows is a series of mishaps and adventures as Keiichi has to deal with what is essentially a perfect being; one who adores him but doesn’t quite quite understand how the human world works. Belldandy also tends to attract both human and supernatural attention.
Ah! My Goddess is a wholesome show, with pretty tame sexual humor and an endearing cast of characters. Anyone who likes shows with central romantic plots should give it a try.
Plastic Memories
This is another show that deals with relationships between humans and humanoid machines. In Plastic Memories androids and gynoids are commonplace. They are as smart and emotionally aware as human beings, and work and live among them. “Giftias” only live for nine years and four months, after which their minds are wiped and reloaded. If they aren’t reset like this they start going through a personality disintegration process which can be dangerous for others and to the Giftia itself.
The story here follows the exploits of a “Terminal Services” branch. Its job is to go out and recall Giftias that have reached their expiration date. Most of the time Giftia owners give them up peacefully, but sometimes they have to be hunted down. Each retrieval team consists of a human and a Giftia partner.
The show focuses on Tsukasa and his Giftia partner Isla. Tsukasa is a noob and Isla is a veteran. Tsukasa and Isla develop feelings for each other, which is a bittersweet thing given that Isla doesn’t have much time left until her reset. The show has a pretty light tone despite such a seemingly heavy theme. It’s not exactly Blade Runner, but it manages a nice balance between romantic comedy and a bit of drama.
Ai Yori Aoshi
This show is generally translated as “true blue love” but actually means “bluer than indigo”. It tells the story of a man who lives alone as the self-exiled heir to a large Japanese company. One day he encounters a girl who seems lost. He takes her in to help her, only to discover that she’s a long lost childhood friend who was promised as his fiancee when times were different.
She’s still determined to marry him after all these years, and now Kaoru Hanabishi has to deal with both the sad details of his past and the feelings of this young woman, who is so dedicated to him despite so much time having passed. Ai Yori Aoshi was one of the first romance-focused anime I watched, and it still holds up today. The show has a serene pace and characters that aren’t very “out there”, but takes a more mature approach to relationships. As a “seinen” title aimed at an older crowd it makes sense, and if you’ve outgrown slapstick ecchi romance this is a wonderful alternative.
Mirai Nikki/Future Diary
Oh boy, what can I say about Future Diary? This is an iconic show which is responsible for popularizing the “yandere” female character type in anime – girls who are completely devoted to the object of their desire and murderously violent towards anyone that even looks at them funny.
Like Death Note and Attack and Titan, Future Diary has become a cultural phenomenon. The central idea of the show is that the god of time and space is dying. He needs a successor and so sets up a survival competition between potential candidates. Each human candidate gets a “future diary”, usually in the form of a phone. They give information about the user’s future in a form that aligns with that user’s lifestyle and personality. For example, one diary tells the user their perfect escape route; another details police case files from the future. The players must use this information to kill each other. The last one standing wins the title of god. So it’s basically a riff on the classic “battle royale” genre, but with time- and space-bending mechanics.
So why exactly have I put this under “romantic” recommendations? Well, the show mainly revolves around the twisted romantic relationship between Yukiteru Amano and Yuno Gasai, although they are both contestants in the competition and so one will have to die. Yuno is pathologically obsessed with Yuki and he only pretends to be in a relationship with her to protect others from her murderous intent. The show just gets darker and more twisted from there. Is there any universe in which these two could actually make things work?
This show is a thriller like no other. If you like romance and like twisted psychological thrillers, you can’t pass up Future Diary.
Nisekoi
The name “Nisekoi” literally means “false love”, and that’s exactly what our main character is forced to endure as the story opens. He is the son of a yakuza boss. He’s a gentle and kind boy who has a major crush on a classmate. While poor Raku Ichijo tries to work up the courage to ask out Kosaki Onodera, he’s also haunted by the unclear memory of a girl he met when he was five years old. He made a promise to her that they would be married one day. She kept a key to his locket, which he’s treasured since then. If he finds the girl with the right key he’s found his first love again.
Unfortunately, a rival gang from overseas is ready to go to war with his own father’s group. The two gang bosses want to avoid this, so they ask Raku and the other boss’ daughter Chitoge to pretend they’re in a relationship. The gang members will leave each other alone if their respective heirs are in a serious relationship. Soon there are plenty of complications, not least of which is that several girls turn up who could be Raku’s first love.
While I did say I try to avoid romantic shows that have too many contrivances, Nisekoi is a great show BECAUSE of the contrivances. It doesn’t pretend that anything makes sense outside of the logic of the show. It’s just a fun, ridiculous comedy. It’s fine because no one is really taking this universe seriously – least of all the characters who live in it.
From Me To You
From Me To You, or Kimi Ni Todoke, has a pretty funny central gimmick for the main character. Sawako Kuronuma has an unfortunate resemblance to the fictional character Sadako from the famous Japanese horror film The Ring. She’s quiet and reserved to boot, which only serves to freak out her classmates. No one really wants to be friends with her, and since she’s so shy she doesn’t correct anyone when they come up with outrageous stories about her. Sawako also lives in her own head, analyzing everything people say to the point of absurdity.
So it seems like an impossible thing that she would ever hook up with her idol, Shota Kazehaya. Shota is a kind, popular and outgoing boy, basically her opposite. But as you can probably tell, this is the story of how these two make a connection on the path to being more than friends.
From Me To You is an absolutely sweet shoujo romance, and if you just want to watch a show where the character gets to a better place without all the melodrama, this is a funny and well-made answer to that need.