In Romance Animes, hearts melt away. It’s time again for a ranking. The website otakudiary.com has created a list of the 20 best animes of the genre Romance. If you are big Romance fans and haven’t seen any titles in this list yet, make sure you remember them! If you read our Top romance anime in 2019 post you might recognize some of these romantic animes. Let us start with the best romance anime of all time:
20th place: ef: A Tale of Memories
That’s what this is about: The story revolves around the lead actor Hirono Hiro, a poor high school student who draws Shoujo mangas to earn his living. On a cold Christmas night, after meeting an extraordinary woman in a church, his bike is stolen by another strange girl. He runs after her and finds her lying unconscious on the street. Her name is Miyamura Miyako, and her backpack was taken by a man on a motorcycle. A little later, they start to hang out, enjoy high school life, and so on. Hiro’s life is still very much influenced by his childhood friend, Shindou Kei.
Place 19: Anohana
That’s what this is about: Jinta “Jintan” Yadomi’s life is at a dead end. Instead of going to school, he spends his time at home doing nothing, and nobody seems to care about him anymore. But it wasn’t always like that. In his primary school days, he was the leader of his group of six friends, and together they spent a happy childhood. Six years later, nothing has remained of the friendship gangs, but when suddenly the girl Menma enters his life again and asks him to fulfill her wish, Jintan has to reunite the former friends and overcome his problems.
18th place: Chobits
Chobits anime is about Hideki is a student who comes from the country to Tokyo to attend a school to prepare him for college. When he arrives in the big city, he immediately notices so-called “persocoms” that look like humans and can only be recognized by their artificial ears. Persocoms are useful for all kinds of practical things. They are complex calculating machines that can do everything that today’s computers are capable of: You can talk to them on the phone, go online and check your e-mails. But not only that, but they also act independently, have memory and also look very cute. That’s why people like to use them in simple jobs such as salespeople or cashiers. Of course, Hideki would also like to have his own Persocom, but he is a poor student and can’t afford one, much to his regret. After he has moved into his student dorm and buys something to eat in the late evening, he finds a Persocom on his way home in a side street, which he, of course, drags back with him. But after our protagonist makes the Persocom work, he notices that it can only speak one word: “Chi”. Thereupon he calls his new achievement “Chi”, which apparently can’t do everything a Persocom should be able to…
17th place: Nodame Cantabile
That’s what this is about: Shin’ichi Chiaki is a gifted pianist and violinist who dreams of becoming a conductor. His only problem is that due to his fear of flying and water, he has no chance to leave Japan to study with his idol in Europe. Thus he ekes out his existence as a star at one of Japan’s music academies and is already thinking of ending his musical career since he sees no possibility of realizing his dream in Japan.
One day he meets Megumi Noda, a chaotic fellow student whose free and soulful style of playing the piano fascinates the boy immediately. Also, Chiaki, after quarreling with his professor, is put in the same group as her, and it turns out that she is his neighbor. Nodame immediately falls in love immortally with Chiaki and from then on follows him consistently, which he tries to fend off, more or less successfully. Over time, more and more people enter Chiaki’s life, like the impulsive violinist Ryuutarou Mine and the timpanist Masumi Okuyama, and he takes new courage to realize his dream after all.
Place 16: Itazura na Kiss
That’s what this is about: Kotoko Aihara is a girl of the F-class and falls head over heels in love with the talented student of the A-class Naoki Irie. She decides to write him a love letter, which he cold-heartedly rejects before he has even read it. Broken-hearted, she howls at her friends from the F-class and goes back to the newly built house after school, in which she is to live with her father from now on. But fate doesn’t mean well with Kotoko and her father, because the house collapses during a small earthquake. The two find refuge with a friend of their father’s, and his son is none other than the cold-hearted genius Naoki Irie.
15th place: Honey and Clover
That’s what this is about: Takemoto Yuuta, Mayama Takumi, and Morita Shinobu are college students who share a small apartment. One day their teacher Hanamoto introduces them to his cousin’s sweet daughter. Her name is Hagumi, and she is a new student. Takemoto and Morita fall in love with her at first sight and try to get closer to her. But while the shy Takemoto has trouble expressing himself, Morita’s attempts are somewhat misleading, which is sometimes due to his extremely mysterious nature. Mayama, on the other hand, loves Rika, an architect who, however, still mourns the loss of her late husband. As Mayama’s love for Rika grows, he realizes that his cute classmate Yamada Ayumi has fallen in love with him and so the love carousel turns.
Place 14: Clannad
Clannad romantic anime is about: Clannad plays in a high school, in a Japanese city not mentioned by name. Tomoya Okazaki is in her 3rd year and doesn’t take school very seriously. He always arrives late and is seen by his classmates, who are busy preparing for their university entrance exams, as a constant troublemaker. For this reason, he has hardly any friends there.
Tomoya doesn’t seem to care much – until one day he meets a girl, Nagisa Furukawa, who doesn’t have any friends either because everyone she knew has already left school. At first, he considers her to be very clumsy and cumbersome, but he doesn’t manage to break away from her and thus, while helping her, meets more and more girls from school. Although he is little interested in her at first, the better they get to know each other, the more he opens his heart.
