Romantic tales in anime are as varied as the anime themselves. Whether you’re looking for love in space, love in mechs, love in harems, love in fantastical worlds, or simply love in a world much like our own, it exists out there for you. For Valentine’s Day, we have gathered up the top 10 highest rated romance anime’s by MyAnimeList users. Perhaps you’ll see many anime you’re already familiar with or you’ll discover a new favorite!
10. I Want To Eat Your Pancreas
In a unique version of opposites attract, a boy largely unmoored from the world around him, discovers a book with the title “Living with Dying”. Soon after he realizes his classmate, Sakura Yamauchi, a social butterfly by contrast to his isolationist self, wrote it and that she’s struggling privately with a terminal pancreatic disease. Despite initially being quite stand-offish, overtime they grow closer together.
I Want To Eat Your Pancreas began as a self-published novel online in the community Shōsetsuka ni Narō. Since then it’s benen published as a book, a manga, and at least an anime adaptation.
9. The Tatami Galaxy
The Tatami Galaxy follows a student in university at Kyoto, whose unsatisfaction with his romantic life keeps frustrating him time after time. After an encounter with a fortune teller, he finds his life rewinds, allowing him to see what a different turn might take or whether he’s destined to always end in the same place.
Tatami Galaxy was written in December 2004, with its anime adaptation being released in 2010. A sequel was later released, titled The Tatami Time Machine Blues, in 2020.
8. Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
One day Sakuta Azusagawa notices a young girl dressed in a bunny outfit, who he recognizes as the actress Mai Sakurajima. No one else appears to notice her, and this counfounds Sakuta, who decides to get to the bottom of this phenomenon that Mai and others seem to suffer from.
Though the film sequel, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl, holds the higher score, both the series and movie are held in high regard with MAL users. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl began as a light novel in 2014, and has been a successful title for Yen Press in the U.S., as its volumes continue to be released to the present.
7. Your Lie In April
Kōsei Arima was a musical prodigy as a teen, up until his mother died and due to the grief he lost the ability to hear a piano. After two years time however he befriends Kaori Miyazono, who plays with a fervor and freeness that is unlike Kōsei’s. She hopes to be able to help Kōsei see how she plays, and to help him fully embrace music again.
Your Lie in April’s manga run went from 2011 to 2015, with a successful anime run from 2014 to 2015. A titular live-action film was released in 2016 based on the original manga story.
6. Howl’s Moving Castle
Sophie is cursed by the Witch of the Waste and turned into an older lady. She then is introduced to Howl, and begins to work for him as a cleaning lady. All the while Howl attempts to avoid a war, and in doing so, both he and she set of on a series of adventures in a fantastical world that draw both of them closer to each other.
Howl’s Moving Castle is easily the most famous film on this list, and perhaps the most famous title. Miyazaki adapted the story from the 1986 book of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones.
5. Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal (Rurouni Kenshin)
Before Rurouni Kenshin became the reluctant swordsman, he was the battōsai, a killer of men who thrived in war. Kenshin’s life however took many turns, with the war, love, and of course loss, at his side.
Rurouni Kenshin’s story is told in many forms, with an anime series, several successful live-action films, the original manga, and notably the OVA films as well. Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal was the introducion of Kenshin in anime form, and for many Millenials their first anime.
4. Bakemonogatari
Koyomi Araragi struggles with vampirism, while helping girls best by a ‘strangeness’.
Monogatari is series by Shaft that’s been developed into at least 7 arcs. Though not as popular as some, there’s been a devoted cult following since the series first came to the U.S.
3. Clannad
Tomoya Okazaki has all but cut himself off from the world, after tragedy struck with the death of his mom. Meeting Nagisa Furukawa gradually helps show Tomoya there’s more to the world.
Key is a visual novel studio known for such titles as Kanon, Air, and Clannad, that often deal with romance with a weight atypical of many prior anime series.
2. Fruits Basket
Tohru Honda is an orphan, who meets the Sohma family, who she learns are all posessed by the animals of the Chinese zodiac. As the series progresses, she learns more about the family, and she begins to grow personal attachments of friendship and love.
Fruits Basket has remained one of the most beloved anime to come out in the last 25 years, as is evident by its 2019 adaptation created 18 years after the original.
1. Kaguya-sama: Love Is War?
To Miyuki Shirogana and Kaguya Shinomiya, student council president and vice president of Shuchiin Academy respectively, love is a battle, and to confess is to lose. Who will share their feelings last and “win the war”?
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? came out first in 2016 as title in Young Jump Comics, and it ran from 2016 to 2022. Kaguya-sama: Love Is War?’s anime adaptations continue up to 2022, with a recent release coming out on December 17th, 2022, with Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? – The First Kiss That Never Ends.
(List created and ordered by rankings of each series according to MyAnimeList users (as of February 2023). MAL’s rankings exclude popularity, therefore some of these may be hidden gems with fewer viewers than other series.)
