‘Tis the season of romance – and what better way to spend a cozy evening than watching a romantic anime with your sweetheart?
While long-running series such as Fruit basket or Love is war are absolutely wonderful to dig into, they also require a certain level of investment (especially if you’re holding the edge of your couch through the emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows). Luckily, there are some excellent one-season romance anime, perfect for an evening or two of cuddling on the couch.
Wotakoi: Love is difficult for Otaku
Where to watch: Prime Video
One of the best parts of this show is that the couple gets together in the first episode. Two childhood friends reunite when they work at the same company. After yaoi fangirl Narumi complains about how her nerdy interests turn off potential suitors, gamer Hirotaka suggests they should just date since they’re both otaku. Thus begins a very sweet romance, interspersed with fun quirks of nerd culture, such as cosplaying, gaming and conventions. Narumi and Hirotaka quickly make friends with two of their colleagues, who also happen to be big nerds in a relationship. However, these two have been dating since high school, so the combination of a new couple and a seasoned couple is especially fun.
The Ice Guy and his cool female colleague
Where to watch: Crispy roll
Another workplace romance, The Ice Guy and his cool female colleague is set in a world where mythological Japanese creatures live and work alongside humans as if it were no problem. The titular Ice Guy is in love with his stoic female colleague, mainly because she doesn’t freak out about his ice powers like most people do. It’s a very slow-burning (slow…melting?) romance that builds the friendship between the two characters. Like it WotakoiPart of the fun is the quirky side characters and their own little romances, especially since many of them are fantastical creatures too!
Recovery from an MMO junkie
Where to watch: Crispy roll
Take the premise of You’ve got mail, but instead of anonymous email pen pals, they’re MMORPG guild members – with some fun gender play too. Moriko Morioka is a recently unemployed woman who returns to MMORPGs, where she plays a dashing male character named Hayashi. She bonds with one of her guildmates, who plays a sweet female character named Lily. The twist is that Lily is actually played by Yuta Sakurai, a businessman who Moriko keeps accidentally running into before either of them realizes each other’s identities. It’s a sweet romance about connecting in the digital world.
Yuri!!! On ice
Where to watch: Crispy roll
This sports anime can certainly hold a lot of strange longing! Come for the skating, stay for the sweet love story between a deeply angsty professional skater (and winner of our inaugural Who Would Win Week competition) named Yuuri Katsuki and his idol and coach Victor Nikiforov. After some awkwardness at his last competition, Yuuri decides he’s leaving the professional skating world… until a friend secretly films one of his routines and it goes viral, catching the attention of acclaimed skater Victor, who suffers a bit from professional burnout on his own. Victor travels to Japan and declares that he will coach Yuri, and the two must deal with Yuri’s anxiety, the tense world of professional skating, and their own burgeoning feelings.
Skip and loafer
Where to watch: Crispy roll
This sweet high school anime turns the tables on conventional tropes a bit. Usually it’s the female character who is super popular/beautiful and unattainable, as in Komi cannot communicate. But this time the female lead, Mitsumi Iwakura, is bad terribly average – a bit of a country bumpkin with grand ambitions but no real social skills, considering she comes from a school with eight students in her class. On her first day at her new high school in Tokyo, she befriends the super-popular, super-handsome Sōsuke Shima. They strike up a sweet friendship, with hints of slow-burning attraction between the two of them. But it’s the kind of relationship that pushes both parties to be better, and thus very satisfying, even with only one season left!
Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun
Where to watch: HIDE
Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun hinges on an absolutely hilarious misunderstanding. Cheerful high school student Chiyo Sakura musters the courage to confess to her crush, the stoic Umetarou Nozaki, but he thinks she has discovered his secret identity as a best-selling romance manga author! From there, Sakura is drawn into Nozaki’s publishing drama, allowing him to write his ongoing series while learning about the highs and lows of the shoujo manga publishing business. She’s still in love with him this whole time, which is made even more hilarious by all the romantic tropes he keeps performing on purpose to facilitate his writing exploration.
Ouran High School host club
Where to watch: crispy roll, Hulu
A disclaimer about Ouran High School host club: Some of the jokes haven’t aged well, but it’s still a laugh-out-loud classic. Haruhi Fujioka is an androgynous scholarship student at the elite Ouran Academy. She accidentally enters the school’s host club, where a group of five wealthy and handsome male students, led by the flamboyant and self-centered Tamaki Suoh, entertain the school’s female students. Haruhi breaks an expensive vase and to repay her debt she has to work as one of the hosts. It takes the entire first episode for the host club members to realize that she is not actually a man, but she still pretends to be one to keep the guests entertained. It’s full of silly jokes, made even more ridiculous by the absurd wealth of the school. Almost everyone flirts with the down-to-earth Haruhi, but it’s Tamaki who tries to impress her the most, which ultimately leads to some reality checks for this delusional king.