Anime is a great place when you’re looking for shows about love, and even more so if you want a dash of comedy or drama too. Not only are there new romantic comedy anime releases launching every few months each year, but there are just as many that have actually been able to tell their full stories. Surprisingly while there are a ton of anime where fans are hoping to see return for new episodes someday, there are just as many that managed to tell their full story with only a single run of episodes.
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Even those anime shows that manage to return for a few seasons, there are plenty of romantic comedies that adapt their entire run to the end. Some shows have much better endings than the others, and it’s especially notable for romances that have fans invested in either a central couple or potential couple to come. Read on for seven great romantic comedy anime that not only tell their complete stories, but really go all out for their finales.
7). Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend
Fumiaki Maruto and Kurehito Misaki’s Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend is a tough one to recommend because its streaming rights have scattered the main series across TV platforms, and its feature film is not streaming legally either. But the fact it wraps up its story with a full feature film does deserve a lot of credit. It’s got a very strong cast of central heroines with Tomoya Aki at the center of it all growing closer with them as they work together to make a visual novel game.
Ultimately it does end with a flash forward featuring Tomoya’s marriage in the future to one of the girls, and satisfied with how it manages to wrap up all of the characters with a promising path forward in the years that followed. It’s just unfortunately tough to check out that finale yourself.
6). Golden Time
Yuyuko Takemiya andย Eiji Komatsu’s Golden Time might skew a bit more towards the inherent drama of its premise as main character Banri Tada enters college after an accident causes him to lose all his memories of high school, but it’s a great show across 24 episodes. When Banri’s childhood friend Koto shows up revealing that they promised to get married as children, Banri needs to navigate his memory loss, new relationships, past friendships and more.
It’s a complicated show where adults deal with more adult issues, and often do talk things out when it comes to it. Which makes it stand out a great deal from a lot of other romantic shows that spend a ton of time just spinning their characters in place.
5). Toradora
Yuyuko Takemiyaย and Yasu’s Toradora is another show that really knocks it out of the park in just a single 25 episode run. This one follows a pair of complete opposites as a kind boy with a delinquent face, Ryuji, and a small girl filled with anger, Taiga, often clash at many different occasions. Sometimes it gets very physical, and the two of them grow much closer over the course of the series’ run.
It’s a show that feels like it has fully earned the romance between its two leads when it all comes to an end, and it’s so satisfying it’s one of those shows that fans don’t need a remake for because it all worked out so well the first time around.
4). My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU had a wild trajectory before it came to an end. Fans had to wait nearly a decade for the third and final season to release, and it was handled with an entirely different production studio. Even under these circumstances, however, this ended up being a very satisfying show all throughout. Hachiman and Yukino could not be more opposite when looking at their lives from the outside, but it turns out that the two of them are pretty much loners by nature.
It’s a show with the usual kind of misunderstandings that you’d expect from this genre, but stands out because it handles all of these issues with grace. A lot of them are talked through and characters feel like they maturely handle the love complications that spring up throughout. It’s also one of the shows that gives us some time with the main couple before it ends, and that’s always great.
3). ORESUKI Are you the only one who loves me?
Rakuda and Buriki’s Oresuki packs a lot into its very short runtime, and it’s undoubtedly the funniest show on this list. Main character Joro is invited to talk by two upperclassmen with the hopes of getting with one of them, but finds out that they are both just want his help to get the attention of his best friend. Deciding to help them in their cause hoping that the one rejected will likely go out with him instead, Joro then ends up finding out that a mysterious girl in the library has feelings for him. And this girl is the one his best friend actually likes.
It’s utter chaos right from the jump, and doesn’t shy away from the fact that its lead is kind of a scumbag at first with his motivations. But at the same time, the show undercuts that with the reveal of his true characteristics and uses that hard hitting humor to explain why the girl in the library likes him in the first place. You might have missed this one during the pandemic, but it’s a very hard hitting show.
2). Fruits Basket
Fruits Basket is the most iconic romantic comedy anime on this list, and there’s a ton of it to watch. Not only is there an original anime run from the 2000s, but there’s a much more complete reboot that came decades later. It not only offered a much more complete adaptation of Natsuki Takaya’s original manga, but it even got a feature film release that showcased more of the history of Tohru’s parents after the end of the series.
With Tohru meeting the mysterious Sohma family and discovering they turn into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac when touched by someone of the opposite gender, it’s got nothing but shenanigans all throughout. It’s the kind of show that doesn’t hit as immediately hard as some of the tighter shows on this list, but there’s a lot more of the story to explore. The romance feels better earned at the end of it all because there’s just so much that happens, and it’s an adventure getting to that point.
1). My Love STORY!!
Kazune Kawaharaย and Aruko’s My Love STORY!! is one of the most wholesome anime romances you’ll ever see in action. Takeo is a large, but kind man who wants love but always feels like he’s overshadowed by his handsome best friend, Sunakawa. Girls usually only talk to Takeo to get closer to Sunakawa, so he’s taken by surprise when a girl he saves on the train ends up confessing to him instead.
With Takeo and Rinko confirming their relationship only a few episodes in, the rest of the series follows the two of them as they navigating their first romance and all of the fun that results from it. It’s such a sweet and adorable romance that fills your heart. When it ends, it’s more just a cap off a great journey rather than a destination. It’s the most complete romance on this list by far.
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Courtesy of TOHO Animation
