The 20 Best Adult Romance Anime With Grown-Up Couples
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- 13,020 VOTESPhoto: Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku / A-1 Pictures
A 26-year-old woman named Narumi Momose just started a new office job where she's hoping to keep her otaku nature under wraps. But when she realizes she's working with her childhood friend Hirotaka Nifuji, a fellow otaku who knows her secret, she realizes she won't be able to hide it from everyone. She doesn't think she wants to date a guy with her interests, but Hirotaka might actually be the perfect man for her.
The exact premise could easily play out in a high school, but the office setting makes the story unique. In addition, it's more relatable for adult viewers who would rather leave their teenage memories firmly in the past.
- 22,243 VOTESPhoto: Spice & Wolf / Imagin
Spice & Wolf tells the story of Kraft Lawrence and Holo the harvest wolf as they travel from town to town, making trades and business deals. While the story is as much about economics as it is about romance, the relationship between the 25-year-old man and the ancient deity does carry a large portion of the show.
Most anime about a godlike or magical woman involve a teenage boy as her love interest, so the change is refreshing.
- 3993 VOTESPhoto: Recovery of an MMO Junkie / Signal.MD
This series will probably resonate with adults who love video games. It tells the story of Moriko Morioka, a 30-year-old woman who quits her corporate job to play online games full-time. She's particularly fond of a game called Fruits de Mer, in which she creates a male avatar named Hayashi. Through the game, she meets who she thinks is a young lady named Lily, but who turns out to be a man named Yuuta Sakurai.
As Yuuta and Moriko's in-game and offline lives begin to intersect, the two develop a relationship. It's a cute anime about how even people with complicated lives can still find love.
- 4804 VOTESPhoto: Josee, the Tiger and the Fish / Bones
Tsuneo Suzukawa spends his days working multiple part-time jobs in order to save up enough money to study marine biology abroad. One day when heading home from work, he stops a young woman named Josee careening down a hill in an out-of-control wheelchair.
At her grandmother's behest, Tsuneo ends up taking a part-time job as Josee's caretaker. Josee can take care of herself in her own home, but the outside world lacks many of the accomodations she needs. Together, the two set about exploring their environment - and falling in love along the way.
- 51,471 VOTESPhoto: I Can't Understand What My Husband is Saying / Seven
Hajime Tsunashi is an introverted anime nerd, and his wife Kaoru is a "typical" Japanese office lady. Despite their differences, which they openly acknowledge and lightly tease each other about, the Tsunashis clearly love and respect each other.
This anime is about two people with different personalities and priorities building a life together, something that would be difficult to depict realistically with younger characters.
- Photo: The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague / Zero-G, Liber
One of Himuro's memorable traits is that he produces ice and snow around his body whenever he feels a strong surge of emotions. The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague follows Himuro at his new office job where he meets co-worker Fuyutsuki. While Himuro's ice and snow abilities cause him distress, Fuyutsuki is constantly there to lift his spirits, and in turn a romantic bond develops.
If you're in the mood for a cute, lighthearted romance series, this one is definitely a must-watch.
- 7785 VOTESPhoto: My Senapi is Annoying / Doga Kobo
You might associate the word “senpai” with stories about school, but it applies to the working world too.
Saleswoman Futaba Igarashi finds her senior co-worker - her senpai - to be incredibly annoying due to his constant jokes about her short stature. But she soon realizes that Harumi Takeda isn't just annoying - he's also a reliable, kind person. As the two spend more time at work and at after-work drinking parties, Igarashi starts to realize her feelings of respect and admiration for her senpai might be something more.
- 81,840 VOTESPhoto: Clannad: After Story / Sentai Filmworks
The first Clannad series is a slice-of-life high school romance, but the sequel, Clannad: After Story, focuses largely on the adult relationship between Nagisa Furukawa and Tomoya Okazaki. They get married, pursue careers, have a baby, and attempt to begin their lives together - but unfortunately, Nagisa's poor health makes that easier said than done.
This anime looks at what really happens once young romance meets complex real-world responsibilities.
- 91,584 VOTESPhoto: Nana / Madhouse
Two 20-year-old girls named Nana leave their rural hometowns in search of something more meaningful than what they've grown up with. Out in the real world, they must find career satisfaction, emotional fulfillment, and love - though their success at finding good partners is debatable.
Nana is an anime with romantic elements, but the most important relationship is the platonic one between the two young women struggling to find their places in the world.
- 10999 VOTESPhoto: Golden Time / J.C. Staff
Banri Tada is a 19-year-old law student who doesn't remember anything about his life before he got amnesia. The story focuses less on his budding law career and more on his relationship with his former love, Linda, and his current love, Koko.
This anime has all the drama one expects from high school romance anime, but the characters have different concerns and priorities, which means anime fans who love high-stakes romance but are tired of the high school setting have a great alternative in Golden Time.
- 112,366 VOTESPhoto: Yuri!!! On ICE / MAPPA
The bond between Yuri and Victor of Yuri!!! On ICE is generally held in high regard because it's one of the few canonically gay relationships in anime. However, it's also worth mentioning that Yuri and Victor are both grown men with careers.
This gives them the agency to pursue their own relationships and professions, making the intimate parts feel less exploitative and more engaging for adult viewers.
- 12899 VOTESPhoto: Nodame Cantabile / J.C. Staff
Nodame Cantabile tracks the slowly developing relationship between 20-year-old pianist Megumi Noda and 21-year-old aspiring conductor Shinichi Chiaki. The two have directly opposing personalities: Noda is disorganized and relaxed, while Chiaki is a high-strung perfectionist.
The story of their musical careers and their blossoming love could potentially be told with teenage characters, but depicting them in college grants them more freedom to make meaningful life choices.
- 13294 VOTESPhoto: The Great Passage / Zexcs
The Great Passage is about a nervous, unsociable young man named Mitsuya finding his calling in dictionary creation. As he becomes more comfortable with himself and his professional life, he also begins to develop a relationship with his landlady's granddaughter, Kaguya, who is equally passionate about her own career as a chef-in-training.
It's nice to see an anime that realistically depicts the struggles of life in one's mid-20s, portraying characters who have their lives together professionally and romantically, but still have some work to do.
- 14677 VOTESPhoto: Natsuyuki Rendezvous / Doga Kobo
When 22-year-old Ryousuke Hazuki meets Rokka Shimao, the owner of a flower shop, he falls madly in love with her and immediately decides to court her. To get closer to her, he takes a job at the flower shop, and things seem to be going well - until the ghost of her late husband unleashes his jealousy on Ryousuke.
The premise is a fun one, but it likely wouldn't work if the characters were much younger.
- 15593 VOTES
Honey and Clover
Photo: Honey and Clover / J.C. StaffSet on the campus of an art school, Honey and Clover focuses on a group of friends trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives - which includes romantic entanglements. The drama of love triangles and unrequited feelings is heightened by the isolated nature of the college campus, as well as the characters' pressing needs to figure out what they're going to do once they leave their insular worlds.
These characters are too mature to ignore the pressing obligations of the real world, but too young to really grapple with them.
- 16318 VOTES
Otona Joshi no Anime Time
Photo: Otona Joshi no Anime Time / NHKOtona Joshi no Anime Time, which literally means Anime Time for Adult Females, knows which audience it's courting. It's a four-episode special that depicts different situations adult women may realistically find themselves in at one point. Each story is based on a Naoki Prize-winning novel, and features beautiful art and compelling storytelling.
Most stories focus on women from their 20s to 40s trying to find happiness and fulfillment, sometimes through romance.
- 17184 VOTESPhoto: Maison Ikkoku / Studio Deen
If you want to invest some time in an anime classic, Maison Ikkoku is an excellent choice. Yuusaku Godai is a 19-year-old who's living in a boarding house called Maison Ikkoku while studying for his college entrance exams. He's about to move out because of the obnoxious and constant partying from his fellow boarders, but when a new manager appears, he decides to stay.
Godai is head over heels in love with Kyoko Otonashi, and she seems to like him back, but there's one big problem - just six months after Kyoko got married, her husband passed away. Still raw with grief and convinced that she could never love again, she's nowhere near ready for another relationship. But with help from Godai and the other residents of Maison Ikkoku, she might be able to finally move on.
- 18628 VOTES
Arakawa Under the Bridge
Photo: Arakawa Under the Bridge / ShaftWhen wealthy businessman Kou Ichinomiya plunges from a bridge, he's rescued by Nino, a mysterious homeless girl who claims to be from Venus. Following the rescue, she asks him to live under the bridge with her and become her boyfriend. Kou is reluctant, but his deep-seated desire to never be indebted to anyone pushes him to accept the deal. Kou discovers the strange world underneath the bridge and slowly develops an actual relationship with Nino.
It's a weird anime, so it's beneficial the characters are adults. This eliminates additional logical leaps, like how Kou would explain to his parents why he's living under a bridge.
- 19294 VOTESPhoto: Planetes / Sunrise
Planetes isn't specifically a romance anime, but it does have a romantic element. Ai Tanabe and Hachirota "Hachimaki" Hoshino are 21-year-olds working on the ISPV 7 Debris Crew; their job is to clean up space junk. Realistically speaking, it's unlikely these young people would qualify for a job like this at all, but having them be teenagers would strain plausibility even more.
When Hachimaki leaves for a seven-year trip to Jupiter without Ai, the two must face the misery of separation.
- Photo: Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! / Satelight
Cherry Magic! is a unique anime that tells the story of 30-year-old Kiyoshi Adachi, who has gone his whole life without “popping his cherry.” As a result he's attained the skill to read people's minds after touching them. Despite seeing this ability as pretty useless, curiosity gets the better of him when he uses it on his handsome coworker Yuuichi Kurosawa - who turns out to have a crush on him!
While the plot is a bit out-of-the-ordinary, it only truly works with the older yet adorable adult couple of Adachi and Kurosawa.
