Love meets anime

I am a person who loves stories about love. Yes, I am what some would call a hopeless romantic. Which also means that, when choosing which anime to watch, there is a tendency for me to select those with themes of romance, or at least some form of love in the story.

So here, I bring you my list of love-themed anime. This is not a complete list of all anime with some form of love story; that would be an endless list since love is part of human emotion and anime is an expression of human emotion. It is simply a list that I, as a hopeless romantic, loves.

I chose to watch Your Life in April 四月は君の嘘 because I wanted to cry. And cry I did. Love is selfless, as shown by the extent that Kaori went to in order to bring Kousei out of his shell and back into the world of music. Love can change us in good ways, and love stays in the heart even when a person is no longer around. That final letter from Kaori to Kousei is just so........... 😭 Every time I want to cry, I will just rewatch that final letter scene. A similar story is I Want to Eat Your Pancreas 君の膵臓をたべたい although the female protagonist did not die from her illness.

It took me a while to get down to watching Violet Evergarden ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン and I really regretted now watching it sooner. Major Gilbert's love for Violet is so great, he is willing to stay away from her life and give her the space and opportunity to grow. The central theme across the whole series is to understand what "I love you" means, but the series also explores different kinds of love (not just the romantic kind) which makes it all the more endearing to me.

At first, I didn't really have an idea of what the story of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid 小林さんちのメイドラゴン was. I just watched it as part of my "try to finish watching all KyoAni works" ambition. But I immediately took a liking to it. This story is an interesting take on love. Yes, we know that love transcends gender, and a woman can love another woman. But this story takes it to the next level, transcending species (love between human and dragon...) Not only is the story about same-sex, interspecies love, but it also portrays the bond between parent and child. It reminds me that love knows no boundaries. Romantic love is not limited by gender (or species, for that matter...) and family love is not limited by blood.

I was looking for something short on love to watch to satisfy my craving for love-related stuff and came across Tsurezure Children 徒然チルドレン. Ah... first love. The teenage years as one is growing up and learning what it feels like to fall in love for the first time. I am sure we all remember our first love, our childhood/teenage crushes, and this series helps to jog those (bittersweet) memories.

I only decided to watch After the Rain 恋は雨上がりのように because it was set in Yokohama. But the story soon caught my attention. Love is not limited by age, but a high school girl being involved romantically with a man in his 40s can be... problematic. Social norms have a strange way of shaping our views and how we are viewed. But it can also help to provide that opportunity for rethinking (and reaffirming) one's feelings, like in this story where it forces Tachibana to face her feelings and reconsider her options ahead in life.

After watching all those "recommended" love anime series, I eventually stumbled into yuri anime. Kase-san and Morning Glories あさがおと加瀬さん。 was a great one to start, but a bit short as it is an OVA instead of an adaptation of the entire story. But I moved on to bravely take on Bloom Into You やがて君になる. A person falls in love with another person. X is there for Y, to support her as she learns to be herself instead of being an image of someone else. This series really made me think. We all imagine what love is like, but love can take different shapes and forms. Will we recognize it when it comes? Can we learn to accept love even if it seems to be different from what we imagine it to be? The anime series only adapted part of the manga series, so I am seriously considering getting the manga just to find what how the entire story ends.

Shinkai Makoto's works like 5 Centimeters per Second 秒速5センチメートル, The Garden of Words 言の葉の庭, Your Name. 君の名は。 and Weathering with You 天気の子 also revolve around love, but I see them more as "growing up" stories where love is part of that process. I still want to mention them in this post since they have their own touching love stories too. But as mentioned, it simply won't be practical to include every anime with a love story here... there would be no end to such a list.

However, this list is sure to grow as the years go by and I come across more works. So stay tuned!

Update 29 August 2020: I am adding Tsuki ga Kirei 月がきれい to this list because it is a very very heartwarming series.

That feeling of falling in love, being shy, and the happy ending really gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling which makes this my favorite anime about love as of today. Some of the setting in the anime (like the male protagonist being involved in ohayashi at the local shrine) is also something that I can relate to.