All high schooler Anzu Hoshino loves is video games, chocolate, and her cat, Momohiko. She has shunned everything else, especially a romantic life. However, one day a magical creature alters her reality where she can’t have any of those three things that she adores and is told that in order to return to her normal life, she must indulge in the dating sim situations that have been set up around her involving the new troubled transfer student Tsukasa Kazuki, her childhood friend Junta Hayami, and a wealthy sheltered student named Hijiri Koganei.
While its not a particularly ambitious rom-com, it was a fun ride and it is always refreshing to see shoujo protagonists desperately try to resist their lots as shoujo protagonists. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Romantic Killer, head on down below.
Anime Like Romantic Killer
For Fans of Playing a Dating Sim in Real Life
My Next Life as a Villainess – All Routes Lead to Doom!
At eight years old, Katarina Claes, the only daughter of a duke, hits her head and suddenly remembers she was once a seventeen-year-old otaku that got isekai’d. She realizes that she is now in the world of Fortune Lover, the otome game that she had been playing before her death. Unfortunately, she is not the heroine, but rather the villainess who usually ends up dead or exiled at the end. As such, she endeavors to change her fate and avoid all doom flags.
Both series are about women that are essentially forced to play a dating sim for real. In Romantic Killer, they take away her loves while in My Next Life as a Villainess has her die and reincarnated as the villain character in her favorite dating sim. They have the notable differences like how Romantic Killer has romantic progression while My Next Life as a Villainess has zero progression since she just builds a wholesome bisexual harem.
I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss
Being constantly ill, a girl passed her time in the hospital playing otome games. However, one day she wakes up in the world of the game she was playing. What’s more, she wakes up as Aileen Lauren Dautriche, the villainess of the game. After childhood friend and crown prince Cedric publicly breaks up with her for the game’s protagonist, Aileen makes moves to avoid the tragic future that results in her death. She decides to propose to Cedric’s half-brother, Demon King Claude who, if left alone, would transform into a dragon and off-handedly kill her in the game. So begins her quest to tame him.
Not unlike the aforementioned My Next Life as a Villainess, I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss also has the main character reincarnated in an otome game playing the villain of that game. More like Romantic Killer, this series has her focus primarily on one major love interest with other pretty clear “minor” love interests progressing as well.
Love Flops
One normal day, high school student Asahi Kashiwagi wakes up and watches a fortune teller’s predictions on TV. On his way to school, as according to the predictions, he has a variety of accidentally lewd encounters with five different people. After these five clandestine meetings, he discovers that all five of them are new members of his class. What’s more, their encounters have all sparked the embers of love between him and each one of them. Now he needs to follow his own heart else his love life flop and fizzle out.
I hesitated to include this show because it is a heavily ecchi series, just so we are perfectly clear. Romantic Killer has the main character put into a series of dating sim-like situations, but it is clearly aimed more at female audiences. Love Flops is about a main character that also has a slew of dating sim-like situations forced on him, but the constant onslaught of ecchi makes it clearly aimed more at male audiences. Regardless, both main characters are pretty resistant to their situation, but still act like outstanding people.
The World God Only Knows
Keima Katsuragi is known as the “God of Conquest,” a man that can conquer any girl’s heart, at least in his dating sim games. However, when Keima arrogantly accepts an offer to prove his dating sim supremacy, he finds himself at the mercy of a demon that forces him to woo over real life girls.
Both series are essentially an ode to dating sim players. They both have main characters that are put in a dating sim situation and told to play it out for various reasons. As they are long time players of those types of games, they know how to manipulate the situations to how they want them to turn out. Much of the comedy in Romantic Killer is her recognizing the situations and still falling into them anyway. The World Only God Knows is more about him intelligently manipulating women to get the best outcome of the scenario. Like Love Flops, these shows are clearly aimed at different gendered audiences, though The World Only God Knows has less frequent ecchi and is more easily enjoyed by both female and male audiences.
For Fans of Resistant to the Reverse Harem
Kiss Him, Not Me
Chubby Kae Serinuma is an avid fujoshi who secretly ships her male classmates. However, after her favorite anime character dies, she becomes so stressed that she loses weight rapidly. Upon returning to school, her classmates, including the attractive men she ships, realize how attractive she really is. There’s only one problem, while the boys vie for her affections, she just wants them to turn those affections towards each other.
Both Romantic Killer and Kiss Him, Not Me feature lady weebs as their main characters. Something happens in both, and somehow they are now awash in handsome men that have a developing interest in them as their high school romance plays out. As the main character in Kiss Him, Not Me is a fujoshi, she more about her shipping her harem together. That also makes her resistant to her harem and youthful romance similar to Anzu in Romantic Killer.
Ouran High School Host Club
In Ouran High School, the typical student is a member of the wealthy elite, but not Haruhi Fujioka. Accepted on a scholarship, Haruhi wants to avoid all the glitz and glamour in order to study hard and become a lawyer. While looking for a rare quiet place to do so, Haruhi stumbles upon a host club. Frantic to get away from these weird boys, Haruhi breaks a valuable vase. In order to pay back the debt, the club demands that Haruhi becomes a host. There is only one problem, contrary to what the boys believe, Haruhi is actually a girl.
Both series follow main characters that are surrounded by absolute hotties and fully realize that. Part of the comedy is that these main characters are interested in other things. In Romantic Killer, she wants her games while in Ouran High School Host Club, she just wants to study. This, of course, means every member of her man stable will develop feelings.
The Wallflower
Four boys are offered to live in a fantastic mansion free of rent, but on one condition. They must make the girl of the house into a fine young lady. Enter Nakahara Sunako. She loves horror movies, death, and all things gloomy, stemming from a junior high school trauma. Blinded by all things beautiful, these four handsome men have their work cut out for them.
If Anzu has +5 resistance to reverse harems, Sunako has like +2 resistance. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to fall in love, but after past trauma she thinks she is ugly. Furthermore, she has unfeminine hobbies like Anzu that also put boys off. Both series fully devote themselves to the rehabilitation of those female main characters.
For Fans of Healing Broken Boys Through Friendship
Fruits Baskets
When Tooru Honda finds herself homeless, she decides to live in a tent in the wilderness. However, one day she is discovered by a classmate, Yuki Souma, and invited to come live in his house. From there she gets to know many members of the Souma family, not realizing that they all are afflicted by a curse. When they hug the opposite gender, they turn into an animal from the Chinese zodiac.
Every boy in Romantic Killer has their moment where you see their problems and you see how their relationship with the main character helped them through that. Fruits Basket does that too, but instead she is helping one large and infinitely messed up family with her earnest hard-working shoujo protagonist nature. Romantic Killer is good comedy and solid romantic progression, but Fruits Basket leans more into drama while also still having good romantic progression.
Kamisama Kiss
Homeless and in debt, high schooler Nanami Momozono thinks things are looking up when she rescues a man and he offers to let her stay at his home. She soon discovers that his home is a rundown shrine. Trying to leave, she is mistaken for the man she saved – the man that is also the land god of the shrine, Mikage. Finding out she was tricked into being a god and not wanting to be homeless, Nanami tries to embrace her new divine duties, but has to deal with a hot-headed fox familiar to keep things running smoothly.
Both Kamisama Kiss and Romantic Killer has a similar sort of progression. She meets a boy, she begins the process of healing their specific emotional problem, they are then good friends, and then it is another character’s turn to be introduced and repeat the process. All the while, you have a very clear winner of the main characters feeling who also has the longest arc to resolve their emotional problems. I say this all in the very mechanical way that comes from watching too much anime, but Kamisama Kiss excels as being both very cute and very good at comedy. It does lean more into the supernatural than the already semi-supernatural caveat in Romantic Killer, though.
Brothers Conflict
After being an only child her whole life, Ema Hinata’s life takes a dramatic turn when her father remarries and she suddenly has 13 new stepbrothers. Moving in with them, she is now surrounded by a whole lot of unique personalities.
Did you like how the main character helped her man stable overcome their various problems? Do you want a larger man stable consisting of all handsome and talented brothers? Did you want a fraction of the depth of Romantic Killer? Well, that’s Brother’s Conflict. It excels in eye candy, all of which have some sort of emotional problem to overcome, and the protagonist helps them through that. However, unlike Anzu, Ema really is barely a character. They knew you came for the boys, so all the already little effort went there.
Hanasakeru Seishounen
Kajika Burnsworth is the only daughter of respected industrialist Harry Burnsworth. After her mother was killed in an attempt on her own life, Kajika was raised away from Harry’s world on a secluded island. Now fourteen, she returns to her father only to be told that they will begin the process of choosing her future husband. Each one of the candidates is brilliant and charming, but she must determine who is the one she will withstand the harshness of fate with.
While often ignored because it is older and just seems like another reverse harem for the pile, Hanasakeru Seishounen has a surprisingly in-depth and intriguing political plot to it. That said, it doesn’t forget to give you an array of handsome men, a heroine that isn’t really into a being in a relationship, and a series of relationships all blooming between her and them.
For Fans of Female Nerds That Just Want to Nerd Out, But Fall In Love Instead
Recovery of an MMO Junkie
Morioka Moriko has had enough of being an overworked corporate slave, so she decided to retire herself to the NEET lifestyle. While at home, yearning for the previous connections she once made in online gaming, she starts up a new MMO. There she creates her character, the handsome Hayashi. However, in her newbie struggles she meets a Lily, another character willing to help her and they begin to grow closer to each other. At the same time, in real life, Moriko also has a shocking encounter with a handsome corporate employee.
Both series are about girl gamers who just want to game and aren’t really looking to fall in love. You know what happens? They go and fall in love anyway. In Recovery of an MMO Junkie, her relationship is complicated since she falls for someone in a game, but is also falling for him in real life as well. Both series are excessively cute if you are a female gamer yourself and have excellent comedy.
Wotakoi – Love is Difficult for an Otaku
After discovering they work at the same company, a gaming otaku Nifuji and a fujoshi Narumi rekindle for the first time since middle school. After some good old fashioned after work drinks, they decide to start dating, but dating an otaku as an otaku is more difficult that one would think.
While the main female character in Wotakoi is a fujoshi rather than a gamer, she is dating a gamer. Regardless, both series are about female nerds that are really into their passions and they often ruin their romance. Narumi does indeed want a relationship, but because being a fujoshi puts people off she feels the need to hide it and it makes it hard to balance a long-term relationship. Wotakoi is all about getting that acceptance.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Romantic Killer? Let fans know in the comments section below.
