After the death of her parents, Isaku is sent to the only family she had left – her grandfather. However, as a yakuza boss, suddenly she became “the boss’ granddaughter,” painting a target on her back.
As a young child, Isaku was introduced to Keiya, a man who took care of and protected her. Due to her family’s reputation and Keiya’s frequent diligent care-taking, Isaku has not been able to form meaningful friendships at school, but she hopes to change that as she makes her high school debut.
Although she went to a school far from home, she is shocked to find that 26-year-old Keiya is also enrolled in her class in order to continue to protect her.
I love a good overly protective male love interest, but an age gap romance between a girl and the guy who raised her is kind of…Eh, you know? If you are looking for more anime recommendation like A Girl and Her Guard Dog, head on down below.
Anime Like A Girl and Her Guard Dog
For Fans of Age-Gap Romance
Koikimo – It’s Too Sick to Call This Love
Successful businessman Ryou Amakusa is used to being the target of women’s affections despite never asking anyone out himself.
One day, after feeling dizzy from a lack of sleep, he nearly falls down some stairs at the station. He is saved by high school otaku Ichika Arima, a girl who gives him her own lunch for energy and runs off.
He later finds out she attends his little sisters’ school, and after offering his body in thanks, he falls in love with her and her disgusted reaction.
Both Koikimo and A Girl and Her Guard Dog are age gap romance anime where a male love interest is overly interested and wildly possessive of a teenage girl. However, the dynamic between them is a bit different.
In Koikimo, Ryou is a salaryman who develops an intense interest in Ichika, but Ichika – who is kind of put off that he is an adult man she met for two seconds – resists. Eventually it does turn into a less one-sided love, but it does spend a lot of time there. This is in contrast to A Girl and Her Guard Dog where the love is sort of mutual and unspoken.
Higehiro – I Shaved The Brought Home a High School Girl
Office worker Yoshida finally worked up the courage to ask his boss out, only for her to swiftly reject him. On his way home from getting completely drunk to drown his heartbreak, he sees a high school girl sitting outside by herself late at night.
After discovering that she was a runaway, he ends up taking her home while constantly shutting down her efforts to pay for her stay with her body. Talking to her further, he discovers that she traveled for six months from Hokkaido trading sexual favors for what she needed.
While trying to figure out what to do, he puts her to work cooking and cleaning instead so she can have a place to stay.
Like A Girl and Her Guard Dog, Higehiro is about an adult man living with and growing closer to a high school girl. However, while A Girl and Her Guard Dog is clearly a romance, Higehiro is more a drama at first with hints of a romantic relationship forming later.
As Higehiro is a drama about a runaway teen girl, the relationship is presented as problematic, but as they live together, there are still plenty of cute moments.
After the Rain
Akira Tachibana used to love running, but after an injury, she can’t run like she used to. Now, she passes time by working in a family restaurant where she finds herself slowly falling in love with the divorced manager.
While both A Girl and Her Guard Dog and After the Rain are anime about age gap romance, they differ in the fact that After the Rain isn’t actually a romance. Unlike A Girl and Her Guard Dog, the adult male love interest in After the Rain has appropriate boundaries between himself and a high school girls’ one-sided love.
Essentially, After the Rain is for people that watched A Girl and Her Guard Dog and became interested in age gap romance as a concept. After the Rain does it in a more mature way. After the Rain is every bit as satisfying as an anime about romantic relationships without having a dubious romantic relationship.
For Fans of Bodyguards
Inu X Boku SS
Ririchiyo Shirakiin is the sheltered daughter of a rich family, but she has been dependent on them her entire life. However, while she seeks to change that, she has a sharp tongue that needs minding.
When she moves into a high security apartment complex to start her new life of independence, she discovers that the residents are not only strange, but everyone in the apartment – including herself – are half-human and half-yokai.
Furthermore, as a condition of being able to move out, she now has to live with her new bodyguard, Soushi – a handsome and oddly submissive secret service agent.
Of all the anime recommendations on here, Inu X Boku SS is easily the most similar experience to A Girl and Her Guard Dog.
Both anime series feature young women of elevated status who are accompanied by an overly attached bodyguard who is also quite handsome. Essentially, wherever the girl is, her bodyguard follows. Eventually, they both also develop into a nice age gap romance.
The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting
Tooru Kirishima is known as the Demon of the Sakuragi crime family due to his overly violent tendencies. Because of his skill and loyalty, he has been selected by the boss of the family for an important job – the job of babysitting the boss’ daughter.
Essentially, The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting is like if A Girl and Her Guard Dog focused on Keiya raising Isaku as a little girl.
Both series are about older yakuza guys raising a small child for their yakuza boss. However, instead of romance, The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting is more cute childcare moments and fluffy comedy.
Kurenai
After losing his parents to a terrorist attack, Shinkurou Kurenai swore to stay strong. Now a high school student, he lives with the Houzuki family, mastering their style of martial arts.
One day, a member of the family brings home a young child from a wealthy family and asks Kurenai to guard her.
Like A Girl and Her Guard Dog, Kurenai is about a young guy being told to protect and essentially take care of a young girl. However, while A Girl and Her Guard Dog skips forward to her high school years and becomes a rom-com, Kurenai focuses instead on the plot surrounding why he needs to protect this random girl.
If you enjoyed A Girl and Her Guard Dog for the bodyguard concept, and not so much the romance, Kurenai is an excellent more serious exploration of that.
For Fans of Overly Attached Love Interests
Love of Kill
Although a novice bounty hunter, Chateau Dankworth is confident in her skills. However, one day she is overpowered by a man who wasn’t even her target, and worse yet, he takes an immediate romantic interest in her.
She soon learns that the man who continues to pester her is Song Ryang-ha – a former assassin and wanted by the Asian underworld organization he turned against. This leads them to constant run-ins with members from both of their pasts.
If you love your overly attached male love interests with a talent for violence, then Love of Kill is for you. While both A Girl and Her Guard Dog and Love of Kill are romance anime, they differ a bit when it comes to their female characters.
Both series have a criminal male lead that follows the female love interest almost everywhere. However, while Isaku is a pretty normal, albeit sheltered high school girl, Chateau is also an assassin like her love interest.
As Love of Kill is about a love affair between two assassins, it has more action and intrigue, but also packs in plenty of cuter romance moments.
My Little Monster
Shizuku Mizutani cares little of others and only about scoring top marks. However, when she is tasked with taking something to her desk neighbor, Haru Yoshida, her world begins to change.
Haru, too, knows little of human nature and hasn’t been to school for awhile due to fighting. Yet, it is the lack of friends that they both have that soon forms a friendship between them.
Both A Girl and Her Guard Dog and My Little Monster are high school romance anime about a girl and, well, a man that acts like a guard dog.
Both Keiya and Haru are presented as very clingy and very protective of the women they have an interest in. However, unlike Isaku who has an unspoken interest back, Shizuku is cold and takes a lot longer to warm up.
Wolf Girl and Black Prince
In order to make friends with some popular girls, Erika Shinohara has taken to lying about having a boyfriend. In order to prove it, she hastily takes a picture of a man, but her friends recognize him as a school mate, the popular Kyouya Sata.
To avoid humiliation, she asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend. He accepts, but only if she agrees to become his dog.
Both A Girl and Her Guard Dog and Wolf Girl and Black Prince have what I like to call “old school shoujo romance” sensibilities. What that means is they use tropes and character archetypes that have sort of fallen out of style.
One archetype they have in common is in the male leads. Both male leads are colder, but also very protective of the women who catch their interest. That said, they have a different romantic dynamic. While a A Girl and Her Guard Dog is a bit dubious due to the fact that he raised her as a child, Wolf Girl and Black Prince is a bit dubious because their relationship is built on blackmail and a bit of bullying.
Do you have more anime recommendations like A Girl and Her Guard Dog? Let fans know in the comments section below.
