Junta Shiraishi has a special, if not sometimes inconvenient skill of being difficult for people to notice due to his lack of presence. However, while even the teacher fails to notice him, his desk neighbor Nagisa Kubo seems to never miss him.
Unfortunately, Kubo likes to tease him on a daily basis and put his near-invisibility to the test in nerve-wracking situations. However, her playful antics begin to evolve into what normal people would easy see as clear feelings for him.
You don’t need to have romantic progression when you are this cute. It is charming how something just simple and cute can be very effective. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, then head on down below.
Anime Like Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible
For Fans of Classmates That Clearly Like Each Other
Skilled Teasing Master Takagi-San
For Nishikata, no one knows him better than Takagi-san. Unfortunately for him, she uses this knowledge to unrelentingly tease him on a daily basis.
Nishikata vows to get revenge for all that blushing he has done, but is he good enough to overcome her skill?
Of all the other anime recommendations on here, Skilled Teasing Master Takagi-san is the anime most like Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible.
Both of these romance anime follow desk mates who, alongside spending a lot of time together at school, start to spend a lot of time together outside of it. However, they are not a couple, despite sharing a lot of cute moments.
What is perhaps most similar between them is what the male main character thinks of his female peer. In Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Shiraishi thinks Kubo is making fun of him, when really she just enjoys his cute reactions. In Skilled Master Takagi-san, she is a little more obviously teasing him, but Nishikata instead gets fired up in his efforts to try to win someday.
Aharen-san is Indecipherable
Excited to have a different and more social high school life, Raidou introduces himself to his seat neighbor on the first day.
At first, he thinks this small girl is just ignoring him. However, he discovers that she has a quiet voice and is bad at determining personal space.
From this meeting, an odd friendship blooms.
Both Aharen-san is Indecipherable and Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible detail the growing relationship between desk mates who become best friends with strong hints of something more brewing.
However, while Shiraishi slides under the radar and Kubo is a normal level of popular, both characters in Aharen-san is Indecipherable have some quirks that make others think they are a bit strange. This ends up bonding them, however.
While in Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, it is obvious they like each other and plays coy with them developing a romantic relationship, Aharen-san is Indecipherable actually has some nice romantic progression.
Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out
Sakurai Shinichi just wants a little peace and quiet, but after he meets a kouhai, Uzaki Hana, from his old high school swim club at university, she wants to hang out.
This peppy, loud, and well endowed woman just wants to spend time together and tease him. Will Shinichi get the peace and quiet he desires? No.
While Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out follows two kids in college, it is still very much in the same vein as Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible.
In both shows, a girl really wants to spend time with a guy. She is around him at every opportunity and he finds it both annoying and also enjoys it.
Both series also feature a female main character who doesn’t quite realize her own feelings immediately. They only realizes they’re in love later on after some outside prodding.
For Fans of Seeing Your Good Side
Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie
Izumi is a normal guy, albeit with a predilection for attracting misfortune.
However, the one piece of shining fortune in his life is his girlfriend, Shikimori. She is beautiful, popular, and absolutely in love with him.
Everyone around them is often surprised by how cool and dashing Shikimori is rather than cute and girly.
Both Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible and Shikimori Not Just a Cutie is about a person that has a unique flaw that makes them a little bit of an outsider. Izumi is a magnet for bad luck and Shiraishi often goes unnoticed. However, the women in their life can counter this.
However, unlike Kubo who is very kind, Shikimori is more like a cool prince. She loves her boyfriend because he adores her cool side and makes her feel like a girl even if she does have manly talents.
Komi-san Can’t Communicate
It is the first day for incoming freshmen at the prestigious Itan Private High School. For Hitohito Tadano, he considers himself lucky to get in and angles to not make waves during his high school career.
However, he finds himself sitting next to the beautiful, beloved, yet cold and silent Shouko Komi, immediately earning the ire of his classmates.
After a series of events leads to him being left alone with her, he discovers that she is not cold, but suffers from extreme social anxiety that prevents her from speaking. After a long conversation through writing, he wants to help her reach her goal of making 100 friends.
While Komi-sa Can’t Communicate is different from Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible in many respects, both anime series are about someone taking an interest in a person with a problem.
Shiraishi deals with being unnoticed, and Komi deals with severe social anxiety. The result of which is usually loneliness, and the other character in each series serves to to help them find solutions to the problems caused by their unique quirk.
They also happen to be pretty clear romance anime with frustrating slow actual romantic progression.
For Fans of Outcast Guy and Popular Girl
My Dress-Up Darling
Living with his grandfather who makes beautiful Hina Dolls, Wakana Gojo has loved them since he was a child. He aspires to one day make Hina Dolls as good as his grandfather, but his dedication has made him a bit of a loner in school after a girl in his childhood said that boys shouldn’t like dolls.
After a run in with the beautiful and popular Marin Kitagawa, he discovers that she wants to cosplay a character from an eroge game.
However, her sewing skills leave something to be desired, and after seeing her passion, Gojo agrees to help her make her costume.
Both Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible and My Dress-Up Darling feature two boys who are outcasts in their class. They have zero friends, but exist somewhat at peace with their solitude. However, one day, a vastly more popular girl notices them and becomes a rather large part of their world.
While both anime series portrays them as just friends at first, it isn’t very long before you see the female side of the relationship realize how in love she is. The male character in the relationship remains oblivious to feelings, preventing romantic progression.
While My Dress Up Darling can be a little lewd in a not obnoxious ecchi way, it is actually quite the cute little romance about two people that increasingly like to hang out.
The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten
After seeing the “angel” of his school, Mahiru Shiina, sitting in the rain, Amane Fujimiya gives her his umbrella and catches a cold because of it.
While he expected her to return the umbrella eventually, he is surprised when she, a girl who is also his neighbor, comes over to take care of him.
Seeing the unsightly state of his apartment, she helps him get that in order and suddenly he finds that she is doing small household task for him every day after school as they spend more time together.
In The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten, the main character isn’t necessarily a huge outcast, but he is significantly less beloved than his female love interest who is the class idol for her beauty.
While the characters in The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten has the characters meet outside of school and shows their relationship mostly outside of the school setting, like Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible they grow closer while keeping any feelings hidden deeply on the inside.
Both anime series are mostly just watching people be friends that often feel like a couple.
Please Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro
After an encounter in the library where she teased him about his manga, Naoto Hachijouji is relentlessly teased by a younger first year girl named Nagatoro.
She takes every opportunity to toy with him and leave him embarrassed, but over time, he has found a friendship was built between them.
The relationship of Kubo and Shiraishi is built upon a foundation of her teasing him because she likes his reactions. Please Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro is the same way but with a rather large caveat.
The teasing in Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible is always playful, light-hearted, and sometimes a little physical. The Teasing in Please Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro is occasionally bordering on malicious bullying and sometimes lewd. Nagatoro gets significantly nicer as time goes on, but at first the teasing can be a bit dubious.
Regardless, both anime are about a mildly popular girl taking an interest in the resident quiet outcast with a relationship forming between them.
Horimiya
Although lauded for being likable and intelligent, Kyouko Hori hides the fact that she has to take care of her brother and the housework because her parents are always working.
Izumi Miyamura, on the other hand, is seen as a brooding, bespectacled otaku. Outside of school, he sports tattoos and nine piercings.
By happenstance, the two outside school personalities of these two classmates meet and they get to know a side of each other they don’t show their peers.
Both Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible and Horimiya are romance anime where a well-liked girl suddenly starts talking and hanging out with a guy that no one notices.
However, the big difference is that they are a couple within a few episodes in Horimiya. As suh, it plays out more like a standard romance anime.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible? Let fans know in the comments section below.
