On the outskirts of a small town, Lawrence serves as pastor for the town’s church. There, he is also responsible for guiding and caring for the Saint – a lady that is closer to God than others. Saints are rare, but they serve to guide parishioners with their struggles and provide them with advice.
In Lawrence’s church, the Saint Cecilia is a kind girl who sincerely does her very best, but is easily exhausted by her duties. This leads her to act a little more relaxed when it is just Lawrence and herself.
After forming a strong friendship, Lawrence takes good care of her while she makes sure he is kept safe and healthy from the spirits that seem unnaturally attracted to him.
It is a hard thing to do a slow romance. You can’t be too slow, but you apparently can be pretty slow if you make your characters likable enough. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence, head on down below.
Anime Like Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence
For Fans of Enshrined Deities Being Cute
Otaku Elf
Koito Koganei is a teenager who serves as a shrine maiden to the Takamimi Shrine as her family has always has. Alongside normal shrine maiden duties, she is also charged with taking care of the deity enshrined there.
Elda, an immortal elf summoned by Tokugawa Ieyasu, has lived in the shrine for 400 years. However, over that time, she has grown afraid of going outside and fallen deeply in love with games, anime, and other otaku hobbies.
Both Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence and Otaku Elf work with a similar concept. They are both about girls who are enshrined and worshiped, they then make those girls act like normal slackers – the antithesis of a deity.
While Cecilia is a relatively normal innocent girl, Elda is a shut-in otaku immortal elf with some social anxiety. As you can guess, Otaku Elf is more of a comedy compared to Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence’s slice of life with romance hints.
Kuma Miko – Girl meets Bear
Young shrine maiden Machi Amayadori has spent her whole life in a small town with her talking bear guardian. However, as she turns fourteen, she decides to take a chance and attend high school in the city. This is the story of her preparing for city life in a small town.
Both Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence and Kuma Miko take place in shrines/churches and follow the daily lives of a supernatural being and the caretaker of the facility.
However, while Lawrence takes care of Cecelia and they enjoy slice of life adventures, a shrine maiden takes care of a shrine bear who gives her poor advice about her future living in the city.
Kuma Miko is definitely more of a comedy, but they both maintain a similar slow, rural slice of life vibe to them.
Inari Kon Kon
Below average high school girl Inari Fushimi has one positive perk, she can’t overlook a person in need. One day, she ends up rescuing a fox cub, only for the god of the Inari Shrine, Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami, to thank her.
As thanks he grants her a small drop of his power that allows her to transform into anyone at will. The problem is, a human possessing even this small amount of a god’s power draws a lot of attention from the supernatural world.
Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence and Inari Kon Kon are about the lives and romances of normal humans who get entangled with a deity.
While Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence is about taking care of a saint, Inari Kon Kon is about saving the offspring of a deity and gaining special powers as a reward. While Inari Kon Kon is higher energy and has more going on, it maintains a similar sort of upbeat atmosphere like Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence.
The Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle
In order to sow chaos and discord among the human kingdom, the Demon King Tasogare abducted the beloved human princess, Syalis.
In an effort to rescue her, a mighty hero sets forth.
Meanwhile, held in the demon castle, Princess Syalis discovers that being held captive is quite boring. She decides to sleep away her time awaiting rescue, but… She can’t sleep.
Cheap bedding, insomnia, and demonic snores plague her as she tries to get a solid night’s sleep.
Like Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence plays with the concept of a sort of deified person being worshiped, but they’re actually just a pretty normal girl, The Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle plays with the concept of the captured fairy tale princess, but makes her kind of domineering over her demonic captors.
Both series feature cute girls who are confined and taken care of by others. However, while Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence focuses on slice of life, The Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle is often more of a comedy.
For Fans of Christian Inspiration, But Anime
As Ms. Beelzebub Likes
Myurin, skilled in realm administration, has been hired on in the Kingdom of Pandemonium where the fallen angels dwell. There, he will be working with the feared Beelzebub, one of the seven princes of hell.
However, he discovers that Beelzebub isn’t quite as fearsome. In fact, he is really a girl and is obsessed with fluffy things.
So begins the tale of how Myurin learns that nothing is as it seems in this kingdom.
While Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence is about a pastor taking care of a saint in a church, As Ms. Beelzebub Likes, despite taking place in hell, is actually quite similar. It’s about an assistant taking care of Beelzebub, a high-ranking demon and cute anime girl, not unlike Lawrence does for Cecilia.
Both series feature comically and cutely helpless girls and their more responsible, but not strict caretakers. However, while Lawrence is the type to not realize his own feelings, Myurin has no problems realizing that he is in love.
Gabriel Dropout
After graduating high school in Heaven, angels are sent down to Earth to guide humans down a righteous path. Heaven had high hopes for Gabriel, the top of her class. However, when she descended, she ended up skipping her duties and getting addicted to online games.
Unlike Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence that is a “maybe they will someday” romance, Gabriel Dropout is more a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime.
Both series have what can best be described as “christian inspirations” without being immediately related to Christianity in any firm way. Essentially, they are using the aesthetic in Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence while they are more casually referencing angels and demons in Gabriel Dropout.
The big difference is that, while both series are slice of life anime, Gabriel Dropout is more of a comedy.
For Fans of Cohabitation Romance
Tonikawa – Tonikaku Kawaii
After being ridiculed for his strange name, Nasa, like the space agency, decides he will become a man even greater than the starry sky. However, one night, that all changes when he sees a beautiful girl.
She ends up saving him from being fatally hit by a truck while crossing the street to talk to her. Having chased her down despite his serious injuries, he asks her out. She says she will go out with him if they marry. He agrees, and passes out.
Waking up to find her gone, he abandons his ambitions until one day when she shows up with their marriage registration.
While the romance in Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence moves very slowly, if you are looking for a similar, wholesome romance/slice of life anime where they live together – Tonikawa can provide.
Instead of being sluggish with getting them together like Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence, Tonikawa moves at lightning speed to marry the pair, then make any sort of romantic progression very sluggish. What you end up with in both series is very wholesome slice of life anime about pretty passive, sweet men living with a slightly supernatural woman.
However, while Cecilia is nice and a bit childish, Tsukasa is a bit more mysterious and a little colder without being mean.
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 tasks for him every day after school as they spend more time together.
Both Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence and The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten are about two people that do – or pretty much do – live together. In both series, one party starts off as more of a caretaker, but they grow increasingly close as the series goes on.
While the girl is the caretaker in The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten, she is also – like Cecilia – the kind of “perfect girl” that people around her put on a pedestal. Like the saints, it sort of unintentionally isolates her from her classmates, but the male main character treats her like a normal girl.
While both anime series have a focus on slice of life, The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten is more of a dramatic series as well as focuses on romantic progression. It’s not the same peaceful and sweet slice of life experience that Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence offers.
A Galaxy Next Door
After the death of their father, Ichirou Kuga supported his two younger siblings on their inheritance and by taking up drawing manga. However, with tight deadlines, he finds himself in need of a new assistant to help him meet his schedule.
While growing dangerously near his breaking point, Shiori Goshiki takes the job. She is incredibly fast and also detailed, a real dream assistant.
However, one night while working late, Ichirou gets pricked by something on Goshiki’s body and suddenly finds out that now they can’t be too physically far apart without him suffering ill effects, but they are, according to the customs of her homeland, engaged to marry.
Similar to Lawrence living with a saint, A Galaxy Next Door is about a manga artists living with an alien who was revered as a princess on her rural Japanese island. It is kind of like if Cecilia just left everything behind to become a manga artist.
While Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence is slice of life without much romantic progression, A Galaxy Next Door still has that same pleasant slice of life plot, but is fully focused on their growing romantic relationship together.
In truth, the most similar thing between Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence and A Galaxy Next Door is the male lead. Both Lawrence and Ichirou are those sweet, sensitive, non-threatening-type of male protagonists that are nice to watch, but often limit their own romantic progression.
The Duke of Death and His Maid
After being cursed by a witch as a child, any living thing that the young duke touches will wither and die. Feared by his mother, he is sent to live in a mansion in the woods.
While secluded, he is not entirely alone.
He was accompanied by his aging butler Rob as well as his maid, Alice. Despite not being able to touch him, Alice enjoys teasing the young lord and her lack of fear allows them to grow closer, eventually spurring the duke’s desire to lift his curse.
Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence and The Duke of Death and His Maid are those sort of frustrating romance anime where the main characters clearly have feelings for each other, but you also know you won’t get much satisfying progression. At least in The Duke of Death and His Maid, only his curse stands in the way unlike in Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence where Lawrence’s density and Cecilia’s innocence are both pretty big roadblocks.
Regardless, both series are about a guy and a girl who live together in relative seclusion. However, while Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence is rather wholesome and plotless, The Duke of Death and His Maid is more about comedy that comes from flirting while also progressing the plot focused on curing his curse.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence? Let fans know in the comments section below.
