Due to her quiet nature, Koyuki Hikawa seems like an unapproachable ice queen to most others. However, Koyuki is prone to overthinking and uncomfortable in some social situations after various bad experiences in middle school.
One day, two sociable boys—Minato Amamiya and Youta Hino—break through her barriers. Alongside Koyuki’s friend Miki, the four start to form a friendship. While Koyuki slowly breaks out of her shell, her friends all have their own problems they are secretly dealing with.
Behind every quiet person is someone who became their friend through sheer perseverance. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like The Ramparts of Ice, head on down below.
Anime Like The Ramparts of Ice
For Fans of Popular X Icy
You and I Are Polar Opposites
Miyu Suzuki is a bubbly, fashionable high school girl who sits next to the quiet and frank Yuusuke Tani. While their interactions are brief and they couldn’t seem like more different people, Miyu has a secret—she has a huge crush on Tani!
Concerned about what people would think, Miyu keeps her crush a secret until a slight misunderstanding forces her hand. Miyu blurts out that she likes him, runs off, and confesses her feelings. To her delight, he feels the same, and so, with frenetic excitement, the relationship between these two opposites formed.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and You and I are Polar Opposites
- Made by the same author, and it shows
- A popular person develops an interest in a quiet type
- Grounded exploration of feelings and relationship drama without many of the usual tropes
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and You and I are Polar Opposites
- Ramparts of Ice works with a love polygon-type situation in a friend group while Polar Opposites just explores three different couples that form within a friend group with no love triangles.
- The icy x popular dynamic is gender-swapped in Polar Opposites. The boy is emotionally muted and nerdy while the girl is an energetic, bubbly gremlin.
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.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and My Little Monster
- Icy, emotionally muted girl is targeted by a wild, boundary-less boy
- Wild boy slowly breaks down her barriers as she inwardly examines her emotions
- Side characters with drama of their own.
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and My Little Monster
- Minato is just popular and undeterred. The male love interest in My Little Monster is a delinquent with a temper, a pet chicken, and a heart of gold.
- My Little Monster is a little less grounded in real drama and emotions, and more a traditional lightly dramatic shoujo romance.
- The heroine in My Little Monster is studious and kind of actively mean at first.
Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota
Oota is fiery, none too bright, and how he feels can be gleaned right from his face. Kashiwada is his expressionless, quiet classmate who has trouble expressing any emotion. One day, Oota decides to devote his life to cracking through Kashiwada’s emotionless shell through a series of mischievous pranks and scares, which often fail.
Despite his antics seeming like bullying to others, a unique relationship starts to build between these two opposites.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota
- Expressionless pale haired girl is targeted by a popular, red-haired boy that is intrigued by her ways
- Red-haired boy goes to great lengths to try to break through icy exterior.
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota
- You could say that sometimes red-haired boy’s efforts are really just bullying in Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota. He is trying to get the girl to have some kind of expression, and sometimes takes that too far.
- Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota is heavier on the comedy and lower on the drama.
- The girl in Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota is emotionally muted, but not really an ice queen. She is just quiet and happy that people are interact
Blue Spring Ride
Futaba Yoshioka was an attractive middle schooler, popular with boys, but not with girls. It left her feeling lonely, but none of that mattered as long as her crush, Kou Tanaka, liked her.
However, when Kou moved away, Futaba decided to change herself, purposely adopting unattractive traits to be popular with the girls, but one day, Kou comes back as different of a person as she is.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and Blue Spring Ride
- Energetic, expressive person becomes interested in a cold, icy person
- Trying to coax the icy person into opening up is the plot
- Love triangle elements among the friend group
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and Blue Spring Ride
- Blue Spring Ride is a bit different in dynamic. The girl acts like a gremlin to stop boys from liking her and ruining her female friendships and the boy is wildly depressed from grief. They had a crush on each other when young and have just reunited.
- Blue Spring Ride focuses more on the main couple, and the love triangle need not bother.
The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity
Chidori Public School and the all-girls Kikyo Private Academy are two schools right next door to each other. However, while Kikyo is a prestigious school for noble young women, Chidori is seen as the dumping ground for simple-minded delinquents, producing a rivalry between the schools and their students.
Tall and mean-looking, Chidori student Rintarou Tsumugi has a gentle heart and is always helping out at his mother’s bakery. It is there that he runs into Kaoruko Waguri, a Kikyo student who has apparently taken an interest in Rintarou.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity
- Socially well-adjusted person has feelings for a quiet, reserved type
- Surprisingly grounded exploration of romance and the complex emotions within without too many of the usual shoujo romance tropes
- Side character with their own drama
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity
- Fragrant Flower is gender-reversed. The boy is the emotionally muted one and the girl is more sunshine-y.
- The girl in Fragrant Flower is wealthy and rather innocent while the boy is poor and often called a delinquent.
- A not-small amount of Fragrant Flower is about the class differences between a wealthy girls school and a delinquent boys school
For Fans of Inter-Friend Group Drama
Skip and Loafer
In order to pursue a career in politics to make a positive change for Japan, Mitsumi leaves her rural town to go to high school in Tokyo. While she has a clear life plan for herself, she is still a country girl in a big city and ends up late and lost on her first day.
Luckily, Mitsumi is noticed by a fellow new student, Sousuke Shima, and he guides her to school. This laid-back guy is charmed by her motivated personality and strikes up a friendship with her, supporting her as she tries to make meaningful friendships with her classmates.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and Skip and Loafer
- A friend group has drama and romance going on
- Grounded exploration of romance and emotions without too many of the usual tropes
- Friendship slowly thawing a closed off exterior
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and Skip and Loafer
- Most characters have some personal drama in Skip and Loafer, which gets the focus over its considerably smaller romance elements. Skip and Loafer is more drama anime than romance anime.
- Skip and Loafer gives focus to each member of the friend group
- The heroine of Skip and Loafer could not be more different from Koyuki. She is unflappable and bold, if a bit “country dim” at times.
- The love interest in Skip and Loafer is popular and beautiful, but sad.
Kimi ni Todoke
Quiet and relatively timid, Sawako Kuronuma is misunderstood by her classmates. Due to her long black hair and shyness, they have taken to calling her Sadako, the ghost girl from The Ring.
Longing to make friends, she is drawn to Kazehaya Shouta, the most popular boy in school and his refreshing personality. However, when Kazehaya starts talking to her, Sawako’s lonely world begins to open up.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and Kimi ni Todoke
- Popular boy takes an interest in the quiet, unapproachable beauty
- Girl’s friend group expands as she comes out of her shell
- Love triangle elements
- Side character with their own drama
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and Kimi ni Todoke
- Kimi ni Todoke bills the heroine as a scary Sadako from The Ring type when she’s actually the sweetest person alive.
- The love triangle is for the popular boy’s affections in Kimi ni Todoke, and really need not bother.
- The friend group in Kimi ni Todoke has their own romances, so the love triangle is not in between them
- Kimi ni Todoke is far more about the heroine growing and reaching out to make connections with others. It is a slow burn romance and often more about her personal growth with her friends outside of the romance first.
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.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and Horimiya
- A popular person takes an interest in a quiet type
- Quiet person get integrated into the friend group
- Love triangle between the friends
- Side characters with their own drama
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and Horimiya
- The love triangle in the friend group in Horimiya gets addressed and concluded pretty early on.
- The friend group is larger in Horimiya, and it goes into detailed exploration of a pretty sizable amount of characters.
- The main romance in Horimiya actually moves quite quickly so the series can focus on other characters and their problems.
- Horimiya is more about two people that hide sides of themselves discovering they can show their hidden side to one another.
Just Because
Due to his father’s work, Eita Izumi is used to moving around. In the final semester of high school, he moves back to his hometown.
There, Eita reconnects with his old best friend Haruto who is obsessed with baseball for an unknown reason. He also reconnects with Mio, a girl he once had unrequited feelings for.
As their high school years rapidly approach a close, Eita’s arrival seems to spur on a series of anxieties and buried emotions in everyone around him.
Similarities Between The Ramparts of Ice and Just Because
- Young people, not talking about their feelings, and being dramatic about it
- Complicated feelings within the friend group is the plot
- Love triangle elements
- Grounded exploration of feelings without a lot of the usual tropes
- Melancholy moments that make you wonder if things will work out
- Side characters with their own drama
Differences Between The Ramparts of Ice and Just Because
- Just Because is far more melancholy with the messier drama and relationships. It might not be the satisfying romance you hope for
- Just Because is basically about main character moving away, then coming back and exploring whether his crush has feelings for him or if she still has feelings for the mutual friend liked before he moved away.
- Just Because is fueled by the whole “we’re graduating high school soon” timeline.
Do you have more anime recommendations like The Ramparts of Ice? Let fans know in the comments section below.
