Jirou Yakuin, third-year high school student and otaku, has had a crush on his childhood friend, Shiori. He hopes to be paired with her for their school’s upcoming marriage practical – an exam where two people are paired to live together in order to practice married life as they are observed and scored.
For popular Akari Watanabe, she hopes to be paired with the handsome Minami. Much to each other’s dismay, Jirou and Akari and paired together while Minami and Shiori are paired together.
Luckily, if both couples rank in the top, they can change partners, thus do Akari and Jirou venture to pretend to have a perfect married life.
While the series tends to linger on the cleavage a little longer than some rom-coms, its got the right meat for lovable romance. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like More Than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers, then head on down below.
Anime Like More Than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers
For Fans of I Love Someone Else, But Also Maybe You
Toradora
Ryuuji Takasu is a gentle student with a passion for housework, but his thuggish face causes his fellow students to think him a delinquent. Taiga Aisaka is small and cute, but with an attitude as fierce as a tiger.
Both of these misunderstood students also harbor feelings for their crushes, and after a series of misunderstandings of their own, they find themselves in an unlikely alliance to get their crushes to notice them.
Both series focus on a partnership that was originally formed between two people that had crushes on someone else.
Any rom-com veteran knows full well that they will develop feelings for each other, and what do you know? They do!
However, More Than a Married Couple distinctly has more horny while Toradora has virtually none.
Nisekoi
Ten years ago, Raku Ichijou made a promise with a childhood friend to meet again and use the key she holds to open the locket he wears around his neck then be together forever. In the present day, this heir apparent to an intimidating yakuza family continues to wait for his friend’s return while trying to be as uninvolved in family matters as possible.
However, when a rival gang invades his family’s turf, the family leaders decide Raku should start a romantic relationship with the other chief’s daughter, Chitoge.
While they pretend to be dating to maintain the peace, Raku is almost positive his classmate Kosaki Onodera is the girl he made his promise with.
Like More Than a Married Couple, Nisekoi tells the tale of a relationship between two people forced to be in one, but they like other people.
In Nisekoi, only the male main character has a crush outside of his relationship that he is pursuing and his forced partner is just kind of a tsundere that doesn’t like that she has to date him.
While Nisekoi tends to play with your heart a lot more, both series are ultimately about those fake couples discovering real feelings.
Girlfriend; Girlfriend
After loving her for years, Naoya Mukai finally confesses his love to his childhood friend, Saki. However, just as he settles into dating her, a girl named Nagisa comes out of the woodwork and confesses her secret love for him.
Instead of shooting her down, he is charmed by her feelings, and suggests to both her and Saki that he date both of them.
Ultimately both series are about indecision. What happens when you develop feelings for more than one girl?
In More Than a Married Couple, the main character is busy making a choice between his two love interests.
In Girlfriend;Girlfriend, he just dates and lives with both girls in a semi-ecchi rom-com that is more comedy than romance.
For Fans of Forced Intimate Relationships
Love and Lies
In order to encourage successful marriages and to combat the low birthrate, the Japanese government now assigns marriage partners at the age of 16. Unwilling to face the severe repercussions that come with denial, Yukari Nejima goes along with it, despite confessing to his long-time crush.
However, is his reciprocated love doomed to be crushed when he gets his marriage notice?
Where More Than a Married Couple is about being forced to take place in marriage practice, Love and Lies skips right to the real thing.
The in order to “ect, ect, low birth rate, ect” two people are partnered up into a relationship, but they actually have feelings for someone else, yet they cannot pursue those feelings because of the confines of the agreement.
A Couple of Cuckoos
Nagi Umino, a diligent student, and Erika Amano, a social media star, seemingly have nothing in common until they discovered that they were actually switched at birth.
With this suddenly revealed to them, both families agree that in order to not uproot their life, the two of them should get engaged. The pair quickly reject this plan, but neither is really willing to back down either.
While More Than a Married Couple forces the couple into living together due to marriage practice, A Couple of Cuckoos is about two people being switched at birth, meeting, and their parents deciding that they should just get married to, you know, not make things weird.
In both shows, they resist the set up because they have feelings for someone outside the relationship. In A Couple of Cuckoos, only the male main character has a specific crush, however. The female main character just wants a chance to fall in love on her own.
Engaged to the Unidentified
On Kobeni Yonomori’s 16th birthday, it is discovered that her grandfather arranged for her to marry the mysterious Hakuya Mitsumine. Shocked, she now finds herself living with her future husband, his deceptive little sister, and her own perverted older sister.
However, Kobeni takes it in stride, adjusting to her new life and trying to learn more about the new additions.
Both series are about characters that one day wake up to discover that they will be living with a person of the opposite sex.
In Engaged to the Identified, it is an arranged marriage while More Than a Married Couple is a school project.
However, the difference here is, well, you could say More Than a Married Couple is a romance aimed more at male audiences while Engaged to the Identified is more aimed at female audiences.
Either can enjoy both, but More Than a Married Couple focuses more on horny while Engaged to the Identified is mostly just random jokes and a few swoon-worthy moments.
For Fans of Popular, Aggressive, But Ultimately Innocent Girls
My First Girlfriend is a Gal
Although he has reached the spring of his youth, Junichi is finding it harder than expected to get a girlfriend, but that is due in no small part to his friends brazen habit of reading dirty magazines in class.
In order to “help” him, his virgin friends submitted a love letter in his name to the resident gyaru of his class, Yame Yukana. However, while she may dress like a gal, this tough-looking girl is actually as pure as the snow.
Both series have main female characters that are gyaru/gals.
They are beautiful, popular, and perceived as somewhat slutty, but in reality, both female main characters are as pure as any rom-com lead, as you discover when they enter their first real relationship. That’s where much of the comedy comes from in My First Girlfriend is a Gal.
It is worth noting that while More Than a Married Couple has its moments, My First Girlfriend is a Gal leans way harder into the ecchi.
Golden Time
Banri Tada has finally been accepted into a private law academy in Tokyo, but due to an accident, he is without all his memories.
During his freshmen orientation, he meets Mitsuo Yanagisawa who is consummately stalked by a girl from his old school.
Banri begins to hit it off with both of them. As they spend more time together, their fates seem intertwined, but for better or worse?
While Koko in Golden Time isn’t specifically depicted as a traditional gyaru/gal, she has many of the traits aside from sluttiness.
Both series are about male main characters that have beautiful, blonde, and very aggressive girls storm into their lives. It then documents their love story as the main character deals with his feelings for two different girls.
However, Golden Time is big into drama and can be a bit heavy-handed with it.
3D Girlfriend
Tsusui Hikari is an otaku that mostly avoids social life. He only really has one friend at school and is otherwise mocked by his classmates. One day, he ends up having to clean the pool with Igarashi Iroha.
She is blunt, truant, and a troublemaker, but she stands up for Hikari when people make fun of him. While he is harsh with her, she never dismisses him. Could real 3D love be in the air?
Both 3D Girlfriend and More Than a Married Couple are about a popular gyaru/gal-type girl her relationship with an otaku.
They both display their female main characters as notorious for being with a bunch of guys, but they actually rarely date and have never really gone very far with anyone.
However, while More Than a Married Couple is just a rom-com with romantic indecision, 3D Girlfriend has other character drama in it other than just the standard relationship drama.
Do you have more anime recommendations like More Than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers? Let fans know in the comments section below.
