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.
The anime series was just a taste considering how expansive and complete the manga was, but My Little Monster was a nice little love story between two seemingly opposite people. If you were looking for anime recommendations like My Little Monster, then you arrived at the right place.
Anime Like My Little Monster
For Fans of Delinquent Males
Clannad
Tomoya Okazaki is a delinquent who finds everything dull and believes he will never amount to anything. That is, until a girl named Nagisa catches his eye one day on his way to school. Suddenly, Tomoya begins to notice Nagisa more and more. She is sickly and weak, but she always tries her best in order to follow her dream of reviving the school’s drama club. Claiming he has nothing better to do, he decides to help Nagisa, and along the way ends up helping several other girls and potential drama club members. However, as he learns more about the girls and helps them overcome their problems, he might just be able to overcome his own as well.
Due to its visual novel roots, Clannad can come off a touch more harem-esque compared to My Little Monster. However, both tell a story about a boy that has become a delinquent for various reasons and a girl that wants to just focus on school.
Midori Days
Seiji is a legend at his high school. With a single punch he can take down anyone with his right hand. However, he is desperate for a girlfriend. His reputation keeps getting him shot down. Then, one day, he wakes up to discover that his right hand has turned into a miniature of a girl from his class, Midori. Now with a living small girl in place of his hand, Seiji is kind of at a loss.
The premise of Midori Days is, of course, very strange and with the potential to be quite lewd. However, it’s actually a pretty wholesome romance and doesn’t go to the same places your imagination does. Like My Little Monster, it focuses on the unlikely relationship between a thug and a normal girl, albeit that normal girl is a replacement for his hand.
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.
Unlike My Little Monster where Haru actually is a violent delinquent, in Torardora, everyone just thinks Ryuuji is. However, interestingly enough, both male mains in each show end up being pretty great, but misunderstood guys to their peers. Furthermore, in both Toradora and My Little Monster, you watch the female mains undergo an attitude transformation as well.
For Fans of Cold Females
ReLife
Arata Kaizaki is an unemployed 27-year-old that has thus far been living with the financial support of his parents and part-time jobs. After leaving his first job after only three months, he has not been able to find proper work. However, after a night of drinking with his friends, he meets a mysterious man that offers a drunk Arata a pill that will turn him 17 again so that he can redo a year of his youth, all expenses paid. Will Arata find what he needs to live a happy life after one year in high school again?
If you like your females damn near emotionless, they don’t get much more emotionless than the female love interest in ReLife. While emotionless and somewhat dense, the females in both shows are also somewhat world-wise, just bad at socializing.
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
Hachiman Hikigaya firmly believes that a joyful youth is something that people make up just to lie to themselves. After writing an essay criticizing relationships, he is forced to join the Volunteer Service Club that is aimed at helping others solve their problems. With the only other member being the icy Yukino Yukinoshita, they use their wits and cold views on society to help others.
Both Yukino and Mizutani are serious ice queens, and throughout both shows, you watch that ice melt away. What makes these shows so similar, though, is that you also watch male mains with various social problems change as well. The coupling fosters a change in each other.
Say I Love You
After a traumatic incident in her past, Mei Tachibana swore off making friends, deeming all people as untrustworthy. While her quiet life seems to be going quite normally, her core as an introvert is shaken by a few chance encounters with the popular Yamato Kurosawa.
While the characters in My Little Monster both have social issues, Say I Love You tells one of the more clichéd romance stories. The girl is damaged and bullied, so she shied away, and the popular boy pulls her out of her shell. However, if you like emotionally muted females being repaired in your romance anime, it is a good choice.
For Fans of Opposites Attract
Lovely Complex
Risa is very tall for a girl. Atsushi is very short for a boy. They are both in love with different people who actually end up dating each other. With both their loves taken, the two form an unlikely friendship that soon turns into something more.
Both of these anime series are about opposites falling in love. However, in Lovely Complex, the characters are actually quite similar in many ways. They are even friends, but the catch is the massive height difference. Like the differences in their focus and goals in my Little Monster, that height difference causes the majority of the conflict.
Ouran High School Host Club
In Ouran High School, the typical student is a member of the wealthy elite, but not Haruhi Fujioka. Accepted on a scholarship, Haruhi wants to avoid all the glitz and glamour in order to study hard and become a lawyer. While looking for a rare quiet place to do so, Haruhi stumbles upon a host club. Frantic to get away from these weird boys, Haruhi breaks a valuable vase. In order to pay back the debt, the club demands that Haruhi becomes a host. There is only one problem, contrary to what the boys believe, Haruhi is actually a girl.
Smart and violent, rich and poor – They don’t seem like traits that go together, but both of these anime series put them together for great effect. The key difference is that there is a sort of cooling off period for love in My Little Monster, but Tamaki remains interested in Haruhi throughout Ouran.
Kamisama Kiss
Homeless and in debt, high schooler Nanami Momozono thinks things are looking up when she rescues a man and he offers to let her stay at his home. She soon discovers that his home is a rundown shrine. Trying to leave, she is mistaken for the man she saved – the man that is also the land god of the shrine, Mikage. Finding out she was tricked into being a god and not wanting to be homeless, Nanami tries to embrace her new divine duties, but has to deal with a hot-headed fox familiar to keep things running smoothly.
Yes, the supernatural premise separates these series, as does the contrast of chipper and cold female leads. However, it really is a good opposites attract romance like My Little Monster. It’s a story of love between a spirit who hates humans and a human. It is about as likely as an academically-motivated girl falling in love with a violent wild child.
If you have more anime recommendations like My Little Monster, let fans know in the comments section below.
