Jouro is your average high school boy that dreams of a love story. He is thrilled when he lines up two dates, but unfortunately, both girls confess their love for his best friend.
Of course, his friendly face is just a facade. Schemer that he is, he decides to make his friend fall for one of the girls so he can swipe the other.
Unfortunately, his efforts are threatened by Pansy, a gloomy girl who knows of his secret personality.
Ah, the old “every girl in this harem is terrible” with an equally terrible protagonist. Well, it is a great set up for a rom-com that tends to focus more on the “com” of it all. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Oresuki, head on down below.
Anime Like Oresuki – Are You The Only One Who Loves Me?
For Fans of Protagonists With Bad Personalities
Oreshura
After being abandoned by his love-addled parents, Eita Kidou is a bit put off by romance. It also causes him to see through the love confession of one, Masuzu Natsukawa.
As it turns out, she just wanted a boyfriend to stop the daily love confessions. While he initially declines, she takes to blackmailing him to be her fake boyfriend.
Unlike Jouro who has just been unlucky in love, Eita just straight up hates the concept of it. Regardless, both series are harem romantic comedies where the comedy comes from the main character being irritated.
Just like Jouro’s scumminess sort of lessens over the course of the series, Eita, as you can expect, comes to terms with the concept of love with the help of the main love interest of his harem.
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.
Unlike Jouro who is kind of just a terrible person, Hachiman is just a grumpy pessimist and not the type you would expect to be in a romantic comedy anime. That is actually part of the comedy in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU just like Jouro being terrible is part of the comedy in Oresuki.
While you can’t call My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU a harem anime, it does have a love triangle in to a degree.
Masamune-kun’s Revenge
As a child, Masamune Makabe confessed his love to the wealthy and beautiful Aki Adagaki. However, she brutally rejected him and nicknamed him “Piggy” due to his chubby appearance.
Fleeing to his grandfather’s home in the country, Masamune toiled endlessly to become fit. Once he became skinny and handsome, he returns to his old neighborhood in order to carry out revenge against the girl that wronged him.
With the help of Aki’s maid, Masamune sets out to make her fall in love with him so that he can be the one to break her heart.
Both Oresuki and Masamune-kun’s Revenge have main characters with major negative character flaws that play a big part in their romantic relationships. While Masamune is vain, he isn’t quite as comically scummy at heart as Jouro. Still, the actions that Masamune takes are often pretty underhanded.
In essence, both series are harem anime with a clear main love interest where the main character does some morally questionable things on the path toward romantic success.
Osamake – Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won’t Lose
Sueharu Maru, once a child actor and now just a normal high school boy, is considered lucky to have the constant company of his beautiful and popular childhood friend, Kuroha Shida. However, when Kuroha confesses to him, he immediately rejects her.
He still has his sights set on his first love – school idol and author, Shirokusa Kachi. Despite thinking he still has a chance, he finds out one day that she has a boyfriend which starts him on a complicated path of feelings.
Both Oresuki and Osamake are harem romantic comedies that are completely filled with people manipulating others so that they can get to the romantic goal that they want.
As they are both filled with characters that manipulate each other, it of course leads to some complicated romantic relationships. However, while Oresuki often plays this off with a joke, Osamake often lets it be a bit more serious.
Rent-a-Girlfriend
Recently dumped by his girlfriend, college student Kazuya Kinoshita tries to fill the void with an app that lets him rent a girlfriend. While Chizuru seems like the perfect girlfriend, reading the reviews online, he finds out it is an act.
He leaves her a bad review and this reveals her more sassy true self when she comes after him for it.
Unfortunately, after his grandmother’s collapse, he introduces her as his girlfriend at the hospital, and thus they begin their fake relationship.
Both Oresuki and Rent-a-Girlfriend are harem anime that build eccentric (and sometimes scummy) harems, and then pair them with a pretty shitty main character that deserves exactly none of them. In truth, Jouro is scummy, but also a bit hard to hate because the girls are often terrible too. Kazuya, on the other hand, is pretty easy to dislike for his lack of spine while most of his harem is pretty likable.
If you enjoy harem anime with a clear main love interest and a harem king that is just comically terrible, then Rent-a-Girlfriend is for you.
For Fans of Harem Romantic Comedies That Are More Comedy Than Romance
Noucome – My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy
Kanade Amakusa’s high school life should have been normal. Instead, he is cursed with Absolute Choice.
This curse means that every so often, he will be forced to make a choice that will force one of two things to happen. Unfortunately, both choices are often completely terrible and completely public.
Like Oresuki, Noucome is a harem romantic comedy anime that doesn’t really focus so much on the “romance” part of that, but really, really enjoys the comedy. And honestly, they both really nail that comedy too, providing you don’t mind comedy of a more sexual (but not graphically ecchi) nature.
While both series are notable for their dubious main characters, Jouro is scummy by choice, Kanade is more forced to be dubious by the circumstances of his ability.
Hensuki – Are you willing to fall in love with a pervert as long as she is cute?
Like every teen boy, Keiki wants a girlfriend. It seems his dreams might come true when he receives a love letter as well as a pair of white panties.
He starts investigating who sent it, lining up a few candidates. However, this leads to him uncovering the various fetishes of each candidate.
The comedy in Oresuki often comes from the odd eccentricities of the characters – and that one bench. However, the comedy in Hensuki comes from the odd fetishes of the characters.
Both series are harem romantic comedies that definitely want to be more comedies than anything else. If you found Oresuki funny and don’t mind humor of a more sexual nature, Hensuki is for you.
Gamers
Keita Amano is an average high school student and gamer. After having an awkward encounter with Karen Tendou, the school’s idol, he discovers that she too is a gamer as she passionately begins to try to recruit him into the game club.
After paying a visit to the club, he witnesses a completely new side to his hobby due to the eccentric array of members.
Don’t be fooled by the games and supposed gaming theme. Gamers is a rom-com and focuses less on gaming than some may have liked.
While not a harem like Oresuki, Gamers is filled with complicated love polygons that are sometimes played more serious, but not afraid to undercut things with some jokes.
Love Flops
One normal day, high school student Asahi Kashiwagi wakes up and watches a fortune teller’s predictions on TV. On his way to school, as according to the predictions, he has a variety of accidentally lewd encounters with five different people.
After these five clandestine meetings, he discovers that all five of them are new members of his class. What’s more, their encounters have all sparked the embers of love between him and each one of them.
Now he needs to follow his own heart else his love life flop and fizzle out.
While both Oresuki and Love Flops are harem romantic comedies that get their elevated levels of comedy based on how silly all of the characters often are, there is a key difference. Love Flops is much more ecchi about it.
If you enjoyed how rediculious the characters are in Oresuki, Love Flops offers the same. However, instead of having a scummy main character, Love Flops offers you the more standard harem protagonist that is just exasperated over all the trouble that his harem causes him.
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.
Jouro played himself. Why wait to pick up the rejected girl when he could have maneuvered to make both girls his girlfriend like Naoya in Girlfriend, Girlfriend?
Both Oresuki and Girlfriend, Girlfriend are harem-based romantic comedy where the high levels of comedy come from just how rediculious the characters are. Both series make it pretty clear that you aren’t supposed to take them seriously.
For Fans of Hiding Your Real Self
Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki-kun
Fumiya Tomozaki is the top player in Japan at a fighting game called TackFam. Despite holding such a title, he is a failure at everything else, blaming it on the unfair rules and mechanics of life.
One day, the second best TackFam player asks to meet up.
Tomozaki discovers that they are actually Aoi, one of the most popular girls at school. She, however, is disappointed that someone she respected is a failure at life.
Now, she aims to teach him how to succeed at the glorious game of life.
While Oresuki is about exposing a main character’s true personality after he was hiding it to keep the status quo, Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki-kun is about the absolute opposite. It is a “fake it till you make it” scheme where he is trying to rehabilitate his social skills and often hiding his gloomy self in the process. However, both male leads are helped by the women that can see their true selves.
Although Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki-kun isn’t a harem anime, it has a few hints of it. It just never dives into the harem or love triangle elements that would have been easy to stuff in there based on the rather large amount of female characters surrounding the main character.
Saekano – How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend
Tomoya Aki is your typical otaku who takes on part-time jobs to fund his anime and light novel obsession. However, one day when he was out riding his bike, he catches the beret of a girl and is so captivated by the scene before him that he sets out to create the ultimate dating sim.
While he struggles to do so, he eventually recruits three of the school’s most popular girls, who also happen to be good at drawing, writing, and music as well as are otakus themselves. After some debate, each agrees to help make his vision come to life.
In this new doujin circle, he also happens across the girl that inspired him, but she was not what he expected and certainly doesn’t stand up to his 2D expectations.
Both Saekano and Oresuki are harem anime where certain characters hide their real selves in order to have romantic success. However, while Oresuki is often silly, Saekano is definitely a more serious harem romance series.
Saekano also has a large otaku focus since it is about making a dating sim.
Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions
Everyone has that stage in their life where they think themselves special, different from mere humans. This phenomenon is called Chunibyou Syndrome and is most common in pre-pubescent children.
In middle school, Yuuta Togashi thought himself the Dark Flame Master. He has since grown out of it upon entering high school and looks back at those cringe-worthy times with displeasure.
Unfortunately, after a chance meeting with Rikka Takanashi, a girl believing to have a God in her eye, she attaches herself to him and brings that Chunibyou past back out.
Both Oresuki and Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions feature main characters that are hiding their true personality to have a hopefully romantically successful high school life. Of course, that is soon completely derailed by “the weird girl” in school who is the actual main love interest.
However, while Oresuki is more of a comical harem with a scummy main character, Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions is a straightforward romantic comedy with a big emphasis on the comedy. Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions is also actually pretty wholesome.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Oresuki? Let fans know in the comments section below.
