Much of his life at his all-boy’s school for Miyano is worrying about how girly his face looks and hiding his secret love of boy’s love manga. However, after witnessing a fight, he has a clandestine meeting with an older delinquent student named Sasaki. Afterwards, Sasaki seems to jump at every opportunity to be around Miyano.
Boy’s love can be an aggressive genre, to say the least, so this is what I would call “ultra refreshing.” If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Sasaki and Miyano, then head on down below.
Anime Like Sasaki and Miyano
For Fans of Grounded Boy’s Love Romance
Given
On one particular day, Ritsuka Uenoyama decided that two things he loved – playing guitar and playing baseball – had become boring to him. However, when he encountered Mafuyu Sato holding a broken guitar, he fixes it. Upon fixing it and hearing him sing, it leaves a huge impression.
While Given is more dramatic and more focused on the romantic element of the relationship, it is – like Sasaki and Miyano – one of the more grounded boy’s love anime where everything isn’t all shirt ripping assault and dangerous jealousy.
Banana Fish
During the Iraq War, a soldier named Griff goes insane and starts killing his own platoon. After being subdued, all he kept speaking was the words “banana fish”. Years later, Griff is taken care of by his brother Ash, a boy who ran away from home and was taken in by mob boss Papa Dino who abused him. Now, Ash seeks to unravel the mystery of this banana fish, a phrase that keeps mysteriously popping up in his life.
To be clear, the thriller-esque plot of Banana Fish is very different from the sweet slice of life comedy in Sasaki and Miyano. However, the similarities lie in the BL of it all. Both series have subtle relationships between men that aren’t immediate, but rather are built up over time in a realistic way.
Yuri on Ice
After a crushing defeat at the Grand Prix finale, Yuuri Katsuki returns home no longer as Japan’s most promising figure skater. With his window for skating success closing, he assesses his options. After a video of Yuuri performing a routine by five-time world champion Victor Nikiforov goes viral, he suddenly finds the champion on his doorstep, offering to be Yuuri’s mentor.
I feel the similarities here lie in the fact that people still argue whether Yuri on Ice is boy’s love or not. Sasaki and Miyano is more clear, but even in the beginning everything seems a bit one-sided. Both series build up a deep connection between the two male characters with cute and lovable comedy moments. However, Yuri on Ice does have a concrete plot that it follows.
For Fans of Special, Secret Shared Connections
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.
Both series are more slice of life-ish romance series where the characters meet clandestinely and bond over a secret that they share. Furthermore, they are both really rather low on the drama side of things in the romance so they focus more on slice of life and side characters.
Tsurezure Children
Tsurezure Children depicts the many different scenarios of young love. From the relationship between the student council president and a rebel girl to a boy so crippled by his own lack of self-confidence that he can’t accept that a girl confessed to him. You follow their triumphs and failures throughout the relationships of half a dozen young couples.
As Tsurezure Children has half a dozen couples, it is kind of hard for it not to be similar to every romance anime in some ways. While it lacks a BL element, it is a condensed romance series. This means you don’t get drama, but rather get all those cute slice of life moments in the various relationships. If you found Sasaki and Miyano sweet, relaxing, and comedic, that is essentially all Tsurezure Children is too.
Komi-san Can’t Communicate
It is the first day for incoming freshmen at the prestigious Itan Private High School. For Hitohito Tadano, he considers himself lucky to get in and angles to not make waves during his high school career. However, he finds himself sitting next to the beautiful, beloved, yet cold and silent Shouko Komi, immediately earning the ire of his classmates. After a series of events leads to him being left alone with her, he discovers that she is not cold, but suffers from extreme social anxiety that prevents her from speaking. After a long conversation through writing, he wants to help her reach her goal of making 100 friends.
Both series are about the characters sharing something special together that they don’t really share with anyone else. It gives them a connection and a relationship. However, the series isn’t really about that. They are both about the characters living their school lives. They are also romance series, but really quite low on romantic progression as well.
For Fans of Boy’s Love Fan Comedies
The High School Life of a Fudanshi
Ryou is a complete normal high school boy, aside from his secret love, that is. Ryou is a fudanshi – a man who loves reading boy’s love manga. He only has one wish in life – to have friends that understand and share his secret love.
Most obviously, both series are about fudanshi boys. While The High School Life of a Fudanshi isn’t a romance like Sasaki and Miyano, you will find a huge overlap in the comedy and slice of life moments in the series.
Kiss Him, Not Me
Chubby Kae Serinuma is an avid fujoshi who secretly ships her male classmates. However, after her favorite anime character dies, she becomes so stressed that she loses weight rapidly. Upon returning to school, her classmates, including the attractive men she ships, realize how attractive she really is. There’s only one problem, while the boys vie for her affections, she just wants them to turn those affections towards each other.
While Kiss Him, Not Me sends a weird message as a romance, it – like Sasaki and Miyano – is a series about the loves and lives of those into BL. While she is a fujoshi rather than a fudanshi, you’ll find a lot of comedic crossover as she ships her male paramours much like Miyano ships his friends.
Wotakoi – Love is Difficult for an Otaku
After discovering they work at the same company, a gaming otaku and a fujoshi rekindle for the first time since middle school. After some good old-fashioned after work drinks, they decide to start dating, but dating an otaku as an otaku is more difficult that one would think.
There is less focus on the female character being a fujoshi here, but it does share that interest in boy’s love with Sasaki and Miyano. However, the biggest similarity between these two series is that they have nice romantic moments, yes, but mostly they are grounded slice of life comedies that happen in bit-sized vignettes rather than a linear plot.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Sasaki and Miyano? Then let fans know in the comments section below.
