Izumi is a normal guy, albeit with a predilection for attracting misfortune. However, the one piece of shining fortune in his life is his girlfriend, Shikimori. She is beautiful, popular, and absolutely in love with him. However, everyone around them is often surprised by how cool and dashing Shikimori is rather than cute and girly.
While this series could benefit from some plot, its cute romantic situations are charming even if they are pointless. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, then head on down below.
Anime Like Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie
For Fans of Dashing and Knightly Ladies
Witchcraft Works
Honoka Takamiya has the misfortune of being seated next to their school’s idol, Ayaka Kagari, and is constantly pestered by the swarm of students that surround her. However, one day when he is randomly attacked by a mysterious witch, Ayaka saves him and reveals herself to be a covert witch that was charged with protecting him. Suddenly, his normal life becomes flipped upside down as he learns that others wish to steal a power within him.
Both of these series widely shine a light on the same sort of dynamic – a strong girl protecting a weaker boy she likes. However, while Shikimori is just various character vignettes, Witchcraft Works has an overall plot that it progresses rather than just being romance-focused.
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.
Ouran High School Host Club innovated the shoujo romance genre by having a seriously chill main character widely okay with being mistaken for a man, but also showing more vulnerability as her romance progressed. Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie essentially skipped the “progression” part and went right for the happy ending.
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Utena Tenjou lost her parents in a tragic incident. In her despair, a prince came to cheer her up and gave her a ring with a rose emblem. This meeting left such a huge impact on her that she sought to become a prince herself. Years later, she enrolls in a school that bears the same rose emblem as her ring only to be dragged into the world of Duelists who fight over a Rose Bride that is said to posses great power. Wanting to prove her worth as a prince and taking offense that the Rose Bride is so objectified, Utena rises to the occasion.
You can’t talk about knightly ladies and not bring up Revolutionary Girl Utena. It is really the only series to take advantage of having a more dashing female main character. Shikimori is a solid shot at it, but doesn’t flesh out her character quite like this show does.
Aoharu x Machine Gun
Hotaru Tachibana has always had a habit of confronting evildoers, so when she hears her best friend was tricked by a local host club, she disguises herself as a boy to go punish them. However, she gets distracted by the leader Masamune Matsuoka when he challenges her to a toy gun battle. Hotaru loses and now must join Masamune’s survival game team in order to pay off the huge damages to the host club.
Both series feature main characters that are often more cool than they are cute. Of course, Aoharu X Machine Gun has the female lead looking more like a boy overall. Aoharu x Machine Gun also has a plot aside from its shoujo romance shenanigans.
For Fans of Clumsy, Cute Boys
Momokuri
Yuki Kurihara has finally been granted her wish of dating her crush, Momo. At a glance, she looks like just a cute girl, but Yuki is actually a Momo fanatic. Momo, on the other hand, is just a boy that is inexperienced at love and just wants to make Yuki happy.
If you just want more sweet and overall plotless romance shenanigans between a sweet man and a slightly more edgy girl, this is just more of that. Momokuri is fun fluff akin to Shikimori.
Tonikawa Kawaii – Over the Moon For You
After being ridiculed for his strange name, Nasa, like the space agency, decides he will become a man even greater than the starry sky. However, one night, that all changes when he sees a beautiful girl. She ends up saving him from being fatally hit by a truck while crossing the street to talk to her. Having chased her down despite his serious injuries, he asks her out. She says she will go out with him if they marry. He agrees, and passes out. Waking up to find her gone, he abandons his ambitions until one day when she shows up with their marriage registration.
Both series feature boys in a relationships with wildly more intriguing girls. Instead of focusing on the build up to a relationship, both shows start in rather new, but obviously stated relationships so you can get right to the sappy moments.
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.
Horimiya and Shikimori both have sweet and somewhat timid male love interests and cooler, more popular, and more aggressive female love interests. Horimiya, while still comical at times, does grant more focus to drama in the show’s relationships, though.
For Fans of Normal Boys Charming Popular Girls
My Dress-Up Darling
Living with his grandfather who makes beautiful Hina Dolls, Wakana Gojo has loved them since he was a child. He aspires to one day make Hina Dolls as good as his grandfather, but his dedication has made him a bit of a loner in school after a girl in his childhood said that boys shouldn’t like dolls. After a run in with the beautiful and popular Marin Kitagawa, he discovers that she wants to cosplay a character from an eroge game. However, her sewing skills leave something to be desired, and after seeing her passion, Gojo agrees to help her make her costume.
Both series are essentially about being with girls that are wildly outside of their social league, yet having those girls be so enamored with them. They also both fall on the less sappy side of relationships as well. My Dress-Up Darling is, however, leaning heavily on the slice of life side of the story since romantic progression is sparse.
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 use the same sort of story telling where often what happens is self-contain skits rather than a linear plot. This allows for the most amount of jokes and romantic moments. However, Komi-san Can’t Communicate can often not be called a romance since it doesn’t progress fast.
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?
3D Girlfriend is a more traditional tale of a nerd dating a popular girl with issues. Regardless, both shows focus on how the male lead feels unworthy of their affection. While Shikimori remains comical and cute, 3D Girlfriend veers deep into drama.
Kimi ni Todoke
Completely misunderstood by her classmates, everyone considered Sawako Kuronuma to be scary. However, while her sweet and timid behavior is mistaken as malicious, she longs to make friends. When the most popular guy in school takes notice of her true nature, Sawako’s life begins to change.
Both series are rather light-hearted romances between a normal person and a popular person, though Kimi ni Todoke is a gender-flipped version in which a misunderstood girl likes a popular guy. They both protect and support each other in what is a pretty wholesome relationship, though less literal than the way Shikimori protects Izumi.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie? Let fans know in the comments section below.
