There are tons of romance anime filled with what will ultimately end as happy relationships, but not all love works out. Feelings develop for any number of reasons, and even if they are fueled by flaming passion, that doesn’t mean that they will be returned by the person those feelings are aimed at. Anime enjoys its unrequited love on occasion, and it is usually there to enhance the drama of a show and provide some threat to developing relationships. Yet, sometimes there are romance anime series that just like to explore how uninterested every character is in the people interested in them.
Best One-Sided Love Romance Anime
A Lull in The Sea
A Lull in the Sea went to the trouble to set itself up an interesting fantasy world where humanity is separated between those that live on land and those that live underwater. It then proceeded to focus the show on one messy love polygon in which very rarely is love not one-sided.
This anime series is a drama in every sense of the word, so expect every relationship to be some form of messy. If you are a compulsive shipper, you’re going to have a bad time.
Tada-kun Never Falls in Love
The neat thing about Tada-kun Never Falls in Love is that it isn’t a love polygon like many unrequited love romance anime series are. Instead, a major theme of this show is encouraging characters to express their feelings. Tada must take that dangerous and potentially hurtful first step and express his newfound feelings, but it is more than that.
Every other character has a crush on someone, and sometimes that love is returned, but left unexpressed. In other cases, that love is unexpressed because they know it will not be returned.
Scum’s Wish
When it comes to love, romance anime tends to paint things with a lovely rose color, and that works out fine. However, Scum’s Wish is an interesting example of a romantic drama in which everyone is some form of terrible person.
The series focuses up on a main couple who only have a relationship because their love is rejected by the other people they are in love with. However, each still continues to pursue their separate love interests while the feelings between them grow even more complicated. If you aren’t looking for a nice comfy romance, Scum’s Wish is actually an excellent drama for those not expecting a happy ending.
Your Lie in April
While Your Lie in April is one of those “staple” romance anime series that everyone recommends, that doesn’t make it a happy romance. This series appears like a light-hearted romance, but is really more of a tragic drama filled with love stories that will never be complete. Not because the series never finished, but rather because of the way it finished.
Orange
This series is a complicated one since it involves death and a sort of “redo the past” device in the storytelling. So this means that both sides in the central love triangle of the story are technically returned at one point or another. However, because of the death, second choice sort of becomes the winner by default.
After the Rain
After the Rain is an age-gap romance in which a teen girl falls in love with her middle-aged manager. While some anime series have no problem painting over the problematic aspects of that and jumping right into romance, After the Rain addresses it in a very mature way.
The manager, although flattered by the feelings she developed for him, maintains his distance and the relationship is nothing more than friendship. While the girl still maintains her love for him, the series ends up about how their friendship encourages both sides to take positive steps towards returning to the activities that they love.
The Story of Saiunkoku
This series follow a girl in the court of the Emperor. As a shoujo series, of course her shoujo protagonist nature earns her the affection of the Emperor as well as much of his advisors and family. However, part of the charm of this series comes from the variety of character relationships within in. Many characters are in love, and many of them are in love with people who do not love them back.
This series really shines in its storytelling and world building, but when it comes to satisfying romance, it isn’t necessarily that.
Kiznaiver
While Kiznaiver has a plot that it pursues other than just romance, a central element of the series is feelings. It follows several seemingly unrelated people who are one day connected together so that what one feels, they all will feel. Over the course of the series, it explores more than just the basics like pain and pleasure, but moves into more complicated feelings like love. It was almost a necessity that Kiznaiver add in a few one-sided love elements to it.
Honey and Clover
Honey and Clover is all about a group of college-aged friends bumbling through their new adult lives. While it explores their aspirational struggles a fair bit, the series really moves into being about their interrelationship struggles with each other. Everyone loves someone in Honey and Clover, but no one loves them back. It makes for one big mess of one-sided affections, but also explores how even one-sided love can still have value.
Anohana
The catalyst of Anohana is the death of a friend that caused a tight childhood friend group to drift apart. However, when the ghost of that friend appears, it brings them all together again. Yet, in this time apart, you find the friends changed, and not in some positive way. The tragedy of their youth lead to young adults that kind of stalled out. When it comes to romantic feelings, almost all of them are chasing someone who is chasing someone else.
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun
One-sided love in anime is typically used for drama, and rightfully so. However, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun dares to be a rom-com that is built on it.
Initially, the male main character is oblivious to the female main characters romantic feelings and makes her his manga assistant instead in the confusion. The comedy comes from how in love she remains with him, but also how into making manga she gets. As the series goes on, you start to get little breadcrumbs that his feelings might be there, but he is a big dense wall, and that means those feelings may never be fully realized.
School Rumble
School Rumble is most notable for forming one of the mightiest love polygons in anime. In which, everyone loves somebody, but nobody loves each other. As this is an absurdist comedy, be fully prepared for most of the unrequited love to be set up and forgotten about in the end, never to be resolved.
Do you have more anime recommendations about one-sided love? Let fans know in the comments section below.
