Love triangles are a staple in anime. You will find them in many shows even if the romance is but a drop in the bucket of the overall plot. As such, you will find that it stands towering over the actual romance genre, so much so that the formation of a love triangle is often one of those staple arcs you will find in the story. A rival for love is an easy way to create drama. Yet, we must remember that cliches become such because fans do (did?) love them. So if love triangles are your kind of jam, we got your romance anime recommendations.
Best Romance Anime With Love Triangles
A Lull in the Sea
Long ago, all of humanity lived underwater. However, a portion of them soon left to live on the surface, losing the ability to breath underwater. With this gap between them, the two societies grew apart. A Lull in the Sea tells the story of a group of kids forced to attend school above the water where they come to terms with themselves and the discrimination against them.
A Lull in the Sea is, simply put, built upon love triangles. It is about a group of classmates that all love each other and it seems no one mutually loves each other. As such, the relationships are messy and full of drama. It’s actually rather quite infamous in anime at this point.
Anonymous Noise
After her childhood best friend, crush, and singing buddy moves away as a child, Nino Arisugawa is devastated. Yet, years later she reunited with both this boy and the boy who comforted her during that fateful time. Now joining a rock band at her high school, each finds their paths intersecting.
This series follows a love triangle between a girl and two different boys she met as a child and reunited with in high school. One disappeared suddenly from her life and keeps her at arm’s length, thus she loves him, and the other is constantly trying to get the girl to notice him instead.
Orange
On the first day of a new semester, Naho Takimiya oversleeps. On her way out after being late for school, she finds a letter waiting for her that says it is from herself ten years in the future. The letter ardently states her regrets that she has surrounding a new transfer student Kakeru Naruse. Thinking it is a prank at first, Naho ignores it, but when the events described within begin to come true, Naho decides that she will try to help her future self.
At first, the love triangle here is just all in the past with a very, very clear winner being shown in the beginning. Yet, as things go on, it become pretty messy.
Your Lie in April
Although once a child prodigy in the music world, pianist Kousei Arima is left in a downward spiral after his mother’s death, unable to even hear the sound of his own piano. Even after two years, Arima has all but left the music world behind, disappointing fans and rivals alike, and living in a colorless world. Then one day that that all changes when he is introduced to the beautiful violinist Kaori Miyazono who brings color into his world once more.
When a childhood friend is involved, it is a pretty safe bet that they will get the short end of the stick on things. Yet, there is an event in Your Lien in April that levels that playing field.
Honey and Clover
Honey and Clover follows a group of college students who meet Hagumi, an artist with a tremendous amount of talent that transfers to their school. From there on, Honey and Clover tells stories about the joys of falling in love, the pain of letting go, and the journey to discovering who you really are.
As Honey and Clover is more about the messy and complicated lives of college students, of course it means that a love triangle will form between two men that fall in love with the same girl at first sight. Interestingly enough, there is not a lot of romantic pay off with this series. It is more of a drama series than a romance, but the love triangle is such a plot point that I’m counting it.
Fruits Basket
When Tooru Honda finds herself homeless, she decides to live in a tent in the wilderness. However, one day she is discovered by a classmate, Yuki Souma, and invited to come live in his house. From there she gets to know many members of the Souma family, not realizing that they all are inflicted by a curse: when they hug the opposite gender, they turn into an animal from the Chinese zodiac.
The love triangle here makes itself pretty apparent right from the start considering they all live in the same house, and two boys who don’t get along are destined to fall for the same girl. Interestingly enough, the winner was honestly not who I expected it would be.
Vampire Knight
Cross Academy is separated into two classes, the day class and the night class. The day class is filled with normal students while the night class is made up of gorgeous elites. However, what the day students don’t know is that the night students are vampires. This is the tale of Yuuki and Zero, guardians of the night students that keep their secret. While Yuuki is the adopted daughter of the chairman, she is happy to interact with her night student savoir Kaname. Zero, on the other hand, has an intense hatred of vampires.
Oh, Vampire Knight. So full of drama. So much angst. Of course two vampiric boys get real caught up in one exceptionally average girl who, of course, turns out of be less average in the most mundane ways.
White Album 2
Haruki Kitahara’s light music club is on the verge of disbanding due to lack of interest, an event that will crush his dream of playing at the school festival. However, as he solemnly plays “White Album,” the first song he ever learned to play, an angelic voice suddenly harmonizes with his lonely guitar.
Music anime seems to be particularly vulnerable to love triangles, apparently. This is not the first nor is it the last on our list. Yet, this is probably the most interesting of the love triangles since it explores there relationship without completely forgetting the feelings of the losing party.
Domestic Girlfriend
Natsuo is in love with his teacher Hina. In order to try and forget his feelings, he goes to a mixer and meets a girl named Rui. Oddly enough, she asks him to do her a favor – to have sex with her. He does so, but soon he is faced with a unique problem. His father has remarried and he now has two new stepsisters that he knows too well – Rui and Hina
Ah yes, the dumpster fire that remains my favorite guilty pleasure. The main character essentially maintains a relationship with his two new stepsisters, each girl losing and winning at different points, all vying for a guy about as interesting as bread.
True Tears
Shinichirou is living the dream by living with his crush. However, while she is bright and popular at school, she is cold and distant at home. As he tries to find the key to unlocking her heart, he has a run in with several other girls that are dealing with their own feelings.
True Tears is a series for those that like their increasingly complicated love triangles. While it gets some harem vibes as more girls fall for the main character, his feelings are firmly split between two girls. True to its name, tears will fall.
Love and Lies
In order to encourage successful marriages and to combat the low birthrate, the Japanese government now assigns marriage partners at the age of 16. Unwilling to face the severe repercussions that come with denial, Yukari Nejima goes along with it, despite confessing to his long-time crush. However, is his reciprocated love doomed to be crushed when he gets his marriage notice?
As the anime leaves things rather unresolved, this isn’t the most satisfying of love triangles, but when the government picks your marriage partner, messy feelings are inevitable.
Kashimashi
Hazumu is a shay boy who enjoys gardening. After bonding over this shared love, her confesses to the equally shy Yasuna, who rejects him. Morose, he wanders up Mt. Kashimayama where he ends up getting lost, wishing on a star, and turns into a girl!
This genderbender yuri features a now-girl main character who is caught between his tomboy childhood friend and the shy girl who rejected the main character’s love confession when he was a boy.
Blue Spring Ride
Futaba Yoshioka was liked by boys and hated by girls in middle school, but she didn’t care as long as Kou Tanaka noticed her. However, after Kou moves away and she enters high school, she does everything she can to be less attractive to the boys in her class so she can have girl friends. Yet when Kou comes back, even though he is a different person, the feelings come back as well.
Blue Spring Ride is a great romance story, but the anime never really gets it going because it lacks a second season. That being said, the love triangle, in both the anime and manga, is very half-assed. Introduced only to add the barest hint of spice and with no one believing the other girl stood a chance.
Ef – A Tale of Memories
Ef tells two different love stories. One about Hiro Hirono who accidentally spends Christmas Eve with Miyako Miyamure after she steals his bike (and crashes it) to chase down a robber. The other follows Renji Asou, a boy with a white knight complex, who comes to have feelings for Chihiro Shindou, a girl that is always reading alone at an abandoned train station. In effort to get closer to her, he eventually suggests they write a novel together.
This series really is a good old-fashioned romance drama. It really hits a lot of the tropes in a way where they aren’t obnoxious, but they aren’t especially innovative either.
Rumbling Hearts
Initially Takayuki Narumi befriended Mitsuki Hayase because Mitsuki’s friend Haruka Suzumiya had a crush on him. He grew close to Mitsuki, but when Haruka asked him out, he accepted in order to not hurt her feelings. However, as Takayuki and Mitsuki begin to realize their feelings, tragedy strikes hat changes everything.
Imagine winning your love triangle through the actual winner’s coma only for her to wake up later. Rumbling Hearts is, as you would expect, super heavy as a show. Don’t expect a lot of comedic respite.
Golden Time
After a tragic accident, Banri Tada is struck with amnesia and forced to repeat his freshman year of college. After making a new friend at his Tokyo law school, his friend’s beautiful, but crazy stalker Kouko Kaga barges into his life and starts a whirlwind of love, mistakes, and friendships.
Amnesia isn’t so uncommon in anime, but this is the first series where I saw it wielded in order to set up an interestingly complicated love triangle. Imagine someone you love just straight up forgetting you. Oof.
Nana
This is the story of two girls, both of which are named Nana. Nana Komatsu is a naive girl addicted to love who is moving to Tokyo to chase after her boyfriend going to school there. Nana Osaki is a proud punk rocker that is moving to Tokyo to become a rock star. By chance they meet on the train. By even bigger chance they end up wanting to rent the same apartment only to decide to rent it together.
Hey look, another music anime. Weird. Anyway, the love triangle in Nana actually doesn’t appear until later in the series where Nana Komatsu finds herself in between the affections of two musicians. One being pretty nice and the other being a jerk-ass. Guess the winner. Go on, guess.
Waiting in Summer
While testing out his filming camera one night, Kaito is blown off the bridge by a streak of blue light. When he wakes up, he finds himself in his room. This leads to a meeting with an upperclassman that changes his summer forever.
This is another one of those love triangles that doesn’t try particularly hard. The main guy is so blindingly interested in the new girl in town that even his tsundere-ish childhood friend seems like she has given up completely a few episodes in the series. Yet, at the same time, it seems like she was part of a different love triangle herself.
Nisekoi
Ten years ago, Raku Ichijou made a promise with a childhood friend. In the present day, this heir apparent to an intimidating yakuza family continues to wait for his friend’s return while trying to be as uninvolved in family matters as possible. However, when a rival gang invades his family’s turf, the family leaders decide Raku should start a romantic relationship with the other chief’s daughter, Chitoge.
The series is built on the back of a love triangle. What makes it such a great series is there is no one clear winner for much of the series.
School Days
In a stroke of fate, Makoto Itou noticed Kotonoha Katsura on the train ride to school. Too shy to ask her out, he finds himself encouraged by his classmates Sekai Saionji who also has a crush on Makoto. What should have been blissful school days soon turns sour as love triangle cross and both women find themselves unable to live without Makoto.
I saved this one specifically for last because it fits, but at the same time it probably isn’t what those interested in romance anime are looking for. School Days is the love triangle taken to the most extreme outcome where it then actually becomes a horror anime.
Do you have more romance anime recommendations for those that are thirsty for love triangles? Well, head on down to the comments section below and let fans know.
Where is the ultimate convoluted love pentagon, Gamers?
Golden time: I had discovered Golden Time in a list of animes that “genuinely deserved” a dub. But the premise and Kouko’s character were too interesting to wait for a dub…so it became the first “subbed” anime that I had ever watched…and boy did the Japanese voice acting not disappoint…it was great! ?