17 Romance Anime Where The Childhood Friend Wins

In the occasionally oddly competitive world of anime romance, there’s a special kind of victory that warms the heart—the moment when the childhood friend wins.

For too long, these loyal, steadfast companions have stood by the sidelines, patiently cheering from the friend zone while the mysterious transfer student or the popular girl with a heart of gold steals the spotlight.

But not in these stories!

Here, the childhood friend gets their well-deserved chance to step into the limelight, proving that sometimes, the love that’s been there all along is the one that truly conquers all. Get ready to cheer as these unsung heroes turn the tides and claim the happy ending they’ve always dreamed of!

Romance Anime Where The Childhood Friend Wins

Osamake: Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won’t Lose

It’s there. Right there in the title. The childhood friend girl passionately in love with the main character will not lose this anime.

It does somewhat spoil the battle royale of talented young women, though.

Well, it spoils it right up until you discover that every girl vying for his attention in Osamake is, indeed, a childhood friend.

It turns out that this child acting prodigy who is now retired after a traumatic event made quite a lot of childhood friends while he was focused on his career.

True Tears

In True Tears, the main character is living the dream – at least according to his classmates.

He shares his house with his childhood friend who came to live with them after her mother passed away. However, while she is popular at school, she reserved and cold at home.

To complicate matters further, there are several other women in love with him as well, including an eccentric oddball who believe she can’t cry and a girl dating his best friend.

The swirling torrent of tragedy and emotions at play gives True Tears tremendous emotional depth, but it definitely isn’t for those looking for wholesome or uncomplicated romance.

Kimikiss Pure Rouge

There are no shortage of anime romances that begin with people leaving town for awhile then coming back to their childhood friends, and Kimikiss is part the pack.

In Kimikiss, the story focuses on a girl who was living abroad in France returning home to her two male childhood friends. While that is the perfect setup for a tidy little love triangle, Kimikiss embraces a large cast to make the romantic feelings flying around all the messier.

Tamako Market / Tamako Love Story

Tamako Market, the anime, is not a romance story. It follows a plucky girl who works in her family’s mochi shop as she navigates the eccentric individuals that make up the local shopping distinct in her town.

While Tamako Market is a cheerful slice of life anime, you do get little pieces of romance in the form of her childhood friend who is the son of a rival mochi shop and has a pretty obvious crush on her.

So why include this non-romance here? Well, Tamako Market becomes a very sweet romance if you watch the Tamako Love Story film which is laser-focused on her relationship with this boy.

A Lull in the Sea

When you are all childhood friends, you really can’t lose!

A Lull in the Seas takes place in a unique world where humanity started as underwater dwelling beings. However, some moved on land and lost the ability to live underwater, leading to two different societies. In the series, the school in a small underwater community has closed due to low student count so the handful of children have to attend class on land where they face discrimination.

The unique thing about A Lull in the Sea is an event happens midway that forces a time skip. So while the characters may start off quite young, they grow older. They also grow into forming one of the mightiest love polygons in all of anime.

Ai Yori Aoshi

For many, an arrange marriage situation is a major yuck. Yet, that is not the case for every arranged marriage, as Ai Yori Aoshi puts on display.

Ai Yori Aoshi features two children that had their future betrothal arranged by their parents as a binding of their two prestigious families. However, when the main character left his clan due to the abuse he and his mother suffered, it broke the arrangement.

Years later when he is living as a college student, she reappears in his life still looking to be his bride.

Cross Game

Oh, it is a tale as old as time, two families – one owning a batting center and the other owning a sports store – and because their kids are the same age, they grew up together.

However, never forget that Cross Game is a baseball anime first. It just, like all Mitsuru Adachi baseball series, has an above average focus on romance and life outside of the sport.

Tomo-chan is a Girl

Childhood friends and tomboys – two archetypes that are in kin in how few of them ever win the romance if there is even one rival present. It would be so unfortunate for a girl if she happened to be both.

Well, Tomo-chan is a Girl features a female lead who is both. Tomo is the strong, energetic daughter of a martial arts dojo who has a crush on her childhood friend, neighbor, and marital arts peer.

However, while she definitely puts the vibe out there, her childhood friend sees her as “just another bro,” and treats her as such.

Tomo-chan is a Girl follows the brave, comedic struggle of one tomboy trying to get her male best friend to see her as a romantic prospect.

Blue Spring Ride

In romance anime with childhood friends, they enjoy painting the idyllic picture that people don’t really change from their childhood selves as they grow up. This, of course, is rarely true in real life so it is refreshing for Blue Spring Ride to explore a rekindling romance between two childhood friends that have changed over time apart.

Blue Spring Ride is about a girl who had a crush on her classmate in middle school, but was devastated when he suddenly moved away.

She, eventually growing tired of male attention causing problems in her female friendships, changed into a bit of a slob to keep flirting boys away. Her crush eventually returns in high school, but he too has changed. Instead of the sweet, quiet boy she fell in love with, he is sad and withdrawn. It invites you to watch as she unravels his trauma and they reignite their feelings.

Love Hina

Love Hina is a harem anime, but it features a budding romance built on a foundation of mystery.

When the main character was a child, he made a promise to attend a prestigious university with a girl who moved away. He can’t remember her name or her face, but he remembered the promise.

Now when he moves into an all-girls dorm to be its manager while he attempts to pass the college admissions exam, he starts to think that this girl living there who is also studying to get into college might just be familiar.

Unfortunately, as an older harem anime stuffed to bursting with tropes that weren’t so overused at time, Love Hina likes to do the “will they, won’t they?” with the relationship and the “is she, or isn’t she?” with the childhood friend mystery.

Amagami SS

As an omnibus romance anime, Amagami SS is a harem affair, but one where everyone wins.

Amagami SS tells the story of the romantic life of a high school boy who makes a connection with multiple girls. The omnibus romance plays out the romantic path of each girl to its conclusion before resetting and moving onto the next girl.

This means every harem archetype gets their romance explored, even the childhood friend.

Kanon

What better roadblock for swift romance than the good old amnesia trope?

Kanon features – again – a main character returning to a town that he spent time in as a child. However, his memories for that time are hazy. This is the perfect set up for Kanon’s visual novel-based story that explores and unravels his various relationships with girls around town – all of whom he doesn’t remember meeting.

While Kanon’s visual novel does have different routes, it – like its more well-known sibling Clannad – focuses on one primary romance path.

Myself; Yourself

Myself;Yourself starts in the familiar way of a main character returning to his hometown and reconnecting with his childhood friends. However, everyone seems to have had a bit of rough patch in their life while he was away.

While some his childhood friends are thriving and other are just entering some tumultuous territory, Myself;Yourself’s primary romance focuses on the main character and his childhood crush.

When he left, she was sweet and timid. When he returned, she was cold and distant.

Myself;Yourself is a fine vintage of melodrama where everyone has very dramatic problems and most difficulties in the relationships are caused by a lack of communication.

Special A

Special A provides a unique twist on the whole childhood friend romance trope.

The main characters met as children and have remained friends even as teens who attend a prestigious academy together. However, “friends” is might not the right word. I think “rivals” would be a more fitting definition for the pair.

The female lead is very competitive and easily won most things, right up until she met the male lead who soundly trounces her in every competition. They have been competing since childhood, but she still has no idea that he is madly in love with her.

Wotakoi – Love is Difficult for an Otaku

When you are an adult, hopes for winning that childhood friend romance all but disappear. Wotakoi breaks ranks by telling what is both an otaku romance and also a romance between adult-aged childhood friends.

In Wotakoi, a closed fujoshi reunites with her gamer otaku childhood friend when they discover that they are working at the same company.

With the female lead unsuccessful in love due to her passion for boy’s love media, her childhood friend makes a casual offer that she should just date him since they both know and understand each other’s otaku hobbies.

While it starts with a casual offer, Wotakoi grows into a touching adult romance. Furthermore, you discover that love has been there since childhood, but everyone needed to do some growing up before it could bloom.

O Maidens in Your Savage Season

Instead of just another harem affair, O Maidens in Your Savage Season committed itself to focusing on the individual romantic relationships of five female characters in the passionate throes of youth and puberty.

The series details several increasingly complex romances throughout the series, but the main one is between the female main character and her childhood friend who can’t quite view her as a woman just yet.

The most interesting thing about this building childhood romance is that her crush is attracted to a different girl. However, it is actually a treat to watch him work through his feeling of lust and realize feelings love.

Masamune-kun’s Revenge

As a romance, Masamune-kun’s Revenge is a wild ride that you need to hang in there for.

Masamune-kun’s Revenge follows a boy who returns to his hometown to get revenge on his childhood love interest. He was chubby as a child and she rejected his confession, breaking his little heart. Now, after leveling up into a trim, but narcissistic hottie, he is determined to make her fall in love so he can break her heart instead.

Any long time fan of romance anime knows exactly how this story will progress. However, it has little in the way of romantic rewards in the beginning.

Do you have any more romance anime where there childhood friend wins? Let fans know in the comments section below.