Here at Recommend Me Anime, we don’t do manga series in our recommendations, just anime. However, that doesn’t mean that anime fans don’t also like to lie in bed and read a few good chapters of manga every now and then.
And besides, where do many good anime series come from in the first place – The pages of manga.
If you want to read some good romance manga, and want to be someone who can potentially say you enjoyed a good series before it was all cool and animated, then check out these great romance manga recommendations that don’t have anime adaptations – yet.
Best Romance Manga With No Anime
Dengeki Daisy
Teru’s only family in the world, her brother, passed away. However, before he died, he gave her a cell phone and told her if she ever needed help or just to needed to talk to use that phone to contact someone called Daisy. To this day, this mysterious cell phone person remains a confidant.
After a certain event, she finds herself in debt and needing to work with the rude, yet handsome school janitor. However, are her different worlds more closely connected than she thought?
Mars
Kira is a shy high school girl that lives only for her art. Rei is a violent and rebellious playboy who does what he wants. They are complete opposites.
Although Kira initially fears him, when she sees Rei kissing a statue of Mars, she asks him to model for her.
To everyone’s surprise, he agrees.
Hana-Kimi
Japanese-American Mizuki has a passion for track and field, so much so, she transfers to a prestigious school know for its track in Japan.
However, athletics are not her only reason for transferring. The school is also the school where her idol and once-national track star Sano attends.
The issue is that it is an all-boys school. While she must keep her gender a secret, will it stay a secret?
Sweat and Soap
Asako Yaeshima works as an accountant at Liliadrop, a company that creates high-class cosmetics for women. She got the job because she has always been prone to sweating too much and the products have always helped her mask any body odor and unwind with pleasant scents.
One day, she crosses paths with the eccentric fragrance designer of the company, Koutarou Natori. He is a man with a masterful nose who appears to have fallen in love at first sniff with the way the products he designed for Liliadrop meld with Asako’s natural scent.
While extremely put off by his creepy sniffing at first, Asako begins to understand Koutarou’s eccentricity a little more while he helps her build up her dismal self-esteem after a lifetime of being bullied for sweating too much.
Love So Life
Shiharu Nakamura is an high school orphan that loves children. While she cares for the younger residents of her orphanage, she eventually hopes to run a daycare someday.
Working at a nursery school part-time, she has a run-in with the handsome Seiji Matsunaga that is running late to pick up his twin niece and nephew. However, they refuse to go home with him and cling to Shiharu instead.
As a single man struggling to care for two toddlers after he took them in when their mother died, he immediately offers to hire Shiharu at twice her salary if she will help him take care of them.
Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku
Chidori Public High School and the all-girls Kikyo Private Academy may be right next to each other, but they educate two different classes of people. Kikyo has attracted young women from wealthy families while Chidori houses mostly delinquents.
While sixteen-year-old Rinrtarou Tsumugi may look like a delinquent due to his face, he is actually quite kind, even helping his family run their cake shop. Unfortunately, he has a run in with Kaoruko Waguri, a girl from Kikyo who visits his cake shop and runs off as soon as she sees him.
The next day, Kaoruko apologizes and states that his face didn’t scare her off, but rather she was hoping to get to know him better.
Last Game
Naoto Yanagi is a the heir to the Yanagi business conglomerate and has consistently been praised for his athleticism, competence, and good looks. As such, he is not really used to losing at anything. However, while idolized by classmates in elementary school for his prowess, that changed when the gloomy-looking Mikoto Kujou transferred in.
Despite her plain looks and lower financial status, her competence frequently outshines Naoto as he suddenly begins to lose his top status in exams and athletics. While this lit a fire in Naoto, Mikoto remained constantly apathetic to him and his competitiveness all that way through high school.
Now attending the same college, Naoto has one last plan to win – make her fall in love with him and break her heart! However, instead of victory, he starts to find that he is actually falling in love with her.
House of the Sun
After her mother left and her father remarried, Mao Motomiya feels like she is unwelcome in her own home.
One night while she is eating a cheap convenience store dinner at the local shrine, she runs into Hiro Nakamura. Once her childhood friend, she hasn’t seen him in a long time. However, he offers to let her come and stay with him.
She reluctantly accepts, and there, she learns that Hiro has a dream of one day reuniting his younger siblings in their house who have been living apart after their parents passed away.
The Daytime Shooting Star
After her parents moved for work, Suzume Yosano decides to move to the city to live with her uncle.
On the way to her uncle’s place, she gets lost, but luckily a kind young man comes to her aid and guides her. However, it turns out she will be seeing a lot more of him as he turns out to be her homeroom teacher.
High School Debut
In middle school, Haruna was a softball ace, but she has different goals for high school. She wants a boyfriend.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to be attractive or fashionable. However, after an encounter with the cold, but fashionable Yo, she manages to persuade him to teacher her how to be more attractive to boys.
Namaikizakari.
Yuki Machida is the oldest of a very large family. She became accustomed to making sacrifices for her siblings, especially when it comes to burying feelings. However, one day she decides to do something daring, not expecting anything to come of it.
She decides to manage the boy’s basketball team to inch closer to her crush. Instead, a new member of the team takes an aggressive interest in her. He is a man that has no issue letting his desires be known.
Koizora: Setsunai Koimonogatari
Moka, like all girls, dreams of a wonderful life. However, the reality of her life is not quite so happy.
One day she meets Hiro, and the time she spends with him are the happiest fleeting moments she ever had. However, no happy days last forever.
Please Love the Useless Me
Shibata Michiko is unemployed, but enamored with a younger man. She does everything to keep him happy, including depriving herself to buy him expensive clothes.
Unfortunately, he devastatingly breaks up with her. Depressed and out on the hunt for a job, she runs into a former boss that she used to hate.
Love Attack
While only half way through her first year of high school, Chiemi Yusa has already been suspended twice for fighting.
After starting a third fight and with expulsion on the line, her teachers gives her a unique offer: get classmate and fellow fighter Akifumi “Deranged Devil” Hirata to behave. With a clean record on the line, she goes on the attack.
Absolute Boyfriend
After being constantly rejected by men she attempts to date, Riiko Izawa decides to randomly sign up for a free trial of a Nightly Lover figure. However, the next day, she is shocked to discover a real and naked man delivered to her doorstep.
He is perfect in every way, and dedicated to her. However, as she grows more attached, she also realizes she needs to return him before the end of the trial or pay a million dollars.
More Manga Recommendations
There are literally thousands of more romance manga series out there that haven’t been animated yet. Do you have any more manga recommendations? Let romance manga fans know in the comments section below.
Love so life