It is a less considered reality about adulthood that, after your school years, you have profoundly less opportunities to naturally meet people. Instead of being exposed to a large group of peers in a school environment, you are now suddenly limited to a smaller pool at your place of employment, meaning office romance is more likely to be a large part of your adult romantic life.
However, office romance in anime is rather rare. Almost surprisingly so. Despite Japan’s huge and brutal culture of work, romantic affairs in the office are considered inappropriate. That is likely why a lot of anime about adult romances tend to choose a more star-crossed approach to meeting people.
However, if two co-workers becoming closer and possibly becoming more is your romance anime of choice, give these workplace romance anime recommendations a try.
Best Workplace Romance Anime
Wotakoi: Love is Hard for an Otaku
When it comes to satisfying and enjoyable office romance anime, Wotakoi is easily the best.
The characters, though childhood friends, reconnect when they both end up working in the same office. They are both otaku, with one living his otaku best life out in the open and the other hiding it because it keeps ruining her relationships with normal men.
While they start dating in the first episode almost on a whim, you discover that feelings on one side have been there for awhile.
What is nice about Wotakoi is it is also a romance anime with multiple couples. You follow the main couple, their otaku friends that are a couple and also work in the office, and a third couple that is still in university. In this way, it also actually highlights romance and feelings throughout different stages of a relationship through the three couples who are indeed at different stages of their relationships.
My Senpai is Annoying
Like Wotakoi, My Senpai is Annoying is a workplace romance anime featuring three different relationships. Unlike Wotakoi, romantic progression isn’t really a thing that happens.
In My Senpai is Annoying, it is not that any of the couples are against dating each other, it is that no one confesses their feelings. However, you watch them enjoy cute moments together in and outside of work that often feels like moments shared between a couple.
While you may not be satisfied with the lack of romantic progression, My Senpai is Annoying really does make up for it by being a very good cute comedy.
My Tiny Senpai
While both series can be enjoyed by any gender, it is easiest to say that My Tiny Senpai is like My Senpai is Annoying, but aimed more at male audiences.
My Tiny Senpai follows an average office worker who is constantly coddled by his tiny, well-endowed female senpai at work.
That’s the plot. You watch them enjoy cute moments together in and outside of work. Although, because of her ample bust, it can have a few suggestive – but not graphically ecchi – situations.
After the Rain
After the Rain is an age gap romance anime that details the relationship between a depressed high school girl and the manager she admires at the restaurant where she now works.
As anime can occasionally be dubious with age, worry not with After the Rain. This never progresses into an actual romance anime.
Instead, the manager, while flattered that a high school girl sees a middle-aged divorce guy with a child as a viable love interest, maintains appropriate boundaries.
Instead, the manager helps the girl overcome the issues that spawned her depression as her affection also inspires him take steps forward to better his own life.
Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague
Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague follows a pair of fresh young adults who both start at the same company on the same day. One is a girl who has always had a cooler attitude and people often find it hard to get close to her. The other is a guy descended from an ice yokai that produces snow when emotionally excited.
What happens is he finds his cool colleague super cute, and often produces snow when around her. She finds him intriguing and often goes out of her way to do nice things for him and help him cope with the drawbacks of his lineage.
The romantic progression in this workplace comedy is low, but the anime and couples dynamics are very cute. It also sets up multiple couples in the office.
Servant X Service
Servant X Service is definitely a workplace romance that has a bigger emphasis on the work than the romance.
Unlike other workplace romance anime that are typically more comedic, Servant X Service often grounds itself in slice of life where you follow the people working this bureaucratic job as they deal with work and life issues. Of course, an important part of life is also romance!
Ristorante Paradiso
Like After the Rain, Ristorante Paradiso is also an age gap romance anime detailing the growing relationship between an older restaurant manager and a young adult woman who traveled to Rome to ruin her mother’s life in revenge for abandoning her.
The woman ends up so charmed by the restaurant that she forgoes revenge, starts working there, and develops growing feelings for the manager.
However, romantic progression is slow here. Unlike After the Rain where the obstacle was the female love interest being a high school girl, the obstacle in Ristorante Paradiso is that the manager is separated, on the verge of divorce, and also concerned about seeing a woman in her twenties.
Ganbare Douki-chan
Ganbare Douki-chan follows the titular Douki-chan who has a crush on her co-worker. Unfortunately for her, so do two other women in the office.
This series is most often about this rather shy girl doing her best to try and catch he co-workers eye over the other women.
It is a less wholesome situation for sure, and the anime is overall more a comedy than an actual romance.
Ojisan and Marshmallow
Ojisan and Marshmallow is another workplace romance that is more comedy than anything else.
It follows a woman who has a particular fondess for chubby things. This makes her co-worker, Ojisan, a man that loves marshmallows and is of an advanced weight, her ideal man.
However, despite her affections, Ojisan remains quite sure she couldn’t be romantically interested in an older overweight man.
Ojisan and Marshmallow is actually a rather cute comedy, but not a workplace romance anime for those that want progression.
Natsuyuki Rendezvous
In Natsuyuki Rendezvous, a young man develops a crush on the owner of a flower shop. He even goes so far as to get a job there to get closer to her. However, the woman is a widow and still in the process of grieving. Further complicating things, she is also haunted by her dead husband who is being a serious cockblock.
This anime treats the situation as seriously as you might expect. It takes time for her heart to open up again, and you also watch the ghost begin the process of letting go.
Workplace romance anime tends to lean more toward comedy, so if you enjoy something a little deeper than endless fluff and jokes, Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a lovely option.
Working
If you are looking for a workplace romance anime where couples form and develop quickly, Working is not for you.
Working is a series that follows a group of young employees at a family restaurant. Often it is more slice of life and silly shenanigans. However, it does develop romantic relationships eventually. You just have to stick with this three-season anime for awhile.
Plastic Memories
Plastic Memories doesn’t look like a workplace romance, it doesn’t feel like a workplace romance, but it still very much is – by every definition – a workplace romance anime.
Plastic Memories takes place in a world where individuals can purchase Giftias, androids that look and act like real people. However, these Giftias only have a lifespan of about 11 years. After that point, they rapidly degrade and can even turn violent.
The main character works for a section of the company that produces these Giftias that is in charge of retrieving the ones near the end of their lifespan. He is partnered up with a Giftia that they employ who is very close to her own limit.
Veteran romance anime fans will know exactly where the romance plot is headed with this one. However, because the characters are very moe and one is just barely an adult, it still feels very much like a high school romance despite it taking place in an office.
The Great Passage
The Great Passage is and forever will be a hidden gem of an anime series, but may not have as strong of a romance focus as you may want.
The Great Passage follows several employees of a publishing company as they work on a special project known as The Great Passage, which is essentially a large and detailed dictionary. As it explores the difficulties and joys of the work, it really highlights the power of words in communication.
However, an anime about making a dictionary alone would be understandably tedious. The Great Passage is more about the character stories in correlation with the work.
A major element in many of the character’s lives is romance. The main character has affection for a girl outside of his office, but trouble expressing his feelings. Meanwhile, his co-worker is secretly dating a girl in the office.
The Great Passage has a major theme of communication and expression through words, and as such, can be quite touching in its romantic moments.
Do you have more romance anime that shows love in the workplace? Let fans know in the comments section below.
