[metalandmagi]

Romance Anime Starter List

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick and tired of seeing “Top ___ Best Anime of All Time” lists that are nothing but shounen. So, with "My Happy Marriage" getting a little attention from the anime community, I wanted to put together a list of some romance anime that I consider good “starters” for the genre. Because if I were just now becoming an anime fan, I’d think all there was to offer was shounen action series.

And by “starters” I mean basic stuff that’s not too…out there, and actually involves the characters getting together instead of just harems or using romance as a side plot (sorry Ouran High School Host Club and My Next Life as a Villainess). 

So if you’re new to anime and want stuff that’s not just guys beating the shit out of each other (which is also fun, don’t get me wrong), here are some basics.

Taisho Maiden Fairy Tale- When the pessimistic Tamahiko Shima loses all function in his right arm, his family sends him away to live in the mountains with the cheerful, hard working Yuzuki Tachibana…who was purchased by the Shima family to pay off her family’s debts and basically act as a caretaker/future bride for Tamahiko so they’d never have to deal with him again. It’s a more cheerful version of My Happy Marriage (without the supernatural stuff), except in this one, the guy is the one who has massive self-esteem issues and an abusive family. There are still very serious themes, but ultimately it’s not meant to make you cry every episode. I swear it’s so good, but nobody watched it!

Horimiya- A slice of life in which pretty and popular high school queen bee Hori, finds out her quiet, unassuming classmate Miyamura is hiding piercings and tattoos that could get him expelled. The two gradually find out more about each other and get together in the most realistic way I’ve seen depicted in an anime. It’s also fucking hysterical and genuinely emotional.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie- Another slice of life that focuses on two adults who meet in an MMO game without realizing they also know each other in real life. I don’t want to say much more than that. It’s adorable, and the main character is so relatable it hurts.

Love with Yamada-kun at Level 999- Speaking of MMOs, this is a newer series about Akane Kinoshita, a college first year who’s reeling from a bad break up. In an attempt to get back at her ex, she winds up meeting Akito Yamada, a popular gamer who happens to be in her guild in the MMO they both play at an IRL meetup. The two go from acquaintances to something more as they keep running into each other. Even more relatable main characters and just wholesome relationships all around.

Snow White With The Red Hair- A fantasy in which an apothecary named Shirayuki (meaning, you guessed it, “snow white”) runs away from her home in order to escape becoming the concubine of her town’s prince. While fleeing, she is rescued by Zen, the prince of a neighboring country, and she ends up becoming an herbalist to repay him. I have a habit of comparing this to Akatsuki no Yona, even though the two aren’t really that alike. This is more romance driven while Akatsuki no Yona is more of a serious historical fantasy with romance elements (Yona manga is amazing, but the anime barely scratches the surface, so that’s why I didn’t include it).

Sasaki to Miyano- When the shy, easily flustered Miyano meets Sasaki, a cool “delinquent” upperclassmen, the two end up bonding over manga…specifically BL manga. That’s right, Miyano is a fudanshi, but due to his small stature and somewhat feminine appearance, he’s constantly trying to convince others that he’s not interested in having his own love story where he’d be reduced to a stereotypical doe-eyed uke. But as Sasaki and Miyano spend more time together, they realize that what they have is more than friendship, and they have to come to terms with their own perception of gay relationships. This is my favorite romance of all time. It’s a slow burn, but boy is it worth it. Their relationship is so natural and realistic, just like Horimiya. Just two people hanging out and bonding over things the way people do in real life!

Given: The story of some boys in a band with trauma. Enough said. It's great. Go watch it.

Bloom Into You- Yuu Koito is a high school girl who’s been waiting her whole life for her own perfect romance to start…but when she receives a confession, she realizes she doesn’t know how to respond when she’s just not into the guy. And then she gets another confession…this time from the cool student council president Touko Nanami, who basically jumpstarts her lesbian awakening. Very cute story about how we perceive the concept of love vs actually feeling it. Also has a canonically aro/ace side character, so that’s a win for me. Another show like this is Adachi to Shimamura (but I honestly don’t remember much about it. It just didn’t stick with me as much).

Ore Monogatari- Takeo Gouda is a tall, bulky high school first year with a sensitive heart of gold. He wants nothing more than to find his own true love, but most girls are intimidated by his enormous stature, and they end up falling for his conventionally attractive friend instead. That is, until he meets the tiny, adorable Rinko Yamato. He falls in love instantly, but he’s sure she’s interested in his best friend like everyone else, so he vows to help get them together, even though his heart is breaking. Peak himbo behavior. Pure of heart, dumb of ass.

Yuri on Ice- Yes it’s the gay figure skating anime everyone knows. And yes it’s a fucking romance, okay? I will die on this hill. The romance between Viktor and Yuri is just as important as the plot!

Kaguya-sama Love Is War- Two insanely smart high school students both have a crush on the other, but since they’re…you know…high schoolers, neither of them wants to admit it first. So they come up with increasingly convoluted plans to get the other to confess first. This will go down as one of the best of all time. It’s a hilarious yet poignant modern classic.

Fruits Basket- I’ve talked about it before and I’ll talk about it again. A romance “comedy” that slowly morphs into a drama about a girl named Tohru who finds herself living with the mysterious Sohma family after her mother dies. Little does she know, the Sohmas are the victims of a  (somewhat silly, but ultimately tragic) curse that she must fight to break. Even though I’m more into it for the family drama, the romance is still top tier and plays an important role in the story. This is my second favorite anime of all time, and it’s a classic for a reason. If anyone hasn’t watched it yet, GO WATCH IT! IT WILL RIP YOU TO SHREDS!

And now for some honorable mentions that didn't quite fit into the regular list:

Ride Your Wave- A movie about a surfer who falls in love with a firefighter……and I’m not going to say any more than that. Go into it blind. If you like stuff like Your Name, this is a good one to watch.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun- A comedy about a high school girl who finds out the upperclassman she has a crush on is actually a shoujo manga artist, and no matter how she tries to confess to him, he just never gets it.

The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague- A slow burn slice of life that focuses on a guy with ice powers who has a crush on his coworker. That’s it. That’s the show. When I say slow, I mean SLOW. It’s perfectly cute and fluffy, but my god does it take forever to get anywhere with these two.

Skip to Loafer- A high strung, small town girl decides to go to high school in Tokyo, where she meets a variety of classmates, including the laid back Sousuke Shima. The unlikely pair become friends, and soon enough, she starts to feel something more than friendship. The only reason I didn’t include it in the main list is because they don’t get together by the end of the first season, but it’s still really cute (also canonically trans character for the win!?)

So that’s my starter list. And no, I didn’t include Toradora, even though it’s a classic. I know it’s blasphemous, but I like it more as a comedy than a romance. It kinda lost me with the ending. But anyway, maybe someone will find something they like. Or maybe you'll just want to roast me and my picks 😅

[pixelartpeach]

Timeline thought here for me to reference later:

There’s a timeline conundrum I’ve seen recently in which TotK Ganondorf is clearly not OoT Ganondorf, despite other ‘dorfs (Wind Waker, Twilight Princess) being possible logical future versions of OoT Ganondorf.

Consider this:

On either side of Gan here are two identical women, one with a teal cape, one with a red one.

It’s entirely possible that these are the young Twinrova.

If they are, everything falls into place from there. 400ish years later, the Twinrova adopt the latest male Gerudo to be born, and train him in line with their ambitions.

They name him Ganondorf, after the most powerful Gerudo king they’d ever seen, in hopes that he’d emulate their former leader.

Ganondorf Dragmire isn’t the first Ganondorf, but he IS the last.

[pixelartpeach]

[figofswords]

Hyrule’s most fashionable!

[eldragon-x-moved]

honey are you okay youre blasting the pokemon mystery dungeon: blue rescue team ost again

[eldragon-x-moved]

honey are you okay youre blasting the pokemon mystery dungeon: explorers of sky ost again

[eldragon-x-moved]

honey are you okay youre blasting the pokemon mystery dungeon: gates to infinity ost again

[eldragon-x-moved]

honey are you okay youre blasting the pokemon super mystery dungeon ost again

[dizzzypup-deactivated20240415]

The next Legends game (assuming it's coming) is on my brain and god there's so much potential????

Legends Kyurem taking place JUST as the original dragon splits into Reshiram and Zekrom, giving us a glimpse of its true form before then having to play peacemaker between the two kings that forced it apart. Witnessing the construction (and by endgame, completion) of the Relic Castle, which stood as the center of Unovan civilization at the time. Ultimately having to break apart the original dragon when Kyurem attempts to regain its lost power and strike it down for good.

Legends Celebi dropping you in Ilex Forest when Johto is on the cusp of industrial revolution and the region is embroiled in a culture war between that reality and its tradionalist beliefs. Witnessing the Brass Tower burn down and seeing the Legendary Beasts be reborn thanks to Ho-Oh. Appeasing the rampaging Lugia, angered by the destruction of its former place of worship. A final battle on the top of Mt. Silver against a trainer that seems vaguely familiar yet all together out of place in this time.

Legends Zygarde taking you back to the time of AZ and the great war that pushed him to creating the ultimate weapon. Siding with Kalos in the war because obviously, and facing down the invading army using your armoured Pokémon - the game's gimmick, allowing you to buy, craft and equip armour and even weapons to your Pokémon for the fights ahead. Trying and ultimately failing to get AZ to not go through with his plan and having to do everything in your power to try and save as many people and Pokémon as possible. Collecting Zygarde's cells around Kalos as you progress through the war to ultimately have it mitigate the damage from the weapon's blast.

Due to the recency of ORAS, USUM, Sword and Shield, and now Scarlet and Violet - I think it's safe to say these games won't get Legends prequels until much much further down the line, if ever. But even these have potential to be really interesting!

I'm just so enamoured with what they did with Legends Arceus. It took everything we knew about Pokémon and said, "Okay, so here's essentially how the region began and progressed into what it is today, thanks to your influence". It feels so much more impactful and dynamic than the mainline repetition of gathering gym badges and beating the champion. It feels like the evolution (no pun intended) of what the original Pokémon games were:

Weird rpgs about a world inhabited by monsters known as Pokémon.

[owlmylove]

not 2 be controversial on main but i think it’s pretty sad the first major generation to grow up online is projecting their adolescent self-hatred onto the “cringe” generation of tiktokkers

[owlmylove]

did zillennials seriously spend their youth making OC fanart on devart and livejournal and being told “oh look, they finally emerge” by their parents whenever they risked leaving their room only to turn around 10 years later and say “ewwwh you spent hours cosplaying an OC & learning a viral dance in your bedroom? fuckin cringe”

[owlmylove]

like….. did we truly lose sight so quickly of how it was to feel young and disconnected and desperate for someone, anyone, to really listen to you? to feel close to you? how quickly have we become jaded to the joys of carefully, earnestly crafting something alone in a dark bedroom and sharing it with the world, hoping for just one other person to say “that’s how i feel, too”? how much must we hate our younger selves in order to blame the teenagers of the world for creating costumes and dances and dreams for themselves???

[gahdamnpunk]

He’s offering $2k PER ADULT not per household and $1k for everyone below 18

[iammyfather]

enough primaries remain to get him nominated, please if you are in a state then campaign, if not contact people you know that are.

[occasionallywistful]

Bernie’s campaign suspended direct fundraising activities yesterday. Instead, they are asking supporters to donate to Meals on Wheels, No Kid Hungry, Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund, One Fair Wage Emergency Fund, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance:

Meals on Wheels delivers prepared food to seniors all across the country. This is especially important in the pandemic, as seniors are at high risk, and limiting their need to go to the grocery store by delivering these meals is a critical service.

No Kid Hungry makes sure that children get the food they need, especially since schools are closed across the country. Their service is especially important as families who lose their jobs need to keep their kids fed.

Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund is providing direct financial support to restaurant workers who are out of work or have reduced hours because of the pandemic. They are also supporting community organizations of local workers and providing loans to restaurants to re-open when it is safe.

National Domestic Workers Alliance is giving financial support to in-home care workers, nannies, and house cleaners who have to stay home and not work in order to reduce the spread of the virus.

One Fair Wage Emergency Fund gives funds directly to service workers affected by the pandemic, including restaurant, salon, airport, rideshare, and gig economy workers who find themselves out of work or without customers.

These five groups cover a large section of the problems that we are immediately facing as the health crisis creates an economic crisis. While we need to do much, much more as a country, supporting these groups is a good first step to take if you’re able to do so right now.

Living in Missouri, I’m particularly frustrated by the singular and specific lack of leadership form state & local government (I know, I know. I vote, but I’m outnumbered here), and it is strikingly apparent to me that the only clear and decisive leadership we’re seeing on the national stage is here, from Bernie Sanders. Nothing is decided.

[v3nice]

Someone: Are you taken? Me: Ya for granted

[jaubaius]

Vampire and werewolf dating

[runcibility]

OP I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T CREDIT THIS, BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH MORE!

This is an ongoing series by @sarahseeandersen called “Fangs” - it’s absolutely worth following and keeping up with!

https://tapas.io/episode/1559785

[cottoncandyinsides]

Sharing the credited version!

[inficetegodwottery]

[phuntasm]

[dreyar]

[beachgothgay]

The ides of March is coming up what’s everyone getting me?

[emperor-ing-deactivated20191108]

[im-a-fully-realized-creation]

[starsiignals]

i never understood how we’ve reinvented heiroglyphics until now

[hazzardcountysheriffsoffice]

me and my squad on our way to fucking get you

[may]

me, drinking wine, listening to Lana del Rey, and spending $50 on Amazon lingerie: Aphrodite, this is for you girl.

[hotcommunist-deactivated2019032]

this is the funniest shit I have ever seen in my life….catholics are out here memeing better than I ever could

[just-shower-thoughts]

Imagine how much historical knowledge wasn’t written down because our ancestors thought: “What idiot isn’t going to know this?”

[libertarian--princess-deactivat]

So ancient Egypt’s best friend basically was called Punt. They traded all kinds of fun stuff with them; ebony, incense, gold, silver, myrrh, leopard skins, baboons for pets… and the Egyptians wrote a lot about the land, the people living there, what their houses looked like, records of trading expeditions to there (like, robust, oceangoing ships with thousands of men); they wrote down everything imaginable about this place… except for where it actually was.

We still to this day have no geographic fix on this ancient empire’s whereabouts, because what idiot wouldn’t know, right?

[snipertrifle]

Until the 1850s British condiment sets came with bottles for oil and vinegar, and three spice containers for salt, pepper and…nobody knows. Potentially mustard, but it’s just a guess because no one ever wrote it down.

[elidyce]

And this is why historians love, really love, those incredibly dull people who write in their diary every day about what they wore and what they had for dinner and how many miles away their friend Mr So-And-So’s house is in that one village. Because they are the only ones who *do* write down what was in the third spice jar, how many miles away this now-nonexistent village was and so on. Seriously, the diaries of really dull people are HISTORICAL TREASURES OF OTHERWISE LOST MINUTIAE.

Somewhere out there there is almost certainly a diary that would expose the true contents of that third spice jar because of the one time it was low and this person had to have a quiet word with the butler or something and it was the most interesting thing that happened all week so they wrote it down. And I hope that diary is found someday because now I really want to know.

[vi0letl0ve-deactivated20200525]

That’s weirdly heart warming. Like, even if you are incredibly dull and live a normal boring life, you still might be the most interesting person to some historian some day

[metalloprotease]

I’ve done some reenactment cooking, and there is one Renaissance European cookbook author who left us a trove of recipes but when he got to vegetables said, essentially, I’m not going to waste your time on that, women know how to prepare them. And so we have no fucking idea about which vegetables they were eating in that particular context, or how.

ETA: It was Le Viandier de Taillevent, and the actual line supposedly translates as, “women are experts with these and anyone knows how to do them.” (http://www.godecookery.com/how2cook/howto01.htm)

[petermorwood]

If the third spice container in a cruet-set was for mustard it would usually be a standard lid-and-spoon mustard pot. This one’s from the 1840s, though I’ve seen a photo of a Georgian one from the late 1780s which looked just like it.

Mostly they were too big to be included in the set, because mustard was used in larger quantities than anything else. ”Spices, Salt & Aromatics in the English Kitchen” by Elizabeth David © 1970, mentions the medieval Goodman of Paris recommending that a wedding party of forty persons needed two quarts of mustard. This dropped off a bit as time went on, but even modern mustard-pots (check Google Image) are much larger than the salt-n-pepper. Not that mustard gets eaten in quantity, just taken from the pot. J.J. Coleman, founder of the U.K.’s best known mustard company, once said: “I make my money from the mustard people leave on the side of their plate.”

So that third container may have been for sugar. Here’s a vintage cruet-set with, going clockwise, a bottle almost certainly for vinegar, a single-hole pourer for salt, a multi-hole shaker for pepper, and a taller multi-hole with larger holes that I’m convinced is a sugar-caster (from which we get caster sugar…). But sugar as a table condiment?

C. Anne Wilson’s © 1973 “Food and Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to the 19th Century” quotes numerous recipes using sugar as a garnish on savoury dishes (trout in wine, roast mutton with herb stuffing, various others), and even uses the term “flavour enhancer”. It sounds like sugar was the MSG of Renaissance and Early Modern England, and the US palate’s fondness for adding sweetness to savoury - such as pouring syrup onto a breakfast of waffles, bacon and sausage - is an absolute match to the historical flavour combination. Actual historical information can be overwhelmed by the business of “not writing down what everyone knows”, since it bounces off “what is written down leads to what everyone thinks they know.” 

Take “medieval” and “bathing” - two words that “everyone thinks” are mutually incompatible, reinforced by desaturated movies, dingy costumes, “There’s some lovely filth over here!” and of course “How do you know he’s a king…?”

The usual proof that medieval people were dirty was the infrequency of baths noted in household journals, since stuff like “This being All Hallows’ Eve, my Lady did take her bath”, with similar entries few and far between, indicated that so was washing.

You could apply the same rule to the present day, and be wrong. Moderns, @dduane and I among them, take daily showers but might not have an actual full-tub bath from one month’s end to the next. Just waiting for the thing to fill takes as long as a hasty freshen-up shower (though I’m sure other taps work faster than ours) and uses far more of the household hot-water supply, so just hopping in, scrubbing and hopping out again after all that seems a bit wasteful. Why not make a meal of it? Literally…

“More bread, more wine, more hot water?”

I’ve even heard baths described as unhygienic because you’re lying in your own dirty water. That’s only if you’re actually using the bath for washing in. We (I don’t think we’re the only ones) shower first because we don’t actually wash in the tub, we soak, we laze, we luxuriate, and a book and a glass of wine feature more prominently than soap or shampoo.

This time-wasting Deadly Sin of Luxury was one of the things that got bathing a bad name; also that bathing reminded the bather of Certain Parts of The Body and the sinful but fun things that might be done with them.

“Your place or mine?”

Then and now…

The first article linked at the bottom notes that (a) the monks of Westminster Abbey were required to have a bath four times a year, but (b) that the Abbey retained a full-time bath attendant who had a yearly stipend and a daily bread allowance. Why “full-time” and “daily” if he was only needed four times a year? I have a feeling those four baths were a formal religious observance (two were at Christmas and Easter) but the monks had far less elaborate washes far more frequently.

There were numerous medieval public bathhouses (frowned upon by the Church since Nakedness led to Nookie), but “taking a (private) bath” in the days before piped water and drainage plugs was a serious, disruptive performance in any household, well worth noting down. The bath had to be hauled out, or maybe even constructed from separate parts like a barrel, then enough hot water to fill it had to be heated and carried to the bower or private chamber. Likewise with the cold water, which at least didn’t need heating.

“Knock, knock, are you decent? Oops, sorreee…”

In those circumstances husband and wife sharing a “save-water” bath was common, and there’s reason to think the rest of the family took their turn, with top-ups of hot water as required. Since this was a bathe-for-luxury rather than wash-for-clean (that bit happened before the hot soak, Japanese style) the water didn’t get grubby, but there are some theories that one-tub-for-all may be the origin of “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”. IMO it’s a little too neat, but YMMV.

Old-style wooden tubs are still available, and I can imagine with great pleasure how long this one would keep the water hot (that angled thing is a backrest, padded when in use.)

After the bath was done, all the water had to be carried back downstairs again (if not flung out of a window, bucket by bucket) the bath put away, spills mopped up, and of course the staff had also to make time for all their regular chores as well. Small wonder such an event got noted and logged with a subtext of relief that it wouldn’t happen again for a couple of months.

“Is that the loofah?” “No, but don’t stop scrubbing…”

I have a feeling that ordinary keep-clean washing was much simpler, and happened far more often. It needs just two buckets, a washcloth, a basin and a towel. Stand in the basin, wet the washcloth, wash with water from one bucket, rinse with water from the other bucket, dry off with the towel. Done. If necessary you could get away with just one bucket, so long as you didn’t let the water in it get too soiled. This process was far less disruptive and wasn’t entered into the household accounts, any more than noting every visit to the well or firewood stack.

We actually proved this could be managed a few years ago, when our shower mixer tap broke and the local hardware store couldn’t source a replacement for a week. So we used our garden bucket, our kitchen bucket, a washcloth, a sponge, and stood in the bathtub instead of a basin. It wasn’t as refreshing as a shower, but used far less water than even a partially-full tub and kept us throughly clean until the mixer tap was fixed. (We’ve since bought one of those hand-shower things that go on the bath taps, and of course now we’ve got it we’ve never needed it.)

More about the subject here. And here. And here. And here.

[ultrafacts]

Source: [x]

Click HERE for more facts

[legovasavouchi]

Okay so I went to the source article and here’s the paragraph where the guy tells his secret:

First, there was their daily diet: on top of dry commercial cat food, a home-cooked breakfast of eggs, turkey bacon, broccoli, coffee with cream, and—every two days—about an eyedropper full of red wine to “circulate the arteries.” Then there was his effort to ensure the cats were sufficiently stimulated: a garage he’d converted into a home movie theater, with a working reel-to-reel projector and actual movie theater seats, where Perry screens nature documentaries exclusively for the cats (with previews, he added). Last, and perhaps most important, he swore that love and close, personal relationships helped his cats live longer. Perry adored his cats so much, he remembered each of their birthdays.

[zorko-transhumanist]

Blessed cat dad

[piperderg-deactivated20221106]

Please boost this!

[fairycontessa]

From the website’s FAQ:

“Who is this for? Full Cart is perfect for hard working individuals and families looking for a way to extend their grocery budget.

Why is there no charge for the groceries? Full Cart partners with generous companies and organizations you know and love to cover the cost of your meals. All you pay is shipping.“

This makes my heart happy (and less stressed)

[jay-kwellyn]

Stay blessed y’all