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Romance is a genre that features a number of films because people always want to see the drama and the sweet love story between two protagonists. ‘Romance’ can be considered as one of the top genres when it comes to Japanese Anime films. So, if you’re looking for the best romance anime movies, this article is for you.
Here are the best romance anime movies for lovers of romance!
Whisper of the Heart (1995)
Director: Yoshifumi Kondo
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis
Cast: Yoko Honna, Issei Takahashi, Takashi Tachibana
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
Whisper of the Heart is one of the best high school romance anime movies and appears among the top 10 romance anime movies. Shizuku is a girl who spends most of her time studying so she can get into a good university. During one evening, when she’s walking back home, she sees two people passing by on a motorcycle with an open case behind them.
Your Name (2016)
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Writer: Makoto Shinkai
Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi, Ryō Narita
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
Your Name is one of the fantasy romance anime movies available today. It was even nominated for an Oscar this year. The movie follows a boy and a girl who have completely different lives, but suddenly they start switching bodies. Try to watch Your Name before someone spoils it for you!
Also Read: Best Fantasy Movies to watch in Canada
5 Centimetres Per Second (2007)
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Writer: Makoto Shinkai Cast: Kana Hanazawa
Cast: Kenji Mizuhashi, Yoshimi Kondou, Satomi Hanamura
IMDb Rating: 7.6/10 5
Centimeters Per Second is a series of beautiful stories with plots that revolve around love in the past, present, and future. Although it’s not specifically romantic anime movies, it’s definitely one of the best romance anime movies.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Writer: Satoko Okudera
Cast: Riisa Naka, Takuya Ishida, Mitsutaka Itakura
IMDb Rating: 7.7/10
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a story about a girl who travels back in time and meets her 17-year-old self. She has a lot of fun in the past with her younger friends, but she soon realizes that changing the past can have dangerous consequences in the present day.
A Silent Voice (2016)
Director: Naoko Yamada
Writer: Reiko Yoshida
Cast: Miyu Irino, Saori Hayami, Aoyi Yuki
IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
A Silent Voice is a touching story about bullying and friendship. It is one of the sad romantic anime movies you’ll ever watch. Based on the manga by Yoshitoki Oima, this anime movie is about a girl who can’t hear and a boy who cares for her.
From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)
Director: Gorō Miyazaki
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki, Keiko Niwa, Tetsuro Tayama
Cast: Sarah Bolger, Anton Yelchin, Chris Noth
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
From Up on Poppy Hill is a heart-warming family film about friendship and love during the ’60s in Japan. It’s based on the manga of the same name by Tetsurō Sayama and Chizuru Takahashi. This is among the best romance anime movies you need to watch.
The Anthem of the Heart (2015)
Director: Tatsuyuki Nagai
Writer: Mari Okada, Chouheiwa Busters
Cast: Inori Minase, Koki Uchiyama, Sora Aramiya
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
Jun Naruse is a girl who has never made friends or had a boyfriend in all her life. One day, she opens up to the idea of love and friendship while attending high school and singing in the choir club with three other girls: Kanade Amamiya, Koharu Seto, and Natsuki Nitō. The four girls will soon come together to make an amateur anime movie.
Castle in the Sky (1986)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: Mayumi Tanaka, Keiko Yokozawa, Kotoe Hatsui
IMDb Rating: 8.0/10
During the mid-1980s, the legendary golden castle Laputa is found floating in a sea of clouds. People try to reach it and gain their lost fortunes back, but a mad industrialist wants to use the castle’s powers to take over the world.
The Cat Returns
Director: Hiroyuki Morita
Writer: Aoi Hiiragi
Cast: Chizuru Ikewaki, Yoshihiko Hakamada, Aki Maeda
IMDb Rating: 7.2/10
One day she saves the life of a cat, and the cat repays her by taking her to an alternate reality where her parents are alive, and she did not die as an infant.
Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writer: Diana Wynne Jones, Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: Takura Kimura, Christian Bale, Chieko Baisho
IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
A young hatter named Sophie encounters a wizard named Howl on her way to visit her sister Lettie. This encounter overturns her life since the evil Witch of the Waste curses her into an old woman’s body. Following the suggestion of a fortune teller, she then seeks out Howl and his moving castle. This is among the best romance anime movies you need to watch.
Doukyuusei (2016)
Director: Shoko Nakamura
Writer: Asumiko Nakamura
Cast: Hideo Ishikawa, Hiroshi Kamiya, Kenji Nojima
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
The movie is a story about an all-female high school class and a male student who becomes its sole member. At first, the girls in the class resent having a boy among them and ignore him. But as time goes by, they start taking an interest in their new classmate.
Kimi no Na wa (2016)
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Writer: Makoto Shinkai, Clark Cheng
Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi, Ryô Narita
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
The story centers around Taki, a high school boy living in Tokyo who works part-time at a restaurant, and Mitsuha, a high school girl living in a town in rural Japan who wants to live in the city. It is among the best high school romance anime movies that you need to watch.
Mimi Wo Sumaseba (1995) (Whisper of the Heart)
Director: Yoshifumi Kondô
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis
Cast:Issey Takahashi, Yoko Honna, Takashi Tachibana
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
The movie is about Shizuku, a junior high school student who is introduced to Seiji Amasawa, an enigmatic boy who enjoys spending time in the library. Shizuku meets Seiji again at the library and learns that he loves writing short stories. Inspired by his example, Shizuku sets off to find her own inspiration for a story before entering high school.
Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend (2015)
Director: Kanta Kamei
Writer: Fumiaki Maruto, Kurehito Misaki
Cast: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Kiyono Yasuno, Chinatsu Akasaki
IMDb Rating: 6.9/10
This is among the sad romantic anime movies you need to watch. Tomoya Aki is an otaku who is working part-time to earn money to buy anime. One day, he is recruited as a galge scenario writer by an acquaintance of his, but from there on, it starts going totally wrong for him.
Tamako Love Story (2014)
Director: Naoko Yamada
Writer: Reiko Yoshida, Marta Bechtol
Cast: Aya Suzaki, Kouki Uchiyama, Atsushi Tamaru
IMDb Rating: 7.1/10
The movie is set one year after the events of Tamako Market, when everyone is preparing for the new school year in their own way. Tamako and her friends must deal with the change in their lives caused by their impending graduation from high school. What will happen once they all go their separate ways? Will Mochizou’s confession to Tamako be fulfilled?
Hotarubi no Mori e (2011) (Into the Forest of Fireflies’ Light)
Director: Takahiro Omori
Writer: Yuki Midorikawa, Takahiro Omori
Cast: Koki Uchiyama, Ayane Sakura, Shimpaji Tsuji
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
A young woman named Hotaru Takegawa lives with her mother near a forest inhabited by mythical creatures called “yokai.” During the summer, she encounters and befriends a masked yokai who has saved her life on multiple occasions.
Zuto Mae Kara Suki Deshita (2016)
Director: Tetsuya Yanagisawa
Writer: HoneyWorks, Yoshimi Narita
Cast: Sora Amamiya, Momo Asakura, Kana Asumi
IMDb Rating: 6.5/10
A girl, Hatsune Minase, is an avid otaku and anime fan. When she was a child, her parents had divorced due to unknown circumstances. After entering high school, she finally musters up the courage to confess her love to her childhood friend Hiromi Yuasa. However, before she gets the chance to do so, she discovers a shocking truth about him.
Nijiiro Days (2016)
Director: Tetsuya Yanagisawa
Writer: Kazune Kawahara
Cast: Nao Toyama, Nobunaga Shimazaki, Takuya Eguchi
IMDb Rating: 6.9/10
The story revolves around a group of four male high school students who are close friends: Natsuki Hashiba, a soccer genius who is bad at dealing with people; Tsuyoshi Naoe, a former swimming champion who loves video games; Tetsuya Sakurai, an energetic otaku who is currently living alone thanks to his parents’ job transfer; and “Kat”-chan (real name withheld), their mysterious classmate who never attends school and is rumored to be an extreme shut-in. The story follows the four boys as they hang out and cope with their first loves.
Escaflowne (1996)
Director: Kazuki Akane
Writer: Shoji Kawamori, Kazuki Akane
Cast: Kelly Sheridan, Jocelyn Loewen, Venus Terzo
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
Hitomi is a schoolgirl distressed by her psychic visions of impending doom. She is startled to witness a guy physically battling his inner demons wearing an outfit that looks strikingly familiar … what she sees also matches the tattoo on her own back! At school, his path crosses with hers again when the popular yet mysterious Van appears before her.
Sakasama no Patema (2013)
Director: Yasuhiro Yoshiura
Writer: Yasuhiro Yoshiura
Cast: Yukiyo Fuuji, Nabuhiko Okamoto, Shintaro Oohata
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
Patema lives in the world known as “Sky Island” and is bored with her life above the clouds. On a routine exploration of the area, she meets a boy named Age who has fallen from the ground and discovers that they have an unusual ability to affect each other’s gravity with just a touch.
Umi ga kikoeru (2015)
Director: Naoko Yamada
Writer: Reiko Yoshida
Cast: Takahiro Sakurai, Saori Hayami, Miyu Irino
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
Plot: Shouya Ishida is a boy who has suffered through horrific bullying. Now entering high school, he is attempting to restore fragments of his shattered dream of being an up-and-coming Bōsōzoku gang member with help from newfound friends. Shouya’s life gets turned upside down when the class representative themself learns that he has yet to renew his “Kita High School Life Application” and therefore must attend a remedial class/curriculum for students at risk of dropping out.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Director: Satoshi Kon
Writer: Hitoshi One
Cast: Tori Emori, Yoshiaki Umegaki, Aya Okamoto
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
Three homeless people find an abandoned newborn on Christmas Eve and set out to find its parents, encountering more than their fair share of urban oddities on the way. This is one of the best romance anime movies you need to include in your list.
Giovanni’s Island (2014)
Director: Mizuho Nishikubo
Writer: Shigemichi Sugita, Wendee Lee, Yoshiki Sakurai
Cast: Tatsuya, Nakadai, Yukie Nakama, Yusuke Santamaria
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
While the Russo-Japanese War rages between two empires and their respective allies, brothers Yoshi and Tatsu find themselves embarking on an adventure to rescue a fellow villager. The journey leads them from Japan to Russia and back as they experience many sides of the war—from its tragedy to its absurdities—and form bonds with those they encounter along the way.
