The 29 Best Slow-Burn Romance Anime

Slow-burn anime romance rewards patience: some of these couples spend seasons teasing before anyone admits a thing, while others drift together through grief, music or palace intrigue.

1. 1
   Maid Sama!

   A strict student council president hides her part-time maid café job, and the one boy who discovers it refuses to stop pursuing her.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Toradora!

   A 2008 series where a fierce small girl and a gentle-faced delinquent team up to win each other's crushes and slowly fall for one another.
   967pts
3. 3
   Honey and Clover

   A bittersweet story of art-school students tangled in one-sided crushes that take years to resolve, or never do.
   666pts
4. 4
   Kamisama Kiss

   A homeless girl unexpectedly becomes a land god and slowly wins over her prickly fox-demon familiar.
   666pts
5. 5
   Bloom Into You

   A girl who has never felt romantic love and the student council senpai who falls for her navigate a delicate yuri romance.
   666pts
6. 6
   Clannad: After Story

   Kyoto Animation's sequel that follows Tomoya and Nagisa from a hesitant school romance into adulthood, marriage and loss.
   590pts
7. 7
   My Happy Marriage

   An abused daughter is sent to marry a feared military commander, and their arranged match warms into tender devotion.
   590pts
8. 8
   Your Lie in April

   A grieving piano prodigy is pulled back into music by a free-spirited violinist, and his feelings for her grow on borrowed time.
   590pts
9. 9
   Komi Can't Communicate

   A girl with extreme social anxiety tries to make 100 friends, and the ordinary boy who helps her becomes far more than one.
   590pts
10. 10
    Fruits Basket

    The 2019 adaptation of the shojo classic in which Tohru Honda's bond with the cursed Sohma family grows into a hard-won romance.
    500pts
11. 11
    Spice and Wolf

    A travelling merchant and a wolf deity haggle their way across a medieval-style world while their partnership turns into love.
    500pts
12. 12
    The Apothecary Diaries

    A sharp-witted palace apothecary solves poisonings in the imperial court while a handsome eunuch's interest in her keeps going unreturned.
    500pts
13. 13
    Kimi ni Todoke

    A shy girl misjudged as creepy by classmates and the popular boy who notices her inch toward each other one misunderstanding at a time.
    388pts
14. 14
    Teasing Master Takagi-san

    A middle-school comedy where Takagi's daily teasing of Nishikata hides a quiet, patient affection that takes three seasons to surface.
    388pts
15. 15
    March Comes in Like a Lion

    A lonely teenage shogi pro finds a second family in three sisters, with a romance that builds almost imperceptibly.
    388pts
16. 16
    Yona of the Dawn

    A sheltered princess forced to flee her palace grows into a leader beside the loyal bodyguard who has long loved her.
    388pts
17. 17
    Lovely Complex

    The tallest girl and the shortest boy in class trade insults like a comedy duo until one of them realises it is love.
    388pts
18. 18
    Hyouka

    An energy-conserving student and a relentlessly curious classmate solve small school mysteries as unspoken feelings gather.
    388pts
19. 19
    Blue Spring Ride

    A girl reunites in high school with her middle-school crush, now distant and changed, and tries to reach him again.
    388pts
20. 20
    Nodame Cantabile

    A perfectionist conducting student and a chaotic piano genius grow together, musically and romantically, at a Tokyo conservatory.
    388pts
21. 21
    Insomniacs After School

    Two sleepless high schoolers reopen an abandoned observatory as a hideout and fall for each other under the night sky.
    388pts
22. 22
    Snow White with the Red Hair

    A herbalist with striking red hair flees to a neighbouring kingdom and grows close to its second prince through mutual respect.
    0pts
23. 23
    The Dangers in My Heart

    An edgy loner who fantasises about violence slowly realises he is falling for the cheerful model in his class.
    0pts
24. 24
    Skip and Loafer

    A country girl starting school in Tokyo and an easygoing former child actor drift from friendship toward something more.
    0pts
25. 25
    Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

    A romantic comedy about two proud student council leaders who scheme for years to make the other confess first.
    0pts
26. 26
    Maison Ikkoku

    Rumiko Takahashi's 1986 series about a hapless student's years-long courtship of the young widowed manager of his boarding house.
    0pts
27. 27
    My Dress-Up Darling

    A doll-making high schooler and a gyaru cosplay fan bond over costumes while he stays hopelessly oblivious to her feelings.
    0pts
28. 28
    Tomo-chan Is a Girl!

    A tomboy spends the whole series trying to get her lifelong best friend to see her as a girl rather than a buddy.
    0pts
29. 29
    Blue Box

    A badminton player harbours a crush on the basketball-star senior who ends up living under his family's roof.
    0pts

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