Revolutionary Girl UtenaĪn anime that launched a thousand term papers, Revolutionary Girl Utena is a complex, thoughtful coming-of-age story that subverts classic fairy tale archetypes and examines some seriously heavy themes in a mixture of magical girl-meets-fantasy. Although Takeo presumes that Rinko has a crush on his best friend like everyone else, he soon learns that love stories come in all shapes and sizes–even for towering beefcastles like himself.
But all that seems to change after Takeo saves a young woman, Rinko Yamato, from a creep on the train. To make matters worse for Takeo romantically, most of the ladies at his high school are exponentially more attracted to his handsome best friend, Makoto. No, he’s what scientists would refer to as “a towering beefcastle.” Although his hulking size and brute strength make him popular with the other boys at school, they scare most of the girls away. Takeo Gouda isn’t your average high school student. I know it sounds kind of like a lost episode of Black Mirror, but like most CLAMP series, it’s well worth your time.
When he turns it on, she can only say one word: “Chii.” With no memory and no existing programming, Hideki begins to teach Chii about the world and gets caught up in a deadly mystery along the way: Chii might not be just another robot she could be a legendary Chobit, an android capable of real human emotion and thought. It’s a little hornier than most of the entries on this list, but who am I to judge? As a broke college student, Hideki Motosuwa can’t afford a persocom…until he finds one lying in the trash. Chobits is a weird sci-fi romance about a world in which people can buy expensive androids called “persocoms” that basically function as personal assistants. ChobitsĪre you into ‘bot stuff? No, get your mind out of the gutter. Is this the only love story involving a violinist in this article? I’d tell you, but that’s a spoiler. Although they try to bully Tsukushi and declare war on her, her resilience earns the F4’s respect and more importantly for the purposes of this episode, the affections of one in particular, the sensitive violinist Rui Hanazawa. Even more unlike the rest of the students, she doesn’t put up with any crap from the Flower Four, the powerful students who are the de facto rulers of the school, especially when they pick on her friend. Unlike the rest of the students at Eitoku, she can barely afford to be there.
Hana Yori Dangoīetter known as Boys Over Flowers, Hana Yori Dango is the story of Makino Tsukushi, a student at the prestigious Eitoku Academy, an elite school that caters to the obscenely rich. What starts as a rivalry soon blossoms into something deeper and what follows is a disarming, thoughtful romance about being honest with yourself that will force you to be honest about the fact that you lowkey love this series. At least she was until she goes to high school and gets scholastically dunked on by Soichiro Arima. It’s the story of Yukino Miyazawa, an egotistical perfectionist who has always been at the top of her class. Have you ever wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was? What if you WERE the very best, then the equivalent of Gary Motherlovin’ Oak blew up your spot and stole the title? But then what if you kind of fell in love with Gary Masterblastin’ Oak? That’s basically what happens in His and Her Circumstances.