Top 10 Friends To Lovers Anime (2024)

There are many great romances born out of anime; some have characters hating each other initially but then slowly falling in love. Other anime will have coworkers slowly catching feelings for one another and developing a deeper relationship over time.

While some of these stories may feel a bit overused at times, there is one trope that no-one is getting tired of any time soon, and that is friends to lovers. From stories of childhood sweethearts to enemies-friends-lovers, there is something for every taste.

***SPOILER ALERT: This list contains spoilers on the endings of various anime! ***

10 Adachi And Shimamura

Adachi And Shimamura has two high school students skipping class and having a fateful encounter at the gym. The two girls quickly become friends and hang out daily together.

One of them, though, starts developing romantic feelings for the other. The problem is Shimamura sees Adachi initially only as a friend. The anime powerfully showcases two girls slowly falling for each other and the challenges LGBTQIA+ members face in Japan.

9 Toradora!

Toradora! is an anime that could also qualify for the enemies-to-lovers category. Still, as Taiga and Ryuuji form an alliance, they quickly become allies and friends. They slowly develop a deeper bond by helping each other to confess to their respective crushes.

It takes time and a slight push from their friends for both of them to acknowledge their new feelings. When they do, their relationship starts changing, and they grow even closer.

8 Cardcaptor Sakura

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of the best 90s anime, with action, drama, and romance. The story follows a young magical girl doing her best to collect cards she accidentally released into the world.

While completing her mission, she is also a young maiden in love with her brother's best friend. That romance, though, does not bear fruit. As the story progresses, she slowly develops romantic feelings for her childhood friend and rival, Syaoran.

7 Love Hina

Love Hina fulfills many of the typical comedy harem tropes but has the protagonist choosing one girl at the end. When still just a child, Keitaro Urashima promised his girl best friend to meet each other again at the University of Tokyo.

While Keitaro remembers the promise, he has forgotten who the girl was. A story of misunderstanding begins, with him forming relationships with various girls. In the end, though, you get a beautiful friends-to-lovers finale.

6 Blue Spring Ride

Blue Spring Ride follows the story of a young girl being bullied and ostracized by her classmates due to her excessive beauty. Now in high school, Futaba decides to act as unfeminine as possible to not garner any negative attention to herself.

While lying to herself that she is happy, everything changes when a transfer student joins Futaba's class. Both used to be each other's first loves, but their personalities have changed ever since. The two slowly start reconnecting and become something more than friends.

5 Lovely Complex

Lovely Complex is a great example of friends and classmates slowly falling in love. When the series starts, Risa and Atsushi don't have the greatest relationship, but after some hardships and challenges, they grow closer.

The duo become good friends, always being together and joking. At some point, though, they realize that despite their physical differences, they have developed romantic feelings for each other, giving viewers one of the best anime confessions of all time.

4 Sweet Blue Flowers

Compared to other anime, Sweet Blue Flowers does not offer grandiose love confessions nor cliffhanger endings; on the contrary, it tells the story of two close childhood friends getting separated when one moves away.

Years later, Fumi returns to her hometown to attend high school and gets reunited with Akira. Their old friendship resurfaces. Akira helps Fumi discover who she is as a person, which has Fumi realizing her romantic feelings for her friend. Instead of pressuring her friend for a relationship, Fumi is happy to be close to Akira.

3 Fruits Basket

Fruits Basket is a masterpiece of shoujo anime, with a great cast of characters, each with their own quirks and backstories. They all showcase fantastic character development, overcoming their fears and traumas.

Tohru, the heroine, is a young girl struggling with self-esteem issues and the trauma of losing her loved ones. Despite all that, she decides to move forward. During the series, she forms many friendships with the people around her and a deeper one with Kyo. The duo falls in love and even marries at the end of the series.

2 Wotakoi: Love Is Hard For Otaku

If you want to watch an anime where childhood friends reunite years later as working adults, Wotakoi is the perfect choice. Narumi and Hirataka used to be inseparable as children, but as they grew older, they naturally drifted apart.

After coincidentally meeting at their office, they start hanging out together again. While Narumi continuously complains to Hirataka about the difficulty of finding a partner with the same otaku interests, he confesses, and they start dating.

1 Tamako Market

Tamako Market is a great slice-of-life anime with beautiful romance elements. The story focuses mainly on Tamako Kitashirakawa, a young girl helping her family run a mochi store.

One of her best friends is the boy next door, Mochizo Oji, who has always had a crush on Tamako. After many hardships and ordeals, the boy successfully confesses to Tamako, and the duo starts dating.

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