Shonen anime is best known to just about everyone for its larger-than-life fights and characters who clearly embody good and evil, but there’s a lot more to the demographic than these. That said, there’s a lot more to shonen anime than just superpowers and determination.
Some of the most energetic and epic scaled shonen anime also make time for genuine emotions, while others are romantic stories that were just gift-wrapped in shonen anime trappings. As a result, these anime have more substance than what first impressions may suggest.
10 Sword Art Online Became A Family Drama
Sword Art Online starts out as a survival story set in a video game, where Kirito and countless other players are trapped in the eponymous game. Despite that, the anime gives more focus to Kirito and Asuna’s relationship, so much so that the anime is more of a romantic isekai than anything else. Unfortunately, their love was more detrimental than emotionally satisfying.
More often than not, the relationship got in the way of more interesting things and emotional stakes. Examples include: ALfheim Online’s Fairy King Oberon kidnapping Asuna for a predictable save-the-princess finale, and Kirito and Asuna stopping Season 1 to start a family with Yui. Kirito and Asuna’s romance is still Sword Art Online’s core, but not always for the better.
9 Darling In The Franxx Puts A Relationship At The Center Of Its Universe
Darling In The Franxx is primarily a post-apocalyptic mecha anime, but love is what really drives its story. In a very literal sense, love is the center of Darling In The Franxx’s universe. This isn’t just because of the affection and sexual tension felt among the teenaged pilots of Squad 13, but the romance of Hiro and Zero Two – which is too pure for a sinful, war-torn Earth.
In fact, it’s so pure that it can only blossom in the endlessness of space, where they become one being to end the VIRM’s threat for good. Even death can’t stop the loving, as Hiro and Zero Two are reincarnated 1,000 years later to restart their romance free of war. Darling In The Franxx is really more about how the power of love can change life, the universe, and everything.
8 Gundam SEED Is A Love Story With Robot Wars
Romance has always been a part of Mobile Suit Gundam, but it’s never the priority. This changed in Gundam SEED, which is really more of a story about how love can survive on a battlefield than a commentary about the horrors of mechanized warfare. The main pairings are Kira/Lacus and Athrun/Cagalli, though it’s the former that has the most prominence and/or notoriety.
Kira and Lacus’ love was shown as a thing of such beauty that it either endeared viewers or annoyed them – there is no middle ground. The sequel Gundam SEED Destiny doubled down on this, where they’re already a couple. Free of courtship’s challenges, Kira and Lacus only existed in the anime to end the very concept of war by loving each other so much.
7 Beastars Combines Film Noir With High School Love
Thanks to its violence and focus on multiple burgeoning love lives, Beastars is often mistaken for a seinen romance. In reality, Beastars is a shonen story that became its magazine’s flagship title. In a world of anthropomorphic animals, the awkward wolf Legoshi fights his carnivorous side so that he can pursue the love of his life: the dwarf rabbit Haru.
That said, Legoshi and Haru’s relationship constantly takes a backseat to the bigger picture. In Season 2, Legoshi’s angst is driven by the fact that he can’t make time for Haru due to his commitments to the Black Market, among other things. Even so, their growing love and its interspecies implications remain the emotional core of Beastars.
6 Future Diary Has A Bloodstained Romance
As the progenitor of the modern death game anime, Future Diary is the last place one would expect to find humanity and compassion. And yet, these are what form its emotional core. For reasons explained late in the anime, Yuno has a demented romantic obsession for the unassuming Yuki, and she kills whoever gets in the way of their love.
As the fight for godhood escalates, Yuki and Yuno’s love only strengthens – even if it started with a murder. More time is dedicated to their growing love than the game’s progress, which is really more of a roadblock to Yuno’s romantic aspirations. So great is their love that it transcends parallel worlds, as Yuki and Yuno finally make things official in a new reality of their making.
5 Ranma ½ Set The Formula For Romantic Comedy Anime
Ranma ½ is the unquestionable progenitor of the modern rom-com anime, especially those of the harem variety. When Ranma isn’t kicking someone’s face or training, he’s engaging in gender-bending shenanigans thanks to a magic hot spring’s spell, or he’s trying to avoid yet another romantic confession from another rival who fell for his female form.
The anime overtook the manga, forcing the animators to create filler arcs that were almost always rom-com events. This eventually overshadowed Ranma’s quest to become a top martial artist, while also redefining the anime. It isn’t surprising that fans remember Ranma ½ more for the Ranma and Akane’s will-they-won’t-they hijinks than the kung-fu.
4 InuYasha Is A Time-Travelling Romantic Fantasy
On paper, InuYasha is a sprawling adventure set in a magical version of Feudal Japan. That said, the never-ending rivalry of InuYasha and Naraku does little to cover up the anime’s romantic leanings. The anime’s true crux rests on the adventurer party’s main shippings, namely InuYasha/Kagome and Miroku/Sango.
Each couple’s relationship status got more fan investment than the search for the jewel shards and whatever Sesshomaru was really up to. Truth be told, Kagome and InuYasha finally kissing in the (possibly) non-canon second movie – The Castle Beyond The Looking Glass – got a stronger reaction than InuYasha and friends finally beating the immovable Band of Seven.
3 Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun Transcends Shonen & Shojo Conventions
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun is a parodic celebration of rom-coms, which makes determining its demographic more challenging than expected. Despite it becoming one of the most definitive anime romances of recent memory, Chiyo’s pursuit of the unbelievably dense mangaka Nozaki is officially classified as a shonen title.
While it spoofs shojo manga and how it’s made, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun is practically a misplaced shojo title. It still takes the focal relationships seriously, even if the cast lampoons the genre’s character clichés and stereotypes. This mild confusion isn’t a detriment at all, as it only shows how much both sexes love Chiyo and Nozaki’s silly hijinks.
2 A Silent Voice Takes The Long Road To Love & Reconciliation
Despite its seinen-level themes that include conquering years of self-loathing and suicidal tendencies, A Silent Voice is a shonen drama about high school life’s difficulties meant for a teenage audience. At the center of it all is the growing romance between reforming bully Shoya and Shoko, the hearing-impaired girl he used to torment.
Throughout the movie, Shoya struggles to forgive himself. Befriending Shoko, gaining her trust, and eventually, forgiveness and affection are his way of reconciling with his horrible past, but it’s not an easy road to take. Unlike the previous examples here, A Silent Voice’s take on love is more cathartic and mature than just young love or a happy crush.
1 The Flowers Of Evil Is A Twisted Kind Of Love
Believe it or not, The Flowers Of Evil is a (very dark) shonen title that technically counts as a romance – albeit of the subversive kind. Where almost every shonen love story is wholesome regardless of the characters’ backstories, the love triangle of Takao, Sawa, and Nanako is one defined by lies, perversion, and ulterior motives.
The Flowers Of Evil is a school-based romance taken to its darkest recesses. Beneath the anime’s nihilistic screeds about society’s indifference to the youth and an overbearing darkness is a strange emotional sincerity, where Takao and Sawa connect by relishing in taboos. It may be a twisted romance, but it’s a romance nonetheless.
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