NOTE: Refresh the page if the video didn't load. If the streaming didn't start after many attempts, kindly report the broken video here. Thank you!

You will also need to download Veoh Web Player to fully watch videos from Veoh.

Anime Insider’s Top 10 Romance Anime

Boy Meets Girl? In Anime, It’s Never That Simple…

#10 Gravitation

Boys and their loves were never prettier. Shuichi, lead singer with the rock band Bad Luck, falls for blond novelist Yuki. Boy-on-boy passion adds a risky frission to proceedings–but for the girly audience this is aimed at, that only doubles the fun. Music biz intrigues ensue, along with loves requieted and otherwise, and a tone that can flit from comedy to tragedy in mere moments. [Right Stuf]

#9 Hana Yori Dango

Sassy schoolgirl stands up to the snooty local rich kids, only to incur their wrath, enmity and eventual respect. Realistically flawed characters make this a cut above the rest–for those who like to watch feuding foes turn into fawning fans. A show that says it’s okay for girls to like boys, and that it’s okay for boys to be jerks, as long as they’re deep. [Viz]

#8 Fushigi Yuugi

Our top fantasy romance, as a teen girl is whisked away to a magical China-like world, where she gets magical powers and a crew of heroes to save the universe. And it wouldn’t be an anime love triangle if she wasn’t torn between the Emperor and her handsome knight. Tragedy and passion between two worlds, though naturally “there’s no place like home.” [Geneon]

#7 Chobits

Magical girlfriends 21st century-style, as a penniless country boy saves humanoid computer Chi from a big-city trash pile. Soft and fluffy sci-fi from the all-girl manga team CLAMP. Chobits is a romance where everyone has a “persocom” computer that can take any form, especially cute girls. Anime love for anyone who ever wanted to sleep with their PDA, and for boys who like the idea of a girlfriend they can program, delete or upgrade. [Geneon]

#6 Maison Ikkoku

Although you might expect a lot of wackiness from Ranma 1/2 and Inu Yasha creator Rumiko Takahashi, Ikkoku surprises with gentle drama as a lonely would-be college boy falls for his widowed landlady. And with a bunch of
gossipy oddball neighbors, the slightest misunderstanding can lead to broken hearts. An anime about how people really ought to say what they feel, because otherwise there can be trouble. A true gem, and an anime series that didn’t overstay its welcome. [Viz]

#5 Love Hina

Keitaro gets a dream job as the manager of an all-girl apartment building. The girls hate him, but they’re stuck with him. And just think–what if one of them is his childhood sweetheart, with whom he promised to enroll at Tokyo University? Except he’s failed the entrance exams twice, and he can’t remember which girl she is anyway. As wacky as it is romantic it’s the fan-favorite among the “guy stuck with lots of pretty girls” genre. [Bandai]

#4 Marmalade Boy

“Not quite incest” is a subgenre all its own, as quiet boy Yu falls for his new stepsister Miki after their parents swap spouses. Like a doubled-up Brady Bunch with new love interests every week, our would-be couples get together, break up, and get together again, while having to live under the same roof with the kinky parents. Multiple love triangles, heartache and drama. [TOKYOPOP]

#3 Sailor Moon

Power Rangers, what have you wrought? Five sailor-suited schoolgirls fight to save the world from witch-queens and evil pretty-boys. But clumsy heroine Serena has the man of her dreams in the dashing Tuxedo Mask. It’s love beyond time as a once and future romance is rekindled. A show that’s not afraid to die for love, at least in the original Japanese version. [ADV & Geneon]

#2 Kimagure Orange Road

Eighties nostalgia, big hair and first love, in a love-triangle love-comedy where a boy is torn between a sophisticated girl and a big baby, but still can’t make up his mind. And, hey, why stop there? Let’s make him come from a family of telepaths! Bittersweet romance meets occasional psychic duels in the show that taught today’s animators the true meaning of love. [AnimEigo]

#1 Kare Kano

Love-hate? More like hate-hate, as a straight-A class president Yukino engages in a battle of wills with her irritating but curiously attractive male rival Soichiro. Fanboy powerhouse Studio Gainax pulls every televisual trick in the book, with live-action sequences, paper-cut animation, real photographs and even a real fire. A very different, very amusing, and very clever angle on the teen trauma that forms so many anime. Like Ally McBeal, but actually funny. Smarter, too. [Right Stuf]

Reference: Anime Insider, Issue #11 – January, 2004.