As a major shonen fan there are not a lot of cute romance type anime, however in my pursuit to give fair chance to everything there are some that I have watched all the way through without becoming bored of the mushy storylines and love triangles. Generally those with comedic value are the ones that keep me interested the best, and to this effect I find myself increasingly drawn to the cuter side of the romantic comedy anime.

Let’s start with Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish) which was reviewed in much more depth already, but which I feel deserves as much mention as any other, even if it means mentioning it multiple times. This is actually an anime that was recommended to me, had it not been I probably would have never sat down and watched it as the synopsis was not something which overly appealed to me. I’m glad I watched it in the end; the story starts with Tsukimi Kurashita, a girl who loves jellyfish but in typical shy nerd style is uncomfortable with just about everything else. This character lives in a house full of other, similarly bizarre characters such as a talking afro with a love of trains.

Things change drastically for everyone involved when a beautiful, stylish young woman suddenly makes friends with the jellyfish obsessed nerd, accept that this woman is actually Kuranosuke Koibuchi; a male cross-dresser. It shouldn’t take long to understand the comedic value here (nerds that struggle around men and beautiful people, a gorgeous cross-dressing man – it just about writes itself). There are some truly adorable moments, times when you hate the characters and others when you just want to pick them up and cuddle them, it’s a sweet and pretty anime, short enough to watch rather quickly and nice for cheering yourself up on a rainy day.

Next up, Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge (The Wallflower / Perfect Girl evolution) – which I mention primarily because I actually re-watched this one rather recently. Now for me personally this was a fantastic anime, although the emotions and actions within the anime were exaggerated pretty far beyond realism this is something we tend to expect with anime to an extent. The focus of the anime is a strange young woman by the name of Sunako, having been insulted in her youth the girl completely gave up on her appearance and embraced the dark and lonely side of the world, with some of her closest friends being anatomy dolls rather than people. A house full of famously handsome and charming young men are given the task of transforming Sunako into a lady by their landlady, who just so happens to be Sunako’s aunt.

This certainly has plenty of funny moments, and a number of rather cute moments to go with them. The characters can be a little predictable but perhaps that is part of the charm of this particular option. As you would expect the main protagonist, Kyohei, becomes the romantic interest for Sunako and steadily she learns to accept people (and herself) as she spends more time with the young men, while they too learn to understand her and her strange interests a little better. As much as I enjoyed this anime I actually enjoyed the Japanese live action drama version of the series better, which stars KAT-TUN, however both are enjoyable and short enough to work pretty well.

Now; for an anime I genuinely hope gets a second season; Toradora! (Tiger x Dragon!) This is, in my opinion, a particularly fantastic and rather adorable anime. As you would expect of an anime featuring one of the most famous Tsundere female protagonists in anime there are a number of frustrating moments, but so many cute and romantic scenes that you tend to forget about the periods of frustration rather quickly. The main characters are Ryuji and Taiga; Ryuji might look like a scary delinquent but he is actually a very gentle and understanding young man, completely the opposite of Taiga who is fierce and aggressive despite looking small and cute, much like a doll.

What starts as a friendship and promise to support one another, quickly progresses as the pair become closer and learn to depend on one another more and more. This is a non-stop ride of action, comedy, romance and drama, as will all romantic comedy anime it has its stranger times but is for the most part a fairly realistic representation of a youthful love. There is plenty to love about this regardless of whether it is the fantastic character designs and personalities that you become captured by, the pretty animation, the enjoyable and greatly cheerful soundtrack or the simplicity of the idea; I am confident that this is an anime just about anyone would enjoy.