I loveeee the rom-com genre and was wondering if anyone could recommend me some anime or visual novels~
Thanks in advance 
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Not exactly my top genre, but I could recommend you some of my favorites from it. That is, if you haven’t seen them already. (´ . _ . `)
“Rom-com” is a pretty wide genre with titles aimed at many very disparate demographics. It would be helpful if you’d outline your preferences a little more. Please name a couple of titles you’ve enjoyed lately and if you want to be particular about what tickled you about them then all the better can we tailor our recommendations.
honestly I’ve never heard of any of these, but they look really good! I’ll be sure to check them out, thanks (◠‿◠)
I guess my preference would be something that involves slice of life aspects and focuses more on the character development and how they gradually become closer and closer with each other, ones like Nisekoi and Toradora! come to mind. Though if there are any you enjoyed just within the rom-com genre and not to those preferences then I’d still like to hear them!
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My friend recommended Jitsu Wa Watashi Wa and I never looked back hahahaha. You might like it as well who knows. BTW, he told me to just read the Manga, and stay away from the Anime. And yes the Art at the beginning freaking sucks but believe me it gets better as time goes on.
For visual novels, well this is gonna be hard considering that even if some of them are Rom-Com, they tend to either:
- Tackle some serious shit (yes this does happen);
- Have hentai in it (no surprises there); or
- Not be a complete Rom-Com. (a mixed genre if you will)
Let me get back to you on this since I haven’t been updated on Anime stuff in a very very long time.
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@kenathomos Yeah, I have been trying to look for a good rom-com visual novel for a while now and they’ve all had those characteristics in, the closest I’ve managed to get is Clannad but like you say, that also has some pretty heavy stuff in, though that’s only going off the anime, the VN might be different.
As for Jitsu Wa Watashi Wa, it looks pretty good! I’ll definetly keep an eye out for it in my local bookshop when i next go, so thank you! (^▽^)
Alright then, Toradora is one I would have recommended that one is among my top favourites. Surprised you had not heard of any of the 3 already suggested though, I will 2nd those recommendations.
But here’s a few of my own, somewhat in order of what I think you’d like, straying further from pure rom-com as the list goes on.
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!
Based on your enjoyment of Toradora I think you’ll find this one appealing too. I believe they are similar in many ways but not so as to render each other obsolete.
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Girl tries to go after oblivious guy, ends up working for him instead.
Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun
I honestly can not remember why I liked this one, but I remembered the name and I think it fits the rom-com format. So yeah, watch this one!
Kokoro Connect
Not your ordinary rom-com affair maybe. There’s certainly romantic aspirations being sought and it has comedic aspects, but you don’t have a main couple coming together. It’s more about the group’s dynamic under extreme circumstances.
Sakura Trick
Yuri rom-com, oh was that not enough to pique your interest?
One Week Friends
A little bitter sweet story about two people trying to stay friends despite one of them some how losing their memories every week.
Orange
This is not a comedy but I think it might still work as a “rom-com”. I can’t write anything better than the ANN blurb, so read that if you’re interested.
Kaichou wa Maid-sama
I guess it’s mostly comedy. While there’s romantic sub elements this is not a particularly serious series and it doesn’t have a clear romantic resolution to it.
Midori no Hibi
Kind of old and real dumb but funny. Delinquent dude having no luck with the girls literally starts dating his right hand…
Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo
“Problem children” living in an off campus dorm when a severely autistic girl moves in, needs constant supervision. She’s the nice kind of autist though, just engrosses herself in her art to the point of not functioning in society. (story never claims she’s autistic.)
Kids on the slope
This is a really good series, though there’s romance I guess it is a little light on the comedy. Came across it as I browsed my library and figured it was worth recommending anyway. More about male friendships than it’s about romantic relationships.
Nagi no Asukara
More romance and drama than comedy, but it’s a really good one in my opinion. Very much focused on character’s interaction, developing, growing up and relating to others. It’s also incredibly beautifully animated.
Tasogare Otome x Amnesia
Another really beautiful one, at least the vibrant colours and sharp contrasts used appeals to me a great deal. You’ve got comedy, romance and a liberal sprinkling of ecchi in this one. The ecchi is mostly front loaded and the series centers around character development and figuring out what’s really going.
I appear to have gotten a little out of hand and I’m only halfway through my library… one more for good measure even though it falls outside the requested specs.
Nana
Not actually a rom-com at all, but it’s a really good older series that really warrants a mention. There’s plenty of romance going around but it’s mostly about the two titular characters Nana and their lives.
I’m sorry, got a little carried away there. I hope you’ll enjoy one, two or all of these recommendations. They’re all series I’ve enjoyed a lot - immensely even though some of them I do not fully remember why. If you, op, or anyone else for that matter watch and enjoy any of these titles I’d be delighted to hear about it, thanks for reading.
Enjoy!
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@Fraggles woahhh, based on the descriptions you provided on all of these they all seem pretty much perfect and exactly what I was looking for! I’ve actually never heard of any of these other than Orange but pretty much every single one sounds amazing, so thank you so much! ヾ(‘ ∇‘ )ノ Can’t wait to watch them ≧◡≦
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While not a Rom-Com, Steins;Gate is a great VN and anime that at least somewhat contains the elements you probably want. It’s quite funny at the start, and has a fair bit of romance along the way (especially towards the end), with an amazing story the whole way through.
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I had heard of this but never properly looked into it, it sounds pretty interesting though, thanks! 
Not that I play these type of games but how has nobody mentioned Hatoful Boyfriend? A game where you go to school and date pigeons. How much more rom comy can you get?
i’m sold.
I’m not greatly into VNs myself the few that I have played were straight up pornographic in nature so you won’t find them on steam. If you’re new to the VN space and want a safe bet to start out with you can’t go wrong with Katawa Shoujo. It’s free and if you want to you can turn the erotic culminations of the story arcs off, not sure why anyone would want to but the option is there. : )
https://vndb.org/ is a good site for lookin VNs up on though, you can go look specifics up about a title and where to get hold of it.
Edit: In reply to the Hatoful Boyfriend suggestion, the reason I wouldn’t have mentioned it is because it is only attractive in 2 ways. Either just for having a laugh at the ridiculous nature of the whole thing for 10-20 minutes, in which case it’s not really worth the price of admission. OR you go into it hard and play through the whole thing multiple times to unlock ALL the story lines and it will deliver a lot more than it might seem to have on offer on a cursory glance.
But it’s kind of a pointless exercise on any other approach, but that’s my opinion on it.
I’m really not a fan of erotic things so that option actually seems really helpful! I’ll definitely have a play of it, thanks!
Plus I had a look at the website and it seems pretty handy, a bit complex on the UI front but I’ll figure it out~
I used to have a visual novel review site back then (but I had to close it because reviewing Visual Novels because I was in my 2nd Year of College and I heavily under-estimated my amount of free time). I also remembered some of the stuff I used to read so I’ll just add these in this comment. (Expect me to try my best to keep in line with your request of Rom-Com).
I will definitely keep an eye out for Rom-Com stuff for you and I’ll try to keep on touch as much as possible.
Before I mention the stuff I remembered, let me comment on some of the stuff people have given here so far just to give you more input. If I didn’t add input to some stuff, it’s because I don’t know it that much.
- Tora-freaking-dora is a classic, HANDS DOWN! MUST WATCH. If you will watch Toradora, might as well throw in Zero no Tsukaima. I suggest watching the anime though I heard the Light Novel is good as well. (FUN FACT, the voice actress for the two main heroines is the same person, Kugimiya Rei)
- Chobits is a classic.
- Yahari is a classic.
- Sankarea is more comedy than romance for me to be honest since the series tends to make fun of it’s own concept. I suggest reading the manga.
- Gekkan Shoujo is just mwah. This in my opinion is mostly comedy instead of romance but it gets the job done. I remember reading this in class with a friend and we were laughing our asses of in this one chapter with the boxes (you’ll know it when you get there). I suggest reading the manga. I don’t know about the anime.
- Orange is Orange, nuff said.
- Kaichou wa Maid-sama is really mostly comedy as Fraggles have stated but when it goes comedy, it does it really well. But yeah the con of the whole thing is primarily present and is like an elephant in the room that tends to be ignored as you read more chapters. Honestly if you are gonna go into this, might as well give Ouran Koukou Host Club a try.
- Sakurasou in my honest opinion is mostly comedy (even though it does have a hint of romance to it) mainly because the main heroine acts and behaves like a person who knows nothing. Scratch that, she kinda does not know anything but I’m not saying she is dumb. It’s more of an “I don’t know how to approach this simple task” thing.
Now onto the stuff that I conveniently remembered!
- Shomin Sample - the whole title is actually "ORE GA OJOU-SAMA GAKKOU NI ‘SHOMIN SAMPLE’ ". It’s about this guy who got abducted to serve as a “guy specimen” for an elite-all girls school. The reason he was abducted? He was assumed to be gay. The reason why the school need’s a “guy specimen”? A lot of the girls tend to not cope with the real world very well and become NEETS. I dunno how the heck getting a guy specimen will solve that but hey the content is nice! Fair warning, lots of panty shots.
- D-Frag! - more comedy than romance. This is about how a school delinquent was forced to join the school’s failing “Game Creation Club” headed by really crazy (in a good way) 4-girl group. This spawned the booby punching GIF usually partnered with “Kung Fu Fighting” as the BGM.
- Nisekoi - boo at me all you want for suggesting something mainstream but you can’t deny that Nisekoi is a good story. It’s more romance tbh. The guy is the son of a Yakuza head and he meets the daughter of the rival gang. Long story short, for the feud to end, the faction leaders decided to pair their kids together. I’m doing a really bad job at explaning this. Just read it. Trust me.
- Monster Musume - Also known as “Everyday Life with Monster Girls”. Fair warning, this wears the ecchi-adult theme with pride. This is a story about a college guy who gets thrown into the situation of taking care of monster girls. More comedy than romance tbh. I EXTREMELY suggest reading the manga and (kinda) stay away from the anime.
- Might as well throw in To Love-Ru since I was willing enough to suggest Monster Musume.
Currently racking my head for some VNs. But for the mentioned ones:
- STEINS;GATE - considered a classic by many. Not really a Rom-Com (very far from it in my opinion) but if you want to sink it a shit ton of time into a good VN, this is it.
- Katawa Shoujo - EXPECT TO CRY A LOT. Mostly romance than comedy (though there are a lot of comedy in it and it’s done really well in my opinion). It’s fre. might as well start with this.
- Hatoful Boyfriend - the concept is weird.
The VNDB as stated earlier is a good place to search for stuff but I would only advise using it when you have heard of a VN and you want to check it out. Also a good amount of VNs in the VNDB aren’t even released in English (not even in my region of Asia) so you might as well try to check sites like Jlist, JASTUSA, MangaGamer, and Steam for an VN you might like. If a VN has caught your interest, I might hopefully be able to give some input on it (especially the ones on the four aforementioned sites).
EDIT: Just would like to say that you have just got me back on this stuff. I’m currently on a Warhammer 40K binge.
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woah, that’s a lot of rom-com anime, to be honest I didn’t even realize this many existed! ☉▵☉
All of information you’ve given on them have pretty much sold me for each one though, and thank you soooo much for making me aware of Zero no Tsukaima, I bloody well loved Toradora! and I’m so glad there’s another anime that’s like it, especially since it’s the same voice actor as the one for Taiga in Toradora! I’m also currently reading the Nisekoi manga and loving it, so thanks for that recommendation as well °∀° I’m definitely going to have to set aside a half term break or something to binge watch alllll of these, including the ones Fraggles mentioned as well.
As for the VNs I’m noticing not a lot of rom-com ones exist, although there definitely seems to be some other very strong ones that while not necessarily romance or comedy still look exceptional, such as the aforementioned STEINS;GATE and even some less visual novely ones such as Zero Escape, as the story in there is pretty good.
Anyways, thanks again for the recommendations! (´ ∇｀) I think it’s safe to say now that with all of the anime/VNs everyone has mentioned I should have enough to keep me going for a while! woo! ＼（＾ω＾)／
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It’s a pretty popular genre, there are tons of it. haha
I would recommend Snow Sakura, even though it’s an erotic VN, mostly because when I read it, I skipped all the 18+ scenes not because they were terrible, but because I just wanted to get to the next part of the story. It has 5 heroines you can end up with, though you may need a walk-through to get them all, because some of the choices are really not intuitive at all.
I can also recommend the Galaxy Angel trilogy for the VN half of it, though it also has real-time space battles. None of the 3 games have 18+ content. The first one has some meaningful choices regarding which heroine you end up with, but for the other 2 games, you basically get asked which girl you ended up with in the previous game, before continuing the story with that girl in mind.
A lot of VNs are a mixed bag and as most of us have stated before, it’s (technically) hard to look for a Rom-Com only VN.
Anyways back to another recommendation on the VN-side would be Nekopara which is probably the closest thing you can get (as far as I can remember as of the moment im writing this reply) to like a real “true-blooded” Rom-Com VN. Btw, this one wears the ecchi-adult theme with pride as well. The Steam Version is censored but people have modded the adult parts in (because it isn’t illegal).
EDIT: If you like stuff voiced by Rei Kugimiya, might as well watch Shakugan no Shana but this leans more on the Action-Drama genre.