Anime is no stranger to the concept where the Mc is Forced into a relationship, it just goes to show that love is not always what it seems. Sometimes the main characters are thrown into a forced marriage, and it is outside of their power to change their fate, and the only way to move is forward. This creates insane situations that make the series just more interesting and fun to watch.
May the force be with the MC lovebirds, let’s begin!
15. Oreshura
After Eita Kidou’s parent’s divorce, she feels disgusted at the notion of love and devotes his entire high school life to his studies to become a doctor. Unfortunately for him, Masuzu Natsukawa, the school’s most popular girl approaches Eita with a deal to pretend to be her boyfriend, so she gets a break from all the attention she receives.
When Eita refuses, Masuzu simply blackmails him into compliance. Eita is forced to post the embarrassing content of his secret diary. Now Eita is tangled in a fake romance with the most desired girl at school and must cope with his newfound relationship and all the troubles that come along with it. At least he can take comfort in the fact that he is forced into a relationship with the popular girl.
I usually stay away from harem anime series, perhaps it’s my X-chromosome, but Oreshura doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s a dark (light) romance comedy. Without too many spoilers, the relationship between the main characters is rather atypical. It has an interesting and funny anime with a strong lead male, but don’t expect anything with depth.
14. Koi to Uso
The story is set in a future world where the Japanese government forced 16-year-old people to marry assigned partners to increase birth rates. People who disobey arranged marriages suffer severe penalties.
The series focuses on the MC Yukari Nejima who confesses his love to his schoolmate, Misaki, even though he has been assigned another bride by the authorities. To his surprise, Misaki reciprocates his feelings.
Things quickly get chaotic, as it turns out that Yukari’s assigned fiancée, Ririna, is not that thrilled about being assigned, and is very willing to let Yukari freely relate with Misaki. Now all the teens try to relate with one another while keeping up appearances with the régime.
I have to admit the ending was very surprising to me, but I know a lot of other fans saw it coming.
13. Ai Yori Aoshi
Kaoru Hanabishi is the heir to his family business, he is what we call a “rich kid”. But, money can’t buy him happiness when he was a young lad, his strict parents decided that when he grows up he will marry Aoi Sakuraba, his childhood friend, which also comes from a “rich and famous” family. That’s just how privileged money works, your parents force their old ways on their offspring, sorry Kaoru and Aoi.
As the years go by, they get to know each other very well, and they get along, however when he grows up, Kaoru decides to rebel and he turns his back on the Hanabishi family and moves to Tokyo, where he lives the simple life of a college student.
However, one day he meets a beautiful but rather confused girl at a train station. As he tries to help her, he slowly realizes that she is Aoi Sakuraba, his childhood friend who was arranged to marry him by their families while they both were still children.
While Kaoru was gone, the forced relationship had been called off, but Aoi is still devoted to him and came to Tokyo to marry him. Kaoru is startled at first, but eventually, they start to develop a love affair. And they lived happily ever after, the end, not the end, both Aoi and Kaoru change their status to “It’s complicated”.
I couldn’t care less for Kaoru, yeah he is lonely, and yes he is depressed, but boy, what an annoying character. I did like Aoi a lot better and hoped she will drop the loser altogether and will end up with a deserving guy. Nothing to see here, move along.
12. Nyaruko: Crawling With Love!
Mahiro Yasaka will get to know what his grandchildren will look like, as one night he is attacked by an alien, and Nyaruko an alien disguised as a girl – saves him ass. She moves in (forcefully) and falls in love very quickly. Mahiro is the kind of guy that just wants to chill but ends up with all these hippie aliens who want to spread love and peace. Damn hippie aliens.
You won’t believe it, but this anime is not that bad. Niharuko is one of the eccentric heroines seen on the screen and quite a mischievous one. The first episode contains several excellent fights, and until I saw it myself I would not have believed it: the series is also parodic, in part.
Those looking for added value – well, there is none. But there are references to the otaku culture when Niharuko goes shopping for Galega games and manga. Ah, all this against the background of not-so-bad production quality (about other series from the ‘skip-this-anime-if-you-are-looking-for-quality’ genre).
11. Twin Star Exorcists
Some MC belongs to a family of exorcists, but when he grows up he prefers to turn to a different field, like football or managing a pet funeral home (Isn’t that every kid’s dream). Then things happen and… boom, he becomes an exorcist. What a surprise.
I wouldn’t call it a “bad series”, because it isn’t. Its production values are high, the battles are very intense, and there is even a degree of brutality that satisfied the sadist in me. But, Sousei no Onmyouji sucks simply because it’s a waste of good resources. After all, what is the smooth animation worth if the story is a copy-paste of dozens of other series that we have seen only in recent years?
Right in the first episode, you will see a mysterious girl who falls from the sky and the hero catches her. How often can this cliché be seen? This would not happen if they built a network in the sky that would cover the entire Tokyo metropolis. Immediately after that, the episode continued with a series of expositions that are forced down the throat, as if it ever bought anyone: ‘Oh, this series has now used fifty inside terms no one gets and invented they mean something. Give me another episode!’. No, never happened.
10. Tasogare Otome x Amnesia
A school club that investigates supernatural phenomena, whose president is a ghost! The first episode features an entire scene in its first half where the three members of the club argue about nonsense while supernatural things are happening in the background. The second half of the episode shows the same first half, except that this time we witness the ghost, Yuuko Kirishima who is responsible for the mess.
It turns out that Yuuko is the ghost of the old institution building, but she has no memories of her death. The only one able to see her is Niiya Teiichi, who sets up the club with her to investigate supernatural phenomena at school and discover the mystery behind her death.
The very idea of the four members of the club, living or dead, creates intriguing relationships among themselves and also makes the internal affairs of the club look interesting. But you need more than that to excite people these days.
9. Engaged to the Unidentified
Kobeni Yonomori, an ordinary teenager, finds out on her 16th birthday that she is engaged to Mitsumine Hakuya, a calm and serious boy about her age. As a result of an arrangement that her late grandfather made, Hakuya moves in from the countryside and starts living with Kobeni in the same house. He brings his younger sister Mashiro who is still a primary school student along with him. The series follows Kobeni’s “love life” with her fiancée as she is doing her best to adapt to the major changes imposed on her.
Sounds like another dull slice of life where nothing happens aside from quirky cute girls. Fortunately, the plot has some interesting unresolved twists and turns that make it above average with a lot of moe. It gets interesting when we learn about the mystery behind the backgrounds of the guests, Hakuya and Mashirothe these are not ordinary MCs, they appear to possess supernatural powers such as giant leaps to insane speed. The second half gets more intriguing as the connection with Kobeni is linked to a long-forgotten accident, leading to the reason behind the forced relationship. I was pleasantly surprised.
8. Invaders of the Rokujyoma!?
Looking for a cheap place to live by himself, Koutarou Satomi finds a 500 yan ($50!) depressing room, yet right in the center of the city, so yay. However, Koutarou soon finds out that his apartment is the center of power in the universe, and it has supernatural girls who are also interested in the room for themselves, each for her reason.
A battle royale over the small apartment soon ensues and nobody is willing to back down without a fight! Koutarou and the girls find themselves forced into a relationship, a twisted one, where they must live together while they try to settle just who ends up winning the cheap room.
We have a bunch of busty girls, and a clueless protagonist guy, one of the girls seems very angry and violent and has a cute animal printed on her underwear, yep you probably know where it’s going. However, it does manage to take characters from different genres and mix them all and makes it work somehow.
7. My Bride is a Mermaid
During a nice and calm family vacation to the ocean, Nagasumi drowns, the lucky boy that he is, and a beautiful mermaid goes Baywatch and saves his ass from drowning. As it turns out, mermaids are pretty strict and under their law, any mermaid whose identity is revealed must be executed! and join the Tuna community on some human’s plate.
The only way to avoid bloodshed is for Nagasumi must marry Sun Seto, no questions asked. Faced with no other option, Nagasumi is forced into a relationship and he must take Sun’s hand in marriage. Like any married couple, Nagasumi finds out that he is in a relationship prison, and the poor guy has a hard time transitioning into his new married lifestyle.
The thing that makes this anime so charming is that Sun Seto is not a perfect mermaid, she is just as weird as the rest of us. For a beautiful character to come down to this nature, is a really beautiful thing. There are so many over-the-top characters that create a lot of great comedy moments. Watch out for the wackiest character, Masa, he is the funny Arnold Schwarzenegger of the show.
6. Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji
Erika enters high school wishing she had a boyfriend. With blood, sweat, and tears, she wants to get herself a boyf, and that’s how Erika found the hot guy Kyouya Sata. Girls fall at his feet and his smile conquers hearts. It is difficult to catch a fish like Sata with a fishing rod. But with a little faith and a lot of ability, a fairytale can become reality.
Yes, no one said that a relationship has to be authentic. It’s enough to convince someone to pretend to be your boyfriend. If the guy refuses to pretend, allow yourself to be humiliated and go down a notch, that is: be his dog. sounds a bit forced? Not for Erika. For her, the humiliation equals the fact that the king of the class is her fictitious partner.
Let’s be honest, Ookami Shoujo isn’t exactly a banner of feminism; I saw more female empowerment in A ‘Rambo’ movie. Still, the series is not that bad. Unlike other romantic comedies, Ookami Shoujo can pride itself on not stepping on the spot: the twisted relationship between its main characters develops. If it weren’t for the changes and developments (as cheesy as they are) I don’t know if I would have survived. There is a limit to the amount of masochism I can absorb.
5. The World is Still Beautiful
Nike Remercier is one of the princesses of the Rain Dukedom. Despite her reluctance, she travels to the Sun Kingdom to marry Sun King Livius for the sake of making her country great again. Like many others, she believes Livius is a cruel, ruthless, and tyrannical little turd ruler and prepares herself for the worst.
However, when she finally meets her fiancé, she discovers that he is an entirely different person from what she originally expected. The story follows the two who, while at first forced to marry, gradually begin to establish an emotional bond with one another.
Ah, the world of josei anime, is the perfect place for a pure maiden who dreams about marrying her prince charming that turns out to be a kid. This anime is what you get when you combine all the tags of a girl’s anime list, we got kingdoms, independent but ladylike main characters, magical abilities, and of course an MC girl forced into a relationship. I do think it’s a cute story if you can get over all the shonen stuff. The plot progression feels real and quick. You can see how the main characters’ feeling progress in each arc as they go through hardships together.
4. Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl
Makoto Niwa moves to the big city, where he will live with his father’s little sister. On his way, he imagines a young bachelor lifestyle and a variety of girls to hit on, only he didn’t expect that at his aunt’s house, he would find Touwa, a mysterious girl tied up in a futon.
The most notable thing is the quality. Almost perfect animation, incredibly detailed backgrounds, and great, detailed design. The interaction between the main characters Makoto and his aunt, and between Makoto and Touwa, is full of nonsense conversations with a comedic philosophy behind them. A lot of mystery surrounds the background story of the heroes, which is what distinguishes the series from its older sisters.
3. Nsekoi: False Love
Blue hair boy Raku Ichijou is the son of the Yakuza and cute girl Kosaki Onodera is the daughter of a gangster. They have to pretend to be in love to stop an all-out war between the Yakuza and the gangsters from happening. But blue hair boy made a promise to the Kosaki’s BFF Chitoge, when they were kids, that they would get married.
But he didn’t know it was her, and she doesn’t know it was him. BFF actually likes him, but he doesn’t know that, and he likes BFF either, and blue hair boy and blonde hair girl like each other, but they are pretending to love each other. Now Kosaki and her ex-BFF Chitoge hate each other.
The anime focuses on the daily antics of this couple who have been forced into a relationship to maintain the city’s peace.
The second the anime started it put me into a trance, it immediately felt like I was sucked into another world, and within seconds Neskoi hooked me in. It brings you in, just to take you back out again. That is what I like about Nsekoi, the characters don’t develop, it isn’t realistic at all, and for the most part, it’s just silly stuff stacked on top of silly with great emphasis on being funny.
2. Mayo Chiki!
Kinjiro Sakamachi, a second-year high school student, suffers from an interesting disease, gynophobia, the fear of women, and poor loser. I mean, the slightest physical contact with a girl will get Kinjiro’s nose to bleed uncontrollably. In rarer cases, he would just faint. But give the poor kid a break, he probably got his condition due to an insane mother who used to be a wrestler and his crazy girl little sister who adore her mother. Together they forced Kinjiro to be their wrestling training puppet.
A super-rich guy joins his school, and she is so rich that she has a butler. While using the restroom, Kinjiro discovers that the handsome butler Subaru Konoe is a reverse trap, and he is a she. This anime thought me never to assume someone’s gender.
Now that Kinjiro knows about Subaru’s secret, he must work together with her to protect her secret from being discovered. In exchange for his silence, Subaru promises to help cure his gynophobia complex.
Do you ever forget you ever watched an anime with a jojo reference in it? My memory of watching Mayo Chiki! was fuzzy. At one point I doubted that the anime even existed. But I finally remembered watching it many years ago, and now I think it’s an underrated romantic comedy that I can’t get enough of.
1. Taisho Otome Fairy Tale
Forced into exile in the mountains by his father, Tamahiko Shima soon resigns himself to the idea that he is a useless human being and will die alone and forgotten. He carries the blame for his mother’s death in a car accident, so no wonder he goes into a very dark place, or should I say a very dark mountain.
However, on one snowy December night, a girl named Yuzuki Tachibana knocks on his door and announces that she has come to be his future wife! Surprises come always when least expected. In this case, the surprise was purchased by Tamahiko’s father to become Tamahiko’s bride. But Tamahiko doesn’t force her into a relationship, that would be creepy even for him, he gives her the option to bail out, he doesn’t care really. She decides to stay to absorb more of his wonderful depressing energy. She cleans his home, cooks his meals, and ultimately her kind nature slowly pulls him out.
This is hands down one of my favorite anime series. It focuses heavily on the concept of somebody being discarded by society and this warmth that two people can bring to each other that ultimately bring them up and establish a new connection to the world.
