Drathnoxis said:
Jerast said:
On the whole, I would say VN's would offer far more romance than anime would and I am watching this thread in hopes I'm dead wrong and people start mentioning things that actually are good romance anime instead of garbage because unfortunately that's all I've seen.
You're calling Chuunibyou trash? You need to justify this statement right now. Use spoiler tags.
I approve of how much you seem to have gotten into Chuunibyou.
OT
I'll be honest and say I don't really know many full on romance anime, but here are some recommendations where I liked the romance in them.
I think Highschool DxD ticks every item on your list.
1) Whilst Issei is quite dense he's definitely not shy or a nerd. He is defiantly a massive anime style pervert though.
2) There is defiantly a connection between Issei and Rias, right from the first episode really.
3) Issei's only goal in life is to get intimate with Rias. It does take some time before he actually gets anywhere though.
4) There are periods where the focus is away from Rias and on other girls, but those girls either belong to Rias or probably will do at some point, so him helping them out is helping Rias out too.
5) If we're just talking about the first series, just to get you in to it, the ending is quite good in my opinion. There are currently 3 series out and the 4th is supposed to be coming out this year.
Ok, a more serious answer: Golden Time.
This one is one of the few romance anime I've actually watched[footnote]well I read, but there is an anime of it. I'd also kind of recommend Evergreen by the same author, but I don't think that has an anime.[/footnote].
The first thing I really liked about this one is that its not set in a high school, its at a university. The setting allows for things that you wouldn't see between two high school students, for example they'll go out drinking and they live more independent lives.
To avoid any spoilers I'll just describe the start of it so you can get a general idea. The main character is just starting his first day of uni when he gets lost and bumps into another guy who is also starting in the same class as him, they get along and help each other get to class. As they're going to class a woman steps out in front of them with a bouquet of flowers and slaps his new friend across the face with them.
The main character instantly falls for this girl as she explains that she is the fianc?e of his new friend, a claim he denies. After a bit of discussion it turns out the guy had made a promise to her when they were kids that they'd get married and she has stuck to it his whole life, basically ruining his relations with everyone else and planning out exactly what they'll be doing and when for both their lives forever. He decided to come to this university after telling her he was going to a different one purely so he could get away from her.
I like this because the main character is basically in love with his friend's stalker and he kind of knows that she's only hanging around with him to get to his friend but he feels sorry for her because she clearly has no other friends and so he keeps hanging around with her, despite the warnings from his friend.
Steins;Gate. Another one that isn't really a romance anime, but it is one of my favourite anime and I like the way the relationship develops between the two leads[footnote]Though I prefer his relationship with the childhood friend in the visual novel[/footnote]. It doesn't stick to the points you asked for exactly, but as I said its one of my favourite anime so I'd feel bad for not recommending it.
The story is that the main character is a self proclaimed mad scientist[footnote]Note: he is just a nerd[/footnote] and he is attending a serious lecture on time travel. He meets a girl, Kurisu, who is also there for the lecture and basically starts annoying her with his childish proclamations of being a mad scientist.
After the lecture he leaves, but has to go back because his friend dropped something and finds the dead body of the girl he was just arguing with. In a panic he texts his assistant back at his 'lab' and suddenly everything changes. He meets the girl he just saw dead again and after determining she's not a zombie he leaves confused.
To cut a long story short, it turns out that he accentually invented a time machine when he was trying to build a microwave that could be operated by text. Kurisu follows him back to the lab out of curiosity about his raving about her being a zombie and together they try to work out how/why the time machine works and if they can actually get any practical use out of it, Kurisu adding actual scientific knowledge to the task.
