Harem anime is a popular genre that combines romance, comedy, and sometimes fantasy or action, featuring a central character surrounded by multiple love interests. It offers plenty of heartwarming and humorous moments, making it a fan favorite.
Whether you’re new to harem anime or looking to expand your watchlist, here’s a list of the best harem anime to dive into. These are some of the most classic but modern favorite shows with fun, romance, and excitement:
7. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!
‘My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!‘ is an isekai of anime and is one of the unheard ones nowadays. Catarina Claes is a 19-year-old woman who finds herself transported to the world of the otome game she used to play but turned into the game’s antagonist who dies in the game.
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It is this prospect that Catarina seeks to avoid by using her plot knowledge of the game, to change the course of events of a harem of admirers nearby. This Super Sentai is about comedy, love, and light action while presenting a very solid sense of character development.
Every single character in her new world whether companion or competitor forms a different bond with Catarina which gives the show its fun factor especially if one is into reverse harem and isekai genre.
6. The Quintessential Quintuplets
‘The Quintessential Quintuplets‘ is about a high school boy named Fuutarou Uesugi who is intelligent but from a poor family and who becomes a tutor of five sisters named Nakano quintuplet sisters. All the sisters are identical and have very different characters. They all have special traits which are unique personalities, school faults, and dating behavior making Fuutarou’s task even more challenging.
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However, as the series continues, the storyline focuses more on how Fuutarou helps the quintuplets deal with their difficulties in life, and each sister falls in love with the main character. What makes the show stand out is majorly the summary story most of them are family-orientated have drama and can also be hilarious.
5. Nisekoi
In ‘Nisekoi,’ the main story revolves around the protagonist Raku Ichijo, a high school student and the heir of the Yakuza family. The poor fellow is dragged into a forced cohabitation with a girl Chitoge Kirisaki, who is the daughter of the head of a rival yakuza clan.
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The twist? Raku had a secret fling with a girl, but he does not know who it is. At the same time, several girls – each of whom can be the girl from his past – appear in his life, causing a drastic filtration of relationships in the form of an amorous triangle – or rather a hexagon. The feature that makes ‘Nisekoi‘ stand out is that it is both a romantic comedy and an action-thriller where new information about characters contributes to the resolution of the suspense.
4. We Never Learn!
The basic idea of ‘We Never Learn!‘ centers on Nariyuki Yuiga, a high school boy trying to get a scholarship. To achieve this, he must tutor two brilliant but academically challenged girls: Science club president Rizu Ogata who is a brains so brilliant that she fails at literature, and Math club member Fumino Furuhashi who is a brawn-neither dull-witted when it comes to literature nor math. Subsequently, more girls join in, which causes quite a funny harem-type thing.
One of the interesting things about this anime is that gets education right along with the romance. While the protagonist Nariyuki assists his classmates in breaking the cycle of academic failure, he gets emotionally involved with each of them.
3. High School DxD
‘High School DxD‘ has action, and supernatural themes and follows an ecchi comedy premise in the best ways possible. Issei is a high school student who dies on his first date only to be brought back to life by a powerful demon Rias Gremory.
Upon enrolling as a part of Rias Gremory’s demonic household, Issei is introduced to a bunch of beautiful girls who have their respective master’s intentions. Popular for its actions, fight scenes, and, yes, Battle Gease, the series also creates a gloriously expansive mythology involving its demons and angels.
Despite the harem element, ‘High School DxD‘ features strong wars, and the setting is interesting, making it worth watching for anime fans.
2. Classroom Of The Elite
‘Classroom Of The Elite‘ is a series set in Koudo Ikusei Senior High School, a school that has been equipped with a class system where students are ranked depending on their abilities, and Kiyotaka Ayanokoji is a protagonist, a low-ranked student, still and quiet.
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But later, fans see Kiyotaka making less of himself than he is and plotting more and more scenarios. Like other harem-styled anime, this show still contains several girls competing for the affection of the male lead, Kiyotaka, which injects the series with a toned-down form of harem into the show’s psychological warfare and social ranking aspects.
1. To Love Ru
‘To Love Ru‘ is a classic type of ecchi harem anime series. It is centered on Rito Yuuki, a high school guy who ends up engaged to Lala Satalin Deviluke, an alien princess who has crashed on Earth.
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Lala clones all sorts of intergalactic troubles to Rito’s hither to normal life, and at the same brings a lot of intergalactic and earthy females to him. Of course, the anime has its fair share of ecchi and parodies, but it also has some of the best character development scenes in the show.
Even though it may be a comedy anime at its core, there is a much darker layer of themes, as Rito has to deal with the affection he has for his childhood sweetheart and weird situations because of Lala.
