It was another great year for love in anime. Much like last year’s list, this selection of anime pairings ranges from a variety of story types and couple dynamics. From sci-fi adventures and slice-of-life to tackling the bizarre circumstances of Puberty Syndrome, nothing keeps these pairs from being truly for each other. Love takes many forms, and that’s as true in our Top Anime Couples of 2025 as in real life.
These top anime couples of 2025 are also known as our “One True Pairs” or “OTP” of the year.
Get BWT in your inbox!
Get BWT in your inbox!
6) Wada & Yamamoto – See You Tomorrow at the Food Court
We often envision love in fiction as being born of grand gestures or heroic sacrifices. That it is a wild and dramatic event that comes without warning and strikes with power, leaving our lives forever altered. But love can be mundane, simple, and gradual. Something that sneaks up on you in everyday life. Like, say, at the food court.
Wada (Hiyori Miyazaki) and Yamamoto’s (Yoshino Aoyama, Wuthering Waves) journey is easily the most uneventful of all the stories on our list. Two friends who find it difficult to connect with people gravitate towards each other as they build a regular ritual to meet up and chat. Despite how seemingly replaceable the event looks, it becomes clear that the regular meeting has grown into something of great importance to the two girls.
This importance is revealed naturally, highlighting how unassumingly someone can go from a casual acquaintance to a fixture of our day without us even noticing. It’s only when something seems ripe to disrupt the ritual that the duo realizes how much they have come to mean to each other. And that there is no place they’d rather be after school than at the food court. Not for the food, but the person they know will be waiting for them.
5) Ko & Nazuna – Call of the Night
Opposites attracting is one of the most beloved romance angles. When two people who have seemingly nothing in common discover how much they actually share, love becomes a nearly inevitable narrative point. This has certainly been true for the second entry on our Top Anime One True Pairs of 2025 list.
Spurred by the season-long threat of Kyouko Mejiro (Miyuki Sawashiro, The Rose of Versailles) Ko (Gen Sato, To Be Hero X), and Nazuna (Sora Amamiya, Banished from the Hero’s Party…) continued path to love sees them delve into the secrets of Nazuna’s past. Despite conflicts with friends and enemies alike, the pair never wavers from each other’s side, despite claiming not to understand what love is. In fact, the most striking thing about their journey is the fact that they don’t already see themselves as in love.
Given the lengths they go for each other, the dangers they face, and the fact that they’ve kissed more times this season than some couples do in a hundred-plus chapters of manga, it feels like they’d already be in love. Yet it seems that the love these two search for is something far deeper than simple affection and shared confidence in each other. It creates a compelling case study in love. After all, if they are this close now, just what will they be like when they are ACTUALLY in love?
4) Momo & Okarun – DanDaDan
Our Top Anime One True Pairs of 2025 list’s repeat appearance from last year, the gold standard of shonen romance, continues to shine the brightest when they are together. And on more than one occasion proved that no alien menace or occult threat will be powerful enough to keep them apart.
From the opening episodes, when Momo (Shion Wakayama, Lycoris Recoil) shows she’ll move heaven, earth, and even a giant earthworm to save Okarun (Natsuki Hanae, NieR Automata ver1.1a), the pair’s feelings feel front and center in their story. But despite the most striking moments of concern and affection, the duo truly dazzle the brightest when things quiet down, and the series can let them explore their feelings in ways that feel authentic to young love.
Standing out as one of the best scenes between the two this season, probably in the series as a whole, we see the duo sitting together in the back seat of Seiko’s car. With virtually no words spoken between them, the scene delivers a poignant amount of emotion, with little more than some brushes of Okarun’s hand by Momo.
While other moments within the series showcase grander gestures of love and care between the two, this moment feels the most human for a pair of shy teens who are unsure of how to say what they feel. The graceful way Momo’s hand skates across Okarun’s, and the clear nervousness it elicits, make the moment the most grounded of the couple’s journey. Paired with cinematography and lighting that work wonders to enhance the scene, and everything that makes the pair’s emotional connection feel real and earned, plays out perfectly through that simple caress.
3) Marin & Gojo – My Dress-up Darling
This duo’s adventures in cosplaying continue to provide ample opportunities to grow together. As they support and aid each other, they become more entangled in each other’s worlds, becoming an inseparable pair that’s hard to picture existing without each other. This harmonious blending of personalities makes the pair’s time together an incredibly lovely thing to watch.
Many of the duo’s best moments come when they are pushing each other to try new things and take on new challenges. New experiences that may be unattainable alone become easily performed when the other is standing by their side. Adding power to these moments is the fantastic way the series positions the show’s perspective.
Sequences like a photoshoot in the park that is done completely from Gojo’s (Shoya Ishige, Blue Protocol) perspective behind the lens, or getting only Marin’s (Hina Suguta, Unicorn Overlord) thoughts and viewpoint when she believes Gojo is coming over for a “special night,” bring the emotional energy and excitement of falling in love for the first time to life. As the pair come closer to the big moments, their shared joy and passions make it impossible not to root for them, as they stumble ever closer to each other.
2) Rintaro & Kauruko – The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity
Rintaro (Yoshinori Nakayama, Zenshu) is a kindhearted but misunderstood young man who has given up on people. Constantly judged by his looks, he decided life would be easier to get through without expecting much of those around him. Until a chance encounter introduced him to Kauruko (Honoka Inoue, Raven of the Inner Palace).
The raw sweetness and charm that comes from anytime this entry in our Top Anime One True Pairs of 2025 list is on screen together is nearly overwhelming. Each is constantly amazed by the other’s strengths and virtues. Rintaor’s compassion always shines through the soft-spoken young man’s every action, just as Kauruko’s positivity and joy dispel any emotional rain clouds that hover around.
But while they always succeed at appreciating what the other does, they frequently struggle to see just how much they themselves bring to the table. This lack of inward recognition creates realistic stumbling blocks for the pair, allowing for sensitive moments of growth together. Despite moving further in their relationship than most anime couples do in a single season, every step the pair takes feels earned as they move closer together, encouraged by those around them.
1) Mai & Sakuta – Rascal Does Not Dream…
While the other entries on our Top Anime One True Pairs of 2025 list are finding love, Sakuta (Kaito Ishikawa, My Happy Marriage) and Mai (Asami Seto, Gnosia) already have it. Since episode three of the show’s original season, the duo has been side-by-side as they overcome every hurdle the ever-present problem of Puberty syndrome can throw at them.
Their willingness to go to whatever length is required, or believe that whatever incredible problem facing one of them is true, brings a sincerity and trust to the pair that would normally feel impossible to believe, given how shortly it took to build, if not for the perfect approach of the series. But while their staunch commitment to each other builds a rock-solid base for their relationship, it is how unique and tailored for them that makes it stand out.
Many love stories lean on generic ways to show affection, ways that can be near universally appealing. This allows the acts to play out with the best chance to delight the audience as much as the characters on the screen. With this couple, the narrative fully embraces a style of romance that is tailored only for them. Over two seasons and three movies, Mai and Sakuta have crafted their own love language, one many may not vibe with, but that works perfectly for their personalities.
Mai’s confidence, Sakuta’s flirting, the way they each know precisely how to goad the other just enough to be playful, while never crossing a line, and always knowing when everything else needs to be put aside so they can just be there for their partner, creates in the duo an example of love that is truly perfect, and more importantly, perfectly them.
Love comes in many flavors and sizes, and our Top Anime Couples of 2025 list showcases some of the best examples of it that the medium brought this year.
