Valentine’s Day isn’t a happy holiday for everyone. In fact, it can be downright depressing. To avoid the misery, some run away from the love stuff on February 14th (out of sight, out of mind), but for me, even when I was a lonely single, I still always embraced the day as I drowned in nostalgia and ached with what-might-be’s and what-might-have-been’s.
If you’re going to go that same route and let the romance of the holiday consume you, why not do it with anime? And while anime all too often doesn’t go all the way, officially bringing a boy and girl together at the conclusion of the series, and fans have to settle for shipping their favorites, there are a few pairs that do get together and make for some wonderful couples. Here are some of my favorites (warning: there are spoilers ahead):
1. Sawako and Shota, Kimi ni Todoke
I admit it, though—I haven’t read the manga. I know, I know, I need to catch up and see what happens as they figure out what it means to be a relationship!
2. Yugo and Aki, Silver Spoon
3. Sakura and Syaoran, Cardcaptor Sakura
Recently, a close friend of my became engaged with someone she first dated long ago. Sometimes it takes a long time for a relationship to reach its pinnacle, it conclusion, its consummation. For Sakura and Syaoran, it really didn’t take that long in CCS time (a year or two?), but for the audience, it took more than fifteen years for our couple to officially get together (movies, companion series, and fan fiction aside).
And that’s part of what makes the Clear Card Arc so much fun, to see these two interact in a new light, and it’s beautiful because they’ve each grown so much, both as people and together in friendship and now into couplehood.
4. Ko and Aoba, Cross Game
5. Tomoya and Nagisa, Clannad
If you know our blog, you probably could have guessed this last couple. Clannad After Story, with how it deals with loss, redemption, parenting, marriage, and relationships, grows more prominent in my mind as the years pass, as does the couple at the center of it. What a picture of two broken people—Nagisa with her sickness, anxiety, and fear, and Tomoya with his anger and abusive past—coming together and helping to heal each other through pouring on of compassion, grace, and sacrifice.
Clannad is a fairly long series, and it may be hard for today’s viewers to sit through a four-cour series that is light on action, but it’s absolutely worth it to see the journey these two take, and even further through Tomoya’s eyes as the last six or seven episodes move into territory so rare and unique in anime, and ever so meaningful and real.
Again, these are some of my favorite couples in anime—if I had given my ships (those pairings that I love seeing together, whether canon or not), you might see an entirely different five! But now it’s your turn! Tell me your OTP or some of your favorite anime couples/ships!