The rich-poor romance is a unique type of romance anime that focuses on the unlikely pairing of the richest and the poorest people in society. A great deal of humor characterizes this type of romance, as they struggle to fit in with the other class and are often fun to watch. The rich-poor romance is a great way to explore different romance tropes, as it isn’t always the typical damsel-in-distress type of romance, and it isn’t always the typical “save the princess” type of romance either.
The rich-poor romance is a unique type of anime that shouldn’t be missed. That’s why we bring you the all-time 10 best rich-poor romances anime that you need to watch.
Here are the 10 best rich-poor romance anime
The richest and the poorest of society meet, fall in love, and make each other’s lives better. That sounds like a fantasy, right? Unfortunately, it’s not a fairy tale; it’s a reality in many anime. While anime can explore a multitude of different romance tropes, the rich-poor romance is one of the most unique and compelling because it takes two very different people and shows them how to love and be loved in a way they never thought was possible. Here are the 10 best rich-poor romances anime of all time.
10. Hakushaku To Yousei
Don’t we all love fairies? Not the evil kind you find in shows like Berserk. We are talking about the good ones like you see in Fairy Tales. This time our fairy is the poor girl and our count is the rich guy. So, why does our rich guy take an interest in fairies?
It turns out this blonde guy needs to learn more about fairy lore and the best person to learn that from is Lydia, a fairy doctor. So, she decides to serve under him and our rich guy becomes her master. I know, master and servant relationships aren’t very original, but Hakushaku To Yousei definitely deserves the top spot when it comes to anime of this niche.
You can clearly see the logic and ideals behind these characters and you can also tell why they fall in love with each other. If you haven’t realized, this is not something many modern romance anime writers think about.
Dubbed – No
Season – 1(12 Ep.)
09. Nakaimo
Welcome to the romance anime version of Among Us. There are five girls but which of them is our main character’s half-sister. Should we call an emergency meeting and bring in Sherlock Holmes to analyze the clues. Even though in real life it may be easier to find out your half-sister but in anime, it can turn into a game of who is the sister because every anime girl looks exactly the same with different personalities.
Our main character is the regular rich guy, who just owned his father’s company and needs to find a bride. Since this is anime we’re speaking about, going to the moon and coming back is going to be easier than finding a bride. But things get even worse when our main character has to choose between five girls. Don’t worry; this will not go much into the harem round.
Dubbed – No
Season – 1(12 Ep.)
08. Skip Beat
To this day, Skip Beat is one of the best-written romance shows I’ve ever watched. The reason it’s in number eight is because of the niche. Otherwise, it would be in my number one. It is a revenge story, not the good old I’m going to kill him revenge story, but the good old I’m going to rise above you and look down on you revenge story.
The characters feel very dynamic and not some people who can easily fit into the usual character cliches. One of my favorite facts about this show is the female lead. Our girl Kyoko Mogami definitely knows how to turn the tables, kick tragedy in the ass, and rise up in the ranks to take revenge on the guy who treated her like garbage.
It has only 25 episodes, so make sure to give it a watch.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 1(25 Ep.)
07. Shomiin Sample
This time our main character is the lab experiment and the ones who are experimenting on him are the girls. So, what’s this story about? There’s an all-girl school, and all the girls barely know anything about the outside world, seem familiar.
Wait, it gets even more familiar. So, these girls bring in a boy to learn about the outside world from him. Now to stop being the lab experiment for all the girls in the school, this boy says he has a fetish for muscles. Now I know the premise of this show will throw many off, but if there’s one thing you should go for, it’s the comedy.
It’s the good old average high school boy in rich girl school trope done right and if you are finished with the original 12 episodes, then make sure to watch the extra six specials as well.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 1(12 Ep.)
06. Special A
Who is more special? Is it the cool girl who can do everything, or is it the boy who looks cool while doing everything? Yup, special a is one of those love stories where two love rivals have to kill each other to see who’s better. When I said kill each other, I didn’t mean killing each other with actual knives and blades. They want to see who is better.
This time the love story is between Hikari and Kei, who are rivals when it comes to everything. The relationship between the two characters might not feel developed. Since this is a Shoujo anime, there will be a lot of Shoujo elements repeating in the story, but the rivalry between the main characters can keep you hooked.
The animation may be a bit old compared to modern romance anime, but who needs animation when you get to see true love.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 1(24 Ep.)
05. Vampire Knight
Do you need the anime version of Twilight? Then wait no more. Vampire Knight has got your back because it’s about vampires and Knights. Come on, you should know that by reading the title. Now, Cross Academy is special. It is divided into two classes, the day and the night classes.
There is also the disciplinary committee which is led by our two main protagonists, the cheerful Yuuki Cross and the gruff Zero Kiryuu, who maintain order and peace between the two classes. So all is good, right? Not exactly. The problem is that the night class actually hides a darker secret that they are vampires.
The day class has no clue about this. So, it is a secret unique to the night class. To make things more interesting, the leader of the night class is Kaname whom Yuuki has a history. If you need a rich-poor romance with vampires, then this is the show for you.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 2(26 Ep.)
04. Tsubasa Chronicle
If you need some supernatural elements, parallel worlds, girls suddenly sprouting out wings, then this will be the perfect romance show for you. Tsubasa Chronicle follows a boy named Syaoran who finds her childhood friend Princess Sakura making an appearance in an excavation site with mysterious wings on her back.
When the wings disperse into many feathers and disappear, he realizes that she lost her memory because of it, and now it’s up to him to restore her memory. The premise may be something done a million times.
Still, Tsubasa Chronicle knows how to take some good character templates, change a few personalities and appearances here and there and then give us one hell of a fantasy showdown. Also, don’t forget Yuki Kajiura does the soundtrack, and you know that you can expect something epic when she’s involved.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 2(52 Ep.)
03. Arte
You know what anime is missing, art. By art, I don’t mean the art in the animation. I mean animation about art. Arte is the daughter of a French nobleman who is doomed to be married. I am saying doomed because if she gets married, she’ll have to eventually give up on her passion for drawing.
In her search for a way to escape, she meets Leo, another artist who takes Arte as her apprentice, but although ironic as it seems, Arte falls in love with Leo and is now struggling to give up her passion again.
Arte belongs to the category of slice-of-life anime, so it’s going to have much of a slow pace rather than most other anime on this list but don’t worry, it has some top-notch character writing.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 1(12 Ep.)
02. Hayate Combat Butler
When speaking about those rich-poor romance animes, you cannot forget the tragedy of Hayate. In the first episode, this guy falls to the lowest of the low in terms of money, and there’s only one rich tsundere to save him. This show has tons and tons of filler. Hayate The Combat Butler is the master of filler episodes.
When you finish watching the first season and move on to the second, you’ll see some of the characters completely skipping events that had happened before that’s because the first season had a lot of filler arcs.
From the second season onward, they decided to follow the manga. There are also other girls joining in but remember the tsundere somehow triumphed all of them.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 4(101 Ep.)
01. Ouran Highschool Host Club
On number one, we have Ouran Highschool Host Club because you can’t ever tell me a better romance anime that balances the comedy, the romance, and all those rich-poor struggles better than Ouran. The anime follows the adventures of Haruhi, who accidentally breaks a vase in the host club room and later joins the club in order to repay the debt.
The host club is a boy’s club that serves as enjoyment for the girls in the school and it is filled with characters of bizarre and weird personalities that you’ll immediately fall in love with. The anime even handles concepts like poverty and loneliness in its own comedic fashion. So even if this whole rich-poor concept doesn’t interest you very much, the comedy of this show definitely will.
Dubbed – Yes
Season – 1(26 Ep.)
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