5 Great Anime Movies Perfect For Date Night
Date night doesn’t have to be another rerun of The Notebook, 50 First Dates or Pretty Woman. You’ve seen those movies a hundred times before, and so has your date. Why not switch things up with a romantic anime movie? If you’re both into anime, that’s already a big compatibility win. And if you’re not sure whether your date likes anime movies, well, this could be the perfect test, right?
The films in our list aren’t just romantic. They’re creative, emotional, and way more interesting than the usual Hollywood love stories. You’ll find everything from heartfelt summer romances to stories that’ll actually have you both reaching for tissues. Plus, watching something different shows you actually put thought into your special evening.
The best part is there’s a romantic anime for literally every occasion: sweet first loves, long-distance heartbreaks, or even magical love stories that transport you to other worlds. Wouldn’t you rather remember your night for the movie that surprised you both? Here are 5 great anime options for date night.
1. To The Forest Of Firefly Lights
Hotaru Takegawa is just 6-years-old when she gets lost in the woods near her grandfather’s house and meets Gin, a forest spirit. What begins with him helping her to find her way home turns into years of secret summer visits. She keeps coming back, growing older while Gin stays mostly the same. Unfortunately for them, he is bound by one cruel rule: if he ever touched a human, he’ll disappear… forever.
As the years go by, their friendship slowly shifts into something much deeper. Every shared laugh feels a little dangerous and every glance seems to carry the weight of what they couldn’t have.
The film doesn’t need loud drama or endless talking like most romantic films do these days. Instead it quietly explores how much touch actually matters in a relationship.
2. Your Name
The body swap genre is filled with great films like Freaky Friday, Change Up and The Hot Chick. But none of them are quite as sweet as in Your Name, an anime film where Mitsuha Miyamizu, a small-town girl, and Taki Tachibana, a Tokyo city boy, switch places. The film starts off playful, as you’d expect from the genre, with the two clumsily navigating each other’s lives and slowly falling for one another. But just when you think it’s the sweetest rom-com ever, the story flips into something much deeper, as meeting face-to-face turns out to be way more complicated than they expected.
Keep your tissues close with this one.
3. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
If you’re into anime and love a good sci-fi twist, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is one you can’t skip. 17-year-old Makoto Konno isn’t exactly the picture of responsibility. A student at Kuranose High School in Tokyo, she stumbles upon a strange walnut-shaped object that gives her the ability to leap through time. What does she do with it? She cheats tests, avoids awkward moments, and basically uses it for every silly teenage whim you can imagine.
But those jumps aren’t unlimited. When she realises she only has a few left, the fun stops. Every leap she’s taken has changed someone else’s life, and some of those mistakes can’t be undone.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time isn’t your typical romance anime filled with endless declarations of love and dramatic confessions. Instead, it weaves romance quietly into the story through Makoto’s relationships.
4. Weathering With You
Weathering With You follows 16-year-old Hodaka Morishima, who bolts from his troubled home and lands in a rain-soaked Tokyo. There, he discovers the legend of the “sunshine girls” and meets Hina, a cheerful orphan who can literally part the clouds with a prayer. Sounds romantic, right? Well, it is, but it’s also about survival, sacrifice, and what you’d risk for the person you love.
Fans praised the heartfelt story, with one reviewer calling it “a love letter to youth and recklessness.”
5. I Want To Eat Your Pancreas
I Want to Eat Your Pancreas might sound like the title of a really campy B-horror film, but it’s actually a beautiful coming-of-age story that will have you sobbing in the end. It follows a socially awkward high school teenager who isn’t great at making friends. All of that changes suddenly when he finds the diary of a fellow student, Sakura Yamauchi, one of the most popular girls in his school. While reading her personal secrets, he discovers that she’s dying from pancreatic cancer.
The two form an unexpected friendship where she drags him out of his emotional shell and he keeps her company through her personal struggles. Together, they embark on small adventures that change both their lives forever.
What makes I Want to Eat Your Pancreas so great is just how real their relationship is. It doesn’t rush into romance like most films do. It builds gradually, letting the romance happen naturally.
Any one of these films would be a great pick for a romantic evening. Just make sure you have everything else: popcorn, drinks, and a box of tissues.
