High school student Hana has a very colourful past. As a result, Hana does not believe in love; however, Hana has a blog all about love. “SAKURA”, Hana’s online romance journal built around the forbidden romance between a teacher and his student. With sex and an intense expression of love filling its every entry, Hana’s blog quickly becomes popular – but not a single soul knows who its author might be! Hana enjoys this secrecy, but what if someone found out about her secret? What if that person is her hot teacher?

Love Lesson.com’s greatest similarity to Watashi ni xx Shinasai lies in its main character, a girl, who just like Yukina, has a legion of fans stemming from her online writing. Both main characters are clueless when it comes to love, but have incredibly successful love-themed pieces of online literature – not to mention the fact that both main characters keep this a secret from the people around them.

Sakuraba Yuuto is a proud otaku who has a new obsession: a moe artist who goes by the name Sayane. At school, he is assigned a seat next to Kashiwagi Kotone, a popular girl who does not hide her contempt for otaku culture. However, when Yuuto runs into Kotone at an otaku store, he comes to the realisation that she is waist-deep in love with otaku culture – but he does not realise that Kashiwagi Kotone is the Sayane he so deeply admires.

Here we are given a situation where the protagonist is one of the many fans of a talented artist who has quite the online reputation. However, like in Watashi ni xx Shinasai!, Kashiwagi Kotone keeps her identity secret from her admirer. Another similarity between the two manga is the fact that we see romance slowly blossoming between an apparent “Average Joe”/”Plain Jane” and an extremely popular character.

In the small town of Tokitakimi, there is a Sakura tree. Legend has it that a person was born from this tree one thousand years ago, devoid of any inkling of love, nor could they understand it. As a result, this “Sakura Child” was cruel and she was eventually destroyed. Fast forward a thousand years to the present, where the tree is attempting to create yet another life and it is up to a pair of high school students to teach the new Sakura Child all about love.

Love Allergen’s approach is fairly different to that of Watashi ni xx Shinasai; however, the basic underlying theme of introducing a loveless character to love prevails in both titles. In both manga, the character learning about love is taught by a handsome character – Shigure in Watashi ni xx Shinasai, and Tasuku in Love Allergen.

Kyou no Yuiko-san follows the teenage romance of Tomoya and his girlfriend, Kuroki Yuiko. It follows Tomoya’s everyday life with his girlfriend – highlighting his everyday joys and struggles with the eccentricities of his girlfriend. Her inexperience when it comes to love is clear, but so is her intention.

The major similarity between Kyou no Yuiko-san and Watashi ni xx Shinasai is the portrayal of an inexperienced female main character and following her interactions with male characters. In both manga, the female main characters are in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom when it comes to love, as well as to understand it. Yuiko’s relationship becomes the source of her learning, while Yukina drew hers from her interactions with Shigure.

Despite being a total hunk and the dream man of the majority of women out there, Sekine Keiichiro is a severely depressed man with very little luck when it comes to love. He is tired of simply being an object of lust for the women he meets, but because he is stoic, listless and passive, he is unable to deal with his well-veiled emotional turmoil. A jack of all trades but master of none, Sekine often tries and excels at a variety of things, but none of them give him the long term satisfaction he craves. Will he be able to find something or someone who will make him feel whole?

The main character of this title, Sekine Keiichiro, is a man who is very detached emotionally and as a result, he is incapable of making sense of feelings of love and affection. As such, he needs to learn how to make sense of them; however, he does not do this very well. The major similarity here is the stoic main character who is unable to truly register the emotion of love until later on in the series.

Hotaru is a high school student who has never been in love. Love to her is a complete enigma, a feeling she cannot understand. Even though she receives advice from the people around her, she wishes that she could experience love for herself. Then she meets Shinri, a handsome and popular guy who offers to teach Hotaru all about love. Could this be the lesson in love that Hotaru always wanted?

Just like Watashi ni xx Shinasai, the main character is a girl who has never experienced love and to some level, wishes to experience it herself. In both titles, there are popular and handsome male characters who take it upon themselves to teach the heroines of the respective manga about love. The only difference here is that Watashi ni xx Shinasai’s protagonist is a romance author.