If you’re looking for a light and fluffy take on the boys love genre, you could do a lot worse than Super Lovers. It tells the tale of high schooler Haru and his younger stepbrother Ren, who spent a summer together in Canada getting to know each other. But when Ren comes to live with Haru in Japan five years later, Haru doesn’t seem to remember anything! Can they repair their relationship and figure out how they really feel about one another?

Though the underage and incest-y overtones may turn some people off, this anime is very light on sexuality. Instead, it features adorable moments of bonding and love that are enhanced even further by the gorgeous music and animation from Studio Deen. It doesn’t necessarily do anything new for the genre, but the story of this cute young couple will give you the warm fuzzies nonetheless.

This anime takes the common teacher/student romance and brings it closer to the real world and modern sensibilities. Our young protagonist, Masahiro, was resigned to being bullied by neighborhood gangs, but that all changed when a mysterious figure known as Kousuke Oushiba saves him from his plight. He thought he’d never see his hero again, but a year later, Masahiro finds out that Kousuke is his new math teacher! Will he be able to get closer to his beloved Kousuke, or will their different stations in life keep them apart?

Since these two knew each other beforehand and all romantic moments have clear consent, there isn’t as much of an uncomfortable status difference between them as tends to happen in similar boys love relationships between a superior and an underling. Masahiro and Kousuke also face realistic prejudice against their unorthodox relationship, and their struggles with the world around them strengthens their bond all the more. If you’re a longtime boys love fan and want something that bucks the trends, check out Hitorijime My Hero.

Ooo cool, a sci-fi boys love anime! If you love dystopian young adult fiction but wish there was a little more gay in it, this could be the series for you. No. 6 is a light novel adaptation set in the titular perfect city that’s blocked off from the post-apocalyptic wasteland surrounding it. It follows Nezumi, a fugitive from outside the walls, and Shion, a boy who protected him long ago and was booted out of the upper class because of his actions. Together, they explore the city’s hidden underbelly and uncover what’s really going on in No. 6.

This anime is well worth watching just for its 1984-esque social commentary, but the romance between Shion and Nezumi is the icing on the cake. Their upbringings and personalities couldn’t be more different, and yet they bring out the best in each other over the course of their adventure. For a dramatic sci-fi yarn with just the right amount of boys love and fujoshi fanservice, give No. 6 a shot.

And now for something completely different – Chinese anime! Mo Dao Zu Shi (translated as either “The Founder of Diabolism” or “The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation”) is set in a fantasy world based on Chinese mythology and stars two men who wander the countryside fighting ghosts, solving mysteries, and even raising children together. But there’s a twist – both of them have recently been resurrected from the dead and used to be archenemies in their previous lives.

Despite this complicated premise, the show is proving to be a blast so far. It shifts constantly between tragic drama and off-the-wall comedy, the animation is an exotic feast for the eyes, and the characters are just as likable and interesting as they were in the original novel. Only time will tell if Mo Dao Zu Shi can gain traction with the Japanese and Western boys love audience, but we sure hope so!

If you think today’s anime pretty boys look feminine, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The main characters of Patalliro are so girly that they make Sailor Moon’s Zoicite and Kunzite (who were inspired by this anime) look like frat boys. But even with their long hair, prominent eyeshadow, and impossibly beautiful faces, Major Jack Barbarossa Bancoran and assassin Maraich Juschenfe still kick serious ass.

The story makes very little sense – it starts out with a young king fleeing assassins who ends up in space somehow – but that hardly matters. Its bizarre art style combines old school shoujo with psychedelic imagery in its own dizzying way, and the relationship between Bancoran and Maraich is as dramatic and otherworldly as everything else around it. For a history lesson on the genre and a unique boys love story unlike any you’ve ever seen, take a gander at Patalliro.

Written by the same author as the boys love classic Junjou Romantica, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi focuses on the tingly feeling of first love and how it affects people for their whole lives. It follows three couples who are all connected in some way to the manga industry, which lets the anime tell intriguing love stories while also giving insights into a world that most of us are unfamiliar with.

It doesn’t have sci-fi or fantasy elements, fancy animation, or even super original story concepts, but Sekaiichi Hatsukoi makes it this high on the list because of how masterfully it explores its characters and the theme of a pure first love. It isn’t all about sex or flirting – just a genuine relationship between two people who can’t ever forget one another.

Like Mo Dao Zu Shi, Banana Fish is a fresh face this season. But even though it’s still airing, we can see from its faithful adaptation of the manga so far that it’s bound to match (or even exceed) its legendary source material.

This anime takes place in the underground crime-ridden streets of New York City, updated from the ‘80s setting of the manga to 2018. Hapless Japanese photographer Eiji Okumura finds himself sucked into the life of Ash Lynx, a young gang leader with mafia ties and a shadowy past. Their relationship develops slowly over time from a mutual fascination with each other’s worlds to an actual romance built on trust and understanding. It’s handled subtly and realistically, weaving in complicated issues like culture shock and Ash’s skewed sense of sexuality after his childhood as a sex slave. We’ve only seen a bit of this so far in animation, but we’re confident that the rest of Ash and Eiji’s story will play out brilliantly in this new form.

Perhaps the most mainstream and popular of all boys love anime these days is Yuri on Ice – the 2016 ice skating show that actually had the balls to confirm a gay male relationship between the two main characters. It’s a fairly standard sports anime otherwise, but the adorable and realistically structured romance between Yuuri and Victor is definitely the highlight of the show.

Yuri on Ice avoids the common boys love trope of obvious seme and uke roles by having Yuuri and Victor be close in age, blurring their teacher/student relationship with moments of genuine friendship, and making Victor more flamboyant and girlish than Yuuri while still retaining his manliness. Plus, each of them has heartfelt reactions to scenes like the kiss on the ice and Yuuri telling Victor to quit being his coach, further cementing them as real human beings with their own lives and feelings who desperately want to spend their lives with each other. For those of us who’ve been waiting decades for a realistic gay relationship in anime, Yuri on Ice is here to please.

If Patalliro is the progenitor of old school boys love, Gravitation does the same thing for modern yaoi anime. It was an outlier at the time of its release, since its engaging characters and catchy music actually garnered it a fair amount of popularity even outside of the typical boys love demographic. It proved that yaoi didn’t have to be explicit or solely catered towards girls in order to be successful – it just needed to tell a great story.

The main characters, Shuichi and Yuki, are the classic uke and seme pair right down to their character designs. But since they’re such well-written characters with realistic goals and interactions, this structure doesn’t take away from their relationship. It could even be said that they’re the best examples of the seme and uke archetypes in modern anime, leaving room for later shows like Yuri on Ice and Banana Fish to change up the formula that they perfected. Gravitation was revolutionary in its day, and still holds up almost two decades later.

With only a 60 minute run time, how can this movie weave a romance that warms our hearts so much that it beats out all of the longer anime to top this list? We’re not exactly sure, but watch Doukyuusei to find out for yourself. It tells the story of Rihito and Hikaru, two complete opposites who bond over their mutual love of music. They don’t realize at first what they’re in for, but their young hearts begin to beat in sync as they slowly come to love one another.

Rihito and Hikaru’s adorable relationship is just young love, pure and simple. It’s realistic, raw, and lays bare the troubles that teenagers face as they mature and have to face their future. No tricks, no tired tropes, just love. And in the end, that’s all we fans wanted in the first place.