Vol 8 My Love Story With Yamada-kun at Lv999, Mangamo. Vol 1 Strobe Edge, Viz Media. Vol 3 Diary of a Female Lead. Kodansha.
What Is a Friends to Lovers Manga?
The friends to lovers manga trope is a trope commonly found in romance series, especially shoujo. It is just as the name implies: two characters become good friends before romantic feelings develop. Personally, I’d say it’s a bit different from the childhood friends trope, as we readers often get to witness the characters’ first meeting, as well as the development of their platonic relationship first.
This obviously isn’t always the case, but is commonly how the trope plays out! Sometimes, the two will have already had a friendship to begin with—personally, I like to see the development of the friendship in addition to romantic feelings later! Anyway, here are five friends to lovers manga recommendations for you to enjoy!
You can read my full review for each series by clicking the manga titles!
1. How I Met My Soulmate
Author: Anashin
Status: Ongoing
Number of Chapters: English translation currently at 7 volumes & 28 digital chapters
How I Met My Soulmate Kodansha page
This lovely shoujo follows university student Yuuki, who wants to fall in love. However, Yuuki is a bit picky. She wants to fall in love, but only with someone who feels like “the one” for her—a soulmate!
To meet more people, she and her friend go to a club. Yuuki not only has no success, but even ends up caring for a drunk person who says some hurtful things to her. Later after sobering up, this person (named Iori) offers to make it up to her by helping her find someone suitable.
As they set out on this goal, these two become closer friends and learn more about each other. This friends to lovers manga has a nice, mature romance for a shoujo and a lovely art style. How I Met My Soulmate (or Unmei no Hito ni Deau Hanashi in Japanese) is a very pretty modern manga with complex characters and an interesting love story!
2. Loving Yamada at Lv999!
Author: Mashiro
Status: Ongoing
Number of Chapters: 108+
Loving Yamada at Lv999 Mangamo page
(Also called My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 in some adaptations) This romance manga is a series with a fun video-game theme. It starts out with Akane, who was recently dumped by her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend dumped her because he found a girl who plays a particular online video game—and they actually met in-game! Stressed and emotionally exhausted, Akane begins angrily playing that same game, which she downloaded while still in her past relationship.
In this online game, she meets another player who is rather stoic and uninterested. Unexpectedly, she runs into him in person at an event for the online game.
After a series of interesting and sort of embarrassing events occur, she finds herself needing to meet this rude player, named Yamada, once again! As the story progresses, we see Akane meet many new faces and make a variety of friends—and eventually, a love interest!
This friends to lovers manga is unique and fun, especially for readers who enjoy video games. You don’t need to play them to enjoy this series, but it’ll let you enjoy the references a bit more! It sort of reminded me of Wotakoi, featuring representation of people with a specific interest.
In addition to this fun theme, I also really loved the heroine’s expressive personality, and how it contrasts so strongly to her love interest.
3. Diary of a Female Lead: Shujinkou Nikki
Author: Yuu Yoshinaga
Status: Completed
Number of Chapters: English translation currently at 7 volumes, finished at 12 volumes in Japanese
Diary of a Female Lead Seven Seas Entertainment page
This nice friends to lovers manga story begins with the heroine, Aoi, who feels like she is nothing but a side-character. She wishes to have her main-character debut in school and experience fun things like love. After admitting this to her older brother and his friend, they decide to help her out!
The first task is to fall in love, of course. This friends to lovers manga is a sweet, wholesome story with very cute characters. The romance also develops very naturally, as love should! I also really enjoyed seeing Aoi’s character growth; it was very fun to see her slowly become the heroine she dreamed of.
4. Strobe Edge
Author: Io Sakisaka
Status: Completed
Number of Chapters: 10 volumes, 39 chapters
This adorable story gives the feel of a classic shoujo. It has a very cute, bubbly art style with a sweet, innocent heroine named Ninako. She is caring, kind, and considerate! Ninako, like many shoujo heroines, falls in love—but unfortunately for her, he is taken! Therefore, she settles for just becoming friends.
This bubbly story has a lot of sweet moments and a fun plot about experiencing your first love, but also touches on some other more serious topics in an unexpectedly mature way. It’s got a tad bit of drama in it too, so if you love that aspect in romance mangas, give this one a read! This fluffy friends to lovers manga was one of my first experiences with shoujo manga, and it got me hooked on Io Sakisaka’s style.
5. The More You Chew, The Sweeter It Gets!
Author: Nao Hinachi
Status: Completed
Number of Chapters: 6 volumes, 24 chapters
Published by Shogakukan
This sweet shoujo starts with the sociable, happy-go-lucky heroine Akari, who wants to try her best to make tons of friends during her school years. She happens to run into someone who is the complete opposite of her: A quiet and uninterested boy in her year named Ryuu. Akari can’t help but be interested in this person who just doesn’t seem to enjoy anything or talk to anyone.
She reaches out to him with the idea of helping him find things he may enjoy—intrigued, Ryuu actually agrees! This cute story is a friends to lovers manga with a bit of an opposites-attract approach. It is pretty cute and wholesome; I really enjoyed the progression of the romance in this story!
Final Thoughts
I think the friends to lovers manga trope is a safe, wholesome choice. It allows the characters to build a relationship and get to know each other better first, and sometimes even allows for a bit of a slow burn romance—but not always! This trope just feels very natural and realistic, and I think the romance is often on the fluffier side of things, too.
It’s cute and sweet; a fantastic option for readers who enjoy more heartwarming romances. I also have full manga reviews of these recommendations on my site, so please check them out for a more in-depth look!
