10 Anime Like From Up on Poppy Hill for Slow, Retro Romance

From Up on Poppy Hill is Ghibli’s most underrated film, and I’ll die on that hill — which is, fittingly, the film’s whole subject. It’s not about magic or war or growing up in a hurry. It’s about 1963 Yokohama, a school clubhouse about to be demolished, a boy and a girl falling carefully in love, and the stubborn, quiet work of preserving things worth keeping. It’s the Ghibli film for people who love Ghibli’s kitchens more than its dragons: the flags, the harbor, the breakfast table, the past kept alive by people who refuse to forget it.

This list is for that feeling — anime about slow romance in specific, lovingly drawn places, where the period detail does half the storytelling and nobody is in a rush. Some picks share the retro setting. Some share the restraint. All of them share the belief that a story doesn’t need to shout to matter.

1. Kids on the Slope

The closest match ever made to this exact mood. 1966 Japan, a classical pianist and a jazz drummer meeting in a school basement, and jazz as the language for everything they can’t say. It’s directed by Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop) working with composer Yoko Kanno, so the music isn’t decoration — it’s the plot. The period setting, the harbor town, the carefully awkward romance: it’s Poppy Hill with a trumpet. The final scene is one of the great earned endings in anime. Watch this first.

2. My Happy Marriage

The same era, the same restraint, run through a different genre. Miyo has been raised to believe she’s worthless; she’s married off to a man rumored to be cold and cruel; the show is about both of them slowly discovering the other is the first person who ever treated them gently. It’s a Taisho-era romance with supernatural shimmers at the edges, and its pacing is Poppy Hill-slow in the best way — glances, tea, the terrifying work of accepting kindness. If the romantic reserve of Poppy Hill was your favorite part, this is the show for you.

3. Clannad: After Story

The heaviest pick on this list, included because it does the thing Poppy Hill does best — romance as accumulation, not events. Clannad spends a full season on small days before After Story changes the stakes entirely, and the reason the famous sad parts land is that you watched the small parts first. It’s the definitive argument that slow romance is a feature: you can’t earn that ending without the hundreds of quiet scenes before it. It’s set in a generic present-day town rather than a period one, but the emotional architecture is identical.

4. Shouwa Monogatari

The deep-cut pick, and the closest thing to Poppy Hill in period texture that exists in TV anime. A working-class family in 1964 Tokyo — the Olympic year — drawn with documentary affection: the factory, the shopping street, the TV arriving, the grandparents, the arguments over money and pride. It’s barely a romance and almost entirely a love letter to a specific moment in Japanese history, which is precisely Poppy Hill’s engine. It’s short, obscure, and quietly wonderful. Seek it out if you want the era itself.

5. Blue Spring Ride

The shoujo pick. Futaba reunites with her middle-school crush after years apart, and both of them have become people they don’t recognize — her too guarded, him too closed off. What connects it to Poppy Hill is the patience: the show lets feelings develop at the pace real feelings develop, and it respects the awkwardness instead of skipping past it. It’s set in the present day, but the tone is pure retro shoujo in the best sense. The manga continues past the anime, if the ending leaves you wanting.

6. His and Her Circumstances

The 90s classic, and the most interesting inclusion on this list. Kare Kano is a romance about two honor students who realize they’re both performing their perfect selves, and it’s the rare anime that treats falling in love as the process of dropping the performance. It shares Poppy Hill’s era (late 90s, which now reads as retro) and its belief that romance is a series of small revelations. The production famously falls apart in the back half — budget collapse, recap episodes — so the honest recommendation is the first half, which is among the best romance ever animated.

7. Kimi ni Todoke

The warmest blanket on this list. Sawako is mistaken for the girl from The Ring and feared accordingly; the show is about her being seen for the first time, at the slowest possible pace, by the most patient boy in anime. It’s the opposite of Poppy Hill’s confident Umi — Sawako is all uncertainty — but the shared DNA is the patience. Nothing is rushed, every misunderstanding is resolved through people actually talking, and the payoff of two seasons of slow-burn is enormous. Watch it when you need gentleness.

8. Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions

Hear me out, because this looks like a gag show and isn’t. Behind the eye-patches and imaginary battles, Chunibyo is about the same thing Poppy Hill is about — the past, and how to keep it without living in it. Rikka can’t let go of her fantasy self; the show’s real story is her learning that growing up doesn’t require abandoning the things that kept her alive. It’s funnier than everything else here and more sincere than it has any right to be. The movie ending is essential.

9. Ouran High School Host Club

The tonal wildcard, included on purpose. Ouran is a comedy — broad, theatrical, relentless — but it’s also secretly one of the smartest romances of the 2000s, and it shares Poppy Hill’s specific virtue: a setting with personality. The host club, the mansion, the rose petals, the elaborate class performance of it all — it’s a show that loves its own world the way Ghibli loves a kitchen. The romance sneaks up on you between jokes, and the finale is far more tender than the premise has any right to promise. A palate cleanser with a heart.

10. Beastars

The strangest pick, and the one I’ll defend hardest. Beastars isn’t retro and isn’t slow — it’s a CGI noir about a wolf in love with a rabbit. But underneath the genre machinery it’s the same story Poppy Hill tells: two people from worlds that shouldn’t touch, approaching each other with the caution of landmines, learning what they’re allowed to want. Legoshi’s restraint is the show’s subject, exactly as Umi and Shun’s propriety is Poppy Hill’s. If you bounced off the era setting but loved the feeling, try the wolf.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What’s the closest anime to From Up on Poppy Hill? Kids on the Slope — same decade, same harbor-town atmosphere, same careful romance. For the period setting alone, Shouwa Monogatari.
• Is From Up on Poppy Hill a romance? Yes, but a restrained one — the relationship is the spine, while the film’s heart is the clubhouse campaign and the era itself.
• Which of these are complete? Kids on the Slope, Clannad (both seasons), Kimi ni Todoke, Ouran, and Beastars have complete stories. Blue Spring Ride and Kare Kano continue in their source material.
• Which should I watch first? Kids on the Slope, without hesitation. It’s the only show that reproduces the exact mood of Poppy Hill, and it does it in eleven perfect episodes.

Ghibli’s quietest film turns out to have a whole genre around it. The ten shows above are the proof that slow isn’t boring — it’s just confident. Start at the harbor.

Still hunting for your next binge? Our anime that will make you cry roundup and our anime where the bad boy changes for love guide are the natural next stops.

Keep going with 11 Anime Like MISSION-E for Comedy Fans, then 13 Anime Like Campfire Cooking in Another World — and bookmark the Anime Like Finder collection for the full catalog.