Highlights
- Manga like A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives and Highschool of the Dead perfectly blend horror and romance, offering a unique and exhilarating experience.
- Sola and "Tasogare Otome x Amnesia" combine supernatural horror with romance, creating a compelling narrative that keeps readers hooked.
- Koharu no Hibi and Sankarea: Undying Love explore the Yandere archetype, pushing the limits of this horror-romance trope and adding intense and creepy elements to the stories.
Horror and romance genres are often seen as two entirely different domains, yet a blend of these two popular niches can offer an exhilarating experience. Elements of love are often found embedded in horror narratives, with romantic obsessions and forbidden love tropes usually leading to murderous rampages.
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From psychological masterpieces to gore fests, these horror anime will send chills down the spines of even the most hardcore fans.
Manga tend to follow such storylines with the Yandere archetype, a type of obsessive character willing to go to any lengths, even murder, for their obsession. Other narratives include a play on the age-old classic of love and mortality, where horrific events separate lovers and leave their romance eternalized. The manga landscape is not short of compelling horror-romance stories, and these manga are top-of-the-line in terms of perfectly blending themes of horror and romance together, resulting in some truly engaging and compelling stories.
7 A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.45/5
Release Date | July 9, 2011 |
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No. Of Volumes | 6 |
Creator | Takayi Kagami |
Supernatural elements are often embedded in horror anime, and a Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives takes on this very subgenre. A forgotten promise with an ancient sorceress changes Kurogane Taito’s life forever, bestowing him with seven lives and deeming him immortal, albeit on the condition he isn’t killed seven times within the span of fifteen minutes.
Taito unknowingly brings back the sorceress Saitohimea, and the two are forced to fend off the resurrection of an evil ancient sorcerer. In the midst of the chaos, Taito and Saitohimea’s romance blooms, though the intensity of these sentiments is much greater from the sorceress’ side.
6 Highschool of the Dead
Anime-Planet Rating: 4/5
Release Date | August 9, 2006 |
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No. Of Volumes | 7 |
Creator | Daisuke Satō, Shōji Satō |
Highschool of the Dead is the quintessential horror-romance among the anime landscape, yet many have forgotten its original manga roots. The manga garnered immense popularity, even catching the eye of North American publishing studios that wished to directly localize the manga.
The manga’s story itself is rather overdone, as it follows a group of friends trying to desperately survive a zombie apocalypse. However, the romantic aspects of the storyline are what set apart Highschool of the Dead from its counterparts. Takashi and Rei’s intimate scenes in between the zombie apocalypse portray a sense of normalcy, alluding to their resolve to live even under such dire circumstances.
5 Sola
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.5/5
Release Date | December 21, 2006 |
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No. Of Volumes | 2 |
Creator | Naoki Hisaya |
Sola is a supernatural manga that blends romantic elements, though these aspects initially take root as a friendship, slowly delving into romance over the course of the story. The storyline follows Yorito, a high school student who has a chance encounter with an odd girl whom he only seems to find at night.
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These anime all depict sickening, horrific mutations and deformations happening to the human body.
Turns out, the odd girl is a Yaka, a supernatural creature that cannot step into the sun. However, this isn’t Mitsuri’s only problem, as she is also being hunted by a man intending to end her existence. It’s up to Yorito to protect his newfound friendship from supernatural horrors in this peculiar world.
4 Tasogare Otome x Amnesia
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.1/5
Release Date | April 8, 2012 |
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No. Of Volumes | 10 |
Creator | MAYBE |
Tasogare Otome x Amnesia’s narrative isn’t as chilling as the other horror manga, yet it still incorporates a sort of supernatural horror feel that couples well with the romance. The story is set in Seikyou Private Academy, a school that bears a dark secret of being haunted by a girl who died in the building’s basement.
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These manga are perfect for reading on a cozy Sunday afternoon.
While the rumors may seem daunting, the actual ghost girl is an amnesiac with no memory of her past life. In search of the answers, ghost girl Yuuko is joined by Teiichi Niiya, a freshman who can see ghosts, along with a few of his friends. Together, the group sets out to discover the secret behind the school’s paranormal activities.
3 Koharu no Hibi
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.52/5
Release Date | January 7, 2009 |
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No. Of Volumes | 4 |
Creator | Youkou Ooshiro |
Koharu no Hibi follows the standard Yandere horror-romance archetype, though the manga surely ups the ante in terms of the Yandere aspects. Akira Torii forms a close bond with Koharu, a girl from his school he constantly runs into, yet he remains unaware of the creepy, antics she is capable of.
Persuaded by his friends, Akira jumps into a relationship with the girl without thinking things through. Now, he is stuck with an obsessive Yandere capable of going to extreme lengths for her man. Koharu no Hibi encompasses the extremities of the Yandere archetype, pushing the trope to its limits.
2 Sankarea: Undying Love
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.95/5
Release Date | April 6, 2012 |
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No. Of Volumes | 11 |
Creator | Mitsuru Hattori |
Sankarea: Undying Love’s narrative is a bit peculiar, featuring a necrophiliac protagonist with a desire to find a zombie girlfriend. Chihiro Furuya eventually reaches this goal, though entirely unexpectedly, as a depressed girl accidentally drinks a resurrection potion intended for Furuya’s dead cat.
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Horror anime already feature several petrifying elements, yet these female villains further add a harrowing twist with their insatiable bloodlust.
Despite falling off a cliff, the girl cheats death and lives to tell the tale, though the potion turns her into a zombie. Instead of the usual zombie narrative of feeding off humans, these zombies can live off hydrangea leaves. The manga follows Furuya’s necrophiliac misadventures with his zombie girlfriend, intermixing comedic relief with a horror-romance theme.
1 Black Bird
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.9/5
Release Date | January 26, 2007 |
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No. Of Volumes | 18 |
Creator | Kanoko Sakurakoji |
Being able to see demons and spirits from a young age is a relatively common trope in the horror genre, yet Black Bird takes it up a notch by turning the protagonist into ‘the Holy Fruit.’ With Yokai now after Misao Harada’s blood, she is forced to take refuge with her childhood friend Kyo.
To her surprise, Kyo turns out to be a Tengu Yokai, a Japanese mythical creature that seems to be a mix of crows and humans. Similar to every other demon, Kyo wants Misao’s hand in marriage, since it’s bound to bring him unparalleled power. However, their sundered love is filled with demonic entities and uninvited dangers, leaving Misao entirely at Kyo’s mercy.