Summary
Some of the best robot anime around can be found in theGundamseries. From the start in 1979 to recent anime adaptations in 2025, these series have featured romantic pairings of all ages. Unfortunately for robotic love fiends out there, these love stories have mostly been about humans or humanoid creatures.
After all, theGundams and other mecha in the seriesare rarely sentient so they cannot express love. These other anime examples do have robots in them who can love in return. Do these mechanical hearts find love forever lasting or do they get broken into pieces? Let’s rank the power of these romances with spoilers.
The Big Ois an anime known to bothfans of Toonamiand Adult Swim. The art deco aesthetics and story about a rich man, Roger, who fights crime on the side is reminiscent of the 90sBatmancartoon. The big difference is that Roger piloted a giant mech, Big O, which was referred to as a Megadeus in the series. In the first episode, Roger rescues a female android named Dorothy who talks in a monotone and often butts heads with Roger as she becomes a main character too. While the two never officially become a couple, it’s an unstated romance that is clear to the viewers that is both sweet and funny.
The romance inOutlaw Staris not as weird as the one between Joker and EDI inMass Effect. That was between a man and an AI assistant that eventually gained a body. InOutlaw Star, Jean is a human bounty hunter and Melfina is an android imbued with the gift to integrate into a ship’s database.
She’s a bit lost in the world she inhabits and finds it hard to blend in with normal human behavior. Jean isn’t sure how to treat Melfina back, but the two slowly become closer by the end of this one-seasonanime thatCowboy Bebopfanswould surely eat up if they somehow missed it up to this point.
Battle Angel Alitastarted as a manga but was adapted intoa two-part OVAthat left a lot on the table. In the OVA, Dr. Ido goes to a junkyard and finds the wreckage of a young robot girl. He restores and raises her as Alita. The story takes place in a future wherein most of humanity lives in slums with the rich towering above them in a floating city. Alita soon has dreams of becoming a hunter-warrior, a bounty hunter, to stop evil robots which is when she meets a young boy named Hugo.
The OVA skips through a lot but they fall in love and even share a kiss, but Hugo eventually gets killed. The only thing that survived was his head which Alita preserved, brought to Dr. Ido, and he turned Hugo into a cyborg. Unfortunately, Hugo still died after attempting to go up to the floating city, leaving the OVA on a dark note.
4Hideki and Chi (Chobits)
If Computers Were Girls
Anyone who grew up searching for manga or anime DVDs in the 2000s probably came across a copy ofChobitsfeaturing a young girl with robotic ears. This is Chi, a computer in person form whom the main character, Hideki, finds one day. He teaches her about humanity and helps Chi explore her origins like why she was abandoned.
Like most Clamp stories, it’s focused purely on romance and comedy blended together to create some wacky and awkward situations. It’s a short watch and an even shorter read that mostly ends well between Hideki and Chi.
Terminator Zerois an anime adaptation of the property, taking place in Japan and focusing on a scientist, Malcolm, who has in invented an A.I. named Kokoro he hopes can stop Skynet. The big reveal happens toward the end when Malcolm explains he grew up in the future and helped create and restore a robot named Misaki. The two fell in love but to save humanity, they had to travel back in time, erasing Misaki’s memory.
She became the nanny to their children, unbeknownst to her that she was a robot or the love of Malcom’s life. It’s complicated and messy like most relationships are with the addedconfusion of time travel.
Dragon Ball Zhas a lot of great arcs but the Android/Cell Saga is among the top picks for fans. At the start of the arc, the future child of Vegeta, Trunks, comes from the future to warn Goku and the others about an upcoming invasion of Androids.
Among these invaders is Android 18, the only female robot, who beats a majority of the fighters in combat. In classicDragon Ballfashion though, eventually, enemies become allies as Android 18 hooks up withKrillin in later stories. It’s his first major girlfriend in the series leading him to mostly put fighting aside to instead focus on being a good husband and father to their child, Marron.
Plutowas a manga that retold the story ofAstro Boyduring one of his most fatal arcs. It was for a more mature audience, exploring what it means to be a robot in a human world. Twenty years after the manga debuted, Netflix finally helped adapt it into an anime which was met with near-universal praise. There are many love stories in the anime which is funny considering the overarching narrative is about a mysterious entity killing theworld’s strongest robotswho have mostly retired to raise families.
Gesicht is the main character who loves his wife Helena. It’s a mystery that looks at war, murder, lost memories, raising children, and so on. Anyone interested in the concept of robots should take a look atPlutoas it feels like the Rosetta Stone of manga/anime storytelling.
