You call that love?
Romance shows often portray a huge variety of character archetypes, as if saying that yes, every single one of them deserves love, even the most unlovable ones. But sometimes the life choices the romance protagonist makes feel quite questionable, and as the story goes on, you start wondering: how can a person who's treating people like that actually love anyone? Is this what the authors believe love is? Are they for real!?
So we've got the list of the five most red-flagged romance anime protagonists here for you to steer away from.
Kazuya Kinoshita — Rent-A-Girlfriend (Kanojo Okarishimasu)
If there was a rating for the worst romance anime protagonists, Kazuya would have topped it in an instant. He lacks everything, from character to agency to empathy, and compensates it with unabridged horniness, the only thing that actually happens. There's no character development, no plot development, either, because Kazuya is not someone who can actually move the plot forward. Add to that some pretty vile fantasies and you'll get a protagonist that people want to avoid.
Irie Naoki — Itazura Na Kiss
The whole series feels more like a drama about Kotoko being stuck in a toxic relationship, and Irie is the reason for this toxicity. Him being a pervert is a gag, and sometimes it works, but outside of that forced humor, he is plainly abusive towards Kotoko, constantly berating her, calling her stupid and worthless, even throwing stuff at her — and Kotoko always blamed herself for his behavior towards her. If you think about romance anime tropes, try to multiply them tenfold, and that's what Naoki is: the worst.
Itou Makoto — School Days
It's one thing to be indecisive like a plastic bag wiggling in the wind, broken and forgotten; it's completely different when a character actively cheats and takes advantage of others, but still believes he's a good person and does the right thing. On the one hand, it's a fitting answer to the audience that wanted the protagonist of a harem anime to get some action with all the girls he's been surrounded with. On the other hand, the way Makoto did that is just enraging.
Natsuo Fujii— Domestic Girlfriend
Natsuo is impatient, impulsive, reckless, and while this moves the plot forward, it moves it in a direction that brings more harm than good to everyone involved. It seems like he has white knight syndrome and always wants to help, but his help turns into meddling and makes things worse, pressuring Hina into doing things that get her in trouble. He grew up, but at what cost?
Yuuki Rito — To LOVE-Ru
It's a classic show, but that doesn't make it any less cringey in terms of how it portrays romance, and Rito gets his place as one of the most hated anime characters of all time in various lists for a reason. He's extremely dense, has little to no character development, and just cannot make decisions for himself. He's cowardly and pathetic, lacks common decency, and the running gag of him being so clumsy he undresses every girl in a half-mile radius by tripping and then panicking becomes overused very soon.