Men and women can be friends, it’s true. Granted, usually those kinds of friendships have a will they won’t they quality to them. And of course eventually a drunken night, a tragedy or just a moment of weakness ends up destroying the friendship in exchange for hot, passionate sex!

Well, not these friendships. We actually went on a search for the best anime series that feature a boy and a girl who are just friends, the platonic kind. You may be thinking, ‘Yeah, right.’ Again, boys and girls, men and women can be friends and only friends and these stories show you how.

Instead of stripping down and knocking the boots in the face of a tragedy, these friends have each other’s back through thick and thin with no sexual intent…for the most part (wink, wink). As much as steamy manga stories or friendship anime where the two friends turn into lovers are very popular, strictly platonic friendship anime is a popular genre in its own right; maybe because so many of us try the friend thing and fail!

In these books, you’ll find true loving friendships, partnerships that follow the main characters through many trials and tribulations. After a while, you too are rooting for their friendship to last and not blow up after a drunken booty call. Of all of the friendship anime stories out there, we found the best of the boy/girl best friend anime series, in no particular order.

1. Absolute Duo

Tooru and Julie only become friends after they meet at the opening ceremony of the Kouryou Academy in a fight – the loser will be expelled. Tooru wants to win and become a Blazer; a soul changing force that gives students the power to “materialize weapons” eventually hoping to achieve Absolute Duo power. Instead, Tooru’s powers turn out to be a shield – freaky! Now he will figure out who the person was that killed his sister with the help of his new friend/opponent, Julie.

2. No Game No Life

In No Game No Life, the boy girl best friend duo is two siblings. This anime series centers around the gaming world and Sora and Shiro, the main characters, are so good at online gaming that they are legendary. Then one day, they are sucked into an online chess game. They learn that the stakes in this game are the highest – like the fate of the whole world high! Both legendary gamers don’t even care about saving the world; they just want to win so that they can rule the world!

3. Magi

Even though Magi centers on a couple of dudes and their homegirl, most of the series takes them each their separate ways. This long saga follows Aladdin and his two buddies Alibaba and Morgiana, each who has their own challenges to face back in their own countries and kingdoms. In their journeys they build their magic skills just in time for a “great war” that will soon consume them all.

4. Ergo Proxy

The story of Ergo Proxy has all the fixings. Civilization is virtually destroyed after a cataclysmic event, but there is one place where human life still exists. In this new world, everyone has a human-like robot assistant. The main character, Re-I and her robot helper Iggy will eventually team up with another human, Vincent Law after a virus causes the robots to become self-aware at the same time that supernatural phenomena begin occurring everywhere.

5. Planetes

Space buddies make up the two boys and the one girl in Planetes working aboard the “Toy Box” – basically a space dump truck used to remove dangerous space junk orbiting between the earth and the moon. Set 50+ years in the future, the moon is civilized with a colony of humans and corporations have planted their flags as well. The quirky trio, Ai, Hachirouta, and Philippe become best friends as the grunt workers in space who find ways to take pride in their ridiculed profession.

6. Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai

Jinta’s best friend returns from the dead in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai. Meiko (the ghost girl) appears first to her best friend who thinks he’s imagining her talking to him. Soon he realizes that she is really back and her spirit is restless. Together with their other childhood clique, they help Meiko find peace and at last put her spirit to rest – as well as theirs!

7. Steins;Gate

Creating green slime in a lab made from bananas may not sound like much, but what if it can let you communicate via email into the past? That’s exactly what Rintarou and his friends Mayuri, Hashida, and Daru discover in Steins;Gate. Now that they have the ability to time travel in a way, what will they do with this power?

8. Kekkaishi

Killing demons is a gift that only Kekkaishi have through their supernatural powers in the anime series Kekkaishi. These demons called Ayakashi enter Yoshimura’s homeland in order to feed on the power that exists there but really, they want to take the place over. Yoshimura has help in his childhood friend Tokine who is a fierce Kekkaishi helping him combat these demons and save their world.

9. Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai

Smart robots are made life-like with the ability to think and reason in Kikou Shoujo (Machine-Doll) wa Kizutsukanai. While training to become the “Wiseman” at the Royal Academy, Raishin and his android Yaya have to faceoff with the best students in the Academy in order to make up for his dismal performance in his entrance exams. Instead he ends up saving his opponents but has to find a different way to earn the title of Wiseman and learn the “forbidden” Machinarts.

10. Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry

Blazers like the ones in Absolute Duo are also part of Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry. In this anime series, one boy and one girl become roommates after they are put to the test when Ikki (the worst student at the Hagun Academy) is challenged by Stella (the best Blazer) to a duel. Whoever loses the battle must become the other’s slave – yikes!

11. Robotics;Notes

Part of the same world as Steins;Gate, in Robotics;Notes, the duo are two childhood friends who are working as part of a club to build a giant robot. Over many years the robotics club tries to perfect the robot but can’t. Aki is determined to make it happen while his buddy Kai could care less – that is until he gets a weird message one day that he can’t figure out. It is only then that he gets serious and works with Aki to find out what it all means.

12. Shinsekai yori

Set a millennia into the future, Shinsekai yori (From the New World), is about five psychic kids (Saki, Satoru, Shun, Maria and Mamoru) who wake up to a world that has been destroyed by a virus which gave mankind the ability to manipulate matter and gave others powerful psychic abilities. Only after the psychics create their own new world separate from everyone else does peace come and a new utopia…but is it?

13. Isshuukan Friends

Yuuki has a crush, but Kaori (his crush) forgets everyone she knows after only a few days in Isshuukan Friends. Through persistence, Yuuki continues to reintroduce himself to Kaori, hoping to eventually form a friendship with the distant and cold girl. He soon finds out that her distance comes from a caring place; not wanting to hurt those she loves by not remembering them. Yuuki however will not give up!

14. Nagi no Asukara

The world in Nagi no Asukara (A Lull in the Sea) is made up of two kinds of people; those who live underwater and those who live on the surface. Four friends, Hikari, Manaka, Chisaki, and Kaname who live underwater begin Academy on the surface and befriend a boy from the surface. He admires the sea though prejudice and hatred keeps both peoples apart – but not these unlikely friends.

15. Kiznaiver

In Kiznaiver, childhood friends Katsuhira and Chidori are made into lab rats in a way when they are kidnapped and forced into the Kizuma System. In the system, they are matched with four other teens who are bound together by each other’s pain. If one feels pain, the others will feel the same pain. The problem – Katsuhira feels no physical or emotional pain!

16. Bakuman

A writer and a graphic artist become more than classmates, they become best friends when Akito, the writer, asks Moritaka about helping him to create the best manga series in the history of Japan. At first Moritaka refuses but then he thinks that by becoming a super famous manga artist, he just might land the girl of his dreams by asking her to join the pair as the series voice-over actor. That begins the tight partnership between the two artists in Bakuman.

17. Orange

When 16 year old Naho receives a letter from her 26 year old self, her present life takes on a whole new meaning. The letter warns her about the future and aims to help her correct future mistakes in Orange. Her future self tells her in the letter to watch a new student, Kakeru, whose life may depend on what she does now.

18. Hachimitsu to Clover

Hachimitsu to Clover (Honey and Clover) is a true coming of age story as the series follows five college friends who discover love while growing into adulthood. Yuuta, Takumi, Shinobu, Hagumi, and Ayumi go through enormous changes until eventually they all go their own separate ways, yet the bond of their friendship endures long after they part.

19. One Piece

Luffy doesn’t start out with a gang of friends when he sets out to become Pirate King in One Piece. The One Piece that he and all other pirates are searching for is a priceless treasure and fame. Though he is mostly in it for the adventure, he and his crew – all of whom become his friends and partners in the adventure –work together to help Luffy become Pirate King by finding the One Piece.

20. Natsume Yuujinchou

The once friendless Natsume is haunted by angry restless spirits who have been bound in a book by his dead grandmother after she put them under her control in Natsume Yuujinchou (Natsume's Book of Friends). Once he discovers why he’s being haunted, he uses the Book of Friends in order to give the ghosts back their names – freeing them and opening him up to true friendship.