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Cozy romance is a subgenre that's growing in popularity. They focus on love stories with sweet emotional moments, and they tend to have low stakes. Even if the world they take place in is dangerous, there's a reassuring tone in the love story as it unfolds. The love interests are generally kind to each other, but there's still plenty of tension as their feelings develop.

Cozy romances can take place in cozy settings, too. They are often fantastical worlds full of magical gardens and whimsical side characters. With cozy romance anime, the audience may not know what to expect at every turn, but they can be reassured that everything leads to a happily ever after.

Related 10 Romance Anime with Incredibly High Stakes

Sometimes there's more at stake in a romance anime than just a broken heart.

Seiya Tries to Catch a Bookworm Girl's Attention in Whisper of the Heart Shizuku...

Many animation studios have an amusing tendency for connecting their films together. Pixar, for example, has the ever-popular "Pixar Theory" that sets every major film on a cohesive timeline, while Disney inserts fun easter eggs from their previous movies into every new production. The anime community's beloved Studio Ghibli has formed a bridge between two of its tragically underrated movies (Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns) by using a pair of minor yet important characters: Baron and Muta.

Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns were both released in July just seven years apart, with the former directed by the late Yoshifumi Kondo (whom many claim could have carried Ghibli into a new era) in 1995 and the latter by Hiroyuki Morita in 2002. Despite having different directors and telling vastly different stories, the characters of Baron and Muta are both recognizable figures that create a significant connection between the two timeless films.

According to Wikipedia, A mockumentary (a portmanteau of mock and documentary) or docucomedy is a type of movie or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. The genre gained recognition (notoriety if you prefer) with “Borat“, although some may remember the 1984 “This is Spinal Tap” or the excellent Belgian “Man Bites Dog“. In Asian cinema, the mockumentary occasionally has a different form, with Shohei Imamura blending documentary with theater and fourth-wall-breaking surrealism in “A Man Vanishes” for example, although recently, a number of productions seem to follow the international “rules” of the subcategory. Without further ado, here are 10 of the most intriguing samples one can find in Asian cinema, in chronological order.

*We took some liberties with the films in the list, essentially mocking the term (film nerd humor)

1. A Man Vanishes

The film starts as a documentary of sorts, regarding the disappearance of plastic salesman Oshima that occurred two years previously.