Yeah, so I'm looking for a romance in which the couple get together after a LONG time of unrequited love on the behalf of one of the characters, who actually confesses and gets turned down. Time passes and eventually this character's feelings are returned. Basically, acceptance after rejection.

I don't want the rejection to just be a token thing, like, "Omg, our families are opposed to this so I'm rejecting you, but I really do love you!" No. I want the rejection to be genuine, honest - A should confess to B and B should reject A because B actually doesn't have any romantic feelings whatsoever for A. (Or at least, doesn't realize that they might be capable of romantic feelings for A...)

Then, after many months/years, B finally starts to love A. The ending should be a happy one, with them finally getting together (even if both have had other relationships in the interim).

Um, examples...

-> Sora no Mannaka in which the girl is in love with her male best friend from childhood, who's in love with her sister. He genuinely cares about the heroine as a friend but doesn't see her in a romantic way AT ALL, and rejects her outright when she confesses. Things continue as a (rather awkward) friendship after that, and after more than a year, he finally gets over the older sister and realizes that he can grow to love the heroine. So it's a long time before her feelings are returned.

-> Ano Hi no Kimi wo Dakishimeta Nara, a yaoi manga. Again, childhood friends... In this case, a whopping 10 years pass before the confessed-to character really returns the confessor's feelings. Both have other relationships in the interim, so again, there's a long time between the rejection and the eventual acceptance.

Stories like that! Any genre is fine - shoujo, josei, yaoi, yuri, seinen, shounen. As long as the MAIN EMPHASIS of the manga is the romance between this couple. It shouldn't just be a side-plot.

Thanks!

Itazura na Kiss.
Strobe Edge.
Nodame Cantabile.

Suzuka-kinda,i think...

Baby Love

Lovely Complex

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Parfait Tic.

That's itazura na kiss for you, definitely a 'long' time.

since many people had mentioned some series, i suggest Alice 19th. It also has things that you want.

Last edited by comel at 8:59 am, Sep 17 2009

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Mmmm, yummy. Eventually requited love! <3 Please keep recommending.

Hana ni Arashi
Tennen Pearl Pink
Hanada
Gokinjo Monogatari - I think; it's been a while since I read it.

Rose of Versailles, totally. With XVIII century goodness, French Revolution spices and girl power to boot . Art is 70's shoujo style - you may need to get used to it. It improves along the way though - , but compared to most fluffier shoujo nowadays is definitely a treat.
It has never been licensed in English, both manga and anime (the anime at least is completely fansubbed in English ), but if you're fluent enough in other languages there are quite a lot of European editions ^^ of the manga . There are some useful reviews of the anime on anidb ^^ (especially pantha's one, about the series as a whole ) http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=animeatt&aid=181
But keep in mind is a tragedy, and you seem to be looking for happy endings . Anyway, I can only say it's really, really worth trying.

I second Lovely Complex -shoujo - and Nodame Cantabile -josei- , they have IMO a refreshing take on romance compared to most titles, and are pretty funny ^^ .
Most of the people I know and whose tastes I share are loving the
Itazura na kiss manga too , so... seconded even I have not tried it yet .

I'm no big fan of yaoi, but there are some gems. And these two titles should suit your request, hopefully
The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese
and Gerard to Jacques <-- some caution here. The first chapter can be hard to swallow.

Last edited by elianthos at 10:10 am, Sep 17 2009

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Motomi Kyousuke is DA (WO)MAN ;D
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=14467&p ost=382161

Saboten no Himitsu is a good one, and one of my favs. Not exactly what you are looking for but close!

Saboten no Himistu
Miku has secretly been in love with a person who never notices anything unless it smacks him in the face! This dumb guy is called Fujioka by his peers. Whenever she tries to confess, he doesn’t believe her or else he changes the mood of the conversation! Miku has done everything to get herself noticed by him, even change her appearance completely! But according to him, she’s just a cactus alien! But it seems there’s more to Fujioka than what meets everyone’s eye…

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Life is pleasant, death is peaceful, it's the transition that's troublesome...
-Isaac Asminov

Suzuka should work
Iketeru Futari might work also

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When your love life goes nowhere, where do you escape to?

Beauty Is the Beast - The heroine chases after a guy who already has a lover (but not in a desperate way). They become good friends over the course of the manga, but nothing happens until the epilogue where you learn that

Replay - This kind of fits if you include a rejection in a past life.

Saiunkoku Monogatari - At the end of the anime's second season, the emperor's love was still unrequited, but it was strongly hinted that the heroine cared for him.

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Avatar by tassyn.livejournal.com

Reading: Kingdom, Sangokushi, Historie

Really? That's awesome! I had no idea that BitB had such a scenario! Part of the reason I never got around to reading it was that it seemed too simple and typical a shoujo romance... Apparently, it's not. Great!

Thanks to Odette, ewong1220, enubis20, elianthos (zomg Rose of Versailles! LOVE IT! Even though it's a tragedy!) and chibilin (haven't read most of those!).

Please keep recommending if you think of new ones.

And more BL or GL would be great.