I've went through 'Friends Become Lover' and 'Slow Romance' tags but my request is more specific and sometimes don't fit in those two categories. I'm looking for a situation where two people went through many things together till they form a bond and gradually becomes very important for each other, they give and receive so much from each other, and then they became so close to the point 'getting together' is the only natural next step of their relationship, even though their initial attraction is not romantic and more platonic in nature. My request would probably work better in adventure/fantasy etc setting where romance is not the main issue and there could be many chances to bond without including any romantic notion. I think the perfect example, flag-bearer couple with this kind of relationship is Mulder and Scully from The X-Files.

Criteria:

• Love Triangle is only okay if it's subtle or played for comedy, or at least the rejected party has their own love interest that they come to love more/become very fond of
• No unrequited love from one toward the other at any point, the 'love' must be developed at similar speed from both parties
• NO yaoi/shounen-ai, harem, and ecchi. Yuri/shoujo-ai is okay (but don't bother to mention mediocre ones). Any other genre is fine.

Examples:
Horimiya
Immortal Rain
Rure
Lovely Complex
Akagami no Shirayukihime
Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (included this one since I don't think the male lead was seriously liking the female lead at the beginning)
Spice & Wolf
Kanata Kara

No need to bother to look at my list because I'm in the mood for some quality reread. Thanks for your recommendation 🙂

DONDAKEE!!

Try Cat Street 🙂

@micxj: How serious is the love triangle? I'm not too fond of that trope, especially with 2 guys 1 girl love triangle where the rejected guy still harbor unrequited love till the end, like seriously poor dude

DONDAKEE!!

It does not dwell much on the love triangle if I remember correctly. I read it years ago so I don't remember much but I remember the other guy already moving on. (I don't remember pitying the other guy xD)

I thought I'd add a bit to Cat Street, which I recently re-read for the 5-6th time and remains one of my favorite shoujo mangas. There really isn't a love triangle at all - it's more like one friend realized that the girl he likes actually relies on someone else more, but they are all so young emotionally that neither party realized, so the friend just did a favor and stepped back from the girl (to just remain her friend).

I highly encourage this manga!

Nulla in mundo pax sincera
"Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth." - Albert Camus

Spice and Wolf is my all-time favorite story. The anime is great. The multi-volume light novel is great. It's very moving, touching, and stimulating, both romantically and intellectually.

The manga's probably not as good because there is a lot of TALK in this story, which is very clear in the light novels, ditto in the anime, but I don't think there is room for it on the manga pages.

I honestly don't expect to find a story this wonderful again.

@micxj and @chineserider: alright I'm gonna try it, thanks for the rec~
@cecropiamoth: maybe not now, maybe somewhere in the (hopefully near) future 🙂

DONDAKEE!!