Natsuyuki Rendezvous

 After the hard sci-fi of Muv-Luv, it is time for something calmer, in this romantic anime series.

With an odd, comedy twist... in the first half of the series before getting (perhaps to) serious.

 

Ryousuke is a young man with a crush on the lady of the local flower shop, resulting in him almost daily buying a small plant or something.  That way he can get a glimpse of Rokka, the owner of the flower shop.

 

He decides to get a part-time job at her store to get closer to her, but he runs into a major issue: the ghost of her deceased husband still inhabits the appartment of Rokka.  He has been watching over her since he passed away three years ago, but Ryousuke is the first one to ever notice him.  They quickly come to odds, as he is jealous of Ryousuke, even though his dying wish was for his wife to move on with her life. 

But while they are rivals, they also need to work together at times like when Rokka is struck by a heavy fever.  Even though Ryousuke can get closer to her after that, the husband, Atsushi, jealously disturbs the moment.  Atsushi proposes to have Ryousuke lend him his body though, to make him experience what he feels. 

Ryosouke takes Rokka to the amusement park, trying to tell her his feelings.  But as he makes no progress, he drunkenly agrees to lend his body to Atsushi.  This leads to strange situations in the real world, but also Ryosouke learning more about Rokka as he is caught in a story book within Atsushi's mind.

During this journey of discovery, Ryosouke learns a lot about Rokka and her late husband, from how they met until how they where forced to part.  But the Rokka in his mind also tells him what he has to do to get her to fall in love with her, as she wants to be just plain happy.

Being inside the spirit world does allow him to get a better understanding of what drives her ex-husband, even though he doesn't agree with his motivations.  He convinces Atsushi of his intentions, and decides to go full time for Rokka.  Rokka has it figured out, and confronts Atsushi with what happened, and that she likes Ryousuke.

This isn`t a bad romance series, but for me personally it missed some "gut wrenching" like for example Your Lie in April.  So not bad, but I doubt it'll linger in my "classic" mind for long.