[Nafi]

I finally finished Cross Game after pacing myself for a little over a month. I finished and am a bit depressed that I never found this type of theme in an anime before. The theme I'm talking about isn't the baseball, it's the type of romance.

Even though the romance is little, the theme makes it VERY interesting. The girl he liked dies and he is close to her sister, that type of theme. The sister hates him, but isn't the -dere (Like fullblown, I know Aoba is a tsundere, but she never admits the feelings honestly and straight forward) type of character.

So any anime with romance in the following characteristics:

-Something instead of the romance, such as sports to fighting to something that also serves as a main theme of the anime.

-Romance where it is hinted but it is never admitted and most likely is at the end.
-Girl says she hates the guy (like Aoba) and guy is pretty much emotionless to serious.

The following would be appreciated if found:

-A childhood past between the characters, it can either be that they are childhood friends (even if they hate each other) or if something in the past happened (such as a death of a close one).
-Something to do with a school.

Please, I don't want anime with a type A tsundere, aka tsunderes like Shana and the others. I already watched Suzuka and Love Hina, so don't recommend them please.

I'm going to try out Touch, hoping that it is worth it and similar to Cross Game. If you guys watched it, give me a quick comparison of the main male protagonist and the female character to the protagonists of Cross Game. By the looks of the manga cover, it looks like the female in Touch doesn't seem like a cold type (such as Aoba).