There's a really cute Manga out there called 'Girlfriends', It is a yuri one, but it is extremely cute and it's quite heavily focused on Romance and character development. (It's one of my personal top Manga's, if anyone wants a link to it, I'll post it here at request.)
Anime I'd say for people to watch if they enjoy story driven anime's or 'feeling' based animes, I'd have to say Shuffle!, Angel Beats! and Valkyria Chronicles. (All three of these have 'troubling' scenes in them for some. Fair warning.)