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morallygay · 1 year

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🟩⬜️⬛️ Animes for aro/ace people - Part 2 ⬛️⬜️🟪

The list was getting a bit too long so I decided to make a different post.

~if you see this post as a reblog, make sure to go to the original post, chances are I edited and updated it! ;)

part 1 here

“Yofukashi No Uta” / “Call Of The Night” (13 episodes)🔻

The protagonist wants to become a vampire, but for that to happen you need to be bitten by a vampire you are in love with, and he’s aro (can be both seen as aroallo or acespec). It’s not canon canon in-universe, but like, it’s canon, that’s literally what the plot is about. It has awkward wording/takes coming from the characters sometimes but it got the spirit. I haven’t finished the manga but I’ve been told that the character’s aromance is not invalidated to the end, and the story is precisely about how he doesn’t need to be “fixed”. The show tackles amatonormativity and the value of platonic relationships :). If you can’t handle or don’t like sensual/sexual stuff though, know that it’s omnipresent.

“Shimanami Tasogare” / “Our Dreams At Dusk” (4 volumes)🔻

An LGBTQ+ manga with multiple kinds of representation, including an AAA battery (character who is agender/nonbinary and aroace). Canon and they said the word! Although they didn’t differentiate between aromantic and asexual; in my translation they used ‘asexual’ and meant it as aromantic as well I assume.

“Death Note” (37 episodes)🔻🔹

Another big one but I’ll assume you don’t know about it so, basically: So misogynistic it’s gay. But also so homophobic it’s aroace. And since it’s a psychological thriller, romance is virtually nonexistent, except for a side character annoying girl who is in LOVE with the protagonist. Protagonist who does not show any interest whatsoever in romance/sex. He’s a serial killer but #diversity win I guess. I have admittedly only read the manga once when I was 12 so I may not remember these things accurately.

“Jormungand” (12 episodes)🔻🔹

A personal fav for its eccentric and amoral vibes and characters. I see the protagonist (woman with white hair) as aroace. Problematic points: she has a weird groomer thing going on with the kid character; it’s implied that she’s teasing and she kind of does this with everyone and it’s part of her personality but it’s still uncomfortable. Also a secondary woman character has romantic feelings for her. This is a cool point but it’s also eh because it’s done in a pretty fetishistic way.

Also heads up: our main cast are arms dealer and there’s violence and war and child soldiers and it’s morally ambiguous

“Mob Psycho 100” (37 episodes + 2 OVAs)🔹

A must watch regardless. But in this context, a show about life wisdom and connection in the most fundamental human way, which makes it a very platonic show. Because of the nature of the relationships between the protagonist and the other main cast (master/‘parental’ figure, brother, intergenerational friendship), there is literally not even the place for shipping, apart from the 1 friend his age. And these platonic relationships, oh boy, are they explored and developed and heartwarming. The protagonist has an idealized crush on a girl and that’s the only romantic element there is, and it’s handled maturely and to carry the same main themes I mentioned earlier; it’s absolutely not there for the sake of being romanticized.

! Mp100 is a phenomenal show in many ways, queer representation is not one of them. it is very much incredibly cishet. warning for transmisogynistic humor.

“Kimi No Sekai Ni Koi Wa Nai” / “Is Love The Answer?” (1 volume)🔻

Another manga. It is a queer manga specifically about aromance and asexuality, following an aroace character (touch repulsed) and their experience of comphet and general compallo, feeling alienated, and then learning about this identity, finding queer community and accepting herself. It delves into the topics of labels and identity, acknowledging and embracing fluidity, vagueness, and spectrums. It actually presents specific aspec microidentities I’ve never seen acknowledged anywhere else in fiction, much less explored. It made me feel like crying and kicking my legs with glee. I won’t go say everything it talks about but I truly recommend it for anyone, not just aspec people; in general but especially if you want to learn more about the world of aspec identities. (Also not that any are reading this but I recommend it to exclusionists. Like idk how you can read this and not feel it evident that aspec people are queer)

The same author also did a manga called “Mine-kun Is Asexual” prior to this one, and wrote other things on the topics of romance, sexuality and gender identity :)

“Koisenu Futari” (="two people who can't fall in love" idk the official engish translation if there is one) (8 episodes)🔻

This is a japanese drama. I have broadened the original topic of these posts a bit but I realized that with the microscopic amount of representation we have, why would I intentionally deprive people from knowing about the existence of this show? It is specifically about aromance and asexuality, and follows 2 aroace people who decide to live together and form a queerplatonic relationship. There are many other elements to the story and it touches upon multiple aspects of the aspec experience (lol aspects aspec), starting obviously with allonormativity and amatonormativity. Also our 2 main characters are both fully aroace but the show does make the distinction between aromantic and asexual, and shows a alloromantic asexual character at one point just for that clarification.

“Last Gender” (2 volumes + 3rd and last one to be released in English in June)🔻

Similar to Shimanami Tasogare; it’s an LGBTQ+ manga. This one is centered around a sex bar which 'accepts anyone of any gender or sexuality'. It has an aroallo character, a lithromantic character, and a character who, to my understanding, would be the closest labelled as greyromantic and greysexual. That’s just for the aspec characters but there are other, particularily underrepresented, identities and kinds of people in this manga, like a pansexual person, a bigender person, polyamorous people, or ‘simply’ a gnc woman.

content warning: it’s sexually explicit. I mean the setting is literally a sex bar.

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morallygay · 2 years

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🟩⬜️⬛️ Animes for aro/ace people - Part 1 ⬛️⬜️🟪

part 2 here

Including:

-shows in which (a) character(s) has/have shown lack of interest or disinterest in romance and/or sex🔻

-shows that as a whole have little to no romance and/or sex in them or are not romance focused🔹

I encourage anyone to reply/reblog with ideas/suggestions of animes that could qualify (especially aroallo people since you are the least represented and, basically being the opposite myself, I will not necessarily notice it). This is an ever expanding list (in theory. when i remember to come back to it) :)

This is a completely personal list based on what animes made me consciously think “aspec vibes”; it’s not guaranteed that you vibe with my taste, but surely a few people will, and this is for them. Since I’ve seen a lot of animes while aroace, I’m one of the few people who could make this post, so here, finally I made it.

To me canon and the intentions of the author are very important and obviously change completely the context of the ‘representation’. The worst feeling is expecting representation and being disappointed and invalidated, so I will make clear what kind and level of representation it is and if intended (to my understanding/intuition) or not. Let’s start by saying that, in case you were born yesterday, we don’t exist according to media and anime is no exception so expect most of those to not canonically be aromantic or asexual, and that even if the author intended in some cases to make them in practice aro/ace, it is most likely in a way that is oblivious to the actual existence of these orientations (the words are never used for sure), ex. it’s supposed to be a quirk / personality trait and not an actual sexuality. Also I have a taste for seinen so there will be an overrepresentation of that. With that said, let’s go.

"Saiki Kusuo No Psi Nan" / "The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K" (like 50 episodes but you will not see the time pass)🔻

Definitely the n.1 aroace anime. It’s a comedy. The protagonist is an absolute aroace icon. He explicitly expressed multiple times that he doesn't get and is disinterested in romance/sex and those facts are pillars of the show and the comedy. He loves sweets. You can also see him as demi. However the (aro/ace) label is obviously never used since the author is probably unaware of this sexuality's existence. It's the kind of representation that is not intended as representation. He is ‘nonhuman’ aroace rep; the fact that he is a psychic and basically a god is intended as the reason for his lack of interest/attraction.

warning: in season 3 he loses his powers and it is implied that because of that he is now a Normal boy and therefore allo. and he shows attraction for the first and only time in the commercial breaks animations lmao. traumatizing 😔. that didn’t happen in the manga anyway so just bear with it and ignore it.

Otherwise there is a lot of romance in this show and instances of sexual attraction, and it has a lot of other problems. It probably doesn’t pass the bechdel test for like the first and a half season. But it really is funny— hilarious even. It’s also very problematic. Still definitely recommend and it is very empowering to watch as an aroace, but keeping all that in mind.

“Barakamon” (12 episodes)🔻

The protagonist is canonically asexual in the manga apparently. I haven’t read it but in the anime at least he did in fact show disinterest and confusion over sexual attraction. No info romantic orientation-wise. It isn’t perfect (there was a whole thing about a character that is a homophobic fujoshi and other instances of unfunny humor like that) but it’s an cute slice of life I suppose.

“Dr Stone” (35 episodes + 3rd season coming soon)🔻

The protagonist never showed romantic or sexual attraction and explicitly showed disinterest to both at times. He literally got married for practical reasons and divorced hours later. Aroace king. Here too his lack of interest may be intended as a joke to show that he is Logical and too busy with Science to have time for bullshit like “love”, but it’s not like he can’t be both so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. There is some annoying fanservice and the female characters have terrifying eyes as you can see above but I digress, overall it’s really good + there’s other types of queer rep in the manga apparently but I haven’t read it yet.

“Ore Monogatari” / “My Love Story” (24 episodes)🔻

A very sweet and good romance anime. In this one the side character (on the right) is heavily implied to be on both the aromantic and asexual spectrums, and there was a whole mini-arc about him and that near the end of the anime. Very wholesome.

“Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun” / “Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun” (12 episodes + 1 OVA)🔻

A hilarious romantic comedy that I highly recommend in general. The protagonist’s crush is super aroace in the anime and it’s very funny and validating/empowering. It’s supposed to be read as him being oblivious for the sake of comedy, and he still is her love interest so in the manga — which goes much further — he slowly starts to develop feelings too. I see him as demiromantic. There are 2 other characters that have shown confusion / lack of interest about sexual attraction (one only appears in the manga) that I see as alloace. Also everyone (yes the aroace guy included) is bi. Not canonically of course but yeah. Watch it (unless you’re the type that doesn’t do ships, then you can pass on this one).

“Shingeki No Kyojin” / “Attack On Titan” (87 episodes + the last season coming soon)🔹

Classic masterpiece in the making but I’m not here to talk about that. Romance exists in the show in the way that it exists in real life so it would be unrealistic to not have it. The show itself is not focused on romance at all, and there is no unnecessary forced romance either. The female characters are not sexualized at all and there are virtually no comment/scene that show sexual attraction, to the point where I wonder if isayama (the author) is not asexual as well. This is a show where it’s hard to find any characters who you can prove are allo; this is how irrelevant both romance and sexual attraction are.

“Beelzebub” (60 episodes)🔻

This one is a mostly episodic comedy. The protagonist has big aroace vibes. He is supposed to be read as oblivious (which he also definitely is, but I see him as both) and too dumb to be horny or something. There is a lot of fanservice (respectful one though (well, as respectful as fanservice can be??)) and his best friend’s entire personality is being a pervert and that’s really annoying. Plus one of the main recurring characters is a ‘predatory gay’ walking joke. Despite my very low tolerance for stuff like that I still personally somehow love this anime and find it very funny in the end. I haven’t read the manga.

“Yagate Kimi Ni Naru” / “Bloom Into You” (13 episodes)🔻

A wlw romance in which the protagonist is aspec, and this is obviously relevant and touched upon. Definitely arospec and most likely acespec too (can’t remember exactly). There is also an aromantic side character that enjoys consuming romance but has zero interest in personally participating in it.

“Banana Fish” (24 episodes)🔹(🔻)

The 2 main characters are mlm love interests, and their relationship isn’t sexual at all. The show itself does deal with the theme of sexual abuse, and it’s a recurring relevant topic so trigger warning for that (but not in a romanticized/fetishized way at all). Their relationship being romantic is technically not canon either but it’s subtext (the kind that if it was straight no one would question it). They’re called “best friends 😊” to the end lol so. yeah. It can be frustrating from a gay rep standpoint but at the same time also right up your alley if you want queerplatonic greyromantic (asexual) stuff.

This one is a bit of a tangent but mlm rep in anime that isn’t sexual is so rare so I wanted to include it since I’m an mlm aspec and this is just like me fr. Also it’s a must watch in general.

“Paripi Koumei” / “Ya Boy Kongming” (12 episodes)🔹

This anime is wild (complimentary). The main theme is music, but this description can’t do it justice. Anyway the show is completely devoid of romance (at least as of now with 1 season. I haven’t read the manga) but full of sweet friendships and heartwarming interactions. The kind of thing to show to someone who says that romance is a necessary part of humanity and that life is less meaningful without it. I totally headcanon the protag (blonde girl) as aro.

“Acca 13” (12 episodes)🔹

A seriously underrated show. This one is on this list because it was very satisfying to watch as an aroace person. There is no focus on romance. There are characters who are attracted to other characters but it’s not relevant or used for frustrating unnecessary drama or anything, it’s actually in a very refreshingly chill, matter-of-fact way, and it never goes farther than that. It’s so unique in this way I can’t really explain it well, but it’s pretty cool.