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Clean Freak! Aoyama kun and The Limits of Compassion

Irina

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Everybody loves Aoyama-kun. Throngs of cheering fans follow him wherever he goes. Men want to be him and women want to be with him and also the other way around sometimes. Teachers wish every student was like him. His soccer rivals want him to switch to their teams. Artists use him as a muse and friends even copy his hairstyle. He inspires awe and bottomless devotion in all around him. Yet Aoyama is so deeply germophobic that the idea of a handshake gives him panic attacks. So why is he so popular? Find out in 12 episodes!

I love sports anime so I was always going to watch this show but when the episodic reviews and think pieces discussing the series portrayal of mental illness started trickling in, I got really intrigued and decided to bump it up the watch list.

Truly the most important part of soccer

Clean Freak! Aoyama-Kun is in some ways rather experimental and you do get the feeling that maybe the studio had some reservations. The art is quite pretty but the animation is jagged. Tricks such as sliding backgrounds or movement lines are regularly used to give the impression of action while animating really minimal mouvement. This can be a big drawback during the soccer scenes which often concentrate more on the faces of the players rather than their feet.

The designs were pretty but I highly doubt I’ll remember any of them a few months from now. I can’t explain why but I personally didn’t like the voice acting here. For some reason I felt that Aoyama was really miscast. He doesn’t speak that often but every time he did, I thought “man that voice doesn’t fit”.

Don’t worry about it, just stay quiet baby

As I mentioned, Aoyama tried a few things. Namely, it tried to mash a few genres together. A third of it could be considered a more or less traditional sports anime, following the soccer team’s training and matches as they aim for nationals (of course), half is episodic comedic slice of life, the rest is a character study and even a dash of romance. Unfortunately, Aoyama himself is too aloof and distant to provide any sort of strong connective thread to tie everything together and the pacing is off to enjoy it as a purely episodic slice of life.

**I recently read a few blogs that say critiquing pacing is meaningless so here is what I mean. The character development is rushed in certain episodes then grinds to a halt in others making it difficult to simply enjoy the story as you either feel like you need to keep up or as if nothing at all is happening. Since you can’t get a proper sense of the rhythm of the narrative, the assimilation of the story becomes laboured.***

This said, some individual episodes were quite amusing. In fact a lot of the show almost worked. There’s not enough soccer to call it a sports anime but I did thoroughly enjoy the episodes that did focus on it. New point of view characters are introduced regularly so we end up running out of time for any sort of proper development but they were all quite likeable on a superficial level. Let’s just say you won’t be getting any of the nuance of Haikyuu!! here but you will get roughly the same number of characters…

Besides, some characters don’t need explaining

However, what the series core really is and what seems to have made the greatest impact among fans, is the character study. Aoyama is a callow but well-intentioned attempt at showing mental disorders. It manages to illustrate how truly intrusive and difficult the symptoms can be without falling into melodrama. It infuses humour into the subject but remains deeply respectful and it shows how a network of understanding and supportive friends can be a life saviour to someone suffering from such a condition. Aoyama-kun is a very compassionate show.

I have mentioned on my blog before that I am prone to OCD behavior. I have in fact a mild case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I have had it all my life but was only diagnosed very recently and it has helped me tremendously. I am very lucky in that my condition is so mild that some simple behavioral therapy is sufficient. I try to curb my compulsive instincts into something productive, like writing a blog everyday but only once a day (no more even if you have time). I’m also lucky in that I have none of the associated conditions, like depression.

One example I can give you is that I love to bake but not to eat so when I started seeing someone a while ago, I used it as a perfect excuse to bake for them. I would make them lunch in the evenings and bake a small batch of cookies for the desert, or some bread. I would do this the evening before every work day. One evening, we were out quite late and I got home with only a few hours before I needed to get back up for work. I went to bed and ended up tossing and turning unable to sleep. Finally I had to get up at 2:30 in the morning to bake some cookies. For some reason not having put together the rest of the lunch didn’t bother me but until I got the baking done I simply couldn’t sleep.

Let me stress that I have a very mild case. Some people can’t leave the house until they perform complex rituals that take hours. Some people can’t interact with others unless it’s under precise circumstances. OCD isn’t a very sexy condition so we don’t hear a lot about it but it can ruin your life.

Seems about right

As I said, I didn’t know I had this as  kid, but if I had, a show like Aoyama-kun would have been a huge comfort and I am very glad it exists (along with Soul Eater and Toradora, which both have awesome examples of OCD characters). I know the series only refers to Aoyama as a germophobe (a lot) but to me his behavior was very familiar and really looked more like a cleaning compulsion than a phobia. In any case, it’s important that we acknowledge the existence of these disorders and we treat the people that have them with respect. (Yeah… I know freak is in the title…)

And all of this is an excellent first step, but, with everything that has happened lately, maybe we should start thinking about the next step. One common theme is that people acknowledge the symptoms of the disorder as part of a character’s personality but that’s not entirely right. Sometimes those symptoms get completely out of hand and need to be managed not just accepted. Shows very rarely broach the issue of treatment, unless it’s the entire storyline and then you get the impression that therapy becomes the character’s entire life. Aoyama doesn’t need to spend the rest of his life in self imposed isolation. He doesn’t need to lose out on sleep in order to clean the entire school, he doesn’t need to miss out on social events for fear of contamination. Not necessarily. There are many viable avenues of treatment. As important as it is for kids out there that might be struggling with mental issues to know that they deserve compassion and respect, it is also important for them to know that there are options. Help is available.

some options are better than others

So, next time somebody is being a nit picky little pain, be a little patient, they may not be able to help themselves. And next time you’re making yourself miserable over nothing and wonder why you do that, maybe think about talking to someone. You might be suffering needlessly.

Oh the show… It was cute. I liked it but I’ll likely forget it. It’s not going to change your life.

Favorite character: Tsubasa

It does not matter if the glass is half empty or half full, clearly there’s room for more alcohol

Suggested drink: Anything neat

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