Top 5 lists can be a great source of powerful hard hitting essay writing. Articles that make you think and feel and haunt you for days! The type of posts that can really make you confront your own self and make you discover realities you never even suspected.
Right now though, I think we all need some nice, light, meaningless, innocently lewd fun! So let’s do a list with the word sex in it! Just for fun! And the funnest sexual orientation is the most inclusive one, in my opinion…. You know what, before this conversation gets away from me, let’s just get to the anime characters, shall we:
5 – Rosalie Lamorliere – Rose of Versaille
Ok so this is kind of a cheat because every single character in Rose of Versaille should count as bisexual except of Oscar. What I mean is everyone in that show falls in love with Oscar and as she is a woman presenting as a man, there’s an interpretation that goes against standard sexuality no matter how you look at it. The reason I chose Rosalie instead of… anyone else, is two fold.
First Rosalie does have a loving relationship with a man and does seem to show strong romantic feelings towards Oscar while being fully aware that the latter is a woman. The bisexuality is a bit more explicit in this character than most others although there is still room for interpretation but it’s my list and I want a pretty blonde bi girl from one of my favourite classics so there!
Second is that Rosalie is wonderful. Like she is portrayed as one of the most righteous and kind characters in the series and that’s a nice change. Characters with different sexuality are often portrayed as evil or depraved in some way so I liked the contrast, especially when you consider that this series aired in 1979 based on a manga that ran in 1973! Pretty progressive.
4 – Apollo – DanMachi
We didn’t get to see Apollo all that much and I can’t say the anime was that favourable to him. I have a feeling that on his better days, Apollo is just a good time! He has a harem. No one that has a harem can really be bad…can they? Don’t quote me on that! Like ever…
Apollo falls into the depraved trope a lot more than Rosalie but he is a Greek god so it comes with the territory. He was very opened about his interest in Bell just as he stood surrounded by the many beautiful young women and men at his disposal. I’m trying to be all tongue in cheek… Just saying, Apollo doesn’t seem like the type of God to limit his pleasures.
In my mind, Hermes is probably also fairly indifferent to gender but that hasn’t been confirmed so I guess I won’t add him to the list.
3 – Mairu Orihara – Durarara
The Orihara family doesn’t shy away from the unconventional. Like many fans, I was already quite taken with Izaya but when little sisters Kiruri and Mairu entered, it was mad love! Mairu is the younger of the two and quite a spitfire. No subtext here, Mairu flaunts her love of “adult magazine” and just straight up declares that she is bisexual.
Throughout the series she actively searches for a girlfriend that might be interested all the while openly pining for Kasuka Heiwajima. You just gotta love a young lady who knows what she wants and Mairu wants everything! A great addition to a fantastically zany cast.
Just writing this little summary has made me want to rewatch the series all over again!
2 – Kanji Tatsumi — Persona 4
ummm….Spoilers for Persona 4!!
So this one is all kinds of confusing. In the end, you could argue that Kanji is just straight since he has always liked girls and does fall for one, technically. But the point is that he thought he had fallen in love with a guy and the journey of self-exploration he went on as a result cannot be ignored. And shouldn’t be.
Persona 4 doesn’t always handle the subjects of sexuality and gender identity with all the delicacy they deserve but it makes an honest attempt at it and Kanji confrontation of what masculinity means to him was surprisingly heartfelt and for my money, extremely endearing.
Sure maybe he did fall in love with a girl after all (this point is also rather debatable), but by the end of it all he realized he could fall for a guy as well, and that he was o.k. with that.When’s the last time you got that moral from an action rpg? Serious question, I want to play it….
Not Exactly Honorable Mentions
Hisoka – Hunter x Hunter
Hisoka doesn’t exactly label himself so I’m just going to do it for him. I’m calling this guy Pan. Nothing seems out of bounds for him. As long as someone seems interesting, gender, background…age… doesn’t matter at all. You know, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if species isn’t a consideration either. Heck he might even have a thing for objects.
Daru – Steins;Gate
But you know who does have a thing for objects! Daru is one of my favourite characters and a self proclaimed lovable pervert. Although he does show a preference for the ladies (one lady in particular) he didn’t bat an eye at finding out Ruka was a guy and didn’t change his behaviour towards him. Daru has also bragged that his pervert powers extend to things like the large hadron collider. Which is pretty normal let’s face it. That thing is hoawt!
1- Shion Karanomori – Psycho-Pass
Am I just using this list to as an excuse to talk about a series of very attractive ladies I might have a shot with. Not really, they’re all out of my league. But a girl can dream!
In the first Psycho Pass, Shion is in a very intimate relationship with coworker Yayoi but doesn’t hesitate to flirt with, well pretty much everyone else but most notably Kogami. One line in particular always sticks in my head. Towards the end of the first season, Shion asks Kogami how come they never got together and he says he figured they were never really each other’s type. It’s an odd line. It’s playful, dismissive but in a way that betrays the two are fairly close and there’s a bit of sadness to it.
In the end, Shion loves love. She is the type of person who wants to be wanted and longs to be desired. Everything else is purely academic to her, although I suspect she sticks to attractive people of either gender.
There is a conversation to be had about sexual orientation representation in the media but I’m not going to have it today. This list was just for fun and I’m thrilled that I was able to find 5 (7 even) bisexual characters super easily and most of them are likeable and all of them are alive!
Do you have a favourite bi character? I avoided characters from Yaoi or Yuri shows but a lot of them could fall into this category as well.
I really want to watch Rose of Versailes now! Perhaps the people who introduced me to anime knew my weaknesses (they did) but from the beginning I seemed to fall into anime that have gay, bi, pan or at least people of somewhat questionable sexuality and to treat them well as characters. So let’s talk about Fruits Basket for a minute. I haven’t read the manga so this is all from the older anime – and the new version as well. Haru flatly states that Yuki was his first love. And Ayame! All that flirting and teasing about Shigure keeping him up all night. Just.. Ayame. Momiji who almost always dresses and presents as a girl, and most of the family simply accepts it and moves along. When he isn’t trying to bathe or sleep with Tohru. I swear I spent most of my first watch of the series asking my friends – they show this on TV? For kids? The U.S. would have had a mass panic attack – especially where we lived in the buckle of the Bible Belt. For me, it was nice to see people “like me” as in, not binary.
So now I have to find all the anime on this list and add them to my list…
I only read the Fruits Baskets manga so I don’t know how far the anime goes but Akito is an amazing character….
I’ve only seen the anime and not read the manga and Akito to me is scary…
I can see why. Can’t wait for the story to evolve then, it gets…fun!
TFS came up with a term for people like Hisoka. Fightsexual and honestly, it makes perfect sense for him.
t does and it’s super scary.
Kanji was an interesting case. I agree that you might not be able to call him bisexual, but he definitely has a more complicated sort of identity. I like the idea that it doesn’t matter what gender you’re attracted to quite so much as what traits in a person, and the character he was interested in definitely had feminine qualities even if the game was trying to play her up as a male for a while.
These games have been almost forgotten by now, but one of the Persona 2 games had a character who was almost certainly gay, or at least attracted to the main character, and that was back in the late 90s when such things weren’t talked about so openly.
I haven’t played 2. I quite liked 3 though but I wasn’t able to find 2 at the time. Interesting
I have a very hard time even remembering bi- or pansexual characters, so I’m impressed you managed to come up with enough for even honorable mentions. Unless it’s made a point of, I usually don’t remember their orientation. Hisoka’s an interesting case, since he seems to substitute fighting for sex, or in Freudian terms thanatos for eros (I didn’t think I’d ever find the terms useful, but I feel that describes what’s going here pretty well).
I did have to think about it a bit but being a harmless perv I might pay more attention o these things than most pepople…
The one who came to my mind first was Yasuko Sugimoto from “Aoi Hana.”
Sweet little Yuri tha was
Touya Kinomoto from CCS. It isn’t 100% clear whether he’s bi or gay, but at least we know he’s tried it both ways, since he dated Kaho before settling down with Yukito. And he’s a great character either way.
Some people have counted Haruhi Suzumiya as pan, since she flat-out says she’s willing to date anyone, man, woman, or alien, as long as she finds them interesting enough. That’s a tougher one to call, though, since only guys ever ask her out and she never actually shows any overt attraction to anyone except Kyon (unless you think there’s some subtext in the way she treats Mikuru, but I’ve never gotten that feeling).
And yeah, anyone who hasn’t played P4 yet, I definitely recommend it if you at all enjoy that kind of game. Storywise, at least, it’s my favorite in the series.
oh Touya is a good pull!
I really need to get a vita to play Persona 4 Golden and Shion is one of my favorite characters in Psycho Pass besides Shogo and Shinya.
-K(rogueotakugamer)
It’s fun
I’ve played Persona 5 and beaten it a while back it was really awesome and i’ve also played the p4 fighting game spin offs and beaten it recently and it was really awesome too.
I really need to watch Rose of Versaille!
I think it is really cool that anime is so inclusive of different sexualities and gender identities. I’m surprised you didn’t mention Revolutionary Girl Utena, considering pretty much everyone in it is gay or bi (well maybe not Nanami, but still).
Well I put Utena in the Yuri category… I had to narrow it down and I figured if I added yuri and Yaoi anime I would end up with 100 charas…
One character that comes to mind is (minor spoiler) Clarence from SAO Alternative. Of course, could be just because I just finished rewatching it!
Never watched the series but googles the character. Looks fun
I’m gonna actively search for all these animes.
Good thing they’re all pretty good anime in my opinion
Very interesting read, but I will not let you sell yourself short. I think you understand and appeal to Americanized people, you put in so much effort, I bet you aced English and Literature, and I trust that you could draw a pretty darn good Sailor Moon. So I think you’re darn cool enough to be in any fictional anime girls league, if not entirely in a league of your own.
Sailor Moon drawing skills are a base prerequisite for all bloggers after all. That’s why you need to submit a Sailor Moon sketch when you open a WP account
I think the committee got distracted with my robot drawing and let me pass anyway…
Did it have a moon on it. Cause mecha sailor moon sounds amazing and I want to see it now
Look up Noble Gundam.
MIND….BLOWN….
Allenby, the pilot, is good! 😁