Last week I surprised us all by posting a Top 5 couples post around St-Valentines day. Will my originality ever cease! Well this week, it’s time to balance out all those fluffy feelings with a decisive lack of fluffy feelings. These are my top aromantic anime characters.
There are still very few aromatic characters in fiction directly acknowledged as such by the text but there are plenty of anime characters that seem utterly disinterested in romance in general. And these are the ones I have decided to focus on this week. Because romance isn’t the most important thing in life here are 5 anime characters that don’t consider it important at all!
5. Jotaro Kujo – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures: Stardust Crusaders
I haven’t watched all of JoJo yet so maybe this changes after crusaders, that’s the only reason Jotaro isn’t higher on the list. This particular JoJo is catnip to the ladies. Hardly an episode could go by without some girl throwing herself at him and the guys didn’t seem completely indifferent either.
Yet while, Joseph and mostly Polnareff were actively flirting with any attractive lady that crossed their path, and Kakyoin was playing the gentleman and commenting on beauty, it seemed that romance or even sexuality didn’t even cross Jotaro’s mind. He had the same, generally antisocial reaction no matter who approached him or how. I guess the Joestar line is either gonna branch out somewhere else or he’ll have a kid out of obligation…
4. Haruka Nanase – Free!
Let’s face it, Haruka is special. Like maybe don’t leave him unsupervised with sharp objects type of special. I’m not entirely sure if Haruka isn’t interested in romance or whether the concept of romance simply hadn’t occurred to him. 50% off might have tainted my perception of the character a bit.
This said Haruka has not shown the slightest interest in romantic relationships or any sort of inkling that others could see him as a romantic partner. The character is written in such a way, that I simply can’t imagine him deciding to pursue romance on his own at any point.
3. Tsuyu – My Hero Academia
My Hero Academia takes place in a high school full of teenage boys and girls and assorted hormones, There’s a lot of blushing, a lot of posturing and a lot of giggling going on. Even when characters aren’t interested in any particular person, you can tell that romance and sex are on their minds on some level. There are two exceptions though. Two characters that seem deeply uninterested in the prospect.
One is Bakugo who is supposed to be a pretty boy and it is often stated that he would have great success with girls if he worked on his attitude a bit, But he doesn’t seem like he wants to do that or like he has ever met anyone who interests him at all for that matter. The reason I didn’t pick him though, is that he is very emotionally immature and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him develop an interest in romance as he grows up a bit.
On the other hand, Tsuyu is as mature as they get. And She certainly understands the concept of romance but she just doesn’t seem excited by it. Even when all the girls get together to gossip about boys and crushes, at most she asks polite questions and rarely shows any excitement. I’m not sure if the manga contradicts me as I am not up to speed on that front, but at least in the anime, the attitude fits!
2. Izaya – Durarara
It’s a bit more obvious in the novels than in the anime but still, Izaya has never shown the slightest bit of romantic interest in anyone in particular. Unlike other characters that also don’t seem to have any particular romantic target in the show, he also has no interest in theoretical future relationships of the romantic kind.
In the novels, he is specifically described as exceptionally good looking and a frequent target of romantic interest from others. Something he uses to his full advantage in order to manipulate people but that he has never actually explored for any romantic or sexual interests. He even openly states that he isn’t attracted to any gender. The sexy asexual is a fun archetype and I’m enjoying that Durarara made it to the top spots of both my romantic and aromantic lists!
1- Nozaki – Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun
Nozaki gets the number one spot because how can anyone possibly resist Chiyo? Like really, how? Even if he doesn’t swing that way, just for the adorableness. Also, how could anyone resist Mikoto? There’s really only one explanation as far as I can tell. You guessed it, Nozaki is king aro! At least he is on my list!
I recently ordered all available volumes of the manga. So maybe they do get together at some point. This said, even if Chiyo and Nozaki end up happily ever after, he still deserves the spot for having taken this long. So there!
This list was surprisingly fun to put together. I can’t explain why but it was. You could try your own if you wanted, you’ll see. Or you could just tell me about your favourite suspected aromantic character right now! We can start a brand new list in the comments.
I sort of stuck to aromantic and asexual characters but there are some like Hisoka that seem very sexual but not romantic at all. that could be a fun list as well. Maybe next year.
😂😂When I first read the title of this post I (mis)read it as “Top 5 AROMATIC Anime Characters” I thought to myself: does she mean characters who stink? 🤔🤣🤣
I should do that top 5. It seems a few readers would like it….
I can totally believe Tsu
I was confused because the first line of the second paragraph it says “aromatic” and I wondered how you knew what anime characters smelled like… 😛
I have a tendency for typos. I’m sorry 🙁
It’s supposed to say aromaNtic, with an “n”, like in the title. Because a lot of the older autocorrects don’t recognize it as a word it tends to get changed to aromatic a lot and I really just didn’t see it. But it’s definitely not about how characters smell, lol! I hope this clears it up for you! 🙂
T’was meant in jest…. 🙁
Cool! 🙂
I’d read Nozaki pretty much like crazyidiot78; focussed to near exclusion of everything else on his manga career, which happens to include romance. It’s possible that he’s aromantic, but who knos. I’d say Haruka from Free falls into the same category.
Izaya strikes me as a psychopath, which pretty much removes a lot of the feelings that go with human interaction from the plate; not just romance.
I don’t know Jotaro, so that leaves me with Tsuyu, and that’s sort of the most conclusive entry on this list, but it’s still not really conclusive. She could be waiting for “the one”, but not make a big deal out of it.
The problem with a list like this is that the difference between “currently no-one triggers romantic feelings”, and “I don’t feel romantic feelings at all” is outwardly hard to tell. And if you’re a teen during the “savage season” (I love that phrasing of that anime, so I’m stealing it), it’s especially confusing: Are you a late bloomer? Simply less intense? That’s basically what Bloom Into You is about. There’s a character in the show who I think is asexual, and who I think is included to show the difference between not feeling doki doki manga sparkles and being aromantic.
I’m aromantic myself, and to be honest, for the most part I don’t care if others feel the same; I’m generally not interested in romance at all. I find fictional romances adorable, but I often feel a so-so romantic relationship ruins a really good friendship (Toradora, for example, really got my aromantic goat; I think Ryuji and Taiga work a lot better as friends than as a couple – a lot). So when I see someone who shows no romantic interest, I… just don’t think about it at all. And when I then read this list, I think, well, maybe, maybe not. It’s as if interpreting them as aromantic puts too much importance on the topic of romance, if this makes any sense. It’s confusing even for me.
Love this list! I totally agree for Haruka Nanase, and Nozaki Kun!
Nicely done. You could probably make a case that Izaya is in love with someone, just because his character is so complex. Part of his design is that you don’t know whether you can believe anything he says or not. Hence his subtle denials of his humanity, yet we’re regularly shown that he is simply human. But I like your take on it. One of the nice things about great art is that one almost always can make even opposing cases for something and both potentially be right or valid. And either argument would be interesting regardless.
Adding Nozaki to my watchlist. Arigatou!
I mostly went off the books in which he is canonically “not attracted to either men or women”, which I guess makes him more assexual than aromantic. But he still hasn’t openly showed any romantic feelings. It was a though list… I hope you like Nozaki – I love it!
That’s what I get for not reading manga or light novels xD Maybe he’s in love with himself, and that explains denying that he’s human! Crazy character.
I’ve been reading the MHA manga and I think you are correct about Tsuyu. As for Nozaki, yeah that sounds about right. But I like to think he is just an idiot obsessed with his manga career.
I like to think he’s an idiot too!|