I really like romance, and there’s not much in modern fict that captures the silly fluttery-heart feeling I get from classic 1930s-40s Hollywood romantic comedies and love stories.
The past couple years though, I’ve tumbled into manga and manhua again after pretty much sticking to western comics for ages. In particular the yuri (girls love) sub-genre. A few well done same sex romance comics really capture that same daydreamy fun I get from films like “Sabrina” “It Happened One Night” “Design for Living” or “Some Like It Hot”. With the benefits of lgbtqa+ inclusion and an absence of most retrograde racism and sexism found in those old stories.
A couple of my favorites have been:
“Bloom Into You”
“Crescent Moon & Doughnuts”
“Accept My Fist of Love” and
“Still Sick”.
All of these are available in manga form, getting US translations, but only “Bloom Into You” has an anime adaption so far (and that doesn’t look like it’ll ever get completed).
I started watching the anime, Bloom Into You and I am only on episode 4 but Yuu really, REALLY reads as arospec to me. I know that there’s one character, Maki, who is canonically aroace in this anime and I am so excited to meet him . But Yuu could definitely be somewhere on the aromantic spectrum too and the way they’re describing her feelings towards Touko, blooming into them. Sounds very demiromantic to me. Plus the alienation and confusion she expressed when it comes to romance around her is very aro-coded. so happy to have found an aromantic-spec sapphic character in this show .
Their Importance: Aromantic representation is pretty hard to find in media, especially in series like Bloom into you, where the main focus is on romance. Maki describes himself as not able to love anyone romantically, and he seems completely fine with it. There are also no suggestions that he is “weird” or “broken” for not wanting to date anyone. A common stereotype about ace/aro people is that they are cold, and Maki is the opposite of that, he is a good friend to the protagonist and cares about others.
I always feel guilty that I dont reach out to past friends… but then I realize it’s a two way street, I’m not solely responsible to keep a relationship alive.
