aroace representation

another yap session!! now I'm talking about aroace rep in the media, specifically books n movies, but also aroace rep in general. (also chat remember that aroace is a spectrum)

one of the greatest aroace relationships has got to be the relationship of Ash and Eiji from Banana Fish. Their relationship is so beautiful, and honestly I get a bit annoyed when people are like "why don't they kiss?? they need to kiss!!" because that's not important in their relationship. they feel this deep connection with each other, something that can't be captured by traditional romance, if that makes sense. it's very clear that they love each other, but instead of expressing it in more romantic ways (kissing, sexual stuff, goin on dates, calling each other bfs), they have these extremely intimate moments with each other (I have another blog mentioning intimacy>romance). they have the sort of relationship that doesn't quite fit into the category of friends, but doesn't really fit into the romantic relationship category either. this is kind of where I personally fit on the spectrum, and I just loved seeing this type of relationship represented in the show. 

(I don't necessarily recommend Banana Fish though, because this show is about wayyyy more than just the relationship between Ash and Eiji, I don't want anyone to start watching it thinking it's just about their relationship because it contains some really traumatic stuff)

a really great aroace character is Shima from Skip and Loafer. I LOVELOVELOVE this manga series (it also is an anime but I like the books better) and I highly recommend it to everyone. the story mostly centres around the relationship between Shima and the main character Mitsumi (who is also my FAVOURITE CHARACTER OF ALL TIME I LOVE HER SO MUCH), but it's clear that Shima experiences love differently than Mitsumi, who has a crush on him. as he explains to his friend, he thinks that the closest that two people can be together is friends, but his friend explains that most people think that the closest you can be to someone else is when you're dating. they both value friendship very highly, which I love. There's still another book coming, but right now it looks like Shima is not satisfied with his relationship with Mitsumi and he's confused about the way he feels. I'm really excited to see what happens in the next book, (please don't give me spoilers) and how their relationship evolves. (another reason I recommend this series is because it has explicit and positive trans rep)

I also talked about webtoons in my previous blog that have relationships that value intimacy over romance. while none of the examples listed in that blog and in this blog explicitly state the the characters are aroace, they have representation of different kinds of relationships, which is really important. from the things I've read I've found that when characters who are on the aroace spectrum are in relationships, the relationships typically value intimacy over romance. intimacy can include being physically intimate, which doesn't necessarily mean sexual things, and it also includes emotional and mental intimacy. 

also please don't take all this as fact, this is based off of my personal feelings and the way I interpret things. I'm also kind of new to identifying as aroace, and I'm the kind of person to do an in depth analysis like this to find out more about myself. thanks for listening <3