Animesexual
Animesexual describes someone who experiences sexual attraction to anime or manga characters, or whose sexual attraction is primarily/exclusively directed toward anime-style fictional characters. It may overlap with fictosexuality, fictophilia, or attraction to “2D” characters. Some people see the orientation as a form of asexuality or graysexuality because their attraction does not extend to the real world.
Some people use the term seriously to describe their attraction patterns, while others use it casually, jokingly, or as a meme online. Because “anime” is not a gender, animesexual is widely debated and is not generally accepted as an LGBTQ+ identity on its own.
Another close variant of this term is called mangasexuality, which refers to sexual attraction to manga characters. (Anime refers to Japanese-style animation, while manga refers to comics or graphic novels.) Sometimes both mangasexuality and animesexuality are grouped under animatesexuality, a broader term that refers to sexual attraction to animated or cartoon-style fictional characters.
Origins of the Term
Animesexual is believed to have been coined in 2016 on Tumblr. Later that year, the same blog expanded the idea into related labels such as animeromantic, mangaromantic, animesensual, and animealterous, placing the term within a broader internet taxonomy of fictional-character attraction.
Although the word may have appeared casually online before then, public search interest appears to have taken off around 2020–2021, when the term became caught up in debates over whether it was a sincere ace-spectrum/fictosexual microlabel, fandom slang, a fetish term, or a joke identity.
Related Terms
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