Anime about Social Anxiety (+5 tips)

This article will discuss anime about social anxiety, we will try and describe how anime represents social anxiety. We will mention some names of animes about social anxiety. Anime helps to portray social anxiety in a better way, we will also answer a few FAQs based on the topic.

Anime about social anxiety

Anime about social anxiety is a Japanese depiction of films and television animation about social anxiety. This content is suitable for both adults and children, anime has a more aesthetic appeal. People who are experiencing social anxiety can relate to these animes. 

Social anxiety is defined as an intense fear of interacting with others or being negatively judged by them. It is often seriously debilitating and makes it hard for those experiencing it to steer fulfilling lives. 

Social anxiety isn’t just confined to the real world, there is also much anime about anxiety worth watching. Shows like March Comes In sort of a Lion takes social anxiety seriously, depicting the character’s struggles with gravity and empathy. Others, like Welcome to the NHK and My Roommate, maybe a Cat blend hilarity sympathetically, while a couple just like the recent Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu, have a mostly humorous take on the issue.

In some cases, the protagonist struggles with a significant case of social anxiety that’s immune to all attempts at improvement, while in other cases it’s easily resolved. Whether social anxiety is the main theme of the series or just a crucial aspect, it adds a touch of realism and intrigue to the show in question.

Anime that depicts social anxiety the best

• WataMote: No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!
• Welcome to the NHK
• Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu
• No game no life
• Kotoura-san
• March comes in like a lion 
• Recovery of an MMO junkie 
• Big Windup 
• Princess jellyfish 
• Yuri!!! On ICE 
• My roommate is a cat 

Anime about social anxiety: descriptions

WataMote: No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular!

Tomoko Kuroki wants to be popular, but that goal is frustratingly out of reach. It is because she’s utterly terrified of interacting with the people whom she hopes will adore her. Rather than simply talking to her classmates, she concocts all kinds of elaborate schemes to try to get their attention. These schemes are destined to fail because her grasp on what other people find appealing is nonexistent. She also projects her anxiety on others and transforms into hatred, internally raging about her “popular” classmates while wishing that she might be accepted by them. While the show is often hilarious, it is also a bitingly realistic depiction of social anxiety.

Welcome to the NHK

Welcome to the NHK features severe cases of social anxiety ever depicted in an anime. Tatsuhiro Satou is so scared of the surface world that he leads the isolated life of a hikikomori, only venturing outside when he absolutely has got to. He not only fears social interaction, but he also suffers from multiple paranoid delusions about the government and therefore the media, and is consistently on the verge of monetary ruin. One day, a neighbor girl offers to assist him to overcome his problems – but she could also be even as troubled as he’s, if not more.

Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu

Hitori Bocchi, whose name literally means ‘lonely’ or ‘alone’ is so socially anxious that the thought of lecturing another person makes her physically ill. When she and her only friend Yawara Kai are accepted into different middle schools, her friend presents her with a challenge: make friends with everyone at her new school, alternatively never ask Yawara again. This challenge wasn’t meant to be cruel, it had been meant to form sure that Hitori Bocchi would actually make friends at her new school. 

No game no life

In the anime, the sibling dua sora and Shiro prefer to stay indoors and spend all their time inside playing video games, because they’re too afraid to go outside and interact with other humans. These two are incredible at gaming, rising to the top of the world of the dashboard when they get transported to a universe where gaming has actual real-world consequences and defeating everyone that challenged them. Though they are able to conquer nations, they’re terrified to walk through a city street, surrounded by people who might judge them. The only way that they can be comfortable interacting with others is when gaming is involved. 

Kotoura-san

Kotoura is scared of interacting with people, and she has good reason to feel that way. Her psychic powers grant her the power to read other peoples’ minds, but not the power to differentiate between thoughts and words. As a result, she reveals other people’s secrets, destroying her own friendships and even ending her parents’ marriage. Thanks to this, she’s shunned by anyone who finds out what she will do and lives in constant fear that her true nature is going to be revealed in new environments. She comes out of her shell when a cheerful deviant named Manabe, a psychic researcher named Yuriko, and others, finally accept her for who she is.

March comes in like a lion 

Rei Kiriyama has never been lucky with social relationships. Even as a child he was bullied and kept isolated, and things only got worse as he got older. His parents pass away, and his adoptive father puts him on a pedestal for his exceptional shogi talents, causing his adoptive sister to hate him. By the time he gets to his late teens, he has little desire or ability to form meaningful bonds with anyone. But thanks to other people, like the warm and friendly Kawamoto sisters and his boisterous self-proclaimed rival Harunobu Nikaido, he’s never fully felt isolated, but it’ll take a lot of work for him to eventually come out of his shell. 

Recovery of an MMO

When 30-year-old Moriko Morioka quits her corporate job, it is a huge relief for her, because it means she doesn’t have to interact with people. Instead, she will spend all of her time in her apartment, gaming to her hearts’ content. While this makes her genuinely happy initially, she does start wishing for true human connection. This is harder than it looks because she’s too anxious to initiate real-life conversation. When she discovers that the “girl” she made friends with while playing a “boy” in an MMO is really someone she knows in the real world, her naturally nervous personality is put to the test as she navigates their budding relationship.

Big Windup 

Big Windup might be about baseball, but it’s also about social anxiety. Ren Mihashi was ostracized by his former baseball team because his poor pitching seemed to be holding the team back, and the other members thought he only got his position thanks to nepotism. Ren is so scared of being put into that situation again that when he enters a replacement school, he almost doesn’t try for the team despite wanting anything more in the world than to pitch. When he does join the team, he’s so sure that everyone will hate him that he can barely bring himself to speak in their presence, doesn’t sleep for the entirety of a faculty trip, and is simply generally a nervous wreck until his new team proves that they support him. This helps but doesn’t make the anxiety disappear completely.

Princess jellyfish

Tsukimi and the rest of the other residents of Amars House have issues with social interaction. For some of them, this is often due to anxiety, they’re so afraid to speak to anyone outside of their small bubble of fellow nerdy women that they simply don’t. For others, it’s not an anxiety thing, it’s just a lack of desire. Tsukimi does want to broaden her social horizons but is afraid to do so until she meets Kuranosuke, a cross-dressing college student who isn’t afraid to be himself, and who inspires her to do the same.

Yuri!!! On ICE

Yuri!!! on ICE is a queer romance about ice skating, but it’s also a show about anxiety. Yuri Katsuki is so paralyzed with fear over how others will judge him if he fails at skating that one poor performance puts his career on hold for months. When his skating idol and crush Victor Nikiforov decides to be his coach, he gets a little of his confidence back – but it takes him a while to be able to fully trust Victor and open up to him. Yuri isn’t the only person in the show with anxiety problems. Though JJ Leroy comes off as brash and confident, he’s secretly feeling a lot of pressure about his skating career, specifically, he’s worried that others will mock him if he doesn’t meet his own sky-high performance expectations. After his on-ice panic attack, his bragging feels less like arrogance and more like an attempt at self-soothing. 

My roommate is a cat 

Subaru Mikazuki has always preferred books to people, but after his parents pass on, he becomes so scared of human interaction that he can barely even be persuaded to go home to satisfy his editor or help publicize his books. When he adopts a stray cat who he eventually names Haru, he is not only forced to make a bond with a living being in a way he wasn’t willing to before, but he’s also forced to speak to people, just like the friendly shop owner and her brother. As his world begins to expand because of Haru, so does his comfort with people. While Subaru will never be an extrovert, chatting with others starts to subside something to dread and more something to seem forward to.

FAQs: Anime about Social Anxiety 

Conclusion 

This article discussed anime about social anxiety, we also described how anime represents social anxiety. We even mentioned a few names of animes that represent aspects of social anxiety. In conclusion, we learned that anime helps to portray social anxiety in a better way. If there are questions regarding this topic, feel free to reach out to us. 

References 

https://www.ranker.com/list/anime-about-social-anxiety/anna-lindwasser

https://www.anime-planet.com/users/AnnaSartin/lists/social-anxiety-anime-196231