The 16 Best Anime About Social Anxiety
Vote for your favorite anime series that depicts social anxiety in all its forms.
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Poor Tomoko Kuroki. All she wants out of life is to be popular, but that goal is frustratingly out of reach. Why? Because she's utterly terrified of interacting with the people who 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 in into hatred, internally raging about her "popular" and "slutty" classmates while wishing that she could be accepted by them. While the show can be hilarious, it's also a bitingly realistic depiction of social anxiety.
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Welcome to the NHK features one of the most severe cases of social anxiety ever depicted in an anime. Tatsuhiro Satou is so afraid of the outside world that he leads the isolated life of a hikikomori, only venturing outside when he absoltuely has to. He not only fears social interaction, he also suffers from multiple paranoid delusions about the government and the media, and is constantly on the verge of financial ruin. One day, a neighbor girl offers to help him overcome his problems - but she may be just as troubled as he is, if not more so.
Do you like this show?- 3
Barakamon
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Handa Seishuu isn't just socially anxious - he's anxious about everything. He's such an extreme perfectionist when it comes to his calligraphy that he decks the old man in charge of appraising his work, and after that he's too scared to face him and apologize. Thinking that his son needs a low-pressure environment if he's going to thrive, he sends him out of the city to live on a remote island. There, the only interactions he feels comfortable with are those with children - who seem to flock to him for reasons he doesn't understand. As he gains confidence in his new environment, he starts to feel more comfortable about speaking to other adults and starts to take his work a little less seriously.
Do you like this show? - 4
Recovery of an MMO Junkie
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When 30-year-old Moriko Morioka quits her corporate job, it's a huge relief for her, because it means that she no longer has to deal with people. Instead, she can spend all of her time in her apartment, gaming to her hearts' content. While this makes her genuinely happy at first, 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 actually someone she knows in real life, her naturally nervous personality is put to the test as she navigates their budding relationship.
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- Bocchi the Rock!
- CloverWorks
For Hitori Gotou, socializing is a nightmarish prospect. She's comfortable with her family and her dog, but when it comes to her peers, she turns into a stammering mess. Thinking that music could offer her a way to connect with others - and maybe get famous - she starts learning guitar and posting her songs online.
She's soon catapulted into the world of live performances when a girl from another school begs her to perform in an upcoming show with her band because one of the members ran away. Hitori is terrified, but this is also the one thing she's always wanted. Thus begins her journey toward bonding with others through music.
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Because they're too afraid to go outside and interact with other humans, sibling duo Sora and Shiro spend all of their time inside playing video games. They're incredible when it comes to gaming, defeating nearly everyone they ever challenge, and rising to the top of the world of Disboard when they're transported into a universe in which gaming has actual real-world consequences. But even once they become leaders of a nation, 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.
Do you like this show?- 7
Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu
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- C2C
Hitori Bocchi - whose name literally means 'lonely' or 'alone' is so socially anxious that the idea of talking to 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, or else never talk to Yawara again. This challenge wasn't meant to be cruel - it was meant to make sure that Hitori Bocchi would actually make friends at her new school. Will she be able to battle her fears and talk to her classmates, or will she remain forever alone? You'll have to watch the show to find out.
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Kotoura is afraid of interacting with other people, and she has good reason to feel that way. Her psychic powers grant her the ability to read other peoples' minds, but not the ability to differentiate between thoughts and words. As a result, she reveals other people's secrets, destroying her own friendships and even breaking up her parents' marriage. Thanks to this, she's shunned by anyone who finds out what she can do, and lives in constant fear that her true nature will 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.
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- Komi Can't Communicate
- OLM
Shouko Komi is beautiful and popular, but that doesn't mean she has social skills. She's actually so afraid of talking to people that she freezes up or starts shaking whenever her classmates approach her. But through befriending Hitohito Tadano, who isn't even remotely judgmental of her social problems, she's able to start branching out and working toward her goal of making 100 friends.
There's one big problem, though - some of their classmates think that Tadano is way too ordinary to deserve Komi's time and attention, and they aren't afraid to say so.
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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.
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Tsukimi and the other residents of Amars House have issues with social interaction. For some of them, this is because of anxiety - they're so afraid to talk 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.
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- Zero-G
Subaru Mikazuki has always preferred books to people, but after his parents pass away, he becomes so afraid of human interaction that he can barely even be persuaded to leave home to meet his editor or help publicize his books. When he adopts a stray cat who he eventually names Haru, he's not only forced to form a bond with a living being in a way he wasn't willing to before, he's also forced to talk to other people, like the friendly pet shop owner and her brother. As his world begins to expand thanks to Haru, so does his comfort with other people. While Subaru will never be an extrovert, speaking to others starts to become less something to dread and more something to look forward to.
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Yes, Big Windup! is 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 afraid of being put into that situation again that when he enters a new school, he almost doesn't try out for the baseball team despite wanting nothing 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 school trip, and is just generally a nervous wreck until his new team proves that they support him. This helps, but doesn't make the anxiety disappear completely.
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March Comes In Like A Lion is a popular drama anime series about a 17-year-old named Rei who lives alone, making it hard to relate and become friends with others. His life of solitude changes when he moves to Tokyo and meets three sisters who make it their mission to befriend Rei and make him apart of the community.
Do you like this show?- 15
Hinako Note
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- Passione
Hinako isn't very good at talking to people - she gets nervous when faced with the prospect. Because she lives in the countryside, she doesn't have a lot of experience overcoming her nerves. To fix her problem and get comfortable enough with speaking to others that she can fulfil her dream of joining the theater club, she moves to Tokyo for high school. She winds up moving into a second-hand bookstore with a roommate who eats books - not exactly easy circumstances for someone with social anxiety to deal with!
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Thanks to his poor social skills, Mitsuya Majime is an absolutely terrible salesperson. Unfortunately for him, that was the only job that he could find. He has to battle anxiety and awkwardness just to make a sales pitch, and when he tries he's perceived as creepy or rude, and rarely actually makes a sale. Rather than fire him, his company reassigns him to a different division where he can actually use his talents. Rather than mumbling ineffective sales pitches to people who can't wait to get away from him, he'll get to use his talents for precise and solitary work to help create a new dictionary.
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