Autistic characters in anime

Written on 26th Jun 2019 by Alex Lowery

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I have previously written about characters with autistic traits in fiction in general. I have also come to find a number of anime characters with autistic-like characteristics. Note – none of these characters is officially confirmed to be on the autistic spectrum. However, many people (including myself) have theorised that it’s a possibility so I hope you enjoy this article. 

L from Death Note –  L is a detective like Sherlock Holmes who has a lot of autistic traits. He’s childish and socially awkward. He always sits with his knees up. Some autistic people have set ways in which they like to sit. He feels uncomfortable to sit in the way most people do. I think you sometimes even see him rocking slightly. He’s also very good at paying close attention to the details. In the dubbed version of the anime, he also has a rather stereotypical autistic voice.

Violet Evergarden from Violet Evergarden – I’m autistic & I found I could relate to her quite a lot. She seems to struggle to understand people’s emotions. She doesn’t pick up social cues, she takes language very literally & She thinks in a very logical & black & white way. You can view a picture of her here.

Mashiro Shiina from The pet girl of Sakurasou’ – Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any copyright-free pictures of her so I’ll have to share a link. See a picture here. Mashiro shows a lot of signs of autism. She is a very talented artist and she excels in her topics of interest but she struggles in areas she’s not interested in. She’s also very naive and innocent. She is also completely unaware of what’s classed as socially inappropriate. In addition to this, she doesn’t have many self help skills and is very dependent on others. She also has the stereotypical monotone voice. She has tended to language literally and even uses echolalia.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this article. I apologise for the lack of decent pictures. I might eventually do a film version of this with footage included.

Edit: I have now made a video on this topic of autisic anime characters. Please check it out for more examples.

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