This Week in Anime

Anime Date Night

Chris
Lucas! Valentine's Day may have been a couple months ago, but we're here now for the next most romantic time of the year: tax season! So long as we're all calculating the rough amounts we owe as creatives, we must think about frugal ways to spend some time for two while we financially recover. Fortunately, as professional weebs, we know it's perfectly acceptable to trade a romantic candlelit dinner out for an evening in watching cool Japanese cartoons!

With as deep as our backlogs run, watching something with someone can sometimes be the best way to get through a series, to say nothing of learning more about someone's tastes. Though I can't say that my love life has quite reached the storied heights of yours, and my cross-section of interests means I've just as much subjected dates to the original G1 Transformers cartoon as they've had me gamely try to watch Tekken: Bloodline on their phone while also attempting to cuddle with them.

Truly, romance contains multitudes, and I'll do my best to bring my advice to the table.

I was just about to bring up the same point about RWBY, but didn't know if I'd be insulting College Lucas. So at least we're getting the awkward first-date energy out of the way early.

This is a good point to get out at the beginning, though; knowing your potential partner and their tastes will inform your choices for viewing material. Which is to say, unless you're certain this person is matching your specific freak, you probably don't want to break out Interspecies Reviewers or the uncut version of Mezzo Forte for the first date.

Viewing choices, like so many things in relationships, ought to be driven by communication and sharing other aspects of your life with potential partners. So, picking up the kinds of movies, books, and games they're into can help you get an idea of the more niche material that might draw them into anime. If they're big into sports, there's no shortage of wild sports anime to throw on. Do they like musicals? That's the perfect excuse to expose them to Revue Starlight (which, not for nothing, is its own brand of Freaky).

Anime here is but one more vector for getting to know each other better. It's a cool thing that shows you've been paying attention to their interests.

And it's not a requirement, but having a romantic component to a story can help kindle that date-night atmosphere. Watching Yor and Loid's adorably awkward fake-marriage chemistry can be a catalyst for getting cuddly with your partner. Alternatively, you bond over shouting about how hot both of them are.

One way or another: goals.

On the subject of show-shelving, that's a component of consideration when watching something with someone. We all know of someone who wound up behind on some long-running series, continuously dodging spoilers because they were honor-bound to only watch it with their partner. People get busy! That's why easier pick-up-put-down anime like the aforementioned SPY x FAMILY are a solid choice for fledgling relationship watching, alongside shorter movies and OVAs. Few people are getting left hanging in between all four episodes of Ruin Explorers.

My counterpoint to your advisement to not watch something for the first time with a partner is that the person I'm seeing right now recently airdropped me into watching the finale of Aquarion: Myth of Emotions with them (and our mutual pal and co-writer Coop) completely devoid of context, which was certainly...something! Sometimes getting dragged into the deep end can be fun. It's all about the experience.

That said, you bring up a great point about the informational power of watching something with someone else. Just as other people's lived experiences and knowledge are going to bring different things into a relationship, they also allow you to find new avenues of appreciating series you were familiar with.

Sometimes it's a nuanced new perspective on a work's deeper themes, and other times it's my sister explaining who Arale was to her future husband who had seen all of Dragon Ball but had no clue what was up with the Doctor Slump crossover.

If the chatter from my co-workers talking about catching shows like Vinland Saga and Jujutsu Kaisen on Netflix with their significant others is any indication, you're probably onto something there.

Now, the counterpoint to all this casual coupled cuddle-watching is the possibility of people who are already deep in the anime fandom to start dating each other, and in my opinion that's where the recommendation train can get rolling. Now you're no longer trying to gauge a partner's interest in getting into a whole new medium; you're swapping info about key components of your hobbies and interests!

Watching something you can be mutually critical of is a great way to engage in a relationship; I'm so happy for you that you've found that. Remember that this also works for co-watching something truly contemptible and riffing on it. Which is my way of saying I hope you've put your relationship to the test through Netflix's live-action Death Note.

Relationships that can survive material like this can potentially survive anything.

But getting back to good dating anime suggestions: Someone you're seeing being an established weeb is cool because it gives you that more experienced window into their tastes. Learning which Gundam they like, and why, lets you tailor further conversation and recommendations. It even helps schedule additional date nights. If Giant Robo is an important series to someone but I haven't seen it yet, that's the perfect reason to finally catch the series while learning more about someone I care about!

There's a reason I brought up backlogs earlier. This is also a perfect place to once again tout the value of physical media, in this case, how it contributes to watching something...physically! That is, if there's an anime on your partner's list that isn't available for streaming, then having your copy of something like Baccano! or Samurai Flamenco on disc to bring over for date night can be a winning move.

It makes these anime something you or your loved one might not have seen at all if not for the happening of your relationship. That's kinda special, at least as far as watching shows goes.

Anime, like any hobby, can be a powerful connection point when you branch out on it with people. Going to a convention with someone you care about can be the advanced version of an anime date night. And knowing the kind of media and merch someone likes makes picking out presents much more effective.

But it's also good that you point out the pratfalls of hobby-assisted dating. That is, anime is a great way to learn more about and bond with your partner, but it probably shouldn't be the only thing your relationship is based on. This is why I stress the value of paying attention to their faves and gleaning the insight into what their appreciation says about them as a person.

It would keep you busy for a lot of date nights, anyway. Or one big date night with the whole polycule.

Though admittedly I don't have the experience to make recommendations for anime dating while poly. I imagine that's a whole other level of advanced romance calculus.

I feel like Takahashi joints in general make for good viewing material, if you're looking at getting together with someone for the long haul. So long as you can make your coupling official before the leads in the show do, you're probably doing fine!

If you and your romantic anime viewing partner are confident in the health of your relationship, then analyzing everything Takahashi's couples have going on could be just as engaging a date night activity as critiquing Death Note!