What Is Sasaki and Miyano and Why Has It Become One of My Favorite Romance Anime Series in 2022 So Far?
Bless this wholesome boys' love series
Slight spoilers to Sasaki and Miyano episodes 1 – 3
One of the anime series I was looking forward to the most at the start of 2022 was Sasaki and Miyano. As someone who wants to see more queer anime content being created AND made available on major anime platforms, I was excited to see it being released on Funimation.
While there are a lot of options when it comes to queer manga series, we usually only get a handful of queer anime – and that’s assuming it gets licensed here in the U.S.
But Sasaki and Miyano is here now, and it is such a delightfully self-aware, heartwarming boys’ love series that it is quickly becoming one of my favorite romances to watch this season.
What is Sasaki and Miyano about?
It all started like a typical old-school boys’ love plotline—bad-boy senior meets adorably awkward underclassman, one of them falls in love, and so on and so forth. But although Miyano is a self-proclaimed boys’ love expert, he hasn’t quite realized…he’s in one himself. This means it’s up to Sasaki to make sure their story has a happily ever after!
The self-aware boys’ love part
As the summary says, Miyano is an expert in all things boys’ love, so much so that he can identify boys’ love tropes as they happen in real life – except when he’s the focal point of them.
It’s not just the tropes that get addressed in the anime, but Miyano is frequently embarrassed to admit that he’s into boys’ love, worried what others would think if they found out. Boys’ love hasn’t exactly had the best reputation over the years and the anime doesn’t shy away from the fact that labels like “fujoshi” (which is primarily used to describe women who are fans of boys’ love) and “fudanshi” (the male equivalent) will cause some people to raise a disapproving eyebrow at you.
Fujoshi and fudanshi are usually said to be fans who don’t necessarily care about actual queer issues and are only interested in the “but there was only one blanket” scenario between two extremely attractive boys who indirectly kiss when they share a water bottle. There’s also an assumption of an obsessive nature to male/male relationships if you’re called a fujoshi or fudanshi, to the point that you’ll go so far as to ship boys in real life if one sits close to another.
Miyano does actually have moments like this in the series, often in regards to a classmate and that classmate’s roommate, but as he does this he’s oblivious to the fact that he himself might actually be into boys, or at the very least, Sasaki, as the two of them grow closer.
What’s interesting about this is that Miyano kinda correlates queerness to his fanboyism, to the point that he’s quick to reassure Sasaki that he isn’t interested in “recreating boys’ love scenarios” with him… when, well, he kinda is. Because he’s clearly starting to like him.
Sasaki, on the flip side, is fully aware of the fact that he likes Miyano, but since he’s “normal” (as Miyano puts it since Sasaki isn’t a fudanshi like him) he actually addresses his feelings as, you know, potentially being gay. When he speaks about his feelings, he’s speaking about Miyano directly, able to identify feelings of jealousy when others shower him with affection, or how cute he thinks he looks when he falls asleep.
What really connected me to Sasaki, though, was the moment a friend of his found out that he was reading boys’ love. See, Sasaki’s been reading the books that Miyano’s been lending him and truly does enjoy them for the stories they tell. To him, they’re just another kind of fiction you can read, they just so happen to focus on two boys. Beyond that, he kinda uses the books as a way to show that it’s fine that people read them, not because of the “but they were roommates” part, but because love stories can (and do) make perfect sense between two men. When a friend says that he doesn’t get why the story had to have two male leads, Sasaki flat out says that the story wouldn’t have worked any other way.
Basically, sometimes, boys are queer, and that’s fine.
The wholesome romance part
This brings us to the budding romance between Sasaki and Miyano. As the two connect over boys’ love, it’s clear that feelings are developing. Boys’ love is, in a way, a tool that’s slowly beginning to flesh out the feelings that have been brewing since they first met. To me it feels like what they’re reading is helping to put things in perspective, kind of like when you see yourself represented in media and go, “Hey, that’s me.”
Except, you know, Miyano is a bit clueless, and Sasaki is quietly suffering.
As they talk about what they’re reading and the parts they liked in each story, there’s this sort of “aha” moment that happens, though Sasaki became aware of it faster than Miyano. Even so, the desire to touch Miyano’s hand or brush his fingers through his hair isn’t nearly as easy in real life as it is in the books. There are insecurities to work through and lingering questions about what these feelings mean alongside a genuine joy of being close to each other.
And yes, boys’ love typically has its characters go through the motions, but it’s different when you actually go through those motions in real life. As a boys’ love fan, Miyano knows the significance of sharing an umbrella with a boy. Outside of that, when he does it for real with Sasaki? The meaning goes right over his head even if we, the viewer, can clearly see the flushed look on Sasaki’s face.
It’s really nice to see their relationship developing and I found myself rooting for them to reach a point where they could say how they feel, out loud, and come to terms with what that means for their friendship and who they are as people. Combined with cute animation and obvious “love me” visual cues, I adore these two boys with all my heart.
You can check out Sasaki and Miyano over at Funimation.
(Image: Shō Harusono/Studio DEEN/Funimation)
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