[Image description: A tumblr post, edited blackout-poetry style. The redacting lines are the colours of the asexual pride flag. Resulting text is below.]

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Forever baffled that some people think asexuality isn't a spectrum. ma[n]y ways to experience attraction, or not.

(Disclaimer: Almost, if not all, of this is a scathing criticism of this ship. If you do not wish to see such or simply don’t want to see manga spoilers, press “J” on desktop of just scroll really fast to avoid it. Thanks!)

Ah, yes, one of our most favorite “she is a girl, he is a boy, can I make it more obvious” m/f couples in this series. Typical heteronormative side effects include making the female character’s development solely because the “man” spurred on her motivation to change while said man, in a romantic sense, could literally give less of a shit about her. And it sucks that until Infinity Fortress, Kanao is essentially reduced to the role of a typical cute, a little airheaded female love interest for our beloved main character and nothing else.

It is safe to say I Do Not Like this pairing.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just tired of seeing so many shounens fall into this cliche, but it is especially confusing when Tanjirou does not even meet the bare minimum requirements. He never shows any special attraction towards her. Doesn’t call her pretty, or cute, or literally anything. The closest you get is him looking at her in wonder in the Rehabilitation Training Arc and the coin tossing scene (ugh). He basically treats her like any other of his friends, which is not good if you want to write a blooming romance between two specific characters.

I will say, this has lead me to thinking Tanjirou is aroace. The way he expresses his attraction is that he doesn’t really express it at all, but I seriously doubt Gotouge wrote him this way on purpose considering the events of both the initial Chapter 205 and the reworked (fuller) ending for the manga (it also could be that they’re not good at writing slowburn romances, which is a valid point).

Not only does Tanjirou has strong aromantic coding, these two specifically have no reason to even interact. They don’t share many (or any) interests. They don’t inspire deep conversations. They don’t click. If we were to take the poorly-written romance out of this, they would literally only see each other as acquaintances, the friend of their friends. Their personalities and how they interact with people directly conflict with each other and would realistically leave them awkwardly sitting six feet apart not knowing what the hell to talk about if they were to ever have to wait for their other friends to show up to bridge the gap. And if they were to pursue a romantic relationship, it would be shallow, unfulfilling, an obligation for both of them to keep up rather than something they genuinely enjoy.

If Gotouge actually added something to make their dynamic work, maybe I would have liked it a little bit, but we’re given nothing. They haven’t convinced us that these two would ever be good friends, much less a couple. It’s just... so bad.