In the West, we live in an age of seltzer cinema, where the Marvels, the Star Wars, and even A24s gesture at slick genre pleasures but refuse to give into them entirely. Aside from the occasional bright spot (I’ll take any opportunity to mention Love Lies Bleeding), watching American film can feel like drinking LaCroix in hopes of tasting fruit. To paraphrase the profound words of Sexyy Red, “I’m looking for the hoochie daddies! Where they at?”
They’re in anime, baby. For years, anime television has been bodying live-action fare with its visceral slice-of-life narratives. Since falling in love with the art form a few years ago, I have found many of the propulsive genre exercises and pleasures I’ve missed elsewhere — in early 1980s war narratives like Barefoot Gen, brooding sagas like Vampire Hunter D, science-fiction wonders like 1998’s Blue Submarine No. 6 and the heartfelt FLCL, female-led mash-ups like The Vision of Escaflowne, and arch action extravaganzas like Soul Eater, a show where every day might as well be Halloween. But what I noticed most in shifting through these eras of anime is the medium’s evolving relationship with male beauty.
The late ’80s, ’90s, and early aughts provided numerous hot-boy modes: the wiry bounty hunter Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, the sweet-natured young men of Escaflowne, the broad-shouldered private detective of Goku: Midnight Eye’s cyberpunk world. Different physical forms of attractiveness came with different levels of emotional complexity, charm, and wit, never settling on one definition of hotness onscreen. As the 2010s approached, anime’s expansive sense of male beauty contracted a bit, likely a result of a doubling down on shonen works aimed at adventure boys that were as uninterested in their non-male characters as their non-male audiences. (Naruto, I’m looking at you!) But blessedly, by the 2020s, the hot boys were back on TV, hotter than ever, even within the bounds of shonen, smartly positioned toward ladies, gays, and theys, too. The new crop of characters is united by undaunted sex appeal, diversely packaged in ways Hollywood can only dream of achieving. So if you’re feeling the early summer desire for sexiness on the big screen, I suggest getting into contemporary anime and checking out the following hot boys instead:
The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today is the perfect television antidote for these stressful, dire times. It’s a slice-of-life series with such silly vivacity and heartfelt emotion, I always finish it feeling a bit more hopeful about the next day ahead of me. The series follows Saku Fukuzawa (voiced by Yui Ishikawa), a salaried office worker who is a bit ditzy, prone to hoarding and over-drinking, whose life is transformed one snowy evening when she finds a kitten she named Yukichi. But Yukichi is not an ordinary cat. Over time, he grows to be the size of a bear and dramatically improves Saku’s life by keeping her apartment clean, cooking her extravagant meals, and encouraging her to live a healthier life. I have four cats and none of them hold a candle to Yukichi. One of the delights of the series is Kaoru Orizuka, a reserved albeit charming pretty boy who just so happens to be Saku’s boss. Bespoke and framed as a kind uncle to his young niece, Kaoru is an approachable hot boy, though I am glad the series doesn’t set him up as a romantic interest for Saku so much as another pleasant figure in her somewhat frazzled existence.
Vash — the pacifist badass of Yasuhiro Nightow’s manga who has been reimagined for the screen in last year’s Trigun Stampede — is on this list mostly so I can bitch. I am a dedicated fan of the mid-’90s anime, which slowly teases out the backstory of its lead, who is known as the most feared outlaw of a hardscrabble desert-planet and who garnered a reputation after accidentally destroying an entire city with his supernatural abilities. His grand reputation is belied by his goofy, kind-hearted nature. The 2023 reimagining keeps the bones of the character and story — Vash’s pacifism, embattled relationship with his brother, his giving nature to the belabored citizens of this world. But it reorients the series by shifting events that served as the original anime’s later revelations into the new show’s inciting incident. The change reframes the story as a broader sci-fi narrative, taking away from the ’90s anime’s space-western specificity. But the biggest difference is Vash himself. While ’90s Vash feels more grown, his attractiveness deeply rooted in the surprising sweetness of his character, his 2023 incarnation is pure twink. He’s a sherbet-soft pretty boy who feels, much like the world around him, gleaming and clean to the point of sterility.
Hell’s Paradise has an immediately captivating premise. A shogun calls for death-row criminals to travel to a mysterious island for the Elixir of Life. Guiding and guarding this expedition team are samurai with their own goals, who get thrown into chaos as the island reveals itself to have mystical creatures and antagonists roaming its verdant expanse. Shion is one of the better-crafted figures in the series, the samurai tasked with guarding the convicts meant to find the elixir, a blind and gray-haired figure who stands out because of his moral conviction and care toward those around him. Unfortunately, while the series looks good in the sense that you can see the money spent on its warm visuals, it takes Hell’s Paradise nearly the entire run of its first season to find its footing and trade on the promise of its own premise. Nonetheless, Shion, gets some of the most eye-catching battles of the season, which allows his character to stand out for more than his stoic handsomeness.
In Spy x Family, Twilight is a secret agent posing as a loving father (to Anya, an orphan with telepathic abilities he doesn’t know about) and caring husband (to Yor, who he also doesn’t know is an assassin nicknamed Thorn Princess). It’s all a ruse to get closer to a high-profile politician through the elite school Anya attends. Spy x Family truly has it all — from comedic hijinks to sweet-natured emotional landscapes, from explosive action to nascent love stories. A major reason it all works is in the characterization. Loid Forger is sharply dressed, beguiling, and incredibly capable, but also truly invested in the lives of Anya and Yor, who he is clearly falling in love with. The balance between emotional intelligence and spy badassery is part of the electric charm that lands Forger this high on the list.
Eiichiro Oda’s grand masterwork, One Piece, holds the thesis that multiculturalism is deeply worthwhile to building a functional, healthy world. One of its richest perspectives comes from Yamato (voiced by Saori Hayami), the trans son of the terrifyingly powerful villain, Kaidou, who has instead used his great abilities and fighting prowess to aid the Straw Hats, carry on the will of Kozuki Oden, and undermine his father’s terrifying force upon the world. Yamato’s persona is big and boisterous with a lot of heart. His sex appeal comes from his striking looks and genuine nature. Consider this clip from episode 1079 in the Wano arc, in which Yamato joins the men of the Straw Hat crew on their side of the hot springs with a deep sense of comfort and joy. Yamato is a character of such captivating design against the backdrop of a series that is so proudly leftist in its politics, that even loud, misinformed opponents of the series can do nothing to obscure the sheer pleasure of witnessing a character as cool as this.
Jujutsu Kaisen is one of the most ecstatically realized supernatural-horror-action anime I’ve ever seen. (I mean it should be considering how dangerously overworked animators are on these beloved series and in the medium overall.) The series, which recently concluded its second season, centers on Yuji Itadori, who eats a cursed finger to save a classmate, forcing him onto a fantastical new life path attending Tokyo Jujutsu High School, destroying demons called “curses,” making friends, battling for control of his own body from the dangerously evil (and powerful) King of Curses who now resides in his soul thanks to that cursed finger, and is mentored by jujutsu sorcerers who happen to be so exceedingly hot it’s kind of distracting. Actually, pretty much all the major characters in the series — men and women, students and teachers — are drawn for maximum hotness factor. Whether that’s the main villain Geto, jujutsu sorcerer teachers like Nanami Kento, or the baddest of them all, Gojo (voiced by Yûichi Nakamura). Gojo isn’t just a revered jujutsu sorcerer but a prodigy with untold abilities from a well-known family that can damn near body everyone else. His style? Silken. His looks? Magnificent. His personality? Cocky but also kind and more grounded than you’d expect given his approachable silliness. Gojo’s sexiness has so much reach that after Usher’s song “Daddy’s Home” was getting a workout from appearing in so many Gojo fan edits, Usher himself commented on it by dressing up as the character.
When I first conceived of this list, Jinshi was not on it. That’s because I had yet to watch The Apothecary Diaries. I had seen the series crop up on Crunchyroll but hadn’t heard enough about it to take a peak. But on a recent rainy spring day here in Chicago, I finally fired it up. After all, I love the way anime transforms when centered on female characters. The Apothecary Diaries, whose first season ended recently, follows Maomao (voiced by Aoi Yûki), a young apothecary who works at a brothel in the pleasure district of her town aiding the women with any ailments that arise and experimenting on herself with poisons. She’s gotten a resistance to poison in the process. Maomao has sharp intelligence, wide knowledge of the medicinal, and a penchant for hiding her beauty with faux-freckles so she can slip past any attention. One day when out to get herbs after leaving her apothecary father’s home, Maomao is kidnapped and sold to the emperor’s court. Maomao wants to keep herself from garnering any attention but after solving a case involving the deaths of the consort’s children and their own sickness, she is promoted to be the lady-in-waiting for the emperor’s favorite consort, Gyokuyō (voiced by Atsumi Tanezaki). The most crucial relationship Maomao has in the series is with Jinshi (voiced by Takeo Ōtsuka).
Jinshi is presented as one of the court’s many eunuchs who surprisingly handles very important business that keeps the royal palace functioning smoothly. He is fawned over by men and women alike. He’s exceedingly beautiful, with a delicate almost feminine beauty contrasted by awesome pecs and a cut body. But behind his beauty is a shrewd and cunning mind. Maomao is the only person not immediately in love with Jinshi. Is it any wonder he finds this dynamic woman utterly irresistible despite her disinterest in him? There’s a scene in episode ten where Jinshi extends his fingers dipped in honey for Maomao to suck on. Did I mention this show has a horny-as-hell undercurrent? Here’s the kicker though. Jinshi is actually the emperor’s younger brother and is merely using being a eunuch as cover. The Apothecary Diaries is a blissfully entertaining series with a light touch despite its, at times, heavy subject matter. And Jinshi, as crucial as he is to the show working, had to rocket to the near top of my list as a result. Jinshi is exactly what I want from an anime hot boy: sweet, cunning, and hopelessly devoted to a woman he understands to be his better.
This list was written in part to simply extol the greatness of Tengen from Demon Slayer. Taking place in the Taishō era in Japan, the series centers on the kind-hearted and committed Tanjiro, whose family was killed by a demon, and his sister, Nezuko, who is the only survivor but has also been turned into a demon. But unlike other demons, she refuses to harm human beings and doesn’t feast on human flesh to survive. Tanjiro is nothing if not stubborn in the face of overwhelming odds. He joins the Demon Slayer Corps, in which regular human beings train using elemental breathing techniques and great fighting skills to protect humans from these super strong demons. The Hashira-ranked members of the Demon Slayer Corps are the most seasoned and capable among them, and one of these Hashiras is Tengen Uzui (voiced by Katsuyuki Konishi).
Tengen is a six-foot-six powerhouse with a flashy, colorful sense of style and a mischievous grin that could cut through the coldest hearts. When I first watched Tengen in action I turned to my partner and said, “Don’t ask me how I know this, but I know this character can fuck.” The narrative did nothing to dissuade me from this belief: Tengen has three extremely dedicated wives who are capable in their own right and a body carved by God herself. But it isn’t just his carefully animated looks that land him at number one on this list. He’s exceedingly fun, a character composed of equal parts undeniable force and a vibrant sense of play that demonstrates the continued evolution of this powerful medium. Tengen exemplifies the sheer pleasure of watching the exceedingly hot senpai portray a kind of masculinity to admire for the younger lead. Even losing part of his arm and an eye in his climactic battle with the demon Gyutaro, he carries himself with an incandescent grace and sense of drama that calls upon all other hot boys across anime to step their game up. Now that’s pure anime bliss.
