Why is in anime male protagonists get easily flustered, easily embarrassed and easily blush?

NyarlatAnime said:
Because many male MCs are weak little bitches :)

Actually, I could even see some of the first experiences getting reactions like that, but they very, very rarely stop treating female contact like they are dealing with lepers or plague carriers.

Even after all these years of watching anime, its one of my biggest complaints. Overall, it sets a really strange standard for social interactions and the resulting repression is just as abrasively awkward.

Mokocchi_x3 said:
because they're meant to be self-inserts for the target audience of adult virgin beta males

Shakjoe said:
What you said pretty much.
That's all it is really.

FiddlePie said:

Why do they have to be self-inserts? It may appeal to some audience but not all.

Shakjoe said:
The typical japanese otaku are very herbivorous for the most part. These shows are intended to be for them.

FiddlePie said:

Are Japanese boys like that in irl? I don’t know much about Japanese culture

BigBoya said:
Watch konosuba kazuma that is the reason better than most virgin lock in house characters

EdgyLord666 said:
Just go watch more anime then, you'll soon realize there are tons of female protagonist like that as well.

FiddlePie said:

But I don’t think there as common as how the males are since

FiddlePie said:

But I don’t think there as common as how the males are since

EdgyLord666 said:
Just go watch more anime then, you'll soon realize there are tons of female protagonist like that as well.

NyarlatAnime said:


I dunno, I dont think they are nearly as common with some of the specific character traits being discussed.

Even so, many female protags are just as insufferable.. but it takes a different form. There is some overlap for sure though (i.e. being whiny and weak in their own special way lol)

ETA: I couldnt get past a couple episodes of Juuni Kokuki because of the female protag being a prime example of it. I hear she gets better, but Im not willing to put in the time to find out.

FiddlePie said:
I have been watching anime for quite a while and I've noticed that boys tend to get easily flustered embarrassed and blush whenever a girl approaches them or teases them. An example is Tkagi san which I liked but Nishikata literally gets embarrassed so easily which makes Takagi even want to make him feel flustered and embarrassed even more and sometimes he tries to make her blush or get embarrassed but it doesn't work because she knows his weakness. The slightest touch then the male character easily blushes and gets flustered. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or are Japanese guys in real life like that but I find it super weak. It makes them feel weak. It doesn't appeal to me because seeing male characters blush, flustered, and embarrassed kinda irks me. I rarely see female protagonists getting embarrassed, flustered, and blushing. A male OP character who can decimate the world with his sword or magic runs away or faints shooting blood out his nose when a female brushes her boobs against his arm or tries to take him “home with her.” Why is this considered cute?

Shakjoe said:
Japan has an incredibly low birth rate, so much so that recently their gov has been trying to give "public announcements" to motivate their youth to have babies.

Saku_k said:


Because they are virgin kids who have never even kissed a girl. Pretty normal reaction, to be honest.
If you are watching a wholesome romcom set in high school or middle school, then this is what you are going to get.
You mention Takagi-san and Nishikata. These characters are like 12-13 years old. What sort of reaction do you expect from a kid that age? Where you expecting this kid who hasn't even finished puberty to be some alpha male chad? If those shows irk you, then don't watch them.

Also gonna have to disagree with you on the female character thing. Female characters going red in the face and all that, is far more common.


This is nonsense. Yes Japan has a low birth rate. But so do all developed nations. In fact, Japan has a higher birth rate than some countries like Italy or Greece or Portugal.

Shakjoe said:
It's at the 4th place of lowest birth rate in the world as of the time of writing this comment, checked now in:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/birth-rate-by-country

Saku_k said:


That is just the crude birth rate. It's just births per 1000 people. Japan has an older population, and old people don't reproduce, which is going to bring that number down. But that isn't evidence of whether younger people are currently having kids or not. Not to mention everything purple in the image there is a low birth rate, Japan's being slightly lower isn't much of a difference.
What you want to look at is the fertility rate, ie how many kids a woman of childbearing age will have in her life time.
The fertility rate needs to be 2.1 in order to maintain the current population, and over 2.1 to grow the population.
Pretty much all developed nations have fertility rates below 2.1.

Shakjoe said:
To be fair my own country is also not too far from Japan's low birth rate.

We kind of suck too. ( It's PR )

Saku_k said:

Puerto Rico? I'm honestly surprised it is so low, I thought it would've been higher.

EdgyLord666 said:
Just go watch more anime then, you'll soon realize there are tons of female protagonist like that as well.

NyarlatAnime said:


Nah, Im going to stand by my statement. Though Id be curious to see how accurate you are with guessing how much anime Ive actually watched.

Remember, I am talking about the character essentially losing their minds simply by close proximity or contact with female characters. Illustrated when I stated, and I quote: "like they are dealing with lepers or plague carriers." Outside of yuri and yuri bait, which are themselves a bit less common, it doesnt even go in that direction at all unless its something like a boob fondle. In cases like that, I would say that a dramatic response is probably pretty "normal," as opposed to what I am talking about.

When the reverse happens (i.e. a female character getting the attention from a male, or even another female character), it tends to be things like blushing and just generally getting a bit off-balance. Which is indeed relatively normal, even outside of Animeland, and they also tend to acclimate to it and build towards evolving the interaction over time instead of keeping it as it is right at the beginning. These tend to be the aforementioned josei, shoujo, etc. Thats a pretty noticeable difference in my opinion. The way the male characters act stays the same from beginning to end in many cases, both in terms of the individual character and character interactions.

To be fair to your point, as well as some others that have replied, the original post did simply state "getting flustered and blushing," but I think its pretty obvious it frequently goes MUCH further than that with many male characters. Just have to examine the anime itself instead of the semantics, limitations, and examples outlined in the OP.