Autistic representation in anime

Loid Forger as an Autistic representation 


Loid Forger from SpyxFamily

I find many characters from SpyxFamily to be excellent representations of autism, but none so much as Loid Forger, who seems to show traits of both autism and anxiety in one bundle of a man who is doing his very best. 


Special interests

This may sound odd, but people themselves can be a special interest. He has dedicated his life to reading people, learning about people, finding out what they like, how to blend in, how to wear any mask, and be the perfect person for the scenario to save the day. The fact that he seems to be relatively good at social scenarios and picking up on social cues does not exclude him from the possibility of being autistic. One can learn these things, and he has a job that trained him to do so and requires him to do so day by day. 

He views the world through the lens of his job, as many autistic people may or may not view the world through the lens of their special interest. 


Loid is a perfect example of masking.

  • When not portraying a persona for his job or when you see him in his thinking process, he is often seen with a flat affect. Expressions are used to play a persona for a job and are deliberately decided on to elicit a desired response. Autistic people with a flat affect may have to consciously decide how they behave in a given scenario or how they express themselves.

  • He hides his internal struggles with raising Anya quite a bit. When the screen goes darker in the background, his thoughts play, and it is implied that his expression in those asides is not what he shows to the world. He doesn’t usually show when he is stressed, and believes he has to remain cool and calm in all circumstances. This overlaps with the nature of his job, but masking can also account for it. His job requires him to put on masks. (Episode 4- 3:57 “I am a man of a thousand faces, my very existence relies on being exactly who my target wants me to be.”)


Scripting

Most prominently shown in Episode 16, a Short Mission.

  • In the episode where Loid tries to help Frankie get a date with a lady, Loid takes Frankie through a conversational flow chart of possibilities. This tendency to plan for many different scenarios can considered as scripting. 

This picture is a screenshot of Episode 16, at the time stamp of 18:39, where Loid tries to lay out a dialogue tree of potential conversation topics, answers, and the “perfect responses” to each. As the Episode title says, Loid sees this as a mission. It is implied that Loid sees every social exchange in this way- scripting in advance, albeit he can adjust on the fly, but he does have a momentary crisis while he figures it out. He masks it relatively well most of the time. 


  • His reaction to things going “off script” is akin to the response one might have to something not going according to plan. I have autism myself, and I know when things don’t quite go according to plan, I have a moment of internal crisis, and you can see this often when he is dealing with Anya. 


People with autism are often very literal.

  • How Loid reacts to his boss telling him his job is to relax on vacation, he takes this as a serious mission and tries to abide by it by the letter with the same tenacity he does for any of his spy jobs. (Although in doing so, missing the point of relaxing)

  • Loid reacts when Anya tells him he isn’t having fun, taking literally every thing he associates with vacation and fun and lumping it all into one outfit. This results in him mostly looking ridiculous because he is trying to fit the literal concept of the word without understanding its underlying nature.


Rejection sensitivity

  • It appears Loid is used to life and death situations, which might account for why, even in day-to-day scenarios, he perceives moments where Anya rejects what he is doing as completely terrible. He is a horrible person, and oh god, where has he gone wrong? He must change everything he is doing. But it is also a factor people with autism can go through, particularly where it intersects with anxiety, which can often be comorbid with autism. That man 100% has anxiety. A stressful job can do that to anyone. 

  • I may find more examples of how he reacts with extreme stress when he finds out he is wrong. 


Autistic Burnout

  • The episode where he is getting waaay too many gosh darn missions and is walking home dead like a zombie, that could be seen as autistic burnout. He opts to power through it and ignore his limitations and stressors because he believes their cause is more important than his mental well-being. Mood.

  • Loid literally collapses out of relief/exhaustion after finding out Anya passed the Academic test to qualify for the interview to get into Eden College and has to take a nap. Naps are great shutdown recovery tools. 

 

I hope you enjoyed reading this. Here's a wallet to celebrate neurodivergent pride as well, if you're interested. 

https://yewpets.com/products/autistic-pride-flag-happy-cat?_pos=2&_sid=b77cf94c3&_ss=r

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