Alysa Liu gushes over her 5 favorite anime just in case we needed to love her more

Anime sad boys win again

Remember when being an anime fan felt like a secret handshake between you and the other people who recognized it? Those days are long gone. Anime is mainstream now, and just about everyone has a favorite series. Even Olympic champion Alysa Liu, the first American woman in more than 20 years to win Olympic gold in singles figure skating, has five go-to anime she loves. And if her picks tell us anything, it’s that the 20-year-old history-maker has great taste.

In a recent rapid-fire interview from Overtimewbb on TikTok, an interviewer asked the Olympic figure skater her top five favorite anime, and she did not disappoint. Before giving a disclaimer that these are in no particular order, Liu listed the following series: Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Attack on Titan, Madoka Magica, and Soul Eater. Two things stood out as she ran through her favorites. First, she casually mentioned that a new chapter of Chainsaw Man had dropped that day, confirming she’s not just an anime watcher but a fully caught-up manga reader. Second, when asked about Attack on Titan, she said she believed Eren Yeager was justified in triggering the Rumbling, the cataclysmic event that almost ended the world. Bold choice.

Liu was seen walking around with a Pochita plushy, letting her love for Chainsaw Man be known. But her love for Attack on Titan, JJK, and Soul Eater suggests a love for anime sad boys with a little bit of attitude. Eren and Denji from Chainsaw Man are two sides of the same emotionally stunted coin. Meanwhile, mentioning Soul Eater and Madoka Magica proves that Liu is more than an anime fan: she's a connoisseur. The two series started airing when she was respectively three and six years old, meaning she isn't afraid to look back at the history of the media to find some ground-breaking shows.

More than that, many of these anime mirror the world young people are coming of age in: stories shaped by distrust of authority, messy and awkward romances, and tight-knit friendships that help them find meaning and beauty amid the harshness. In other words, paraphrasing the famous Denji meme, Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu is just like us, for real.