Manga / Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun

Pictured: the clean freak with his Love Interest on the right and his Foil on the left. Not pictured: his deep hatred of physical touch.

In order to stay out of touching distance from other players, Aoyama's movements are frighteningly precise, and that's consistently true from start to finish. If defenders come near him, he dribbles right through them. Or he hits a telling one-touch pass. [...] This is the playing style Aoyama arrived at after considering all of the things he can't do. The germophobe's absolute domain.

— Aoyama's football club coach Miwa

Aoyama has got it all: looks, popularity, athleticism, and excellent cooking skills. He's the perfect guy, except for one thing. Aoyama happens to be a huge mysophobic Neat Freak despite being a midfielder for his high school's football club, a sport that's known for getting its players dirty! This leads him to play football in a unique way: avoiding any and all physical contact with other players and the ball (except with his feet), and even outside of football. However, he's still wanted by many talent scouts and is widely admired in spite of his eccentric personality.

Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun is a part Sports Story part Gag Series. Written and illustrated by Taku Sakamoto, the manga was first serialized in Miracle Jump in 2014 but got transferred to Weekly Young Jump in 2015 until 2018, then earned its anime adaptation in June 2017.

The anime is also known for its frequent switching between a normal art style and a Super-Deformed art style and for making constant jabs at Aoyama's clean freak and Hates Being Touched nature.

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These tropes were cleaned up by Aoyama-kun!!

• A-Cup Angst: Moka is very insecure about her small breast size, especially in comparison to the well-endowed Odagiri. She was carrying a "Big Boobs Monthly" book and gorging herself once (while remembering how Odagiri's boobs bounce), so her breasts would grow bigger.
• The Ace: Aoyama is a prodigy at football and is highly admired by many people due to his innate talent to the point where Takechi looks up to him and wants to be acknowledged by him so badly, even though he's from another rivaling school.
• Afraid of Blood: When one of the football club members gets injured and asks their new manager Moka to disinfect it, she misses and soils his socks because she can't stand the sight of blood.
• Ambiguously Brown: The Judo club coach has the darkest skin in the entire cast, but his ethnicity isn't made clear.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Odagiri first meets Aoyama, and he gives her a tip that helps her finally make a slam dunk, she thanks him by putting her hand on his shoulder, unaware of his hatred of physical contact. Everyone expects him to react negatively to this as usual, and it looks like he'll do so, and they even scold her lightheartedly but they all get shocked when he doesn't react to this at all, with Aoyama being confused when Odagiri apologizes.
• Betty and Veronica: Aoyama is the Archie as he's the center of Moka and Odagiri's affections. Moka is the Betty: tiny, flat-chested, and very meek as well as not confident in herself which is contrasted with Odagiri, the Veronica. Odagiri has an ideal body, a sunny personality, and is approachable and popular.
• Big Eater: Taichi can eat lots of dishes, even the same food, one after another, and still have enough space in his stomach for a mega-sized parfait because "dessert goes to a different stomach."
• Class Princess: Odagiri is one of the most popular girls in school, cited to have the best figure among first-year girls, pretty looks, and a kind, bubbly personality by her male schoolmates.
• Conspicuous Gloves: Aoyama wears gloves 90% of the time with the exception of matches and practice. He goes to school with them and leaves with them. One of the rare times he removes them is when he arm wrestles with Odagiri, and even then, he keeps his other non-occupied hand gloved.
• Couch Gag: The beginning of the opening sequence for each episode changes to fit the content of the episode.
  • In the first episode, Aoyama is seen avoiding any contact with his teammates in the opening.
  • When Moka gets introduced she's stalking Aoyama in the opening, which reflects her defining trait.
  • During the opening of episode 3, where Kana is introduced, she's seen making trouble for Aoyama as she does in the episode.
• Cute But Psycho: Moka may have been made the club's cute little manager after cleaning the changing room, but only because she kept picking the lock after hours... but she's also a total Aoyama-only yandere who has a baseball bat weapon with thumbtacks and flower stickers all over it.
• Cute Sports Club Manager: Mako becomes one after the football club members find out that she secretly cleans their clubroom. She even uses her spiked baseball bat to protect Aoyama from others.
• The Day the Music Lied: When Fujimi High wins their match against Oshigami-Minami High, Kaoru runs to hug Aoyama with some awesome music picks up... just for the music to come to a halt when Aoyama avoids the hug. Per usual.
• Determinator: Odagiri is determined to win the girls' basketball match during PE in episode 7, even though she isn't good at shooting. She isn't disheartened by her inability to shoot and gets motivated to dunk the ball after Aoyama's advice to her, although she still misses. She gets better later on, though.
• The Ditz: The football club has three members Jin, Taichi, and Kazuma, who are very moronic and tend to jump to wrong conclusions based on faulty logic.
• Easily Impressed: Aoyama's fanclub is impressed with anything he does, including how clean his fingertips are and how he's cleaning the class board and windows, calling him cool for it.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: Odagiri is the dynamic and full-of-energy one, while Aoyama is the calm, quiet one.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Aoyama is admired by girls and boys alike, with his male peers viewing him as awesome and gifted despite his odd personality.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Everything Aoyama cleans sparkles and shines afterward.
• Foil: Kaoru comes from a well-off family and Hot-Blooded regarding football and puts lots of effort into it, unlike the naturally talented stoic Aoyama. However, they both love winning.
• Gentle Giant: Tsubasa is extremely tall, towering over most of the characters, but he's very kind and helpful, especially toward Moka, even helping her get closer to Aoyama despite liking her himself.
• The Gift: Aoyama has innate talent and natural skills for football that got him hailed as a prodigy at a young age. He's even chased by talent scouts.
• Giving Up the Ghost: When Moka thinks she'll be on a date with Aoyama she gets so nervous she feels like she could die at any moment that her soul escapes her body.
• Groupie Brigade:
  • Aoyama has a big fanclub as he's a dashing football (and basketball) genius.
  • Odagiri has her own male fans, and her popularity is no joke.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Moka is very envious of Odagiri for being everything she's not and being more suitable for Aoyama, according to her. She watches their lovey-dovey interactions in despair.
  • Odagiri's male fanclub gets jealous one time when they see how close Aoyama is with her.
• Hates Being Touched:
  • Zigzagged and parodied. The anime's entire premise is that he really hates physical contact and avoids it like the plague, even rejecting his teammates' attempts at hugging him after winning a match. And if he absolutely has to touch something/someone, he wears gloves. The same goes for animals. However, for some unexplained reason, Odagiri is the sole exception, as he willingly goes to her and touches her even without gloves.
  • One time he tried to shake hands with Sayaka, he fainted afterward, and he's bewildered as to why.
  • When he unexpectedly asks Odagiri to have an arm wrestle match with him, he perfectly holds her hand without a barrier with one hand, but his other hand has a glove on so it won't directly touch the table.
    One of Aoyama's peers: [thinking] The desk is off-limits, but Odagiri's fine?
  • He beats his record of 11 seconds for touching someone by the end of the manga when he holds Mako's hand, accepting her Love Confession.
• Hates Rich People: Played for Laughs but Kaoru's football club teammates get on his case for being an extremely rich kid who affords to send his clothes to get dry cleaned every day, plus he has a butler and an influential father.
  One of Kaoru's teammates: Man, this is why rich people suck.
• Hidden Depths: At first, Aoyama is just a brilliant, albeit aloof, touch-averse clean freak. However, later episodes reveal that he desires to touch others without fainting and he even plays a video game character who's much more dynamic and emotional than he is.
• Hot-Blooded: The Judo club coach is very passionate as he monitors the football club team and gets super mad when Aoyama doesn't put his whole heart into the sport or when Tsubasa quit the Judo club; he almost broke down from the amount of anger.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Downplayed. Odagiri is only taller than most of the cast, including the protagonist, by half a head. The exception is Moka, who's shorter than her by 29 cm.
• Impossibly Delicious Food: When Aoyama makes a pork miso soup and two of his classmates taste it, they have orgasmic reactions and say, "my life was worth it for this moment!" and then devour the food.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Tsubasa's actual reason for encouraging Moka to confess to Aoyama is that he wants to protect her feelings. And if he can "be buried alongside her then it's fine."
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: It's subtle, but there's a scene where Odagiri meets Aoyama and his friends at a zoo, and they come to a cats zone where lots of the cats are clinging to her, and she asks Aoyama if he's a cat person too.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Aoyama's friends insist that Kaoru is more coddled than Aoyama is, they mention that he's "the oldest son of a business mogul," and add, "what is your life? a TV show?"
• Lightning Glare: When Tsubasa quits the Judo club for the football one, his old coach and new coach fight over him while exchanging glares with sparks between them.
• Love Bubbles: After Tsubasa looks at Moka, his object of affection, the background changes into a blue one full with love bubbles.
• Love Dodecahedron: Downplayed. Tsubasa has a crush on Moka, who has an even bigger crush on Aoyama, and Odagiri has a thing for him too, but he rejects her for Moka. There's a scene Tsubasa looks at Moka, who's looking at Aoyama, and Odagiri is looking at him too, with him walking forward unaware of all of their stares. With arrows pointing at the person they're staring at.
  The football club's idiot trio commenting on this: This is chaos.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Played with. Odagiri is idealized as every man's dream partly because she's fun and cheerful. She's the only one Aoyama touches and lets her touch him back, and the two strike up a friendship despite him being aloof and quiet — the total opposite of her. However, despite the amount of Ship Tease, they don't end up together.
• Mistaken for Romance: The whole school mistake Odagiri and Aoyama for a couple, because of Aoyama's actions in episode 7. He treats her more favorably than others by allowing her to touch him, asks Odagiri to come watch his football match, and goes out of his way to high five her after literally refusing hugs from his teammates in celebration as if she's his girlfriend. Except she's not, and everyone is surprised and perplexed (though Aoyama's fanclub rejoiced). She does catch feelings for him although it didn't go anywhere.
• Neat Freak:
  • Exaggerated and zigzagged with Aoyama. The literal name of the work references this defining trait of his. He constantly cleans the balls in the football club from dirt... and basically every object around him, even if it's already clean. He's absolutely okay with starving over eating food made by someone else because of this.
    Miwa (to Kaoru): I told you, he's a germophobe. He won't use something if someone else has touched or drank from it.
  • At the end of episode one, it rains during Fujimi High's match with Oshigami-Minami High, and it seems like Aoyama won't play so he won't get dirty but he kicks the ball into the goal and gets dirty by falling on the ground much to the surprise of everyone. Why? Because "if it's just the last minutes, I can handle it. I really hate losing."
  • Narita is no different than the protagonist in this matter, and maybe even more with him not understanding why bother cleaning the school's property which might get Aoyama dirty. However, he keeps it a secret from everyone.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Odagiri is in the school's basketball club but she sucks at shooting. When she gets motivated by Aoyama's advice, the scene prepares us for an incoming awesome moment for her finally dunking in the ball along with awesome music just for her to miss the hoop again (although the ball teaches Aoyama, who kicks it in the hoop).
• Not So Stoic: Tsubasa hardly ever emotes, with stoicism being his default expression. However, when he sets up Moka with Aoyama, who didn't know what to tell Aoyama due to her shyness, his lips turn into a little smile as he wishes her luck.
• Official Couple: Aoyama and Moka become an item at the end of the manga with them holding hands.
• Only One Name:
  • Aoyama is only known by one name.
  • Kana, Yōji's girlfriend, goes by one name as well.
• Only Sane Man: It's not by much, but Kaoru seems to be the least odd one in his football team which consists of an apathetic germophobe, 3 dim-witted perverts, and the rest are just as pervy. He lampshades their weird and pervy antics and that he's the only one who hasn't joined them, "The team is rotten to the core."
• One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Odagiri almost easily beats Aoyama in arm wrestling, who was struggling a bit against her. But her awesome moment is ruined when her school shirt's button pops up before she can continue the fun.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: Jin, ever being a dumb geek, wears thick-framed glasses that hide his eyes.
• Overdramatic Dating Commotion: Played with since Aoyama's popularity means everyone would be invested in his love life. However, when Aoyama lets the equally popular Odagiri touch him and seeks her touch, breaking his "no physical contact" rule, the whole school is understandably shocked and rumors spread that they're a couple. Odagiri's male seniors threaten Aoyama if he ever makes her cry he'll face consequences. Meanwhile, Aoyama's fanclub is saddened by this, saying, "hang in there!" and "this might be the end for us."
  Aoyama's fanclub in unison: Aoyama and Odagiri would be the ultimate couple?!
• Paper-Thin Disguise: When Judo's club coach is spying on his old member Tsubasa and Aoyama's conversation, he tries to hide by blending in with the school's walls by covering himself with a long sheet with the same color as the wall. He can still be easily recognized.
• Pec Flex: Takechi is ready to flex his jiggling abs everywhere and at any time, even while he's talking about something else that it's a Running Gag. Aoyama and his teammates are grossed out by this.
  Kaoru (in a restaurant): Stop it with the ab flexing! People call you a pervert because you do that no matter where you are.
• Playing Sick: Narita pretends to be sick so he won't have to play during PE and get dirty.
• The Pollyanna: Odagiri never gets discouraged by her failures in basketball and never lets them hold her back. She treats any small achievement, even if it's almost done by someone else or barely even happened as a triumph, which gets lampshaded by her peers.
  Two rival girls playing against Odagiri: How stupidly optimistic can you get?!
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Moka's eyes turn to a glowing, vibrant red once when she catches Kana in the middle of stirring up trouble for Aoyama and delaying him from his match. She points her decorated baseball bat in the direction of Kana, but Aoyama tells her not to do anything.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Odagiri is the bright, lively, and friendly Red Oni compared to either Aoyama or Moka's Blue Oni. Aoyama is detached, reticent, and calm, whereas Moka is a shy, reserved wallflower.
• Relationship Upgrade: After he doesn't give Moka a direct answer to her confession in the previous chapter, Aoyama holds Mako's hand in chapter 111, and this being a big step for someone with a strong touch aversion like Aoyama; it means he pretty much feels the same.
• Romantic False Lead: Odagiri is introduced as the better candidate for winning Aoyama's heart than Moka, who watches silently as the two mesh well and have sweet moments together that make all the students think they're dating. However, she's just Moka's love rival and Moka is the one who gets together with Aoyama in the end.
• School Idol:
  • Aoyama is widely popular even the football team captain joined his fanclub, but only because his girlfriend did. Everyone is pretty much interested in his love life too.
  • Odagiri is so popular due to her nice personality, smile, and good looks. She's acknowledged as a school idol In-Universe.
• Ship Tease: Aoyama and Odagiri have lots of it, which causes their peers into thinking there's something going on between them. In the end it leads to nothing after Aoyama chooses Moka over her and she gets into a relationship with someone else.
• Shrinking Violet: Moka is extremely timid and self-conscious about herself (mostly her tiny body), unable to confess her feelings to Aoyama even when they're finally alone.
• Stalker with a Crush: Moka is always following her crush Aoyama and watching him from afar and has creepy tendencies toward him, like cleaning things he uses, one of them being the path he walks on for school.
• Statuesque Stunner: Odagiri is very tall and is considered attractive by everyone except for two jealous girls who wonder how is she seen as cute when she's that big.
• Supreme Chef:
  • Aoyama is great at cooking and using kitchen knives.
  • Narita makes delicious food and has to cook for himself every day because he can't eat food someone else made for him.
• Super-Deformed: The anime can quickly switch to this art style and back from it in seconds.
• The Stoic: Aoyama always wears the same expression on his face — no surprise, joy, or sadness whatsoever.
• Talent vs. Training: Aoyama is a natural football genius. His rival is the wealthy and Hot-Blooded Kaoru who puts effort and hard work into their football matches.
  Kaoru: (monologuing) I don't have the skill or talent Aoyama has. But you know what? It doesn't matter if the opponent is a famous school or not... I want to win! [...] I'm giving football everything I've got here!
• Terrified of Germs:
  • Aoyama is the poster child for this. He absolutely hates germs that he cleans everything around him and refuses to touch things without a barrier lest he gets dirty.
  • Narita doesn't like to get filthy and goes as far as pretending to feel unwell during PE class just so he won't have to deal with germs and unclean things.
• Title Drop Chapter: The first chapter/episode share the same title as the work.
• Visible Odor: Aoyama's pork miso soup has a visible but good smell that can reach a different classroom and have them track its source and finish the food in minutes after they track the smell.
• Visible Sigh: When Aoyama cleans the class' board, the windows, and his desk, he becomes worn out his sigh can be seen as a little cloud.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Downplayed. Odagiri is noted to be the most gorgeous first-year girl and has a great figure according to many.

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