Childhood friend romances

[Dwalin]

Originally Posted by Dr. Casey

I do know one such exception, actually! One of my closest online friends got together with the girl who'd been his best friend since he was two years old. They'd lived together since that age (The boy's parents died in a house fire when he was two years old - he himself lived because he was spending the night at his grandparents' - and he ended up being taken in by a friend of the family's, the daughter of that family the girl in this story), growing up with each other and spending each day together. They started dating December 2008, both aged 19 at that point, and are still together four and a half years later.

I am happy to hear there is such a romantic story with a happy ending in real life (I am very sorry for the boy's parents though). I sincerely wish them well.

[speedyexpress48]

I don't really mind childhood friend romances too much...but it's not like I care much about them either (though flashback scenes can be fun to watch...)

If its well written, cool. If it's not...it sucks, but any badly written relationship ends like that.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Personally, I always felt that anime needed to expand more on intragender (depending on the series, too) platonic relationships.

complete opposite here.
I feel anime and manga relationships are TOO plantonic.

Dunno how many times I thought "for BLEEP's sake, BLEEP already".

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by aohige

complete opposite here.
I feel anime and manga relationships are TOO plantonic.

Dunno how many times I thought "for BLEEP's sake, BLEEP already".

There is a difference between character's in a romantic relationship not doing much and having stories focused on friendship.

In this case I agree with Archon Wing. I would really love more stories focused on friendship in general, and I don't just mean cute girls doing cute things type of friendship examples.

There is actually very few examples of boy/girl friendships who just stay friends (and I am not counting the ones when you are friends with someone because you are in a romance with someone else).

Off the top of my head I can think of

Taki and Natsume in Natsume Yuujinchou (at first I wanted them to get together but now I am glad that they are not)

Kei in Higurashi and all the girls (although I don't think this one was really all that well written)

It was an overlooked series but Uta Koi had a great male/female friendship between Narihira, Yasuhide and Komachi. This was also significant to me because it was an adult friendship between opposite sexes.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

There is actually very few examples of boy/girl friendships who just stay friends (and I am not counting the ones when you are friends with someone because you are in a romance with someone else).

So does Tari Tari count?

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by hyl

So does Tari Tari count?

It might, have not watched it myself. You can let me know.

[Triple_R]

Yeah, I'd say that Tari Tari counts.

Spoiler for Slight Tari Tari spoilers:

Tari Tari focuses on a group of five friends - 3 girls, and 2 guys. Later on in the anime, a possible romance between 1 of the girls and 1 of the guys is very lightly hinted at. However, that's all. So for the most part, its all-platonic.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Yeah, I'd say that Tari Tari counts.

To me, it doesn't really count:

Spoiler:

It's not the sort of intimacy I'm looking for. They never really go beyond nakama/group status. They're not really close. Within the group, the gender lines are still fairly obvious. It's not really what I'm looking for. Mixed gender groups aren't all that rare.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by aohige

complete opposite here.
I feel anime and manga relationships are TOO plantonic.

Dunno how many times I thought "for BLEEP's sake, BLEEP already".

Those are different issues. You have an issue with the lack of intensity of relationships, my problem is portraying relationships as a mandatory connection between two characters regardless of it being appropriate or not.

[Xion Valkyrie]

It doesn't seem that uncommon in real life. Google 'Marrying your childhood friend' and you'll get a ton of results news articles, Q&A, etc. It's probably more common in smaller towns where people don't move around much.

[Ithekro]

Much more common in the areas were it is basically the only other person your age you know.

In other areas I've heard the "No way, I know them too well" where it becomes more brother-sister tone of friendship.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Those are different issues. You have an issue with the lack of intensity of relationships, my problem is portraying relationships as a mandatory connection between two characters regardless of it being appropriate or not.

Not sure I follow you there.

I mean, is there even a clear definition of what's "appropriate" anyways?

[NoemiChan]

Complicated or not... I find Osananajimi Romances very cute... and with good plot and character developments ... a tear jerker even the more if it ends a happy ending....

[Dhomochevsky]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

It doesn't seem that uncommon in real life. Google 'Marrying your childhood friend' and you'll get a ton of results news articles, Q&A, etc. It's probably more common in smaller towns where people don't move around much.

I think it's formost a nice fantasy a lot of men can relate to.
Everyone should at least know that one girl he hasn't seen in years, that unexpectedly grew up to be a total hottie.
And unlike other random attractive women you might meet, with this one you have a lot of things to talk about and so you can naturally approach her.
'Oh hi, long time no see'

On the other hand romance anime often seems to struggle coming up with good reasons why all these attractive girls would have an interest in the usually pretty bland MC.
The childhood friend is an easy one to use.

[DragoonKain3]

I love childhood friend romances (or at least the opposite sex variety). I dunno, it's been kinda drilled into my head that they should get together no matter what, since the most influential pieces of fiction for me when growing up was FF4, Tactics Ogre, and Anne of Green Gables. When I first came upon scanslations, I was absolutely floored by the masterpiece Touch, especially when it came to that penultimate chapter. And the clincher? The first three animes I have watched that wasn't aired in local TV were Boys Be, To Heart, and Kodomo no Omocha.

Yeah, it's no wonder why my heart gets crushed every time the childhood friend 'loses', no? XD

Why do I love the childhood friend couple trope? To put it in simplest terms, its because I've been told that the longest lasting marriages are where the couple in question are best friends. So I thought to myself, why not marry your best friend in the first place? Ten times the points if it's also one of your oldest friends, because then your relationship has already passed the test of time.

Only thing that grates my nerves are the people who claims that childhood friends usually lose in anime, when the very reason why I was drawn to this medium in the first place was because of the high frequency of opposite gendered childhood friends showing up, and them winning more often than not.

But other than that? I merely let them be; after all, haters gonna hate.

[Dwalin]

Originally Posted by DragoonKain3

Only thing that grates my nerves are the people who claims that childhood friends usually lose in anime

Maybe that's because I haven't watched that many animes compared to how many other fans did. But, if you are right and the childhood friends don't in fact lose so often, I am happy to hear that.

[Mokoko]

It's not that I CAN'T handle such stories but generally, they're boring and always the same. The boy lost his parents or whatever, he lives with his childhood friend who appears to be a cute girl, who overreact because she's in love with him. I don't tend to support theses... O_O

[DragoonKain3]

Originally Posted by Dwalin

Maybe that's because I haven't watched that many animes compared to how many other fans did. But, if you are right and the childhood friends don't in fact lose so often, I am happy to hear that.

Oh no, not you personally. Let's just say in my time here in Asuki (official join date like sometime in 2004'ish which got wiped out because of the 'great crash'; been lurking before even the first sub-forum 'KonoMini" even existed lol) I've met many kinds of people. Some are just misinformed, others just has limited knowledge, while still others just jump the bandwagon.

No, it started with a handful of people who claimed as a fact that childhood friends lose more than they win, and kept preaching it on and on. At first I just ignored them, as they were just a small group, and it wasn't worth my time. But within a year or so, every anime that had the childhood friend seemed like every other poster cried "childhood friends don't stand a chance because they always lose" or something to that effect.

It so got out of hand that even TV tropes started with the "Unlucky Osananajimi" page. (It has since changed it to 'Unlucky Childhood Friend', added the 'Victorious Childhood Friend' entry a bit later, and AFAIK now has merged it together.) I remember this because that page has been used as the 'bible', often taking the entries there (or even the page itself) as 'proof' that childhood friends usually lose.

Then I got real fed up (I think it was around Sola aired? I think it was tied to that show, but I can't remember why that particular show since there's no osananajimi there... oh wait, now I remember it was because of the side characters ), changed my title to the current one, and decided to tabulate every anime aired past 2000. The rest, as they say, is history.

So lesson learned... gotta nip it while it's still a bud. XD

[Dwalin]

DragoonKain3, what games in the Tactics Ogre series you mentioned have childhood friend romances with happy endings? I am searching for such games, so far have found only:
Dragon Quest V and VIII
Ar Tonelico 1 and 2
Tales of Graces
Tales of Symphonia
The Fire Emblem series
Final Fantasy IV

The visual novels for me don't really count, as they are mostly static pictures, and there often is this annoying hentai, aggravated by the fact that the heroines often look like little girls

[Key Board]

I think most childhood friends simply don't deserve to win

Childhood friends tend to act as if they are already entitled to the lead character's romantic devotions simply by being a childhood friend. It's as if a childhood friendship means an engagement or something.

This is complicated by childhood friends usually adopting a passive aggressive stance towards the lead character. Nobody likes passive aggressiveness. Not even passive aggressive people.

And this is even further more complicated by the childhood friend usually not having very little to no social life outside of the lead character. All the better to GUILT TRIP the lead character, into not abandoning said childhood friend.

And when you throw in yandere elements, it becomes downright ugly.

There are always exceptions, but it feels to me that a typical childhood friend romance in these kind of stories are simply a mutation of Stockholm syndrome. It's unsettling.