[DragoonKain3]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Personally I find the childhood-friend romance rather unrealistic.

To be honest, anime would be like the last thing I would look realism for, especially if you factor in romance. When you've got ___deres (especially the yan variety), wussy males gathering a harem they don't deserve, otherworldy spirits as lovers, pseudo-incest or even full blooded incest (oh boy isn't this one popular nowadays *cough*nothankstooreimo*cough*)... yeah, I think osananajimi are more 'down to earth' than most other romances depicted in anime. XD

In a world as mobile as ours, it just seems implausible that most people would keep up relationships with childhood friends after they leave for college or go on into the working world. Perhaps the Japanese are less mobile than we here in North America?

I knew I read a blog post that answers this from before. From, http://thebaboose.wordpress.com/2010...-february-8th/

“I asked him if it was true that Japanese people are better friends with their elementary, junior, and high school friends than people they meet in college or work. Which is interesting because most people in America tend to be closer with their University and work pals. He answered that I was half-right: “Japanese people tend to be closer with their 幼いなじみ (childhood friends), but mentioned it does not necessarily mean that they like their childhood friends.””

This meme strikes me as another way in which sentimentalism about youth seems such a strong force in Japanese media. It seems to derive from the workaholic lifestyle of many young Japanese adults, particularly Japanese men... It just feels very claustrophobic to me to exalt a lifestyle where your ultimate romantic interest is someone you knew as an eight-year-old.[

I personally think it's less about sentimentalism and more about convenience (which by golly, Japan is all about convenience isn't it? ). Why go through all the trouble of finding THE one who truly understands you and accepts you for who you are, when those conditions are the very premise of the childhood friend, who has been with you all along?

And there lies the appeal; from the Japanese business man who got no time to date on one extreme end of the scale, to the Japanese otaku who has trouble finding someone who would accept their hobby on the other extreme end. Combine this with how widely known the fable of the blue bird of happiness "Aoi Tori" is with modern Japan (no seriously, it's EVERYWHERE from anime, to manga, to novels, to even dramas), and one can see why they put such emphasis on the childhood friend as the best candidate for marriage.

But of course, all this is just speculation. So meh, I'll just chalk it up to culture. I mean, I have heard stories of people teaching English overseas in middle east, with their students asking "If people don't marry their first cousins, WHO do they marry?" While certainly not that extreme, but maybe in Japan they just tend to childhood friends more than other cultures. :shrug:

Is this a common meme in Western romances and dramas, too, or, as I suspect, more Japanese?

Childhood friends of opposite sex in western romance/drama? Pretty much non-existent, and those that exist pretty much never win. Heck, main reason why I watch anime IS because I always got the feeling that something is wrong whenever a childhood friend loses in a western show. I think it started with Pretty in Pink, and haven't looked back since discovering anime.

So yeah, definitely a Japanese thing. Or maybe even an east orient thing, as I have heard it's decently common in Chinese and Korean stories, though not nearly as proliferate or as successful as it is in Japanese anime.

And even if it is common in Japanese media, how true a portrayal is it of modern Japanese romances?

What modern Japanese romance? Isn't their declining birth rate mainly caused by workaholic men and women who have no time to date? If I remember a survey corrrect, even a good portion of high school kids don't even have time to date because they're too busy trying to get into post secondary school.

But to answer your question, to be honest, I dunno. I know of a couple articles online where the couple that wed were childhood friends (one has to question how such articles made it in print in the first place... certainly won't happen in western media), with one of them being the imperial princess having to give up her royal status in order to do so. But I doubt there ever was a real scientific study in this regard, nor will there ever be.