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Old 2013-04-23, 10:35   Link #21
Dwalin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
but it's normally only a phase and they grow out of it.
And that's sad in my opinion. You can say it's a fact of life but I don't understand why would you think it's a good thing.
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Old 2013-04-23, 10:44   Link #22
Chiibi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dwalin View Post
Chiibi, if you DON'T hate EVERY SINGLE non-realistic element in animes, then why hate this particular element?
Like I said, "elements are different from "characters".

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If it's because of that negative personal experience you mentioned, I can understand,
It's not.
It's more like....I have not met a single person whose love is their childhood friend.
And I know a lot of people.

Quote:
It's still their right.
How is it their right if they are naive and know nothing about love? o_O

Quote:
In my opinion, they are far more mature than people who change partners, because I think that not being able to stay faithful to one person is a clear sign of weakness.
Wait....what? That's really not fair. Sometimes people have no choice BUT to change partners because they grow apart. Their interests can grow apart and they wind up not having anything in common anymore. You cannot FORCE yourself to keep loving someone just because you loved them in the past.
That isn't fair to either of you and it's guaranteed to end badly.

Not staying faithful while you're with them is bad, I agree. Break up first, by all means. But don't make yourself live a lie just because they were your first love. Besides, what about people who end up being abused by their "first love"!?
Does leaving that abusive person make the victim "immature"!?
I sure as hell don't think so! Sometimes you have no choice!

Quote:
And that's sad in my opinion. You can say it's a fact of life but I don't understand why would you think it's a good thing.
It's not sad. It's natural. Children grow up. It can't be helped.
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Old 2013-04-23, 10:52   Link #23
Dwalin
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Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
Besides, what about people who end up being abused by their "first love"!?
Does leaving that abusive person make the victim "immature"!?
I sure as hell don't think so! Sometimes you have no choice!
In THIS case I agree completely, even though I am very surprised at the number of people who aren't able to recognize an abusive person before getting together with him/her
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Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
How is it their right if they are naive and know nothing about love? o_O
I think that it can evolve into real love unless you don't pull them apart by force. If it doesn't, all right. But not allowing them to be close and despising their bond just because you THINK it's not real love is very wrong, cruel and immoral in my opinion.
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Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
It's not.
It's more like....I have not met a single person whose love is their childhood friend.
And I know a lot of people.
I understand that people staying with their childhood sweethearts are very few. But I think this few is to be appreciated or at least respected. If you don't know any such person, it doesn't mean they don't exist.



Anyway, if you are mostly talking about fiction (anime in this case) and say you don't like osananajimi stories because they are often badly written, that I can understand. But despising them in real life just because you don't understand them is just strange.
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Old 2013-04-23, 11:01   Link #24
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Originally Posted by Dwalin View Post
In THIS case I agree completely, even though I am very surprised at the number of people who aren't able to recognize an abusive person before getting together with him/her
It's surprising how much it happens. ._. In most cases with the woman being the victim, it's because she has no self-worth. If it's the guy, it's because he's so infatuated that he'll let himself be turned into a doormat.

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But not allowing them to be close and despising their bond just because you THINK it's not real love is very wrong, cruel and immoral in my opinion.
Well, I wouldn't approve of a person doing such a thing. There's nothing wrong with letting kids be close. But I think if they're SO close that they refuse to be away from each other to play with other children, even for a day or so, that can get unhealthy very fast.





Quote:
Anyway, if you are mostly talking about fiction (anime in this case) and say you don't like osananajimi stories because they are often badly written, that I can understand.
I am only talking about these, yes.

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But despising them in real life just because you don't understand them is just strange.
I don't despise them in real life...but I'll be in awe if I see one, probably. XD
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Old 2013-04-23, 11:07   Link #25
Dwalin
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Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
Well, I wouldn't approve of a person doing such a thing. There's nothing wrong with letting kids be close. But I think if they're SO close that they refuse to be away from each other to play with other children, even for a day or so, that can get unhealthy very fast.
To be honest, I have never seen or read about a case of a boy and a girl being that close happening in real life, boys and girls usually don't like each other very much at an early age. But, if there is an exception, I think it's a good thing. If they are really that close and are helped somehow with the right education, they would make a good family, very solid, better than those made of people who were never very close, there would be less probability of one of them having a desire to cheat on the other and of those never ending arguments which have destroyed so many good families.

Last edited by Dwalin; 2013-04-23 at 15:18.
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Old 2013-04-23, 18:17   Link #26
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I think . . . what makes childhood romance get abused alot in many romance anime isn't because of the childhood kind of thing, but more about its appeal as a form of "easy romance". Let's see 1)You live only next door to her, you can meet her whenever you want 2) You know her very well, so there's no need for bullshit introduction nor any difficult action to get close to her, since you two already close in the first place, and you can talk normally to her without any awkwardness 3)Everyone around you already recognize you two as close pigeons, makes it hard for competitors/love rivals/any hindrances to break you two up
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Old 2013-04-23, 18:21   Link #27
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Originally Posted by Dwalin View Post
If they are really that close and are helped somehow with the right education, they would make a good family, very solid, better than those made of people who were never very close, there would be less probability of one of them having a desire to cheat on the other and of those never ending arguments which have destroyed so many good families.
That pretty much describes what worries me about the childhoodfriend-romance trope. There are two aspects that bother me, and if they're addressed, then I'm usually fine with it, but if they're not and it just uncritically accepts that line of argument, I'm a bit worried.

1) While sticking together from an early age and transitioning into "family" is good for social cohesion (i.e. they're likely to have a good a life with each other, not divorce, etc. - all the advantages, so to speak), there's also the danger that this leads to things like fear of strangers, narrow-mindedness, etc. - because there are more poeple out there who haven't grown up with you, and you can have a nice life without learning to deal with very different points-of-view. That is: childhoodfriend romances can be unintentionally painting isolationism in a positive light. Taking no risks, trying nothing new.

An example of an anime that treats this very aspect with lots of respect is:

Spoiler for for anime name:


2. The other thing I'm worried about is "friendship vs. romance between boys and girls". If every girl the boy-protagonist gets along with has a crush on the boy, that sort of cheapens boy-girl friendships. This is not something an anime can address by itself, because the individual cases don't have anything wrong with them. It's the trend, not the shows themselves, that bothers me. You get the feeling that the only proper way for a boy and a girl to be close is romance. (That's bothersome in real life, too; I get along very well with a girl, and everyone thinks we might be a couple. What?)

An anime that explicitly deals with this problem is:

Spoiler for for anime:


Sometimes, childhood friends just have the right sort of chemistry. Latest example:

Spoiler for for anime name:


So I'm not basically against childhoodfriend romances, but I can see plenty of pitfalls to romanticise (as a side-effect) what I feel is unhealthy behaviour (and I think it's much in line with what Chiibi doesn't like). But if an anime manages to nullify my worries, or address them specifically in a plausible way, I'm fine with it. But I am, by predisposition, slightly biased against them.
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Old 2013-04-23, 19:24   Link #28
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Originally Posted by Dawnstorm View Post

Spoiler for for anime name:
A question, as I haven't watched the anime: so the decision of the main character doesn't have anything to do with love for the childhood friend? Is it presented as a loveless pairing? If so, then it's really not my cup of tea, I was talking about childhood romance where the children involved feel genuine affection towards one another.
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Originally Posted by Dawnstorm View Post
2. The other thing I'm worried about is "friendship vs. romance between boys and girls". If every girl the boy-protagonist gets along with has a crush on the boy, that sort of cheapens boy-girl friendships. This is not something an anime can address by itself, because the individual cases don't have anything wrong with them. It's the trend, not the shows themselves, that bothers me. You get the feeling that the only proper way for a boy and a girl to be close is romance. (That's bothersome in real life, too; I get along very well with a girl, and everyone thinks we might be a couple. What?)
Here I agree, as I appreciate the brother-sister like bonds and non-romantic friendship, I am by no means saying that all boys and girls should have romantic feelings towards one another. I sometimes put other kinds of love above the childhood friend romantic one. To make in example:
There is this cartoon (not Japanese) called "Brother bear", focused on the brotherly bond between a human transformed into a bear and a bear cub. It's very tender and moving, and I was pretty much annoyed when in the sequel a girl (later transformed into a bear as well) came into the picture, therefore somehow distracting the big bear from the small one forcing him to share his affection with her, and I still am not sure it really was a good idea even though she was the big bear's (former human's) childhood friend.

Don't know what to say about the rest of what you said, even though I don't really 100% agree with you statement about childhood friend romance leading to fear of strangers and narrow-mindedness. I don't know, maybe in the anime you quoted it is so, but I still think it's not always that extreme.

Anyway, I am fine with what people here are saying even if they don't agree with me, since nobody has been rude till now. I made this topic just because I was tired of gratuitous insults towards the concept that are very frequent in the modern society, especially on internet where people often show their most aggressive side.
But I am thankful people here are willing to listen and to understand what I am saying, even if not agree.
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Old 2013-04-23, 20:24   Link #29
Chiibi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dwalin View Post
It's very tender and moving, and I was pretty much annoyed when in the sequel a girl (later transformed into a bear as well) came into the picture, therefore somehow distracting the big bear from the small one forcing him to share his affection with her, and I still am not sure it really was a good idea even though she was the big bear's (former human's) childhood friend.
Disney straight-to-video-"cheapquels" ruin all things. :< Just pretend they aren't canon.

I wanted to add that there are some osanajimi romances I ship...but normally only if:

A. It's really the only ship-able couple in the series for both chars:
(i.e. EdwardxWinry in FMAB)

or

B. The alternate love interest is the worst person ever, or makes the pairing the worst pairing ever.

In my opinion, B doesn't happen that much (because I like tsundere and I like new loves)...but when it does, aljfdladsjfld;jf *rage*........because I know it's totally hopeless for the osanajimi who deserves the protagonist SO much more....
I'm not going to list the series that committed the biggest offense concerning this because I'm always ranting about it on this board and quite a few people disagree...so........yeah.
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Old 2013-04-23, 21:11   Link #30
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Originally Posted by Dwalin View Post
A question, as I haven't watched the anime: so the decision of the main character doesn't have anything to do with love for the childhood friend? Is it presented as a loveless pairing? If so, then it's really not my cup of tea, I was talking about childhood romance where the children involved feel genuine affection towards one another.
Not at all. I'll put everything into a spoiler tag, just in case:

Spoiler for plot:


Quote:
Don't know what to say about the rest of what you said, even though I don't really 100% agree with you statement about childhood friend romance leading to fear of strangers and narrow-mindedness. I don't know, maybe in the anime you quoted it is so, but I still think it's not always that extreme.
I don't mean to say that childhood friend romances lead to that; more that the ideal of a childhoodfriend romance as idealised in anime is compatible with a more traditionalist and collectivist attitude (Why go far away? All the good things are close by.) This isn't, in itself, bad or good. It's just a life style (or more like "fictional symbology style", since people who like childhoodfriend romances in anime, don't necessarily want them in real life, but still like the "message" behind it if presented as an ideal). But it's not a style that appeals to me. The dark side of traditionalism is a sense that new things, or things from "outside" are scary and to be avoided. The stereotypical childhoodfriend romance ignores the dark side, presenting only the positives (which is pretty much true of all stereotypes, unless those they are about the dark side - then they ignore the bright side).

Also, all the anime I've quoted are ones I actually like, because they engaged the subject matter in a responsible way (whether I like the characters' decisions is another matter altogether; one has no decision so far - further seasons being a possibility).

I have a hard time thinking of bad examples, since I tend to forget them until someone else brings them up. I see no value in grumbling over stuff I don't like, when I could watch stuff I do like.

Quote:
I made this topic just because I was tired of gratuitous insults towards the concept that are very frequent in the modern society, especially on internet where people often show their most aggressive side.
But I am thankful people here are willing to listen and to understand what I am saying, even if not agree.
Well, I certainly don't come online to be angry. I don't like being angry much, so I'm certainly not going to do it if there's another option. Also, I'd feel a bit like a hypocrite if I were saying things like: "Childhoodfriend romances make people narrowminded. If you don't agree you're stupid."
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Old 2013-04-23, 21:45   Link #31
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Dwalin, one thing you might want to consider here is what's called The Westermarck Effect.

The Westermack Effect is most frequently cited when explaining why siblings typically find the idea of having sex with one another awkward, disturbing, disgusting, and/or even unthinkable (and yes, contrary to what anime would have you believe, this is true ). But it can also apply to two peers who grow up in close proximity to one another, and have developed a close platonic friendship.

I think that people in general have a tendency to "desexualize" certain people in their lives in order to make life easier, neater, and more comfortable. For kids and adolescents in particular, sexual desire can actually be a frustrating and nerve-wrecking thing, so I think that at a subconscious level many people may force such desire out of their minds when it comes to close childhood friends. You know, to ensure that they always feel "at ease" in the company of those friends.

Most people don't really feel "at ease" when in the presence of someone they have yet-to-be-fulfilled sexual desire for (if such sexual desire becomes fulfilled, then that can change of course, which is why married couples are typically "at ease" in one another's presence). Now this is something I think anime is actually uniquely good at portraying - The nervousness and anxiety that a person feels when in the presence of someone they really have "the hots" for.

Once you've desexualized another person to a certain degree, there may well be no coming back. I definitely think that Chibi's personal experience here reflects that, and that it's probably more common than some of us may think.
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Old 2013-04-23, 21:50   Link #32
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Originally Posted by Triple_R View Post

The Westermack Effect is most frequently cited when explaining why siblings typically find the idea of having sex with one another awkward, disturbing, disgusting, and/or even unthinkable (and yes, contrary to what anime would have you believe, this is true ). But it can also apply to two peers who grow up in close proximity to one another, and have developed a close platonic friendship.
Well-said. I KNOW the Westermack Effect has a very big influence on me and osanajimi ships. For sure. For sure.
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Old 2013-04-23, 21:57   Link #33
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You know what? What really bothers me is that anime usually fails to portray a purely platonic boy-girl relationship without peppering it with romance or something like that.

Can't a boy and a girl stay friends forever if they wanted to? They don't have to hook up together all the freaking time, you know.
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Old 2013-04-23, 22:08   Link #34
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You know what? What really bothers me is that anime usually fails to portray a purely platonic boy-girl relationship without peppering it with romance or something like that.

Can't a boy and a girl stay friends forever if they wanted to? They don't have to hook up together all the freaking time, you know.
It might be nice to see more purely platonic boy-girl relationships where the two are like "bros" to each other.

The anime Sola had a girl in it that struck me as the ultimate bro. Her name is Mana Ishizuki. I had to say that I found it amusing/endearing to see a female character be such a total bro to the male lead.
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Old 2013-04-23, 22:16   Link #35
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100% agree with Mana from Sola. We definitely need more real friends like that.

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An example of an anime that treats this very aspect with lots of respect is:

Spoiler for for anime name:
Excellent point here too; that summarizes the series very well.
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Old 2013-04-23, 22:46   Link #36
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Originally Posted by Triple_R View Post
It might be nice to see more purely platonic boy-girl relationships where the two are like "bros" to each other.
I would watch the hell out of such a show.

Anime's seriously beginning to affect my take on American cinema. Like in "Ever After", a 90s flick that I only saw in the past two years or so had a childhood friend for the 'Cinderella' protagonist.
And I was like "Oh watch, he's going to want her too." and waited for the love confession

BUT HE DIDN'T. He was her best friend and NOTHING MORE.

.......and that's when I said, "Damn, I think I fell in love with this movie already". XD (Though that is one good reason out of an ARMFUL of good ones)
It basically took all the tired cliches from all the fairytale/romances out there and said "Die, cliches, die."
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Old 2013-04-23, 23:13   Link #37
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Originally Posted by Chiibi
It's more like....I have not met a single person whose love is their childhood friend.
And I know a lot of people.

I don't despise them in real life...but I'll be in awe if I see one, probably. XD
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 completely agree with your overall point, mind; just felt like throwing that out there.
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Old 2013-04-24, 00:09   Link #38
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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 completely agree with your overall point, mind; just felt like throwing that out there.
Wow that is pretty amazing. It sounds like the plot of a novel! Good for them?
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Old 2013-04-24, 00:19   Link #39
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Indeed, I am proud of him for being friends with the girl for 17 years without falling into the Friend Zone. And yeah, their life is incredibly similar to a shoujo manga in many ways, both the good and the bad. Their love might be enviable, but not the fact that their life's contained as much drama as Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. Makes me thankful for my much more boring life.
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Old 2013-04-24, 00:23   Link #40
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Hmmm I have to admit, I am kind of jealous! Not that I want heavy drama in mine but...that's just...yeah, an incredible, romantic story!
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