"How did I never see it" childhood friend scenarios

[SeijiSensei]

I'm only about halfway through season two of Major 2nd, where Mutsuko has feelings for Daigo. He is totally oblivious which aggravates both his mother and older sister. DK how things will work out for them, if they do at all.

[0cean]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

I suspect the "cliche" line is indeed something from the 70s or 80s. Anyone know any good childhood friend romance manga/anime from those decades? Even if they don't have such lines.

Your best bet might be Candy Candy (1976) which features childhood friend romance, but it's more of a drama. Keep in mind that between 1970 and 1980 only about 300-400 anime were made, the same number that is produced in a single year this day and age, so the pool of options isn't as big as one might expect and romance stories weren't really a thing at that time, since the demographic was either the whole family if it aired in the evening or little children, if it aired in the morning. Little boy shows wouldn't be romances and little girl shows were more about little girls wearing frilly dresses, being secretly princesses or being secretly witches. This info graphic sums up what anime you can expect from back then.

It's also worth mentioning that the whole trope about childhood friends discovering their love for each other didn't originate in actual romance stories. It was used as a story device to wrap up things. It didn't go "discovered their love for each other and now the story begins", but "this was the story and so they discovered their love for each other". Like the old fairy tales, that would arbitrarily end with marriage. And the only girl around to wrap the story up with was the childhood friend. There's a fairly popular anime that revived this particular trope: Full Metal Alchemist (2009). Maybe there's more of those kind of shows, but these default wins because no one else showed up to the competition ain't exactly shining examples of the childhood friend winning. But it is the origin of the trope you are missing.

[cyberdemon]

Naruto has an entire movie dedicated to this lol