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I really like the way anime portrays female friendship.  I think it's sad that there aren't more friendships like that in Western media.

Last edited by HonorableShadow (10-09-2012 04:16:35 PM)

In terms of anime and manga, the influence of the 49ers, or however you want to refer to them, can't be underestimated. That's where you see a real shift to entire stories of women/girls associating with other women/girls, or friendships really being a sustained part of the narrative that way. And that influence, combined with "in drag, falls in love" narratives really gets us the widespread acceptance we see today.

Glenn Danzig drew attention to this, years ago, pointing out that there's no equivalent in American horror or body-thriller to what Go Nagai can do with female friendships. And that's Go Nagai for cry-eye!

Of course, a good portion of it is exploring or using the easier sexual tones of a homosocial story, too, which adds a sexual frisson while also diffusing it (see Candy Boy or Marimite) or comes out of the theory that the more pretty girls the better (see Gunsmith Cats, Sailor Moon, or Tenchi Muyo!) at work, too. This spawns a good deal of male homosocial or homosexual-involving stories in manga and anime as well; the ease of avoiding direct male/female dynamics and expectations. On of the nice things about, say, Evangelion when it first came out, was that adult situations were actually addressed, such as Kaji and Misato walking home drunk one night and having to deal with "where were we?", "what do we do next?", and "aren't I too old for this? And with you?" That level of male/female earnest interaction is rarer in anime than same-sex friendships because, I'd wager, Japan has some very uncomfortable dynamics in male/female relationships that aren't pat. Especially after the relatively recent legal restrictions on homosexuality and homosocial behavior for Japan, versus the longer history of such in other countries/cultures.

Class S, Bluestocking, and the sister suicides weren't that long ago, you know?

Last edited by Decrescent Daytripper (10-10-2012 12:49:52 AM)

As an Asian spending much of his time in Asia, it seems to me that mainstream North American media simply do not depict emotional intimacy between same sex characters (especially when its m/m), unless one or both of their opposite sex love interest(s) is somehow prominently present in the plot as barrier between the two.  I've always thought this is because the North American writers do not want others to interpret their works as having homosexual tones, as there seems to be this terribly "limiting" North American perception that any "too-close" relationship between any two people must have sexual tones in it.

Most Asian writers, on the other hand, recognize that two people can be emotionally close without their being anything sexual/romantic going on between them - which is the case in real life, both in Asian and in North America.  This is quite peculiar, actually, considering how homosexuality is still largely frowned upon in much of Asia (and is strictly taboo in even today's Japanese society), while NA is supposed to have legislation and groups that uphold the human rights of homosexuals; and yet, the works of mainstream NA writers/artists that squirms around the issues of same-sex platonic closeness actually seem more homophobic to me than the many works of those Asian writers freely showing same sex emotional intimacy while writing for largely homophobic demographics. 

Could it be that a side effect of "supportive gay-consciousness" in society, is that any two same sex people being emotionally close will easily get labeled as being gay even when they are not?

Like_Autumn wrote:

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure how many male/female friendships I've seen in Japanese media that don't have an element of romance...

Jesse and James from Pokemon?

Sorry, I was going to think of a serious example, but then they popped into my mind.

Anyway, as problematic as anime can be, I've often preferred the female characters in anime to the ones in Western media, and most good female-friendships I can think are anime too. Which is funny, all things considering.

In regards to the limited attention western media gives same sex friendships, my own take is that it hooks into the way society regards sexuality/is over sexualised. If the media is focused towards the 'sexy' angle, then everything around it becomes by definition sexual. Which means that a close friendship is automatically seen in a sexual light. If you look back towards the turn of the century, there was such a thing as a 'romantic friendship' between same sex individuals. This means all the trappings of an intense emotional relationship were there, up to and including poetry, gorgeous letters and sumptuous images, but it didn't automatically imply a sexual relationship to an observer. Now days a person looks back all of the literature of this time and thinks yep, fucking like rabbits, even though the original writers might well have been utterly horrified, shocked and insulted by the is assumption.

I guess Westerners just have sex on the brain...

Decrescent Daytripper, thanks for reminding me of Boston Legal, and just David E Kelly in general.  Thinking back on Ally Mcbeal, especially in seasons 1 &2 before things went downhill, there were indeed a lot of intimate non-sex friendships displayed between both the male and female characters.  God I miss that show for its story and the great acting shown, and is sad that so many bashed it because the actresses' unhealthy weight loss drew all the bad press.

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:
Thinking of that, how did Ally, the sidequel/retelling show, actually play out? Anybody watch that?

If you're talking about the 20 something min retelling version they pushed out sometime around Ally season free, I can tell you that it's a butchered, choppy version of the actual season 1 and 2 eps.

It saddens me even now how the script writing just abruptly went downhill starting season 3, such that no amount of guest star power could save it from its eventual meh-limbo in its final season.