History UsefulNotes / JapaneseSiblingTerminology

* In ''ShakuganNoShana'', [[ThoseTwoGuys Keisaku and Eita]] always use the respectful ''ane-san'' for Margery Daw. You'll find that funny if you [[BottleFairy get to know her]].

* Evolves over the course of RanmaOneHalf: While Ranma normally addresses Kasumi using "Kasumi-san" in the later seasons he occasionally uses "Kasumi-onee-san" as a sign of his esteem even though they are not technically related (yet). In the episode where Ranma thinks he's a girl he addresses her as "Kasumi-onee-''chan''" and the dub actually translates this as "Big sister Kasumi" for an equivalent cutesy effect.

* Yukino and Kanade from ''CandyBoy'' call each other "Yuki-nee" and "Kana-nee", often saying it twice wen they want to get each other's attention. Their younger sister Shizuku calls them both "neechan", although for Kanade she also tends to use the variety "{{baka}}-neechan".

* ''oni'' (A homophone for the Japanese word for "ogre", but not often employed for a punning double meaning.)

* Lots of characters in the ''Yakuza'' series call Kazuma "aniki" (for example, Rikiya of the recent ''Yakuza 3''). Of course, that shouldn't surprise anyone...

* ''FinalFantasyX'' has a character named "Aniki", who happens to be Rikku's brother. This was translated as "Brother", and throughout the game and [[FinalFantasyX2 its sequel]] ''everyone'' calls him "Brother" despite not being everyone's brother.

* In ''LastBlade 2'', [[{{Bifauxnen}} Kojiroh]] invokes "aniue" in one of her violent deaths.

** In flashbacks, Sasuke always called Itachi "Nii-san", which got translated to "brother" in the dub.

* At the beginning of ''KingdomHeartsII'', Selphie, who is one year younger than Kairi, calls her "neechan". In the English dub, she just calls her by name.

* In the TV series of ''ReadOrDie'', Anita calls her (adopted) sisters Maggie and Michelle "Ma-nee" and "Mi-nee." She ends up calling Nenene "Nene-nee" after rejecting "Nenene-neesama."

* In ''ShakuganNoShana'', ThoseTwoGuys always use the respectful ''ane-san'' for Margery Daw. You'll find that funny if you [[BottleFairy get to know her]].

* In ''DeathNote'', Sayu always calls Light ''oniichan''; he just calls her Sayu, as you'd expect -- though in the manga, there's a point where an AlternateCharacterReading is employed, with the kanji for "Sayu" being read as ''imōto''.

* The archaic formal term for "brother" listed above, ''aniue'', is familiar to any ''{{Mai-HiME}}'' fan. Mikoto uses this term for her long-lost brother (she doesn't know his name).

* In ''{{Clannad}}'', the members of the street gangs refer to Yukine as Yuki-nee.

* In ''{{Baccano}}!'', the AxCrazy mechanic Graham Specter refers to his hero, the equally AxCrazy Ladd Russo, as "Ladd-aniki". Luck and Berga Gandor call their older brother Keith "Kii-nii," and [[spoiler:Maiza's younger brother calls him "nii-san."]]

* In the TV series of ''ReadOrDie'', Anita calls her (adopted) sisters Maggie and Michelle "Ma-nee" and "Mi-nee." She ends up calling Nenene "Nene-nee" after rejecting "[[BeyondTheImpossible Nenene-neesama]]."

* Skuld in ''AhMyGoddess'' calls Belldandy ''oneesan'', but not Urd. It's translated to "big sis" in the dub.

* ''{{Zero no Tsukaima}}'s'' Louise has two elder sisters, neither one of which is referred to by name, they are called OneeSama and Chi-nee-sama (basically meaning second elder sister) respectively.

* In ''{{Gintama}}'', Shinpachi addresses his sister Otae as "aneue"; Kagura, despite not being related to either of them, calls her "anego."

* ''SisterPrincess'' -- thirteen sisters, thirteen different ways to say "big brother". The English dub goes through outrageous contortions to come up with equally individualized equivalents for the Japanese terms and mostly succeeds, even if it does have to dip into a couple other languages to do it.

* Sakura in ''[[{{ptitlep23b1sab}} Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor]]'' is called anego by her two henchmen/friends.

It is also not uncommon for sibling terminology to be used for certain non-siblings. "Onii-san" and its variants are often used by children for older non-relatives (expect the kid VictimOfTheWeek to address the hero this way throughout the episode, for example.) This one's hard for translators - you want to stay true to the original, but can't exactly have the kid call the hero "Big brother" despite the fact that they've clearly never met before.

* Another rather famous "nii-nii" in HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi from Satoko. It's also someone's BeserkButton.

* One of the hints of [[AfterWarGundamX Olba Frost]]'s deep devotion to his older brother Shagia is that, for a ''very'' cocky and arrogant guy who can be AxCrazy in battle, he actually addresses Shagia with the respectful "Nii-san" instead of the more familiar "Aniki". In fact, he did it so often that Olba's seiyuu Nozomu Sasaki has said that he came to dislike the word itself.

* Makito from ''MahouSentaiMagiranger'' is often called Aniki by his siblings (or even himself).

JapaneseSiblingTerminology

UsefulNotes/JapaneseSiblingTerminology