Vitriolic Best Buds / Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • Edgeworth and... everyone. Starting with Justice for All, he decides to team up with Phoenix in pursuit of The Truth during court battles but still relentlessly mocks Nick's lack of experience and tendency to just wing it. He constantly berates Gumshoe for overlooking minor details, but has been relying on the good detective's ability to find what other overlook, as well as his tendency to show up at the last second with something decisive. Larry gets picked on relentlessly, but a flashback shows they got on well for the year they shared in school and despite the insults, Edgeworth shows that he still considers Larry a friend. They all show that they're just as capable of shooting a barb back when he gets caught with his pants down. But when worse comes to worse, they're all willing to defend one another at the drop of a hat. The one character he has any kind of regular interaction with that doesn't include a heaping load of biting sarcasm aimed at them is Maya Fey, which might be because of their mutual love for the Steel Samurai franchise. He mellows out after the time skip.
  • His adoptive sister Franziska Von Karma is quite a bit more on the vitriol part, but Gumshoe is her whipping boy and anyone else that hurts or insults her "Scruffy" will literally be at the end of her lash. Like Edgeworth, she's been working with him a long time (since she started law school at 13). Despite his occasional air-headedness, she knows he got where he is for a reason and recognizes his surprising expertise.
  • Phoenix has a downplayed version of this with Larry, mainly for Larry's ability to get into all sorts of trouble without trying. Larry's just as willing to point out Nick's screw ups, usually when he misses something even a lamebrain like Larry picked up on.
  • Athena Cykes and Simon Blackquill, especially in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. He constantly berates her for being an amateur who has never taken the spot of lead council on a case, while she treats him like he's a merciless sadist. They're Like Brother and Sister though, and he won't stand for anyone picking on her but himself. Likewise, she'll defend him to the bitter end because despite his dark sense of humor, she knows he's a good person deep down.
  • The end of Spirit of Justice shows that Apollo and Nayuta are becoming this.
• Tomoya and Sunohara in CLANNAD. Sunohara is definitely taking all the abuse, here. Tomoya doesn't really seem to care much one way or the other and most of the 'jerk' part of Jerk with a Heart of Gold comes from interactions with Sunohara. However, he really does care. Sometimes.
• One look at the "friendship" between Ren Fujii and Shirou Yusa in Dies Irae can leave the reader wondering how those two even became friends in the first place with them being complete opposites and often at each-others throats. The story even opens with them beating one-another to near death over a disagreement. As the story develops however it starts to become clear that this friendship did not develop naturally. Shirou is revealed to be Ren's Apoptosis, a being of inverse values and an embodiment of subconscious self destructive desires, brought together thanks to the manipulative hand of Mercurius. Despite all this however, it is clear that they really do care for each other, even if some of that care takes the shape of Tough Love.
• Doki Doki Literature Club!
  • The player character and Sayori have a largely one-sided version on the player character's end. The player character will criticize Sayori's flaws, and it may come across as harsher towards the player (who, unlike him, is just meeting Sayori), but he means well and eases up towards Sayori significantly after she reveals that she has depression. On the other hand, Sayori can sass back at the player character, so the dynamic is still present. She will tell the player character outright that his poem is terrible if he writes one that she does not like (Natsuki and Yuri will try to be nice about it), and she chides him for falling asleep after she startles him awake.
  Sayori: Ehehe, sorry. Wait! Actually, I'm not sorry at all! It's your fault for sleeping like that! This isn't the napping club!
  • Natsuki's old friend group in the Updated Re-release ends up being a deconstruction of this. Constantly teasing each other is the norm in the group, but Natsuki actually takes it hard, and she can't protest against it, because that's against their norms. The creator's commentary of the original game suggests that the others are not necessarily trying to bully her, they're just stuck in that dynamic. This is used to make Natsuki's being a Tsundere a Justified Trope: she's defensive and hostile and has difficulty expressing her emotions because of her previous experiences. She ends up deciding to cut all ties with those friends after finding more considerate ones in the Literature Club.
• In Double Homework, the protagonist and Tamara would constantly shit-talk each other, especially before telling each other something serious.
• In Every Day's Different Katsuki and Yuika fight like angry cats over differences of opinion on propriety but never fail to make up, as they ultimately care deeply for one another.
• In Halloween Otome: Seen with Mr. Bandages and The Count. Their constant bickering is obviously indicative of their deep-rooted affection and friendship for each other.
• A significant subplot of Heart of the Woods is about the friendship between Tara and Madison, the host and manager of the popular Vlog Series Taranormal. The two often snark at each other, but nevertheless have been close for years, with Madison being one of the few people who stuck with Tara after the latter came out as transgender and transitioned from male to female. Unfortunately, Madison and Tara's friendship is strained at the start of the game, due to Madison suddenly announcing her decision to quit Taranormal after the trip to Eysenfeld, a decision that Tara took rather personally. Things are somewhat tense between them for much of the first chapter, and they stop speaking for a while during the second chapter. In the end, they apologize to each other, with Tara self-deprecatingly summing up their relationship.
  "I give you a lot of shit, but I really do love you. And I'm so sorry all this happened because I was too much of a screwup to remember that."
• In Higurashi: When They Cry, Keiichi is frequently subject to teasing and embarrassing penalty games by Mion and traps from Satoko, but the former girl has a crush on him (Keiichi considers her his best friend) and the latter views him as a surrogate big brother in the absence of her actual brother.
• Ikemen Sengoku:
  • Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda. Despite being famous historical war rivals and Kenshin repeatedly insisting that he sticks close to Shingen only for the opportunity to kill him one day, the two have a deep respect of one another and Kenshin, for all his "I'll kill you" talk, freely invited Shingen and his vassal Yukimura to stay at his castle after their homeland got conquered by their mutual enemy Nobunaga.
  • Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Mitsuhide Akechi. Hideyoshi constantly berates Mitsuhide for his shady behavior and Mitsuhide takes any and every opportunity to mercilessly tease Hideyoshi about his mother hen tendencies, but at the end of the day these two unwaveringly trust one another even when they seemingly have no reason to.
  • Ieyasu Tokugawa and Mitsunari Ishida. On the surface, their "friendship" appears to be much more one-sided than the above examples with Ieyasu constantly insulting Mitsunari at every turn and Mitsunari blithely interpreting his insults as compliments. However, Mitsunari's route makes it clear that Ieyasu really does care for Mitsunari underneath his acerbic exterior and his criticisms of him stem from his frustration that such a gifted person like Mitsunari lets himself be pushed around by others.
• Uozumi and Reiji in Kara no Shoujo.
• In Katawa Shoujo, Kenji gets on Hisao's nerves by constantly asking his to loan him money and his misogynist rantings (especially when they're targeted at Hisao's current girlfriend), but there are times when he appreciates having Kenji around, such as when he gets Iwanako's letter in Shizune's route and when he hears that Lilly is leaving for Scotland in Lilly's route.
  • Hisao and Emi often exchange playful insults in Emi's own route and in her close friend Rin's own.
• In Little Busters!, all of the Childhood Friends are True Companions, but Masato is always fighting and arguing with Kengo and Rin, to the point where every other day Riki ends up trying (and usually failing, which is where Kyousuke comes in) to mediate between them.
• In the Nasuverse:
  • Tsukihime
    • Arihiko and Shiki Tohno. Fighting until they're unconscious is just... well, there's no real ill feeling behind it, it's just what they do. Shiki doesn't even know why.
    • Arcueid and Ciel are also friends, which you might not pick up on since half the time they're trying to kill each other or something. Count the fact that Ciel is still alive yet isn't going after Arcueid 24/7 proof of Nasu's assurance that they're 'weird friends.'
  • Fate/stay night
    • Without question, this is the relationship between Rin Tohsaka and Luviagelita Edelfelt. While they tend to bicker and fight alot, they are also good friends throughout all the bruising.
• Jett and Accel in SC2VN.
• Spirit Hunter: NG:
  • Akira and Seiji love hurling insults at each other, but they're only comfortable doing so because they've been best friends for so long.
  • Seiji has nothing but barbed words for his underling Maruhashi, who's too devoted to Seiji to ever snap back at him. However, at the end of the Kubitarou case, Seiji is clearly anguished by Maruhashi's murder at Kubitarou's hands and swears vengeance.
• Icari Isidolde and Kryska Stares from Sunrider have this dynamic. They constantly butt heads about everything from the merits of their respective fighting styles (“Speed!” “Armor!”), to how the course of the war with PACT will unfold, to who had the highest kill count in the last fight. Despite that, the two of them respect each other a great deal, and when push comes to shove they’ve got each other’s backs.

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