"Childhood Friends" cleanup

I would say a soft split on the Childhood Love Interest winners and losers and leave the explanation above on the page on how they are treated.

[1]◊ This however confuses the hell out of me on this since it is all of the above.

edited 7th Mar '11 8:59:00 PM by Raso

Mmm...Naru/Mutsumi...

Wait, sorry. Got distracted.

Love Hina's an interesting case. Even though technically Naru and Mutsumi are Osananajimi, they don't get treated as such in the story for a variety of reasons. Also Naru was really young at the time.

They are Forgotten Childhood Friend and thus tend to be played differently then childhood friends you've always known.

But it's a main point of all haremettes, that they either win, or lose.

Just like as the point of a fighting character is that he might die, so you stay interested in the life-threatening scenes. But even if Grimdark stories might make it more clear that Anyone Can Die than in others, protagnist death is one generic concept, and we don't have specific variations for The Anti Hero Dies, The Captain Dies, The Adventurer Archaeologist Dies, etc. (There are some tropes like Tragic Hero that usually die, but that is an entirely original trope, not the dying variation of something else.)

In the same way, love might be unrequited, and it might be foreshadowed in certain ways for all character types, but it's enough that we have unrequited love as a concept, we don't need Unlucky Childhood Friend, or Unlucky Token Loli, or Unlucky Yandere. (Though we have Romantic Runner-Up, a trope that is defined by losing).

I'll agree that the ykttw trope shouldn't be called osananajami since it will just end up getting renamed anyway. Plus, as the thread shows, it's a pain to spell.

I see that we will have problems with it, but really, we can't give it a better name either. Honestly, the second best I can think of would be a placeholder title like Childhood Friend As Stock Character In Harem, or some other ridiculous roundabout way to describe the trope that already has a pre-existing name.

If it's hard to spell, we could call it Osana Najimi, afaik both are correct (though someone who actually knows japanese could confirm this).

Also, lets not go down the "Nakama" road with "Osananajimi". It means childhood friend. No more, no less. Just as what western people might call a childhood friend varies from person to person, so does what a Japanese person might call an Osananajimi.

Unlike with Nakama, no one tried to claim that it means anything more, at least the mainstream definition, but it also happens to be a pre-existing fanspeak term for that specific character type. There are fansites defining it as a love interest type, there are in-universe examples of discussing how "the osananajimi" is always portrayed, etc.

Sort of how chibi literally means "small", but it is also a term for the Superdeformed art style (that luckily also had this english fanspeak name), or Ecchi means "sex", but it's also a term for a fanservice-filled genre.

Also unlike Nakama, it's actually a Japanese variation of a supertrope, so writing it in japanese is a good way to communicate that part, kind of like how saying "Allah", that is arabic for "God", is a good way to reference "The most common arabic interpretation of God".

edited 8th Mar '11 8:11:08 AM by EternalSeptember

None of which makes it a good trope name, as one major feature of a good trope title is to be clear enough that someone can understand it without being specifically familiar with the Trope Namer, or speaking Japanese, or giving a flip about anime/manga. Why waste a chance to give it a name that won't show up in TRS in a week?

On topic, I generally agree with lumping Childhood Friend into a supertrope, with a subtrope for when it's also a love interest.

edited 8th Mar '11 8:45:20 AM by Fighteer

I had never heard of the term till this thread so maybe a different name is needed although I dont know what.

"not giving a flip about anime/manga" would be a bit weird in this case, considering that this subtrope's main attribute is that this is how the Childhood Friend character is portrayed in Japanese media. (If you don't think that this is an appropriate line of categorization, the problem is with th e page idea, not with the title).

Anyways, why make up a new, complicated term, that would, even at best, only imply that other than being a Childhood Friend, this has something to do with being a girl, and in a harem, while the other one would at least instantly click for several people who give a flip about Japanese tropes, and who are also the most likely to encounter this trope or it's title?

It's really just a rock and a hard place situation. Foreign terms are bad, but ignoring fanspeak terms is also bad.

Complete accessibility for some people is meh, partial accessibility for more people is also meh.

As you can see from my signature, I personally prefer the former, if we must absolutely choose.

edited 8th Mar '11 9:42:25 AM by EternalSeptember

There are no characterization tropes that are unique to a culture. Not anymore. Pretending otherwise is being myopic. Further, giving them fanspeak names renders them less accessible to other cultures, with the strong implication that, "This is MY anime, keep out!" Which is a major criticism of TV Tropes, let me remind you. Also, it invites Trope Decay and misfiling of examples, especially if we also have various Childhood Friend tropes around.

In short, make a real trope with an English title and leave your fanspeak term on the Fanspeak page.

edited 8th Mar '11 11:21:32 AM by Fighteer

I don't really see how that follows.

We have many medium-specific characterization tropes, like Two Gamers on a Couch for Webcomics, or Draco in Leather Pants for Fanfics. Anime is also medium. If we can also have characterization tropes specific to that medium, they are also specific to japanese culture.

Physically, nothing stops anyone from filming a Two Gamers on a Couch movie, but for some reason, it's not happening, so there is nothing wrong with noting it as a "Webcomic Trope". If that trope would be known in the webcomic fandom as DERTWQT, it would be pointless to give it a new name just to confuse everyone who is likely to be familiar with the concept, for the rare chance that there is one movie example of the trope, and some non-webcomic fan can't find it because of the title.

Actually, we even have examples for exactly that: AFGNCAAP. It's an Adventure Game characterization trope, that's title could sound like a non-sequitur to everyone else, but most of the time, these are adventure gamers using the trope anyways, and they understand it.

It doesn't say "This is MY Adventure Game, keep out!" to me, but more like:

"Hi, you must be new here. This is how we called this thing for decades. If you want to get into adventure games, please learn it, because we won't invent a new vocabulary for your sake."

edited 8th Mar '11 11:52:36 AM by EternalSeptember

I will grant that there are tropes specific to the medium related to artistic style, etc., but not that there are culturally unique Characterization Tropes.

Fighteer: The argument is that the anime character type is quite a bit more distinct and is in fact a stock character for dating sims, visual novels and anime in general. Thus, he wants it to be a subtrope because the anime examples really dominate the page. For example, the best western example of the original trope would be Agnes in David Copperfield, who is almost completely different from the subtrope being proposed.

I don't know if this is a big enough distinction, but you really don't see this type of childhood friend love interest in western works. Not that I've seen.

Eternal September: That doesn't change the fact that most people simply can't spell osananajami. And that's people who actually know the word. Instead of arguing we use that name, you really need to come up with an easier to use title to replace it.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:03:52 PM by Arha

I acknowledge all of that. It's still not a reason to give it a Japanese title. This is an English language wiki. We want inclusiveness, not exclusiveness. Using Japanese trope titles creates an impression that we are not interested in Western examples. Fair or unfair, it's the truth.

Anyway, I'm afraid that we (collectively, including me) have derailed this thread into being about a YKTTW'ed trope title. What does the current primary proposal look like?

edited 8th Mar '11 12:10:13 PM by Fighteer

I don't want a Japanese title, either. I'm the one that pointed out that we can't use one. I'm merely pointing out that it may in fact be distinct enough for a subtrope.

So what about the three that I just posted, especially Two Gamers on a Couch?

Also, you should start explaining Yamato Nadeshiko, Christmas Cake, Meido, Bokukko, Sensei-chan, Anime Chinese Girl, Token Loli, and many others. For bonus points, they all have exclusive titles based on the fandom or the language.

Ninjad, Edit:

edited 8th Mar '11 12:16:38 PM by EternalSeptember

I'm all for not using Osananajimi, but someone is going to have to come up with a better one.

Barring that, lets just go with it, unless you have a brilliant idea that you're hiding from the rest of us?

All of those are bad titles, unfortunately protected by screaming anime fans and/or the Grandfather Clause. There's no reason to extend the poor names by adding yet another one to the pile.

Whatever happened to just plain Childhood Friend? As we've done in the past, we can add a note to either the super trope or to the relevant subtropes about any Fanspeak terms that may apply, and/or their special cultural connotations.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:22:48 PM by Fighteer

That would be good because the subtrope is supposed to be culture specific. It's most laconic description would be "The most common Japanese take on Childhood Friend"

Sure, there can be hypothetical rare western examples, that happen to be similar to it, in the same way as Manic Pixie Dream Girl can have Rare Male Examples, but that is still an Always Female trope.

Your reasoning seems to bbe a bit similar to that: Like if you would say that we shouldn't ever put "girl" in the title if there is nothing physical stopping a boy from following the rest of the description.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:26:27 PM by EternalSeptember

So, you wouldn't launch this subtrope at all?

Now, finally we are talking about something entirely different.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:27:08 PM by EternalSeptember

Fighteer: The anime character type really does have set of characteristics to it that are basically common to all examples. They cook, they're domestic, they're shy, they're cute/pretty but not amazingly so, generally popular among the cast etc. If we don't put up the proposed subtrope, I think we need to have some way of reorganizing the page instead or something.

Also, as has been noted, not all the childhood friend love interests do fit the character type. They tend to be quite different from the above variant.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:32:09 PM by Arha

(Incidentally, I cordially loathe the YKTTW system which is why I don't post there much.) Isn't that just Childhood Friend + Yamato Nadeshiko? Not that I like the latter name either, but that's a different topic.

Also, wait a minute. What was that?

...Yamato Nadeshiko, Christmas Cake, Meido, Bokukko...

All of those are bad titles

Wait, What? Whoa. HOW? And... what... and How?

I think you are starting to slip into a very extremist position here...

edited 8th Mar '11 12:35:32 PM by EternalSeptember

Dunno, Fighteer. Maybe. I'm just trying to be neutral here. Then again, we do have tropes that work as hybrids or combinations of two or more other tropes. I think there's even a list of them at Hidden Depths.

They fail our guidelines for good trope names. It's not exactly hard to see how. I'm not crusading to change them, but that's only because such suggestions have failed in the past.

What guidelines are you using? Because I only know about Naming A Trope, with such useful advice as: "Be concise", "Don't be too concise", "Be descriptive" "Don't be too descriptive", "Be clever", "Don't be too clever"...

...And the Trope Renaming Guidelines, that specifically point out that "If the name is a term already in use in the world, it is working. 'In the world', by the way, also means 'in a specific fandom.' "

edited 8th Mar '11 12:55:36 PM by EternalSeptember