Railgun Ending 1 “Dear My Friend”
If an anime is about ladies being bffs, chances are I will be all over it.
Lady bffs seem to be a common theme in anime… Is this an accurate observation?
More common than in western media, it seems, yeah. At least easier to find, and that’s probably why I got into anime to begin with. I’d say this is because there’s more media specifically aimed toward young girls and the fact that magical girl is a genre also helps- all female team of crimefighters necessitates that lady bffs be forefront. And I think that prominence and the fact people responded to it is what makes it more common in anime now.
And I also do think there’s a cultural thing at work here, but I couldn’t really comment on it.
Judging purely from anime tropes, it’s considered normal for young girls to be intensely intimate with each other and therefore often teased they maybe have a THING for each other ohohoho but it will never be made good on it’s just a fanservice thing to titilate and entice those who are into that, in reality they’ll grow out of it or whatever and move on to focus on men. This isn’t always the case obvs, just a thing that happens in anime sometimes.
Mostly I think it’s the fact that shoujo is a legitimate genre in anime/manga that is for girls and about girls and is just as popular as shonen, so the idea of “HEY LADIES BEING BFFS” will naturally be more of a thing and they’ll even do shonen versions, like with Railgun, because it’s been proven to be popular and even appeal to men (often for skeevy reasons unfortunately, so shonenladybff shows are more likely to have more straightmaleaimedfanservice, Railgun in point). Whereas in western media, “chick flicks” or anything aimed towards girls or about emotional bonds between women is considered inherently lesser and subordinate to the norm rather than an equally legitimate thing all it’s own, so that obviously means stuff focused on icky female emotions will be less common and/or prominent.
