恋は甘くて苦い

[xanithofdragons]

I was reading a post the other day about non-sexual intimacies, and the first whole paragraph touched on some big parts of what bothers me about a lot of romance writing in fiction really perfectly. Too often, the writers focus overly much on romantic relationships while underdeveloping non-romantic relationships, or just seem to throw together the lead female character and the lead male character without considering compatibility or thinking about how their relationship would go after the story ends or even properly developing romantic feelings between them. It leaves me asking why they had them fall in love rather than leaving them as coworkers or partners or friends. It's bad writing and heteronormative too.

After reading that, I thought about listing some jdrama I've seen that had (what I think are) good non-romantic relationships between girls/women and boys/men.

Freeter, Ie wo Kau
The relationship between Seiji and his mother is such a huge part of this drama. Seiji's concern for his mother in particular becomes a huge motivating factor for him and his mother's encouragement helps him to turn his life around. Seiji's relationship with his father is equally important, but it sort of becomes about the trio of mother-father-son, with the mother trying to get Seiji and his father get along better and Seiji trying to get his father to help more with the mother's mental illness.

Ghost Mama Sousasen
This is another drama that focuses pretty heavily on the relationship between mother and son, since Choko stays in the world as a ghost out of worry for Tonbo.

IS
It helps that the subject matter of IS already lends itself to challenging assumptions about sex and gender, but I really liked the friendship between Haru and Miwako, and how getting to know Haru saved Miwako in a lot of ways. The different ways they saw their identities and handled similar issues contrasted their personalities well (and also hinted at the very different home situations they were brought up in.)

Kakushou
Hagio and Takeda's relationship was pretty standard for partners in a police drama, but I liked how early on in the series, Hagio talks with some of the other detectives about not knowing how to interact with a young woman as a partner, kind of like the drama was touching on her gender without making it overshadow other aspects of her character. It's like they were saying, yes her gender affects their relationship, but her age and her career ambitions and her background also affect their relationship just as much.

Legal High
Mayuzumi and Komikado's relationship is part boss/employee and part mentor/mentee. This one almost wouldn't make it on the list since there are some other characters who hint at or ask about romantic potential between them, but that doesn't really fit their relationship. The clash between Mayuzumi's optimistic outlook and Komikado's cynical outlook and the way Mayuzumi keeps arguing with and fighting against Komikado make this drama great. It's also really nice how Komikado slowly starts to respect her even while he avoids admitting it and realizes how Mayuzumi's style can help in a trial and figures out how to use it.

Are there any jdramas (or other works of fiction) that had a non-romantic relationship between a man and a woman that you really liked?

Comments

[faded-lace.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with basically everything you said, and I'm really grateful for this list! I basically don't watch dramas unless I have a really good reason because I generally hate the way that romance is handled in the media for all the reasons that you said, so it's great to know this sort of thing beforehand from someone who really understands.

I don't know if you're familiar with it or watched it, but I personally really like the way they handle male/female friendships in Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou. It was a low-budget late night drama, so of course the plot and stuff leave some room for improvement, but while the characters are basically all dumb 16 year olds dealing with feelings, the main female character and main male character have a friendship that the main female character values despite that she has an unrequited crush on him. I think it does a good job of showing her recognizing it's just a crush and accepting that she cares more about being friends with him and respects him as a person, rather than getting carried away by how horrible ~unrequited love is. The show also has a secondary male character who falls for the main female, who of course doesn't like him back, and what really makes me happy is that when he engages in potentially abusive behaviours towards her (trying to guilt her into things, etc), she shuts him down immediately and tries to emphasize that she values his friendship but isn't going to take any crap. The whole drama does rely on a lot of stereotypes (though mostly class-related ones), but I also think that it does a really good job of breaking them through the course of the drama, and address issues like sexism, classism, bullying, suicide, and gender issues. It's the first drama I've ever seen where the main point was that girls and boys can be friends without romantic attachments, and aren't necessarily inherently ~different despite gender. It also has the plus of passing the Bechdel test in the first episode!

[1111-am.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of times dramas can be a hit or a miss for me because of the sucky relationship building in them. What drives me bonkers is when there's ALWAYS some sort of love triangle going on and they always seem to throw the two who do not go together with each other because it's ~*~FATE~*~. Ugh. Anyways, yep, I can definitely agree with what you said about the relationship Seiji had with his parents in Freeter, Ie wo Kau. I also thought his sister's relationship with both their parents was interesting. I think parent-child relationships can sometimes be a bit iffy in how they get portrayed in dramas. Like, sometimes they can be a bit too cliché or generic or something and not really explored and the parents' role gets shoved to the background. It definitely depends on the drama though too. Like in 1 Litre of Tears I loved both those parents. That whole drama was pretty family oriented though. I remember crying at the scene where Aya tried calling her mom and had trouble dialing the phone and her mom's mother instincts kicked in and she felt something was wrong and she drove to go see her :(

It's been a really long time since I've watched it so I can't remember if the relationship eventually turned into a romantic one, but I liked the relationship that developed in Kimi wa Petto. Granted I kind of thought the premise of their relationship was weird starting out, I liked how honest Momo and Sumiere could be with each other. He saw more to her than just that strong-willed, independent, cold person everyone else viewed her as and she was someone who pushed and encouraged him with his dancing. I also liked the friendships in jdramas like Nobuta wo Produce and Orange Days. The sibling relationship between Ryo's character and Erika's in Ryuusei no Kizuna was interesting too. There was a couple scenes where I was genuinely confused if he had feelings for her since she wasn't actually blood-related to him, but I think overall he viewed her as his sister and thank god nothing came of it. Aww I need to start watching more dramas again. I think the last one I saw was Boys on the Run in 2012 D:

I think besides just the male/female relationships it's interesting to look at same sex ones too when talking about non-romantic ones, because those kind of friendships and stuff can be just as important and have just as big of an influence on our lives as the romantic ones. Okay, so not a jdrama, but in Friends I love the friendships that all the guys have (especially Joey and Chandler) and all the girls have (Monica and Rachel). Like you can see just how SUPER close they are and how much they mean to each other and in some cases they're closer to them than they are their actual siblings and stuff. I also really love the sort of relationship that Sherlock and Watson have in Elementary and I will start smashing things if the show's writers ever decide to *spice things up* for ratings and try having them hook up.

[justironic.livejournal.com]

IS was so good. ♥

In Ashita no Joe, I found both Joe and Shiraki (Youko) interesting. But maybe more because of their own backgrounds, than their interactions, perhaps, so maybe it doesn't count. :x I love that movie, though.

The relationships in Ataru, are very interesting, imo. It was completely without romance, and it was so good. It's like they form a bond, and (probably because of the disability) it's just a friendship. But you also see how much Maiko cares for him, and that (spoiler alert) towards the end, he really means a lot to her.

There's a movie called Goth, which is about two teenagers, a girl and a boy, and their relationship... is odd. It was even hard to tell if they actually friends or not. Either way, it's a very interesting movie.^^;;

And then there's Last Friends, with a lot of romantic feelings within friendships, but no actual romance. I really like how they ended that drama.

I also thought of Tsumi to batsu, but to be honest I can't remember... I think the main characters never actually had any romantic feelings for each other, but I can't promise anything. Their relationship was... a bit different.


I'll mention one that's two males in a friendship too, heh. Mahoro ekimae bangaichi. Two men, of which one likes to hint that they're actually romantically involved (in front of customers) while the other denies it over and over. Because they're really aren't, but at the same time, if they were, you wouldn't be too surprised. Their dynamics are really fun to watch (not to mention it's a fantastic drama) :D


I'm sure there's more, I just can't come to think of any. u_u;