Girl Friends
Mariko "Mari" Kumakura is a Shrinking Violet who doesn't have any real friends. One day Akko, a pretty Genki Girl in class, decides to spontaneously befriend her. Mari is unsure about being friends with her but ends up going along with it. Inevitably, Akko helps Mari come out of her shell while Mari helps Akko with her studies and the two quickly become best friends. With Akko's help, Mari makes many new friends and Mari finds herself happier than she's ever been in her life.
But wait... Mari starts wondering why she's feeling so jealous of the thought of Akko gaining a boyfriend and castigates herself for feeling so possessive. She's starting to blush a lot in Akko's presence and Akko's touch is making her heart race. Could Mari be falling in love with her best friend?
Girl Friends is a finished Girls Love manga by the female Mangaka Morinaga Milk, and it is considered a modern classic by a large portion of fans of the genre. New readers should expect lots of Gayngst and Will They or Won't They?.
Tropes used in Girl Friends include:
- Anguished Declaration of Love
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Mari's brother. Though less annoying than most.
- Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Akko
- Beautiful All Along: Mari's cute, but never really put any effort into her appearance until Akko came along with her fashion magazines, haircuts, and make-up.
- Lampshaded in chapter 16 when Tamamin tells Akko that Mari "was able to become cute and fashionable because of your help." Akko responds by agreeing at first, and then reconsidering and stating that Mari had always been cute.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Taguchi
- Black Comedy Rape:
- Between Akko and Mari in a non-canon gag at the beginning of chapter 19.
- Tamamin drew a rape manga featuring their teacher and a couple classmates.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Sugi-san answering the question of the one item she always has to take to school with her: "My purse! It has my makeup kit, my curling iron, my nail kit, my cellphone charger, and condoms."
- Book Dumb: Akko. Considers it a major accomplishment the one time she doesn't have to write any make-up exams.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Mari, who tries to cover up any slip of her feelings as just being friends. And then Akko as well, after Mari's confession.
- Casanova: Sugi seems to be a female version. She always has at least five boyfriends at her beck and call, and her one stab at monogamy only lasted for a couple of pages.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Harada and Mayu. From the same flashback.
- The Chikan: The focus of Sugi's day in the limelight. It isn't the molesters that are her problem, though--it's the salarymen that inevitably come to her rescue, ask her for her contact information, and try to be her protector from then on. And the molester of this chapter is her first love, her old elementary school teacher--awkward...
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Kuno, but she finds a boyfriend who likes that type.
- Both Mari and Akko towards each other.
- Cool Teacher: Naru-chan-sensei as her students call her. She's a bit ambivalent about this in a Dude, Where's My Respect? kind of way.
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: Tamamin
- Costume Porn: A shining modern-day example.
- A Day in the Limelight: A chapter focusing on Sugi and her problems with love.
- Dude, She's Like, in a Coma: Mari and Akko's first kiss. Mari partly blames it on the alcohol.
- Everyone Can See It: Especially Sugi.
- Forceful Kiss: Mari and Akko's second and third kisses.
- Furo Scene
- Gayngst: So much... (although mostly from Mari's side)
- Akko eventually inverts it, saying that them both being girls helps their relationship, as they can be clingy in public and have people just chalk it up to Romantic Two-Girl Friendship.
- It's mostly abated by now in both their cases, although there's still plenty of Angst/Wangst.
- Genki Girl: Akko
- Girls Love
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Oh Akko, you tease!
- I Have This Friend: How Akko tries to get advice from Sugi about her relationship with Mari, more than once. Sugi plays along, but barely--she just can't help teasing them.
- In Vino Veritas: Revealed some Unresolved Sexual Tension between Sugi and Tamamin...
- Indirect Kiss
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Which may be the main cause of Akko's obliviousness to both Mari's feelings as well as her own.
- Kissing Discretion Shot: Akko and Mari's fourth kiss.
- Kissing Under the Influence: Sugi and Tamamin strip and make out when heavily drunk. This apparently isn't unusual for them.
- Lingerie Scene
- Lipstick Lesbian: Akko and Mari. Particularly Akko.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Akko's night with a guy after a party, to her great embarrassment and irritation. He has one of the predictable reactions. And now he's Kuno's boyfriend.
- Luminescent Blush
- Meganekko: Mayu
- Milholland Relationship Moment: Akko finding out about Mari kissing her while she was passed out.
- Nice Guy: Harada.
- No Periods, Period: Averted.
- Oblivious to Love: Oh dear.
- Onee-Sama: Used in Tamamin's Girls Love Doujinshi. Mari gets freaked out about the Doujinshi because she interprets it as something else.
- A closer look at the doujinshi cover shows that the two characters look a lot like Tamamin and Sugi. It's also a loose reference to Revolutionary Girl Utena.
- One-Gender School
- Otaku Surrogate: Tamamin
- Panty Shot
- Pimped-Out Dress: TAMAMIN COSPLAY ATTAAAAACK!!
- Product Placement: Almost every chapter. Mostly for makeup/beauty products and perfume, which is somewhat strange considering Girl Friends is serialized in a magazine targeted at men.
- Really Gets Around: Sugi
- Schoolgirl Lesbians
- Secret Relationship
- Sensei-chan: Narumatsu-sensei, AKA Naru-chan.
- Ship Sinking: In the final chapter, it's revealed Tamamin is going out with Harada, sinking the Sugi x Tamamin ship.
- Shotgun Wedding: Naru-chan ends up in one. And it's an Ugly Guy, Hot Wife marriage at that.
- Shout-Out: Several, using cosplay. Tamamin suggests that Harada should Cosplay Lelouch in chapter 21.
- In chapter 32 it's stated that a girl in Mari and Akko's class named Hakamada wants to become a mangaka. This is believed to be a shout out to Morinaga's fellow yuri mangaka, Hakamada Mera.
- In the final chapter there's a picture of Tamamin and her boyfriend dressing as Miku and Kaito.
- Shrinking Violet: Mari
- Single-Target Sexuality
- Suspiciously Specific Denial
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Taguchi and Kuno
- Two-Teacher School
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Lots involving the main couple.
- Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Showing that Akko and Mari are still a couple while studying at different schools.
- Will They or Won't They?: Akko and Mari, of course.
- Yuri Fangirl: Tamamin, who collects Girls Love Doujinshi.