Like Brother And Sister / Anime & Manga

• Akame ga Kill! has Tatsumi and Akame, who become Fire-Forged Friends working as assassins for Night Raid. Tatsumi trusts Akame enough to the point that he will want Akame to kill him if his Imperial Arm, Incursio, tries to take over his body. Akame trusts him likewise, to the point that he is the only Night Raid member Akame trusts to help deal with her troubled little sister, Kurome, who wants to kill her. Their relationship, however, is strictly platonic, as Tatsumi is in love with Mine, whom he marries at the end of the manga.
• In Ame Nochi Hare, the boys in two couples feel this way towards their younger fiancées (one was an Arranged Marriage), causing serious trouble for one pair. They were also part of a Sibling Triangle, which complicated things.
• Played with in the manga Anelog, when the main character's little brother, Akira, and her best friend, Kasumi, first get a Day in the Limelight chapter together Kasumi muses about how she still sees Akira as more of a little brother after so many years. Then he catches her when she falls, and she suddenly realizes how strong and handsome he'd become. By their next joint chapter, she's bemoaning that fact that throughout their time hanging out in the arcade Akira probably only saw her as a sister figure instead of the pretty girl next door.
• Bleach:
  • Toshiro Hitsugaya and Momo Hinamori were raised together by the same old woman whom they call "grandmother", a Rukongai custom where strangers form family groups because it's nearly impossible to find blood relatives.
  • A one-sided example with Ms. Ikumi, for whom Ichigo works as a courier starting with the Lost Agent arc. She acts as a confidante for Ichigo whenever he seems upset (as best as she's able, at least, given she's unaware of all the supernatural stuff going on), and she explicitly states that she resolved to see herself as his older sister from the moment she hired him. While Ichigo is touched by the sentiment, he says that Ms. Ikumi calling herself his "sister" is pushing it given she's more than a decade older than him — for which she physically attacks him.
• Although it initially appears that there's romantic tension between Erin and Melan in Brigadoon: Marin and Melan, she later reveals that he is like a brother to her.
• Kouyou Ozaki and Nakahara Chuuya became this in Bungo Stray Dogs. The latter was under tutelage of the former, and is notably the only one to address her as 'ane-san', a Japanese honorific specific to an older, mature sister figure (in contrast to 'onee-chan').
  • Atsushi Nakajima and Kyouka Izumi also count. Even at their first meeting (when they were still enemies), Atsushi saved her from suicide bombing. When Kyouka joins Atsushi's side, they are often seen clearing missions together, most notably the preventing of the whale ship's descent. In the movie, fate strings them together again.
• Call of the Night:
  • When Akira is assumed to have a crush on Yamori, she admits in a flustered tone that she sees him as more of a little brother.
  • While Nazuna finds Haruka to be an Abhorrent Admirer at first, eventually she decides that, since both are effectively the offspring of Haru Nanakusa, that makes them brother and sister. Haruka sees this as being tactfully turned down, but eventually comes to accept Nazuna's reasoning. Later, Kabura asks if this applies to her, too, and Nazuna more or less agrees that it does.
• Dragon Ball: Bulma and Goku have been friends since childhood in the original Dragon Ball and neither has ever expressed romantic interest in the other In-Universe. The closest they ever came was when Bulma saw Goku as an adult for the first time and remarked on how handsome he'd turned out, and even that could be interpreted as sisterly affection rather than genuine romantic interest, especially since she also made the same remark about her son Trunks later on in Dragon Ball Z. Although, Bulma later admitted on Namek that she wished Goku was her boyfriend. She also puts more faith in Goku to solve the current crisis even more than her own husband, for a time at least. Goku also admits to Vegeta that he thinks Bulma's prettier than Chi-Chi (only in the old Z Dub, not Kai), but outright says he's not interested when his Delayed Onset Ki Disorder makes his Instant Transmission drop him in front of her while she's in nothing but a Modesty Towel.
  • This also applies to Marron's relationship with Goten and Trunks whom are romantically inclined to Valese and Mai respectively. They act as older brothers towards Marron in both Z and Super. By the time of Z's finale Goten is already dating women of his age; Both versions of Trunks are clearly in love with Mai.
• Fairy Tail:
  • One could argue that the relationship between Natsu, Gray, and Erza amounts to this. Shipping aside, they interact with each other and protect each other with all the gusto of very close siblings, especially Natsu and Erza. When in a bath, she shows no embarrassment in regards to them being included (due to her upbringing and general lack of a nudity taboo regarding the two) and will occasionally invite them to bathe with her, much to the chagrin of any other girls in the bath with her.
  • Played more straight with Natsu and Wendy, with Wendy lampshading it in Chapter 423
    Wendy: I admire him... He's something like a big brother to me.
• Winry and Edward become the Official Couple in the manga and the second anime, but in the Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) anime, they're longstanding Childhood Friends who never develop a romance.
• Mao and Sousuke maintain this relationship in Full Metal Panic!, with Mao viewing Sousuke as something of an awkward younger brother and Sousuke coming to see Mao as the Cool Big Sis. Mao also appears thoroughly immune to Sousuke's almost supernatural ability to draw romantic attention despite knowing him longer than any other girl in the series. And stays that way. When Sousuke imitates Kurz (hoping to cheer her up after his apparent death) by jokingly propositioning her, Mao just delivers a Flat "What" before giving him a noogie.
• Ban and Himiko from Get Backers. After spending almost 95% of the series like this, the 37th volume reveals that they might not be completely unrelated after all — but the exact nature of their blood relationship is not specified.
• In GTO: The Early Years, this is how Onizuka sees Shinomi, which annoys her to no end (since she loves him). Because of this, Onizuka never dates her (though he does consider asking her to help him lose his virginity, but the way he asks her ruins any chance he may have had).
  • In the sequel Great Teacher Onizuka, according to Shinomi herself, this is how he views Urumi Kanzaki too, which annoys her as much as Shinomi.
• The main theme of Gunslinger Girl is the relationship between each team of cyborg girl assassin and their handler, referred to as a "fratello" (Italian for "sibling").
  Hilshire: Say, what did she mean by we should "Talk about love"?
  Triela: I think she's got the wrong idea about us.
  Hilshire: We don't need to talk about love. We're fratello.
  • Also seen in terrorist couple Franco and Flanca, who choose their names in a deliberate invocation of their close but non-sexual partnership.
• Sagiri and Gabimaru from Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku have an intimate but non-romantic relationship, which gets explicitly defined as sibling-like in the epilogue where Gabimaru's wife, Yui, comes to see Sagiri as a sister she hasn't met for a long time.
• Hell Teacher Nube: Invoked. Minki the demoness wants to be seen as Nube's little sister because her actual brother is sealed in Nube's left hand. She notices how Katsuya and his sister Minami interacts, and attempts to emulate the latter (e.g. getting herself in trouble so Nube would save her, cooking for him, asking him to buy her stuffs, picking a fight with him over a TV remote control) in order to get Nube see her as his little sister. While her antics only infuriate Nube at first, he eventually relents after noticing how much she misses her brother. Nube's students remark that they are now like actual siblings.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Hungary and Poland are hinted to be this. Makes sense considering the traditional friendship between the countries in Real Life.
  • Can also apply to Switzerland and Liechtenstein though their relationship can also be seen as Not Blood Siblings.
  • Word of God also describes France's and Monaco's relationship like this, at least from Monaco's side. Confirmed when she calls him nii-san, or big brother, in one comic.
• Horimiya:
  • Miyamura and Sawada develop this sort of a relationship soon after the latter is introduced due to being next-door neighbors and Sawada having recently lost her older brother. Also doubles as a Sibling Triangle since Sawada has a crush on Miyamura's girlfriend.
  • The same thing goes for Hori and Sengoku, who have known each other their entire lives (their parents went to high school together) and have zero sexual tension. It's even suggested that they were bathing together as late as their first year of high school.
• In 6-OVA Animated Prequel to the Japanese monster movies, Zeiram, known as "IRIA: Zeiram the Animation", the title character Iria is shown as an apprentice to her 'older brother' Guren, whom is later believed to be killed by Zeriam, yet hinted at possibly still being alive. During one scene, the orphan Kei asks Fujikuro, "Isn't he her brother, though?" Fujikuro replies, "Yeah, I guess you could say they're like brother and sister." However, the story never really develops further on this comment.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is big on well developed platonic relationships between both genders in its cast, something which sticks out even more by the fact that it is primarily a romance series. Some highlights include:
  • Kaguya and Ishigami, who develop a sibling-like bond over the course of the series, and it's as endearing as it is hilariously ironic since earlier chapters had him afraid that she was going to kill him and her viewing him as little more than an insect. Their complete lack of romantic tension is even recognized by the rest of the school, as there's a subplot in the light novel spin-off where they pretend to be dating in order to deter one of Kaguya's stalkers, and everyone just assumes that she's tutoring him (not to mention the fact that one of the main things that Kaguya does in the big sister role in the manga is try to help Ishigami win the heart of his crush Tsubame for the sake of improving his self-confidence).
  • Hayasaka and Shirogane end up becoming texting buddies after the events of the mixer, with him becoming a semi-Secret-Keeper for her role as Kaguya's valet. Hayasaka even admits to Kaguya that she has zero interest in pursuing a romantic relationship with him, save for that time Kaguya got her to try seducing him to prove a point and she very nearly fell for him.
  • Maki develops a rapport with both Shirogane and Ishigami, repeatedly coming to them to vent about her romantic woes. Much like with Kaguya, she becomes something of a Cool Big Sis for Ishigami.
  • Shirogane and Iino were initially The Friends Who Never Hang, but after having a moment of bonding over poetry, the two start getting much closer, and their relationship develops somewhat similarly to Kaguya and Ishigami's relationship, with Shirogane acting as a big brother to her, and being there for her whenever she needs emotional support or confidence. While Iino admits that Shirogane would probably be her type, she is all too aware of Shirogane's romantic antics with Kaguya, and fully supports their relationship. Likewise, Shirogane knows that Iino developed a crush on Ishigami, and wants to support her because he didn't want to leave her alone in this development with no support (as her own best friend is rooting against her).
• Kazuma and Aqua from KonoSuba have zero romantic attraction to each other and often bicker over trivial problems like angry siblings. Yet the two are inseparable and becoming the enemy of either will immediately make you the enemy of both.
• Fate and Chrono from Lyrical Nanoha had this dynamic during the second season. It stops applying afterwards, but only because they became actual brother and sister following Fate's adoption.
• This is how Flit feels about Emily in Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, but he eventually marries her to make her happy after the girl he really wanted to be with is killed in battle.
• Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun has a situation where Mikoto Mikoshiba needs a Fake Relationship to fend off a girl who is aggressively pursuing him. Chiyo Sakura is easily the girl he could most easily ask, since Yuu Kashima is judged not to count by virtue of being more like a boyfriend than a girlfriend... but Mikoshiba actively hopes Sakura doesn't offer, because he sees her too much like a sister to even pretend they're dating, and Sakura hopes he doesn't ask her, for the same reason.
• In My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Alan loves Mary like a little sister even though she's his fiancee. If things had gone like they were supposed to she would be in love with him, but since Katarina messed things up Mary's feelings are also platonic in nature. Though since Mary can be a bit sneaky it's hard to tell how much she cares about him.
• In Naruto, Word of God states that Naruto and Sakura's friendship evolved into this in the end. The Last: Naruto the Movie even gives Sakura the role of Cool Big Sis, helping Naruto in his relationship with Hinata. In retrospect, this can actually be seen throughout the series, where like Tsunade was with Nawaki, their friendship felt more akin to the relationship between an older, well-meaning, though at times overbearing sister and a equally meaning, tall, happy, yet somewhat annoying younger brother.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Ship Tease aside, Negi and Asuna's relationship is mostly like this, with Asuna seeing Negi as a little brother she must protect. In reality, he's probably actually her nephew. Great-Grandnephew anyway, with the number of greats unknown. Point is, she is almost certainly the sibling of one of his direct ancestors.
• With the possible exception of Sanji and Brook, all the male Straw Hats in One Piece are this to Nami. Robin is more of a Team Mom.
• In Sing "Yesterday" for Me, Shinako sees Rou, the younger brother of her dead crush, as a little brother figure, and treats him in a motherly fashion, cooking his meals and nagging him about his schoolwork. The two are close and she spends a lot of time at his house. The feeling is not at all mutual, however, as Rou harbors romantic feelings for her.
• Tsubaki and Black☆Star from Soul Eater could also count. Tsubaki is pretty much like Black☆Star's older sister; Black☆Star is the irritating little kid Tsubaki adores and detests at the same time.
• Keima and Elsie from The World God Only Knows. They act like the smart Aloof Big Brother and his cute, but dumb little sister, which is ironic since Elsie is actually centuries older than Keima. At the end of the manga, Elsie performs a Cosmic Retcon that makes her into Keima's real sister.
• Asuka/Alexis and Kaiser/Zane of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: He's her brother's best friend, and the two bonded when said brother went missing. In the Japanese version, before Kaiser graduates and leaves Duel Academy, Asuka thanks him for being there for her, saying he's been just like a big brother to her. (Doesn't stop multiple characters from assuming they're a couple.)
• YuYu Hakusho: Yusuke and Botan are close friends and they care for very much each other and basically starting when Yusuke died at the beginning of the series. Botan being a Shipper on Deck, she's very supportive towards Yusuke and Keiko's relationship and a Love Triangle never occurred between them. Since Yusuke and Botan are also partners, she's has more knowledge about Yusuke's job and can support him more effectively than Keiko does.