In The 90s There Was A Widely Spread Anime Trope Of Pairing Up Two Women At Work Who Were Always Together

In the 90s there was a widely spread anime trope of pairing up two women at work who were always together because work and one close with another because their careers had no momentum, they had no love life and no real relationships outside of one another.

Thusly they were lesbian coded.

To give some quick examples on a sliding scale of realism and severity Misato/Ritsuko in Evangelion, Nyamo/Yukari in Azumanga and Mihoshi/Kiyone in Tenchi.

Though honestly the trope was wide spread enough you could apply the dynamics to things like Rei and Usagi in Sailor Moon.

The core component is that one of them is a workaholic super serious person who tries really hard in matters of work and love and is in THE EXACT SAME POSITION as the other person who is a silly care little mess of a person likely to pass out drunk and need to be tucked in to bed by the serious and responsible one.

The thing I love about this trope is that the pairing works so well for yuri-coupling because through the sheer effort of being themselves the silly one is exposing the great lie of the world to the serious one.

Typically the silly one is actually good at their jobs. It's just not the only thing to their personality. They do not sacrifice their life, prospects and happiness to appease a system that does not care about them and act as living proof of their broken belief system that their partner has by living a fairly happy and carefree life while in the exact same "stuck in their career and love-life" issue.

No matter how much work the serious one does, Gendo will never respect Ritsuku or reciprocate her love. Nyamo will remain a single gym teacher and Kiyone will be a beat cop who gets no respect.

The lie of the world is exposed because the other person just chose to be happy. They aren't killing themselves for people and systems that will never ever give them the thing that they need and though Misato and Yukari are just as unhappy and hopeless as their counterparts, they know how to let their hair down. Even if they're a sloppy drunken mess at times. A manic pixie dream wife, so to speak.

It's through seeing the lie of capitalism and traditional family values exposed, that hard work and being a nice person are worthless virtues in a world that will exploit and never reward them, they begin admiring, respecting (and yes, loving) the other person and relying on them more and more.

I'm an old trans lady. Living proof of the lie of capitalism who wasted too many decades being the workaholic and doing the Right Thing for an uncaring society.

I can't help but adore that kind of ship. It's cheering on someone to break the social barriers and KISS THAT MESSY FOOL SLOPPY STYLE AND PAINT THE TOWN RED TOGETHER!