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I'm kind of an anime/manga n00b, but I notice people on forums always talk about like who is 'best girl' (or 'best boy' or 'best guy' Idk) in any particular anime/manga series.

Then I noticed

  1. in this early episode of Kaguya-sama a character Miyuki says that Kaguya is, what I understood to be something like, 'saikou no onna'. Google translate suggests '最高の女', so I guess that's it. The subtitles however translate as 'ideal woman'.

  2. in this early episode of The Quintessential Quintuplets the male protagonist Fuutarou calls the female protagonist Itsuki 'saikou' and then the subtitles translate as 'best' (as in 'You're the best.')

So it seems that when people say this term 'best girl', it is actually based on some common Japanese term '最高の女' ? Please cite sources. I guess my google-fu sucks (I just googled "最高の女" "best girl") or there aren't really any primarily English articles that talk about this. Or maybe it just isn't the case.

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Let's take a look at the results for 最高の女. As you can see, they have little to do with fandom things; largely it's articles for women to present themselves to potential romantic partners as 最高の女. And furthermore, I can't say I've particularly seen 最高の女 as a fandom slang term either; this may be my own lack of knowledge as a non-native speaker, but if I wanted to express the idea that a character is 'best boy' or 'best girl', I'd probably say リンタロウくん推し, 'Rintarou-kun is my oshi.'

What's more, fandom terms like this don't tend to transfer much between cultures. An idea English-speakers express as 'waifu' (taken from an old anime where a character called somebody 「マイワイフ」, I think) is 嫁｛よめ｝in Japanese, even though the slight Japanese vibe to the English phrase might lead one to believe that it would be the same.

Thus, because 最高の女 does not appear to be a fandom term and fandom terms don't tend to transfer, I believe it's unlikely that 'best girl' originated as a translation of 最高の女.

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  • Thanks Angelos. Soooo what is it that Japanese people say when they talk of 'best girl' in an anime? I actually don't understand what you mean with 'describe myself as リンタロウくん押し, 'an oshi of Rintarou-kun'.' Why would you describe yourself when the dependent clause is about expressing a character as best boy or best girl? Also who is Rintarou? P.S. I made a little edit.
    – BCLC
    May 14, 2022 at 20:33
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    @BCLC When you say 'X is best girl/best boy', you're saying they're the character you like the best, right? That's why. 最高 isn't really 'memetic' in the way 'best girl' is; using it would just amount to a plain statement like 'X is the best character' that doesn't feel particularly 'fannish'.
    – Angelos
    May 14, 2022 at 20:45
  • Ok thanks. Wait why again 'I'd probably describe myself as' ? Did you perhaps mean instead 'I myself would probably describe the character as'
    – BCLC
    May 14, 2022 at 23:00

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