Is animated romance dead?
 

This may sound like a weird topic but it's something that has been bugging me lately and the more I think about it, I'm noticing it more and more. I don't watch many RECENT cartoon shows, Fosters, Ben 10 and the Batman are the only toons of today that seem to have captured my attention and interest.

And one of them is simply because I'm a long time "Bat" fan. But I've noticed that most modern day cartoon shows don't have much romance, love, or couples. Most shows either avoid it or create characters that are set to make romance impossible between central characters (Ben and Gwen being cousins from Ben 10 for example).

Back in the older days of cartoons, and even anime, romance was almost rapant and that you could see characters falling in love with each other left and right. Now a days, both animes and toons seem to be making that close to impossible by eliminating love interests by killing them off or turning them inside out.

Take Fosters and Billy and Mandy for example. Both shows have pretty much zero romantic content and when it does show up, it's usually used as a comedic ingredient. Granted they are comedy based shows, comedy doesn't necessarily mean romance can't exist. Look at Futurama or Samurai Pizza Cats.

Both held romances down in an entirely comedic environment. What's worse is even the modern toons that DO have romances, bury them under such incredibly hard to find "hints" that are usually weak or barely ever on. Teen Titans took forever to actually nail down a solid working romance on the show.

There were so many speculations about who loved who and who ended up with who, because they didn't really bother making a solid romance noticed. Call me a sucker but I always loved watching romances in animated shows AND movies, i always found them to be more fascinating then RL romances.

Even GREAT shows like Batman Beyond and Justice League: Unlimited had romances and barely used them and JL didn't even resolve 2 very large couples they developed since the show began. I'm not saying make them all lovey dovey soap operas, but I am definitely feeling a "romance withdrawl" here in modern cartoons.

I think it's sad love in animation is getting harder and harder to find, either it's written out through a plot device or comedic story piece, or it's buried under such few scattered hints that by the time the characters accept their love, the shows over and you feel ripped off because its rusted over since they lasted used it.

Maybe this is just a rant of mine and it has no water to hold but I think what I say holds some truth and I just wanted to know what you guys thought of this idea.

Bread and Circuses.

Nobody has the time or cerebral prowess to digest and dissect complex subplots in entertainment anymore. People are dumbing down like never before.

Do yourself a favor and start worrying about romance in real life and forget the televised slop the mindless piggies of today's youth are eating from the trough of mass media. Liberate yourself from televised totalitarianism.

Two things:

1- That sounds a bit extreme.

and

2- I'm actually SICK of worrying about RL romance since I'm rather down in that area and I'd rather not go back and drudge up bad memories on a problem I am trying to feel less crappy about.

This is just a generalization/point of view observation thing I've noticed recently and was curious of others opinions on it.

Yeah, it is a bit extreme.

But i was dead serious.

I kinda always thought there was too *much* romance in cartoons ("*id's *cartoons, I mean). I never have, either in childhood or adulthood, watched a kid's cartoon to see romance. BUT then, I know I'm not typical. I'm not trying to argue with you, you asked for our opinions and that's mine.

No, I'm glad your speaking your mind, I consider this a more VALID response. I don't watch toons to see romance but I never really complained when they put it in there either. Sailor Moon was filled with romance yet it wasn't the sole reason I watched it, I was also into the whole super hero fighting evil bit.

I think what I feel is that I don't want it to be overflowing or suffocating, but I think it wouldn't hurt to maybe mix a tiny bit in more so then they have been doing lately. One thing I've always liked seeing about them in shows is the progress, it gives you something to see more of and wonder about.

The Teen Titans romance with Robin and Starfire I found to be very interesting, and whole it was certainly more subdued then most toons have done it, it created a compelling conflict I wanted to see to it's completion. Kinda like how Batman loved so many women but never really settled down.

It's an interesting challenge to give characters a chance to love, you never know what comes out of love and that's what i find interesting about it in TV shows.

I love cartoons from Disney, PBS, WB and obviously CN (haven't really found much interest in Nick though... yet). The cartoons I like are mostly geared toward kids and nope, they have little or no interest in any type of romance either. But being geared toward kids, it makes sense, since kids under the age of 10 are usually turned off by anything romantic, especially boys. So they're not going to put anything in there to turn their targeted audiences off. But they might have just the tiniest hints of romance just to keep the girls daydreaming, because, yeah, we girls really like that stuff. :-* And we liked it more as we got older. But boys, not so much. So unless a cartoon is for older kids, or specifically for little girls, I can understand why they don't want to put too much romance into them. They could potentially lose a lot of viewers.

I may not be clear as to how much "romance" you're referring to, but are you familiar with Codename: KND at all? It's geared toward kids 10+, and has quite a bit of romantic relationships suggested (without it getting sexual). Numbah 4 (Wally) has a mad crush on Numbah 3 (Kuki), and, well, I'm a girl so I may be biased, but I find it really cute how he swoons over her, defends her, helps her, looks out for her, etc., but refuses to admit he likes her, to ANYBODY. She likes him back, but is much more subtle. In the KND movie Operation: Z.E.R.O. they FINALLY kiss each other (although they're not really themselves, but I don't want to give away too many spoilers), and it was really cute! ;) There's also another episode with a Numbah 19th Century and Numbah 86 (Fanny), and they have crushes on eachother, too, and also kiss toward the end of the episode. Numbah 5 (Abby) and her sister Cree have an interest in the same guy, and there are some interesting situations that arise with them, too. And Numbah 1 (Nigel) actually has a girlfriend named Lizzie, and they've also kissed a few times. So, anyway, the romance in KND might be similar to TT. That's one cartoon I know of that has some romance in it. But it's the only one I can really think of because, you're right, there aren't many out there. Not specifically for kids, anyway.

That's the basic stigma. The target age group is 2 to 11 for many of the shows, and the studios are in business to make cartoons for them, not to cater to fanservice.

Many fan communities take an isolated incident and blow it out of proportion, tunring it into what's called "shipping," the romance of two characters who under normal continuity does not have one. A Billy & Mandy fan community has created a "shipping" of the two title characters, based solely on the scene from the episode "SpiderMandy" where Billy proposes marriage to Mandy. The Powerpuff community took the scene from "The Rowdyruff Boys" of the girls kissing the boys on the cheek (to obviously destroy them) and created a gazillion fan fictions of PpG/RrB romances. But those stories are more or less jimmy devices to make the Powerpuffs the author's "Mary Sue" (a character in a fan story which is a glorified personification of the author--the male counterpart is a "Marty Stu"). It's not normal canon, but the stories are written as if it were.

I never cared for romance stories in my cartoons when I was a kid but now that I'm older I really appreciate and look forward to them. Romance can really make or break a story. Final Fantasy 8 is a good example of how too much emphasise on romance can be a bad thing. It was so forced that it really soured the game for me. But if handled well, like in Final Fantasy 9, it can feel much more natural and enjoyable.
There are several animated shows that offer some very nice romantic stories today. Avatar is a very good example. Romance is one of the key elements to the show and it's handled very well. Many animes today also feature plenty of romance. So I don't think there's any real animated romance drought going on. You just need to know where to look.:D

I actually prefer them leaving stuff to be gen; that way the audiences themselves can decide what pairings they like and stuff. *shrug* Unless of course the show is SUPPOSED to be in the romance category, then yeah, having a set-up couple or couples would be fine.

I totally agree that romance in a animated comedy isn't bad. It can lead to some of the most heat warming episodes. (Look at Futurama's "The Sting")

I agree IB, but in my case I was specifically referring to KID'S cartoons. I don't think there should be a lot of romance in those. I think kids these days obsess with girlfriends and boyfriends WAY too young as it is, and let it affect them if they aren't attractive to the opposite sex etc at ages where they shouldn't even be thinking about that. Futurama is not a "kid's cartoon." That's significant.

I actually don't think kids these days really worry about girlfriends and boyfriends, most of them find the whole embarassed thing about romances to be funny. Look at Kim Possible, there's a relatively new show that balances its romance and still makes it funny, fresh, and enjoyable.

In fact, I think it's actually helped the series become much better then it used to be now that Kim and Ron are dating. Disney did it quite a few times in their shows. Look at Gargoyles, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, hell, Tale Spin is based on a REAL LIFE movie genre called "screwball comedies".

Which is a romance type genre, the movie "It happened one night" is a perfect example of that. I actually thought Extreme Ghostbusters had one of the greatest possible romances with the characters Eduardo Rivera and Kylie Griffin. There was some pretty BIG nods towards those two hooking up.

Sadly that show got canned (I really felt it deserved one more season at least) and nothing was ever finished. Animes do have excellent romance set ups but it's most of the older ones that have the best ones, the newer released anime romance couples seem as "computerized" as the animation style their using now.

One of the funniest animes to use in romance is Digimon because there are SOOOOOO MANY possible couples. People who support that show mix and match practically every single character together. Digimon is another good example of how romance in toons can be funny and prove interesting.

The whole triangle with TK, Kari, and Davis provided some of the funniest moments in Digimon 02.

Yeah, I agreewith that. But I was talking about animation in general.

One of the biggest issues with romance in a cartoon deals with My Life as a Teenage Robot. Basically it's like this... Jenny has two good friends that she cares for a lot, Sheldon and Brad. Now the one thing is that because of these two, the whole fanbase is in a constant war to figure out who the official couple is. Most have taken to Jenny/Brad, but the problem is in MLaaTR, Brad is flirting with human females, and Jenny's a robot. Sheldon's a 5 1/2 ft. geek, with an attraction to Jenny, and Jenny has shown signs of affection for him.

It's gotten so bad, that the whole MLaaTR fanbase is at each other's throats, that it's become divided, and ultimately falling apart. Rob Renzetti, MLaaTR's creator, stated in interviews that Jenny/Sheldon is canon, but nobody wants to accept this idea, because Brad is "sexier" to teens.


As for romance in anime... personally it seems too predictable. The main female is usually something of a spirit of a girl from the lead male's childhood, and when she reveals her angel wings, the main male is shocked, and finds out somehow that she died. It's like it's trying to be a shocker, but it's become the biggest cliche in romantic anime.

That's... how I feel about it anyway.

Actually Shell, that was proably one of the most intelligent and genuinely personal reviews on this issue that I have seen so far, thank you very much. I think the problem with relations like you said with the teenage robot shot is that believe it or not, romance is something we all want to be apart of.

Even if we don't admit it, a part of us wants to get together with other people and when that doesn't work, we want others to. When it comes to shows, you watch characters for countless episodes and seasons long enough, you begin to feel for them and desire them to feel truly happy.

Take Trigun for example, you get 2 male characters that are so buried neck deep into misery, murder, depression and pretty much everything that involves violence and destruction. Wolfwood and Vash lead incredibly depressing lives, yet as you watch them, you start to feel for them.

Same with Meryl, she hated Vash and constantly considered him to be a donut eating, trouble making moron. But as she got more involved in his life and as she saw the same stuff that us the viewers saw in Vash's life, we felt bad for Vash and could sympathize and feel sorry what he's been through.

Hell, by the time we start to realize all these terrible things are not Vash's fault, I wanted him to end up falling in love JUST so I couldn't stand to see the guy suffer so much. It helps us become involved with our characters lives and gives us a chance to see what makes them happy outside of their "jobs".

Sure, romance isn't the most important thing in TV these days and maybe kids and people don't want to see it, but I still think we need it. I think it's more important then most people realize and I think it's critical in helping us see how these characters emotionally and mentally tick inside wise.

Anime romances end up being the most powerful and touching because since animes have official end dates (26 episodes usually), they don't beat around the bush too long and manage to land some happy couples together. They also are very cute because you can SEE them blushing in anime shows.

What's also great about anime romances is the realism they portray, how seriously DEEP they can become. In the anime Slayers, the main girl Lina Inverse falls in love with an occasionally dim knight named Gourry Gabriov. During the show's sequel (Slayers Next), Gourry is abducted and turned evil.

Lina has always joked about Gourry's incompetence and always claimed she let him stay with her so she could get a special weapon from him. But, during the next episode after his abduction, Lina is bursting to tears in her bedroom as the reality finally sinks in that Gourry is gone, something she never thought would happen.

Something she never had the guts to admit in front of her friends, that scene really moved me and there are loads more powerful scenes like that which always remind me just how strong those feelings of love can make me feel. That's why I fear it's dead, and I hope it doesn't stay dead because it's those love scenes that truly prove love is a dream worth keeping.

I think that it's possible to have an animated romance that's subtle enough that the younger kids watching just won't be able to pick up on it, while the older viewers, who might be more appreciative, will. As a species, I think humans are "hard-wired" for romance, and have a tendency to project their own feelings onto characters that they identify with, whether those characters are animated or not. That's why we have "'shippers", those people who believe that a particular couple on a show should "hook up", to quote Duchess, even if there's no overt evidence on the show of that happening.

A good example of the subtle approach to romance that I've made an analogy of would not be from an animated series, but from a live-action one, "CSI", which is really just one of two regular network series I watch. For years, the show's producers have insisted that there would be NO romantic involvement between any of the regular characters, because they felt that it would take away from characters' dedication to their jobs, and take away from the whole feel of the show and its concentration on the criminal cases. Nonetheless, it wasn't long after the show debuted that the 'shippers on the 'net began insisting that certain people were at least interested in others on the show. Eventually, there began to be a bit more indication that this was true of two characters, "Gil Grissom" and "Sarah Sidell", though there was nothing obvious or in-your-face about it, just things like a little glance here, or spending a bit more time with each other, or vague references to things that might or might not have been taking place between the two outside the work environment. It was still subtle enough that the fans who really did not support the pairing couldn't "see" it, and argued against its existance, while those who wanted the couple to be together more or less "got it" through those little tid-bits. It was only at the beginning of the past season that we finally had confirmation that they were indeed a couple, though they managed very well to keep that relationship a secret from their co-workers, until the end of the past season. Still, the show's writers managed to incorporate that relationship into the plot without interrupting the flow of the action or taking away from the importance of all the other main characters. It was only at the very end of the past season that the relationship between Grissom and Sidell actually became a PART of a crime that it even became known to their co-workers. Even still, up to this point we've never even seen them kiss onscreen, so everything is more or less implied. Like I said, some fans just won't even "get" the implication, and in this case, we're talking mostly adults. It would be even easier, I would think, to work in that sort of relationship between two animated characters on "kids' cartoons"(I really HATE that term, but y'all know what I mean).

pitbulllady

Kim Possible is an interesting example - I haven’t watched the show regularly for a while, but back when I did, I was part of what appears to be have been a minority of folks who didn’t support an eventual union between Kim and Ron. I felt this way partially because growing up several of my closest friends have been of the Y-Chromosome persuasion, and I continuously had to endure unwanted comments from kids and adults alike about the true nature of our relationship. To much of the world, it seems unacceptable that members of the opposite gender could be on friendly terms with each other without the slightest whisper of romantic inclination. In the early days, I liked how Kim Possible, through Kim and Ron’s friendship, appeared to endorse platonic relationships as a perfectly natural part of everyday life, and obviously inferring anything more than that would have totally destroyed that aspect of the show’s appeal for me.

I still feel that the pairing was unnecessary, but that said, I probably would have been a heck of a lot more relaxed about it if the Kim/Ron community hadn’t been so damned obnoxious on the matter. With apologies to all such shippers who may have gone about it peacefully, frankly, they didn’t deserve to be right. They were rude, dogmatic, good as screamed at anyone who suggested otherwise, found “ massive hints” in the most meaningless of occurrences, and overall seemed to have very little appreciation of Kim Possible for what it basically was - that is, a predominantly action-orientated comedy. What also ticked me off was their attitude toward Josh - he was originally the object of Kim’s affections instead of Ron, and the K/R shippers good as crucified him for it. For all the wild conspiracy theories circulating about Josh secretly being a demonic, blood-sucking baby killer, was he ever portrayed as anything other within the show itself than an amiable, easygoing guy? I seem to remember him being quite a gifted artist too.

Needless to say, I quickly gave up trying to discuss the show online, except with a small circle of friends who felt a similar way to me. We all had trepidations about Season 4, and I’ve largely missed out on it myself, but those friends who’ve been following it seem to be more-or-less pleased with how they’ve handled the new romantic element…we’d all sooner that it wasn’t there at all, but apparently it’s not as intrusive to the show’s essential tone as we’d feared, despite the screams of all those K/R shippers that KP become an all-out mushfest composed entirely of lovey-dovey moments between Kim and Ron. I suppose it’s the best that we could have hoped for.

As for romance in kids’ cartoons in general, while I don’t have a problem with characters having innocent little crushes upon one another, I’m certainly not fond of pairings between characters who are probably a little too young to be having a lasting relationship at that stage. I think it’s particularly unfair when cartoons aimed predominantly at girls try to implant the idea that romance and finding a partner should be the foremost thing upon their minds, and that a teenage girl is nothing if she doesn’t have a boyfriend - adolescence is usually hard enough without constantly trying to pursue a relationship, thank you very much. :P That's just my $0.02.

And it was two cents very well spent, Jekylljuice. That was very insightful and very true on many accounts.:D

I agree very much with you Jekyll that toons shouldn't implant the idea that boys are the first thing that should be on their mind. Thankfully though, I haven't seen anything of that type around lately and I think in today's modern media, more then ever, women are evolving past that and becoming independent.

Kim Possible in my opinion created one of the most touching couples out of Ron and Kim. I support them with all my heart mainly because as cliche as it may appear, it's actually quite unique. Ron may be steretyped as the average geek, but the show proves time and time again that he is no such thing.

He has skill, he has talent, and most importantly, he has guts. Ron takes risks and challenges no geeky best friend boyfriend would do and he proves that Kim would be lost without him. He's no half brained Inspector Gadget who unknowingly does the right thing, he really does DO the right thing.

Granted he is a goof up, he's got more talent then people credit him. Plus, Kim is a cheerleader and not some stuck up barbie clone, having 2 polar opposites hook up after being friends for years is quite impressive. As for the Josh Mankey thing, I think that was a kind of a silent nod to Kim's "crushing".

Josh wasn't love, he was lust, I think Kim was into Josh for the sake of him being the pretty boy and fell into the more typical high school girl falling for the hot boy routine. Like you said though with shippers, when people support couples they tend to alienate and destroy any other possible couples.

Some people can do it though without being assholes about it, some can't. Teen Titans for example has a very fickle love set up because so many people pick and choose even though there are some concrete couples. Robin and Starfire for example are VERY much in love, regardless of their youth.

I don't think it's absurd for characters to be in love at a young age, because as they grow up they learn just how complicated love can become and by taking that step at such an early age, they learn to accept it and use it to help strengthen their relationship rather then deteriorate it.

But back to Titans, Raven for example is paired with everyone and their brother. Beast Boy, Robin and Cyborg have all been paired with Raven, yet I personally feel the only person she DID love was Malchoir and after that fiasco, she gave up on love and accepted BB more like a brother then a boyfriend.

Cyborg also never really settled down with anyone, yet he's paired up with Jinx, Bumblebee and Raven. I think the reason people do this is because, like I said, we want people to be happy and see them enjoy the fruits of love, and if they don't "hook up" we tend to think up other ways for them to be happy.

Me for example, I've been upset for years that Sailor Jupiter/Lita from Sailor Moon never got a boyfriend. I think she's the most amazing girlfriend anyone could ask for and I'd give anything to meet someone like her. People write stories with Gary/Mary sues cause they want them to be happy, I can relate.

Hell, I've written like 3 stories on stuff like that. But there's a right way and a wrong way to go about advocating couple shipping, and just because a million people do it the wrong way doesn't mean you should give up Jekyll. Don't let people like that discourage you from liking a couple or a relationship.

I personally always stick to "official couples" or couples that receive more wink, wink; nudge, nudge then others. If the character doesn't really get paired by anyone according to the show, then I say make up whoever you want and hook em up. All is free in love and war, even fan fictional love and war.

You know I don't know virtually any of these shows you're all on about so I suppose I'm not the best person to contribute

However

I liked the Fry-Leila thing in Futurama because it was doomed to faliure. That cloud of Pathos round Fry helped make him a much less detestable character but maybe that's me. I don't want my cartoon characters to pair off like everyone else does and happy endings just bring me down.

I will make an exception for Pepe Le Pew, though. I'd love to see him finally win over that nice-looking cat who always gets a stripe of white paint on her tail.

LMAO

well put, Koos.

^ Techincally, Pepe did, in 1960's Who Scent You?. The cat was born with a white stripe down her back and when it grew up, potential paramours mistook her for a skunk. When she meets Pepe, romantic sparks fly until she gets a whiff of him and tries to keep from succumbing. Later, she decides to stink herself up (immersing herself in a vault of limburger cheese) while Pepe, confronted with the hard truth, deodorizes himself. The girl cat goes chasing Pepe at the end ("Oy vey...what a day!")

I may have been one of those weird kids growing up, but I always looked for romance in my cartoons. I loved it. My favorite one was in Rocko's Modern Life. That story was so sweet. I hope they can keep the romance alive.

Personally I'd have to agree with the others, only partly because I'm just not really interested in romance much. I particularly agree with ptps -- it's sometimes nice to have no defined "pairings" so that people can draw their own conclusions. They fight over it online and create fanworks that make me want to cry myself to sleep, but it's no worse than when there is a definite pairing -- perhaps even better, because then the people who like one ship can't argue about why theirs is more "canon" than another. People will always analyze the most inconsequential, near-invisible clues, though, so you can't really win either way.

Plus, developing a relationship over time is continuity, and many kids' cartoons are purposely designed so that they can be watched out of order and you won't miss a thing. Character development is also usually absent, so it would be weird with one and not the other.

And let's be honest -- do we really want some of these characters in romantic relationships? Many cartoons aimed at a young audience star characters who are young themselves, as well as characters who are not only young but also have absolutely no depth whatsoever (Billy).

And on the topic of romance in anime, anime is aimed at a wider range of audiences and I don't believe romance in it is dying or ever will -- in fact, some of them are too romantic and focus on nothing else. I'm tired of shows about a meek, bland, spineless dude who is surrounded by buxom, foxy women, or a couple who is obviously meant to be a pairing but spend 358734553462347847823782 episodes/volumes denying it and beating the crap out of each other.

In a way you can, those people you mention that make up their own conclusions and ideas about relationships usually don't have much power or voice so I wouldn't worry too much about it. People usually differ from "official couples" when the line is drawn so thinly in shows about certain couples.

Sora for example from Digimon was always pictured and idolized as Tai's love, but in the 02 show she ended up with Matt and it happened kind of abruptly. People still fight about it but like I said, most people don't mess with canon relationships because they know "this is the way these characters are".

People who change it are either super obsessive or just too nuts over a character to accept the true end result of that character's love life. In a sense you do win, people who support official couples easily outweigh those with fractured versions of official couples more then you realize.

Truthfully, I think EVERYONE is more or less annoyed by that lack of continuity. It's stupid no matter what age your show is aimed at. You make a show that has more then one season, your going to need to tie things together. You can't just build up characters and ignore past events.

Teen Titans used to have that problem but thankfully they fixed it. And actually, more kids shows do that then you think. Power Rangers held its continuity for ten long years, Batman and Superman animated series did the same thing and tied into Batman Beyond, Static Shock, and Justice League.

Uh....yes? Just because your young doesn't mean love can't exist, Ben 10 is only ten years old and already he had a girl he crushed on. If they have no depth (like Billy) then it makes sense why they wouldn't give em a love interest. But after 15 episodes or so, love in one way or another becomes a part of that depth

I agree on that, it's simply used alot because in japan that's a popular "formula". I'd rather enjoy seeing that formula then the nauseating "let's have the guy get insulted every single episode by the women and THEN develop a romance after you've virtually destroyed the guy inside and out for 20 eps" (Ranma 1/2, Love Hina etc.)

Anime romance is good to have no matter how much you see of it because aside from a few cliche formulas, their couples are some of the strongest I've ever seen in animated Tv history.

So, I'm gonna look like an idiot (no change there) for not posting an essay on this, but my honest opinion is that the explicit romance should be kept out of the kid's shows, simply cause I hated that stuff when I was a child, and it is quite often forced anyway. The more subtle romances or the ones which make actual sense or are integral to the plot (a la Lizzie from KND) are fine. But I actually get annoyed when two characters "hook up" when they displayed no tendencies toward this earlier.

And congrats you guys, on having perhaps the most intelligent conversation I have ever seen on this internet. No, seriously.:)

I myself have some serious issues with the notion of child or child-like characters being involved in a real, romantic relationship. Even in an animated series, at some point you just have to go, "now THAT is just TOO unrealistic"! Having a crush is one thing, but being part of a real, I-want-to-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-with-only-you-and-have-your-children relationship is another, totally, when you are talking about characters that are, or should be, in elementary school. Even a bright child character still does not have the level of emotional developement to handle that sort of thing, let alone the hormones for it. The same more or less would apply to non-human characters who have basically the same level of emotional and intellectual developement as a young child. I've been around more kids as part of my career than most people will ever even see in their entire lifetimes(which is probably a good thing for those other people), and I have never known any two children to really be "in love" with each other. Yes, they have crushes, and those typically last no more than a few days, a couple of weeks at the most, but there's no romance involved, unless you can count a boy dropping a dead frog down some girl's back as a sign of "romance", since that's often how young boys display their crush on a particular girl. Like I said, with those who are emotionally undeveloped, they are not capable of anything that most of us would consider romantic love. My own feelings on the matter of child characters having love affairs is that kids already grow up soon enough, so there is no point in forcing a child, even an animated one, into adult behavior and denying them that very brief time of innocence. Let 'em be KIDS!

Kageri had a good point, though, about the continuity thing-most Western animated series are produced in such a way that the network can show re-runs in any particular episode, without the viewer feeling like they've "missed" something. Romantic relationships, at least those that are canon and fairly overt, develope over time and go through certain stages, and if that relationship plays a major role in the plot of the series, it sorta throws off the continuity, if say, a re-run is shown in which two characters are getting married, followed by an earlier re-run in which they don't even seem interested in each other. This specifically was the reason given as to why there is not, and won't be, any real romance in Foster's, although to be honest there have been other issues with the continuity that would still make a viewer not familiar with the show scratch their head and wonder what they missed, like the references to Uncle Pockets' "treasure" in "Squeeze the Day". If you hadn't seen "Bloo Done It", that part probably wouldn't make any sense. At least, though, when a relationship between characters is very subtle, the "are-they-or-aren't-they" type, viewers can draw their own conclusions and continuity won't matter very much.

pitbulllady

I was actually very happy to see Fosters making references to their old episodes. Because one it showed that the episodes DID exist and not just completely ignore the events of the past seasons, which I find to be stupid. Kids show or not, you cannot avoid establishing certain jokes or relationships then ignore them.

Fosters has done it more often now. Look at Orland Bloo, Bloo's movie being mentioned, threatening to "rip off artist" kick the guy at the swap meat, and like Pitbull said Uncle pockets stuff. I agree on characters being in elementary school or something like that not really needing to be involved in romance, I accept that.

But I personally don't think kids are that ignorant or misunderstanding of crushes or romance. Kids take on alot more material then they used to do, and kids shows like Teen Titans or The Batman have romance, violence, and darker stuff in it and still manage to show continuity and relationships.

I keep going back to Teen Titans because that to me is one of the better examples of a romantic relationship existing not only in a kids show, but existing within younger characters lives AND keeping up with continuity. The last season of Titans is proof that the show certainly keeps its continuity going.

Starfire and Robin's relationship was progressed through out the series, through episodes, hints, and little things that all culiminated to their relationship's official "love" status by the Tokyo movie. It doesn't bother me that Robin and Starfire are in love and are at such a young age.

Doesn't matter to me, animation has a habit of erasing ages when you look at some of these characters and even though they may appear to be one age, they certainly look like another. Plus, for someone who's seen so much animation, to call young kids being in love as unrealistic is laughable.

Aliens fall in love (DBZ), walking talking animals fall in love (Cat's don't dance), robots fall in love (Robots), lions fall in love (Lion King), and I've seen kids fall in love (Were back: a dinosaurs story, and Nadia: secret of blue water). To me, this is hardly what i call unrealistic or too unlikely to swallow.

Fosters is a prime example of how there are certainly weirder and less plausible things that can happen then having two younger characters fall in love.

I feel that a lot of this just comes down to the mind set of the directors, writers and producers. It wasn't that long ago that the standard belief was that all kids have short attention spans and thus, not care about things like continuity, romance, plot holes ect.
But now many of those kids are grown up and making their own cartoons. We're experiencing an animation renaissance where writers want to make cartoons that, not only kids, but their parents will enjoy to. Cartoons are hip and cool now to. And while it may seem like the censors are in control, we see many cartoons push the envelope. That's my observation anyway.

That's exactly how I feel; on the subject of childrens' capacity to understand romance, I'll be blunt: when I was Mac's age, I thought my stuffed unicorn would come to life. Children just don't have the capacity to comprehend 'true love' or anything of the sort, and the crushes they do get are a whole different ballgame. Actual romance between them is, quite simply, extremely unrealistic, regardless of how emotionally or intellectually developed you may perceive them to be. Many of these characters aren't even anywhere near puberty, so it just doesn't make sense, and I'm not sure I want to be encouraging some of the creepy pedos out there who already go to town with the hints they see in existing cartoons.

Young kids want to grow up because they want to be able to do all the things adults do, and what they know of romance is what they see adults do. It's practice for later in their lives, but it's not true love. Is anyone here even still in touch with someone they had a crush on in the 3rd grade?

When I say "young children" I'm referring to characters who are not yet of the age of puberty. The reason that the show "Teen Titans" is called "TEEN Titans" is because its characters are in their teens, so a romantic relationship between, say, Robin and Starfire is quite a different ballgame from a romantic relationship between say, Mac and Goo. Even still, I don't know of any two people who are still together after dating in high school. I had to actually struggle for awhile to remember the last name of the guy *I* dated for nearly two years and went to the prom with! The fact that Mac, Goo, and the others are animated does not, for me, anyway, change the fact that they are still little kids. Even an animated series has to have some degree of plausibility, somewhere, otherwise there is nothing that people can relate to, and unless viewers relate in some way to the characters they see and the situations that those characters get into, they won't want to continue watching. While it's true that talking cars, lions, dinosaurs, and the like are implausible to say the least, they are the result of an age-old and common literary tool: anthropomorphism, giving human characteristics to things that aren't human in the least, or even alive in reality. That is done so that we humans can relate to the characters more. If a lion character, like Simba in The Lion King, for instance, did nothing but lie around under Acacia trees all day and fight with other male lions all night and chase hyenas off their kills, that character wouldn't be all that appealing to human viewers. We are supposed to forget that we're watching lions, or dinosaurs, or robots, or whatever, when they act like us. We cannot forget, though, that a human child is a human child; we know from experience how children act and what they feel because we've Been There, Done That, so suspension of disbelief becomes more difficult. Therefore, I can buy into two dinosaurs falling in love, or a lion, a meerkat and a warthog sitting around telling fart jokes, better than I can buy into a couple of 8-10 year-old children falling deeply in love with each other.

This does NOT mean that I'm opposed to the notion of romance in animation, by any means. It also doesn't mean that I think children watching the show would be put off by romance. Children are certainly aware of it, even if they aren't CAPABLE of it, and while some might be bored, I don't think that most would unless the romance took over from everything else and became the central focus of the whole series. I would just find it too difficult myself to believe two children who can't even be called "adolescents" yet can or should fall in love, beyond a simple crush, even on a show like Foster's, where we're already being asked to believe that Imaginary Friends become real, living, flesh-and-blood beings the instant they are created. There is nothing in our world that really compares to that, not even the invisable imaginary friends that kids make up that only they can "see", really, so there isn't any experience that we the viewers can really draw upon for comparison, but we've all either been kids, or still ARE kids, so that makes us more aware of what children are capable of. If you're going to have romance in an animated series, let it be between either two adult characters, or at least two characters that have passed puberty, because then it has some believability and something in real life to compare to.

pitbulllady

My whole point about this issue being posted never had anything to do with romance existing in children that have not passed puberty, it was posted on the basis that romance isn't active anymore in animation. While there are quite a few shows today that do focus on kids, not all of them do.

That is my point, is the subject of romance not around in more recent toons or is it just me? I include movies, animes, and stuff like that because the whole point of the term animation means beyond just what you see on your local TV set. Far as Simba goes, he was a "kid" when he hit it off with Nala.

The same pretty much happened with Kiara and Kovu in Lion King 2. But as I said, the point was to see if romance was missing, I never EVER said I wanted it to be the focus so I would like to ask people to please stop assuming that. The subject is of romance in animation: period. Not with kids and not it being the focus.

Well most of your examples were shows aimed at/about kids, so I assumed that's what you meant, but if you mean romance in animation in general... I don't think it's dead. Anime, specifically, I doubt will ever stop having romantic elements; admittedly much of it is more "OOPS I FELL OVER AND YOU SAW MY PANTIES" than heartfelt love, but it is indeed there. In fact, I think the focus in cartoons is shifting more toward continuity and character development, perhaps thanks in part to the growing influence of anime.

You know, I cannot recall any of the cartoons I watched as a kid having any romance in them at all! I watched mostly Hanna-Barberra stuff, since that pretty much dominated kid's tv in those days, which was LOOOOOONG before Anime' made it to the US shores(with the exception of "Speed Racer"). There was ALWAYS a romance in the animated Disney movies, of course, but I can't recall any on tv whatsoever. Even among the characters that were married, like Fred and Wilma Flintstone, they couldn't even be seen sleeping in the same bed, and the romantic aspect of their relationship was definately played down. Most of the movie animation these days has gotten away from the traditional Disney-style "happily ever after" storytelling that features a young couple who fall in love as the central characters, in favor of comedy and/or adventure, so yeah, in that respect, animated romance does seem to be lacking, but I really don't think that tv animated romance has either increased or decreased since I first started watching tv.

pitbulllady

I remember it quite vividly from the toons I watched as a kid. Darkwing Duck, Beast Wars, Tale Spin, Rescue Rangers, Sonic the hedgehog (SATam), Extreme Ghostbusters, and to an even weirder extent, Bucky O'Hare and the Toad wars (which featured a interspecies couple which I still am WIGGED out over).

I think during my search for examples or shows I ended up mentioning kids and I think that's how it all got started. Disney does often have romances, but there are quite a few toon movies that do it as well. Cat's don't dance was an especially beautiful toon movie with a very cute romance I'd love to have seen more of.

Also the older days I remember when I FIRST saw Pokemon and got so excited seeing/finding episodes or pictures that hinted towards Ash and Misty's romance, which in my opinion is still the most perfect anime couple around. I saw the Pokemon LIVE show and i nearly crappy my pants seeing "Misty's song" live.

It was an indescribable feeling seeing two characters I watched for so much of my childhood years to make those cute blushing colors on their cheeks, and say comforting words to each other. This may sound sappy from me but it's the truth, these romances these small moments impacted me so signifcantly.

Even if it was just for a few seconds, even if it was only a brief glimpse into Eduardo and Kylie from Extreme Ghostbusters or a small glance seeing Chip or Dale fight over Gadget in Rescue Rangers. That one moment was strong enough to touch me personally for a lifetime, and I REALLY want that feeling again.

That's why I got so excited when a newer show like Teen Titans and Justice League brought some animated couples to a more modern age. And even though I felt these newer relationships lacked the heart warming comfort of the ones I grew up on, I still really hope and look forward to reliving those expierences with toons of today.

Those particular animated shows that you mentioned were aired in that era of my life when I thought that animation was for kids only, unfortunately, so missed out on them. I grew up in the sixties and seventies, so I watched the things that were shown in that era. There was no Disney Channel or video games(unless you count "Pong") or Cartoon Network, just three regular networks, and animation was limited to Saturday mornings or some weekday afternoons, but weekdays were mainly the domain of Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Most of the cartoons of my day were pretty lame, actually, following a formula which either involved a bunch of teenagers and some talking, anthropomorphic animal or other non-human riding around in some odd vehicle solving mysteries and looking for ghosts or other scary things(which always turned out to be humans in disguise), or some cutesy pop music group that solved mysteries on the side, or some cutesy-but-smart underdog character trying to avoid the always-stupid-and-bumbling Bad Guy, who was always out to get him, usually to eat the Good Guy, but often for no apparent reason at all. There really wasn't much in the way of a plot to any episode and no character developement. I guess that the creators of animated tv shows didn't think that kids were intelligent enough to need things like plots, and animation was just made to keep the kids in front of the tv and sell sugary cereal. Probably the most intelligent of the shows I watched was "Johnny Quest", where there was actually a sort of plot and the animation was pretty good, but again, no romance, though I vaguely recall an episode in which "Haji", the Indian boy, had a crush on some Indian girl. That was about it, and my memory is probably not accurate enough that far back so that episode might not have happened.

pitbulllady

Thundarr the Barbarian rocked my world. That was the 80's, though.

Jonny Quest was great. So un-Politiclly Correct. Haji. LMAO.


dirka dirka

Yeah, lol! At least the monsters and ghosts on "Johnny Quest" were REAL monsters and ghosts, though, and the Bad Guys were usually Neo-Nazi mad scientists who actually had automatic guns and SHOT people, so the threats were genuine. Even if there wasn't any romance(though I have seen that Dr. Bannon and Johnny's dad have their share of "slash" fans), it was still a pretty decent show. This is the era of animating pop bands; the Jackson Five and the Osmond Brothers both had their own cartoons, and fake pop bands("Josie and the Pussycats" or "The Archies", anyone?), and mystery-solving teens who never went to school("Scooby Doo", "The Funky Phantom"), and those endless chase-toons, wherein some small but very smart character got chased around all the time by a big but really dumb character who wanted to do him harm("The Ant and the Ardvaark", "Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch")-no romance in any of 'em. Well, Richie in "The Archies" DID have a crush on Veronica, I think, but she wouldn't have anything to do with him. The other teen characters were way too busy pulling the masks off of criminals disguised as ghosts/monsters/mummies/etc. to fall in love with each other. I really think that at that time in my life, though, as a young kid, I had no interest in romance at all. I could have ignored a small amount, but given the atmosphere in which I grew up(deep South, Bible Belt, rural conservative family), if it had been a prevelant part of the tv series, even something as innocent as a kiss now and then, either I would have gotten bored quickly with it and found it "yucky", or my parents would have noticed it and made me turn it off, since they would make me leave the room if they were watching a tv show and two people kissed!

My, how times have changed!

pitbulllady

Jonny Quest was VERY good. Great animation, great plots, great voice acting, etc. Race Bannon was a frggin Die Hard-style dude. ex-CIA, ex-Green Beret, always packing heat. Dr. Bannon was a nerdy guy but sometime during the episode he'd always pick up an M-16 or something and start blowing away mummies or communists, which was a total "WTF?" moment for me.

And those robot Daddy Longlegs things were AWESOME! Death rays for eyes...so cool!


the free love scene never hit South Carolina?

:wiltshock:

and here i am listening to Iron Butterfly...(bad hippy, bad!)