Is animated romance dead?

[Invader Bloo]

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")

[Sparky]

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.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

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.

[Invader Bloo]

Originally Posted by Sparky

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.

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

[Shelltoon]

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.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

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.

[pitbulllady]

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

[jekylljuice]

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. That's just my $0.02.

[Medikor]

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

[Mr. Marshmallow]

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.