Is animated romance dead?

[Mr. Marshmallow]

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.