Is animated romance dead?

[koosie]

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.

[Partymember]

Originally Posted by koosie

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.

[Ccook50]

^ 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!")

[GrimTheLost]

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.

[kageri]

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.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Originally Posted by kageri

I particularly agree with ptps -- it's sometimes nice to have no defined "pairings" so that people can draw their own conclusions. People will always analyze the most inconsequential, near-invisible clues, though, so you can't really win either way.

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.

Originally Posted by kageri

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.

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.

Originally Posted by kageri

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).

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

Originally Posted by kageri

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.

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.

[Ub3rD4n]

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.

[pitbulllady]

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

[Mr. Marshmallow]

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.

[Medikor]

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.