All Love Is Unrequited / Western Animation

• A running theme in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Book One episode "The Fortune Teller". Aang's crush on Katara is on full display, but she fails to notice and friendzones him hard. Aang meanwhile gains an admirer in the titular fortune teller's assistant Meng, which he does not reciprocate, but he turns her down gently when she confesses her feelings for him.
  • Similarly, in the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra Book One episode "The Spirit of Competition", Korra has a crush on Mako, but he turns down her advances as he is in a committed relationship with Asami. Mako's brother Bolin has a crush on Korra and even successfully gets her to go on a date with him, but she can't see him as more than a friend. Ultimately subverted though as Mako does have feelings for Korra, and is only holding back because of guilt over breaking Asami's heart, especially since by then she was sponsoring the probending team Mako, Bolin, and Korra were on so they could play in the championship.
• Camp Candy: Molly is attracted to John, but John is attracted to Miss Sweetingham.
• Camp Lazlo: Patsy loves Lazlo, who may or may not love her. Gretchen loves Edward who hates her. Lumpus loves Jane loves Pothole loves Lumpus, until Jane gets engaged to Manfred. That last one is a source of much frustration and humor on the series, until on the final season Lumpus proposes to Jane.
• In Bread Winners, SwaySway has an obsessive crush on Jenny Quackles, but she doesn't even know who he is.
• Most of Clone High has Joan in love with Abe who is in love with Cleo who eventually dates him but was in between him and JFK for awhile (who still holds a torch for her while she dates Abe). The finale features Abe realizing he loves Joan, leaving Cleo unrequited, only to find her in bed with JFK, who has just admitted to liking her. Meanwhile in the beta storyline Marie likes Gandhi who doesn't realize it until it's to late and she's dating someone else. Unlike the main story though they actually do hook up.
• Danny Phantom: Sam has had a long-standing crush on Danny, who bounces back and forth between not noticing and returning her feelings. Danny, in turn, likes Paulina, who in some episodes seems to be dating Dash and most definitely has a crush (to an almost creepy extent) on Danny Phantom (the alter ego). He also likes Valerie, but they never really get together. Tucker, on the other hand, just likes girls. Oh, and Vlad Masters is in love with Maddie Fenton, who is married to Jack, and thus Vlad often plans to kill Jack so he can have her. An Unrequited Love Switcheroo also happens in a few episodes: for example, in one episode, Dash is hitting on Jazz, but this is never toyed with again; however in another one, Jazz has a dream in which she is married to Dash.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Kanker sisters like the title characters, but all three of them are smitten with Nazz, who has a crush on Kevin, who cares more about his bike (though throughout the show Kevin is clearly attracted to Nazz as well). In one episode Jimmy is jealous because Sarah falls in love with Edd, but Edd is just scared that she won't leave him alone.
• The Fairly Oddparents: Timmy loves Trixie who ignores him. Tootie and Veronica love Timmy, who doesn't like them. Juandissimo loves Wanda, who is spoken for. Vicky loved Gah, who didn't love her, Ricky, who only loved her money, and Winston, who was too shallow. Mark loves Vicky, who isn't interested, and Mandie wants to marry Mark, but he's terrified of her. Only couples who were already established as dating or married ever get love. Butch Hartman himself has stated that any of Timmy's potential love interests could be the mother of his future children (seen in a flash-forward scene of "Channel Chasers"), although Trixie and Tootie are the most probable candidates.
• Family Guy: Played as a recurring gag with Meg. Virtually every boy she attempts to ask out rejects her, all of them making up wild excuses to get out of having to go out with the homely Meg.
• Gargoyles: Brooklyn loves Angela who loves Broadway. Brooklyn also loves Maggie who loves Talon. In the comics, Brooklyn also loves Delilah who loves Malibu (which is especially disheartening, since he's Brooklyn's own clone). The Magus loves Princess Katherine who loves Tom. Iago wants Desdemona who loves Othello. Goliath loves Elisa who loves him back, but is hesitant to get involved in an Interspecies Romance. Meanwhile Demona loves Goliath and sublimates that by dating his clone Thailog, who pretends to love her while she pretends to love Macbeth, who loves her as long as he doesn't know whom she really is. Leo loves Una who loves Griff (though when Griff vanishes they get together). Halcyon still loves his ex-wife Anastasia, but she's back with her first husband, Oberon. As you can see, it's sort of a recurring theme here. About the only exception involves Xanatos and Fox. Evil, but somehow actually stable.
• Get Ace: Ace usually has an unnerving fixation on Tina to the point where his motivation in half of the episodes is doing something to please or impress her. Of course, she never gives Ace the time of day. In turn, Ace himself is totally unaware and unreceptive of his geeky best friend Claudia's affection for him. Whenever Tina is seen interested in a boy, it's usually the goth kid Tyson, who despite being a total Chick Magnet, never seems interested in anyone. He usually acknowledges Tina's existence even less than she does Ace.
• Glenn Martin, DDS has this with Wendy having unrequited feelings for Glenn's daughter Courtney.
• In Gravity Falls, Dipper has a Precocious Crush on Wendy, who instead dated Robbie; they eventually broke up. Meanwhile Mabel has a new crush all the time, but for one reason or another they rarely work out. (Of those who reciprocate: one turned out to be a bunch of gnomes while another was a merman who had to return to the sea.) There's also Little Gideon, who likes Mabel, and Candy, who gets a one-episode crush on Dipper.
• Hey Arnold! is pretty fond of this: Helga likes Arnold, but he first likes Ruth and then Lila, who's also admired by several other boys in their grade, but she wants to be Just Friends with them and instead likes Arnold's similar yet somewhat creepy cousin Arnie. Meanwhile Brainy almost certainly likes Helga, as did Stinky in one episode, and off to the side you have Curly chasing Rhonda and other implied couples. Did we mention most of these characters are only about nine? The only really consistent, reciprocal romance on the show (other than Arnold's grandparents) seems to be the Ship Tease between Gerald and Phoebe, and even they've had occasional other Love Interests. There was also Harold and Big Patty, the two Jerk with a Heart of Gold former bullies, who actually seemed to be dating. It was kind of surprising, given Harold's immaturity. (And the fact that he was formerly Ship Teased with Rhonda.)
• In Jackie Chan Adventures season 2, when the Sky Demon changes shape and takes the role of a student at Jade's school to gain her trust, infiltrate the shop, and retrieve his lost tail (It Makes Sense in Context), Jade is heavily implied (and confirmed in a later episode) to have a childish crush on him, and is genuinely hurt when his identity is revealed.
• Jimmy Two-Shoes: Peep loves Heloise, who has Single-Target Sexuality for Jimmy, who's Oblivious to Love. Lucius loves Jez, who only loves his money. Any one-off love interests usually don't last the episode.
• Kaeloo: Pretty loves Mr. Cat, who hates her and wants her to die. And Mr. Cat and Kaeloo have a constant Unrequited Love Switcheroo where which one likes the other depends on the episode.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • The series has the infamous "Two-Person Love Square". Marinette has a huge crush on Adrien, but is so tongue-tied Adrien has yet to notice. Meanwhile Cat Noir is very open about his crush on his superhero partner, Ladybug, but she does not return his affections. Ladybug is really Marinette, and Adrien is really Cat Noir, but neither party knows this.
  • Outside the Square, there's plenty of other unrequited affection to go around. Adrien's admirers include every teen girl in Paris, particularly Chloe, Lila, and Kagami (who spends some time as a proper Romantic False Lead). Marinette's attracted Nathaniel and Nino (though they both moved on; Nathaniel stuck with the theme by falling for Ladybug, while Nino found a requited relationship with Alya). Alya once mentioned finding Chat Noir "pretty slick." Most of Paris seems enamored by Ladybug (though only Copycat and the aforementioned Nathaniel are explicitly romantic).
  • Kim liked Chloe, only to find out his friend Ondine felt the same about him. Mark's interest in Nathaniel seems to fit. As does Gabriel's assistant Nathalie, who wants him to be happy.
• Early episodes of The Muppet Show, as well as Muppet Babies, play this as a Running Gag. In the former, Adult Gonzo gets over his crush on Piggy when he meets Camilla. In the latter, a younger Gonzo has an hopeless crush on Piggy, who only has eyes for Kermit. But Kermit has no stomach for this whole love thing at all.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "Simple Ways." Spike has had a crush on Rarity since the first episode of the series. Rarity, it turns out, has a Stalker Shrine to Trenderhoof in her boutique. When Trenderhoof visits Ponyville, he is oblivious to Rarity's overtures, but is instantly smitten with Applejack. And Applejack, who has a lot of work to do, wishes Trenderhoof would just leave her alone. Summed up nicely in this picture.
  • Rarity is aware of Spike's feelings and as we find out in "Secret of My Excess," is flattered, but doesn't return them. She was once interested in Prince Blueblood, until she found out that his only love is himself.
• Pet Alien:
  • Granville DeSpray constantly tries to win over Melba Manners, who is disgusted to be around him because of his lack of social skills and having no idea what she actually likes.
  • Gabby has a massive crush on Tommy, who sees her as a friend at best and a creepy stalker at worst. "The Lookalike Girl of Evil" has Tommy in turn fall in love with her twin cousin Jabby, who clearly doesn't care for him in the slightest.
• Phineas and Ferb provides a whole mess of examples. Ginger has a crush on Baljeet, but he seems to like both Wendy Stimplehoffer and Isabella, the latter of whom definitely likes Phineas, who's Oblivious to Love. Meanwhile Ferb has a Precocious Crush on Vanessa, who is with a guy named Johnny. Meanwhile Phineas and Ferb's sister Candace and her Love Interest Jeremy had a long-running UST before hooking up, though Albert has a crush on Candace and Wendy may like Jeremy too. (For added fun, Vanessa also flirted with him once, but quickly lost interest.) And Carl, apparently, would just be happy with any girl his age.
• In Ready Jet Go!, Mindy seems to have a crush on Mitchell, even though he is severely rude to her in return. For example, in one episode Mindy asked Mitchell if he wanted to come see Jet's electric engine with her, which can be interpreted as Mindy trying to ask Mitchell out on a date, but he harshly rejected her. However, this trope averts in "Detective Mindy", where Mitchell shows signs that he does like Mindy.
• In Robotboy, Lola has a crush on Tommy, but he's clueless about her feelings (even when she's being unsubtle about it) and instead has a crush on Bambi, who's uninterested and may have eyes for his bully Kurt.
• In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Velma and Daphne are having serious problems with their relationships with Shaggy and Fred, respectively (especially in the first season).
• In Star vs. the Forces of Evil, protagonist Star Butterfly has a crush on Dreadful Musician Oskar Greason, who seems to have no interest in anything other than playing his keytar. Her best friend Marco Diaz meanwhile has been pining after skater girl Jackie-Lynn Thomas, but is too nervous to tell her. By the end of season 2, Marco has started dating Jackie, Oskar has a crush on Star who's by this point completely lost interest in him, and Star has fallen in love with Marco. Then taken even further when Star gets back together with Tom, Jackie breaks up with Marco when she believes he isn't happy with her, and Marco realises that he now has a crush on Star. And it only gets worse when Star and Marco are Locked in a Room and forced to confess their feelings, resulting in Marco kissing her just so they can be let out...while Star is still dating Tom, who has been shown to feel insecure about Star ignoring him in favour of Marco...
• In Superjail!:
  • The Warden loves Alice, who loves an inmate she calls "Sweet Cheeks". Meanwhile, Warden shared some Belligerent Sexual Tension with the Mistress, although she was disgusted at the idea of having slept with him and a later attempt went sour when Warden had no clue what to do with condoms. Meanwhile, Mistress dated Lord Stingray for a while before breaking up with him, and then wound up sleeping with Alice, who only had sex with her to loosen her up and get the job done. Alice had also killed Stingray's wife, Mistress Kilda, who was stated to have a boyfriend on the side (Catastro).
  • Jared was once shown to possibly have some sort of repressed feelings for the Warden in a dream of his, but the Warden (who saw into the dream) became disgusted at the sight of Jared making out with him.
  • Jared and Charise are about the only stable ones, though they are unable to actually get together due to the distance between the prisons. They attempted to have Warden and Mistress get together for the sole purpose of THEM being able to stay close to each other, although their plan failed (see above).
  • The only other couple that is stable (somewhat) would be Jean and Paul, the "Gay Inmates" duo.
  • In other examples of unrequited love, there's the subject of Alice's backstory involving her having feelings for her old warden (Mr. Toddly), who turned out to be a gay man and who fired her when he discovered she was undergoing a sex change. The Warden also had one-time feelings for the alien woman Hunter who's actually a shape-shifting dog, who had no interest in him other than trying to find out if he knew the Twins' whereabouts.
• The only two "couples" first introduced in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012). Donnie likes April, but she shows little to no interest in him, even when he's expressing his feelings for her. Leo had an interest in Karai, Splinter's supposedly dead daughter, but she didn't feel anything for him in return. Other than the Interspecies Romance between these couples, they wouldn't work out since Karai hates Leo for attempting to kill her adoptive father, the Shredder, and April hates Donnie and his brothers for accidentally mutating her father. That and the fact that she's seeing Casey, who eventually showed up. While April did eventually forgive them, by then she and Casey were already friends and growing close during her time away. Eventually, however, Donnie and April do start getting a little close, plus Karai discovers her true heritage, which reignites her relationship with Leo until her mutation. After she finally escapes Shredder's control in Season 4, they even work together several times.
• In Total Drama:
  • Sierra has an obsessive Fangirl crush on Cody, who still has feelings for Gwen, who wants Duncan, who is in a relationship with Courtney. Then Duncan chooses Gwen over Courtney, leaving the latter to crush on Alejandro, who likes Heather, who repeatedly rejects him despite sharing the attraction. Meanwhile Harold / Leshawna and Tyler / Lindsay spent most of the first two-and-a-half seasons this way, even though they are Official Couples (both couples hooked up briefly in season one only for it to quickly end). Combine that with lots of Ship Tease implying more one-sided relationships and you have this trope all over the place.
  • Exaggerated For Laughs with Rodney in season 5.5, who winds up infatuated with every girl on his team. He seems to think that just liking a girl automatically makes them dating, but he becomes so tongue-tied around them that none of them even understand his feelings, much less reciprocate them.
• Undergrads: Kimmy's in love with Mark, who is gay; Nitz is in love with Kimmy, who doesn't realize it and Jessie is in love with Nitz, who also doesn't realize it.
• In the 80's cartoon The Wuzzles, Hoppo loves Bumblelion, but he's oblivious to her feelings, though he's still her friend. Meanwhile, Bumblelion pines after Butterbear, who doesn't seem to notice his feelings for her.
• In Young Justice (2010):
  • Kid Flash has a one-sided crush on Miss Martian, who is more interested in getting closer to Superboy. Artemis also likes Superboy. In both cases, Superboy doesn't realize that he's being crushed on. At least for now. Meanwhile Artemis and Kid Flash clearly like each other too, but refuse to admit it.
  • Aqualad is now subjected to this too. He had a crush on his friend Tula, who was already in a relationship with his best friend Garth.
  • While Kid Flash and Artemis hook up, Superboy and Ms. Martian have a breakup during the Time Skip, and Tula dies.

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