Forgotten First Meeting

Fate... and selective amnesia, Supergirl.

"I've seen your face before, my friend
But I don't know if you know who I am ..."

— Phil Collins, "In the Air Tonight"

Many years ago, Alice and Bob met each other by random chance, and the meeting left a deep impression on at least one of them. But years have passed, and now they're grown up (or at least in High School). All unknowing, they have been pulled back together by the Red String of Fate — friendship, romance and/or adventure will see them rekindle a long-lost connection long before they realize that they've met before. The realization that their new friend is the same kid they met years ago may come slowly with heavy foreshadowing, or be a sudden twist.

A classic setup for the romantic anime, when the Childhood Marriage Promise would be a bit too blatant. Quite popular in western shows as well, however.

Related to Already Met Everyone, Connected All Along, and Childhood Friends. Contrast Forgotten Friend, New Foe, Old Flame Fizzle, But for Me, It Was Tuesday.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Volume 9's extra chapter shows the origins of Momiji Momi's love for touching soft and squishy things. She's loved it ever since she was a toddler, but what really cinched it was encountering Hahari and Hakari at a bouncy castle. Momiji grabbed Hahari's breasts and experienced the very same "Zing" that accompanies encountering one's soulmate. Aside from the "Zing", which is burned into her mind clear as day, Momiji was too young to remember the encounter, as was Hakari, and there's no indication that Hahari recalls it either.
• Ah! My Goddess: In the original OAV animated version, Keiichi and Belldandy met when they were children. After Belldandy made a promise with him, it was considered as she made a contract when she didn't have her qualification yet. She had to erase Keiichi's memories of her and promised to return to him once she gained her qualification.
• Ai Yori Aoshi: There's a broken Childhood Marriage Promise but she wants to find him. When she does he doesn't remember her at first. There are flashbacks, not to the first time they met but while they were friends as kids together.
• Another: Played for painful drama with Kouichi Sakakibara and Izumi Akazawa in the anime adaptation. Although they only met a few years prior to the story, the forgetfulness is justified since Kouichi was only in Yomiyama for the funeral of his aunt, a time erased from everyone's memories due to the events of the curse. Akazawa remembers seconds before her death, and right before dying she asks Kouichi if he remembers too. He doesn't and tells her so, and Akazawa calls him out on it.
• Case Closed:
  • Shiratori and Kobayashi met by chance when they were children and didn't even learn each other's names. The first remembers their meeting so clearly that he fell in Love at First Sight with her, dubbed her as the "girl of his destiny", decided to become a policeman instead of a lawyer to honor her, and had a part in the Love Triangle with Takagi and Sato because he mistakenly thought Sato was the girl; the latter, however, completely forgets that day until she hears Shiratori tell a culprit exactly the same "The Reason You Suck" Speech that his kid self gave to some shoplifters to defend her in their meeting.
  • The last panel of chapter 971 states that Shinichi and Ran met Masumi Sera, her mother Mary Sera and her brothers (Shuichi Akai and Shuukichi Haneda) 10 years ago, but he had forgotten it. The panel is the moment when he does remember, and the following chapters describe the whole situation.
  • In the 21th movie, it's shown that Heiji Hattori and his Self-Proclaimed Love Interest Momiji Ooka met as children and made a Pinky Swear. She remembers, he doesn't, and when she calls him "my destined husband" he and his other love interest Kazuha Toyama are genuinely shocked.
• Cells at Work!: It turns out that Red Blood Cell and Neutrophill already met each other when they were still an erythroblast and a myelocyte (basically children cells) when a bacteria attacked the bone marrow where they were at. However, they only met briefly that one time and don't see each other again until they are adults. In present time, Red Blood Cell briefly does contemplate if that myelocyte is Neutrophill but quickly dismisses it as too much of a coincidence.
• Deadman Wonderland: Ganta meets Shiro in prison; she instantly starts acting like his friend and claims they've met before, but he has no idea what she's talking about. It takes a while for him to remember that they were actually friends when they were about four, prior to Tokyo's near-complete destruction.
• Dragon Ball: Goku befriended Arale Norimaki and was impressed by her strength. Many years later in Dragon Ball Super, the two briefly meet and don't recognize each other. Granted, this may be partially because Goku has noticeably aged, while Arale, being a robot, has not aged at all; it's also been roughly thirty years since the two of them last saw each other. Subverted when they run into each other in a later episode, and they eventually do recognize each other when Arale uses the same headbutt she defeated General Blue with on Vegeta.
• The Eminence in Shadow: Cid does this a lot since he is very egotistical and never pays attention to people he considers background characters and NPCs. He forgot about Sherry the first and second time they met.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Natsu, Gajeel, Wendy, Sting, and Rogue had met as children, but do not remember this due to their dragon parents tampering with their memories.
  • In the Avatar arc, when Natsu rescues Happy, Carla, Wendy, and Sherria from Bluenote Stinger, he has no idea who Bluenote is. Everyone incredulously asks how he forgot him, considering the last time they met in the Tenrou Island arc, Bluenote curb-stomped and almost killed them before Gildarts came to their rescue.
• Fate/Prototype: In the prequel, Fragments of Sky Silver, Ayaka Sajyou as a little girl met and talked to Saber, but after her own sister Manaka killed several people and tried to murder her, she was traumatized and blocked out these events. In the present, when Ayaka summons Saber, she doesn't remember him while he remembers her.
• Flame Of The Alpen Rose: Jeudi knows Leonhardt Aschenbach as a famed Austrian pianist called "the secondcoming of Mozart". Before she suffered an accident that caused her to become an amnesiac, Leonhardt was her best friend and they often played together, with Leo even gaining a little crush on her. Leonhardt is also oblivious to her true identity at first, but when he sees her donning the veil, he suddenly remembers that Jeudi is his long-lost childhood friend - and her actual name is "Alicia".
• Fly Me to the Moon: Zig-zagged for Nasa and Tsukasa's first meeting. As it turns out, Nasa forgot the half after he fainted, where Tsukasa helps him recover in the bus-stop, they discuss her long life, make plans to meet up again, and share their first kiss... before Nasa faints a second time. Tsukasa doesn't realize this until Nasa states that their first kiss was later in the abandoned church, rather than when they originally met.
• Fruits Basket's Tohru met Yuki when they were younger, but it isn't until later on in the series he realizes she was the same girl. He believes she doesn't remember but actually the memory was very important to her, even though she never learns that Yuki was the boy.
• The Garden of Sinners: Mikiya Kokutou first met Shiki Ryougi as he was walking home in the snow and paused to talk to her, but when they met later once they started at the same high school she didn't recognize him. At the very end of the series we find out why, since Kokutou was actually talking to Shiki's third personality, who was unknown even to her at that point in time.
• Handsome Girl and Crossdressing Boy: An omake shows a flashback to ten years ago, where a 16-year-old Hazuki helped a 9-year-old Iori find his lost sister (they looked alike even then).
• Haruka Nogizaka's Secret: It eventually turns out that Yuuto was the one who got Haruka into anime and manga in the first place when, as a kid, he found her crying in a playground on his way home from a shopping-trip with an Otaku friend, and gave her a manga magazine. The incident didn't leave a huge impression on him, but it essentially changed her life - arguably for the better.
• In Hetalia: Axis Powers, Germany is hinted to be Holy Roman Empire, Italy's Love Interest when they were little. It's not clear whether Italy believes them to be the same person or not, but Germany, at least, appears to have forgotten about their shared childhood. He might have remembered in the Valentine's Day strip, but that plotline has been abandoned for years now.
• A flashback in chapter 18 of Horimiya revealed that Miyamura saw Hori messing with Sengoku during the winter of their final year of middle school. Neither of them are aware of this in the present.
• IDOL × IDOL STORY!: When former idol Mimi Nagisa attends a handshake event with current idol Ibuki Nanakusa, Ibuki recognizes the other girl almost instantly. They first met when Ibuki, pre-idol career, attended one of Mimi's handshake events while Mimi was a member of the idol group Stella. But Mimi totally forgot about the encounter until she remembers it in a dream later.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • In Part 4 it turns out that Reimi Sugimoto, the ghost girl who kicks off the hunt for Serial Killer Kira, used to be Rohan Kishibe's babysitter and Cool Big Sis, and ended up throwing him out of the window of her house to save him from Kira the night she was murdered. The event was so traumatic for the then-young Rohan that he eventually used his stand to erase the memory from his mind, and it didn't come back until a Buddhist priest that knew both Rohan and Reimi tells him about it. After this, Rohan goes It's Personal and decides to join the hunt for Kira from then on.
  • In Part 8, Yasuho met Holy and Kira as a result of an encounter with a rock animal when she was 13, but it isn't until she meets Josuke that she remembers.
• In Junjou Romantica, Nowaki recalls the day he found out the orphanage owners weren't his real parents and tried running away. He stops at a park when his tires go flat, only to have his future lover walk by, inquire, and then start dishing out life lessons about the obstacles kids must get through before tattling to the patrolman. Years later Nowaki remembers the encounter and mentions it to Hiroki, but neither realizes it was each other.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: Fujiwara notes that -in spite of her excellent memory- Kaguya has a bad habit of forgetting her first interactions with people, because she often didn't view them as being important enough to remember.
  • Kaguya and Shirogane actually met very early on in their freshman year. While Shirogane remembers their interactions quite well (as he should, considering that he fell in love about a week into the semester), Kaguya has absolutely no memory of all the times he talked to her due to how little of an impression he made on her. This is why Shirogane insists so hard on sticking to his perfect student persona (even after it ends up getting him hospitalized for exhaustion). Kaguya only started paying attention to him when he followed Momo's advice of acting more confident than he actually was.
  • Chapter 208 heavily implies that she also met Kei sometime in the past and that she was the one who indirectly encouraged her to leave her overbearing mother so she can return to her more loving father and brother, though Kaguya doesn't seem to remember it either. This puts all of Kei's interactions and deep admiration for Kaguya up until that point in a new light.
  • When Mikado attempts to establish contact with her on his first day at Shuchi'in (Chapter 212), she appears to have forgotten ever interacting with him as a child. Chapter 240 reveals she may remember it too well, with her referring to a broken promise.
  • She first met Fujiwara while the latter was practicing piano alone, and outright told her to quit. While Fujiwara initially found it harsh, that was actually what she needed to hear at the time, as she had already started to suffer massive burnout from playing the piano nonstop and having no time for anything else.
• Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama: The arc introducing Cocotama contractor Hikari and her Cocotama Lychee initially established them as new to the concept of forming a contract with a Cocotama and that Lychee's birth and contract with Hikari only happened recently. Later in the arc, it is revealed that Lychee had actually been born before when Hikari was a little girl, but disappeared along with Hikari's memories of him when Hikari violated their contract by tearing up the playing card he was born from in a fit of frustration, his return only being possible because a temporary contract had been formed when Hikari was older. The remainder of the arc then focuses on Kokoro and her Cocotamas trying to find a way to prevent the temporary contract from expiring and as a result causing Lychee to disappear permanently.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: When Kenichi was a kid, he and Ryuto met Miu. After seeing Miu defeat the thug trying to assault a kind old lady, both Ryuto and Kenichi vowed to become strong, but Kenichi forgot the fact. Miu apparently recognized him right away, but didn't feel the need to bring it up when they meet again.
• Love Hina is probably the poster child for this trope. Keitaro knows about his childhood friend whom he promised to get into Tokyo University with... he just can't remember her name or face. It turns out he had two childhood friends: Naru and Mutsumi.
• Medaka Box has a slight twist on this. Zenkichi does remember that he and Medaka first met when they were two years old; he suggested that she was put on this Earth to make people happy, which in the present he blames for the Chronic Hero Syndrome that's left her profoundly messed up and unable to connect to other people normally. The part he doesn't remember, however, is that Medaka proposed to him, which he brushed off because, again, two years old. Medaka remembers the rejection and thinks it still stands, making her believe that her feelings for Zenkichi are one-sided. Since Zenkichi isn't aware of this, he just assumes that Medaka doesn't see him as anything but a friend. After he corrects the first problem by convincing her to find her own purpose in life, the second problem is corrected by her giving him The Big Damn Kiss in front of the entire student body.
• In Maiden Rose, Klaus and Taki meet briefly in the middle of a forest by chance when they are young and make something of a Promise. Years later, they meet again and Klaus recalls but continually dismisses the memory, until their Relationship Upgrade, when he realizes from Taki's scent that it was him.
• Maken-ki!: Inaho introduces herself as being Takeru's fiancee, because of the promise he made to her when they were children. Which comes as a surprise to him since, he doesn't recall seeing her before enrolling at Tenbi Academy. It's finally comes back to him in chapter 59. Takeru had given himself a head injury to match the one Inaho's father had given her, which affected his short-term memory.
• Nozaki's first meeting with Sakura in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun actually inspired Mamiko's physical appearance (and made Sakura fall for him), but he doesn't remember this because he was so exhausted that day that his memories of it are fuzzy.
• My Girlfriend Without Wasabi: After hearing the story about how Nozomu and Rino met in the epilogue, Hajime realizes that he worked at the sushi bar that they frequented. Going back to chapter 2 reveals that, yes, he actually was there the entire time.
• A side story in My Love Story!! features a five year old Takeo chasing a beetle into a cave and meeting a child there. Since he'd been told scary stories about the cave, he assumes the other child is a ghost of a little boy and that, by leading him out, he's helping the ghost move on. Later, we see the child, actually a little girl with very short hair, with her parents and get The Reveal that she was Rinko Yamato, Takeo's present-day girlfriend.
• Naruto: This occurred with Naruto and Hinata. Hinata was being bullied by three boys because of her Byakugan eyes and Naruto tried to protect her. He ended up getting beaten up instead. Even though they were classmates in the Academy for many years, they didn't interact much and didn't establish a real friendship until they became genin in the Chunin Exams arc. Naruto later recalls their first meeting in The Last: Naruto the Movie, while Hinata always remembered it. Interestingly, this scene was originally not in the manga, having first appeared as a flashback in the considerably-expanded fight between Hinata and Pain in Shippuden Episode 166, but it fit so well that it was officially confirmed as canon in The Last (which is explicitly the first of two Canon movies in the franchise^note The second one being Boruto: Naruto the Movie, which stars Naruto and Hinata's son Boruto), albeit with a few changes, such as the event happening during the wintertime and the inclusion of a red scarf.
• In New Game!, Aoba met Hifumi, Ko and Shizuku during her interview for Eagle Jump, as shown in the spinoff manga volume. Hifumi was too shy to introduce herself and the latter two looked different from usual(with Ko wearing her hair in a ponytail and Shizuku wearing contacts instead of glasses) which may be why Aoba didn't remember that she'd met them before joining the company.
• In Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, the couple met when she was barely out of her teens, he was older; he was kind to her, she was smitten. Many years later, she decides to pursue him. When she's won him, she tells of their early encounter — he doesn't remember it at all, and laments that if he'd only recognized her true worth at that time, they wouldn't have wasted so many years apart.
• In Nisekoi, Raku met every single girl in his Unwanted Harem when he was a kid, but it takes a while for him to even find out about it. At first, most of them don't know about it either. The problem is that there are three girls who remember having made a Childhood Marriage Promise with him, but he only remembers to have made the promise to just one girl.
• Haru and Akane from Ojojojo were actually in the same class in middle school for a week, but they never talked to each other. When this happens again in high school, Akane becomes Haru's friend as a chance to make up for her mistake of never reaching out to Haru. The guilt of not telling her that they already met slowly eats away at her.
• In Okane ga Nai, Kanou first met Ayase when the latter lent him an umbrella in the rain. This meeting had such a profound impact on Kanou that he buys Ayase from an auction years later to prevent him from being sold off into sex slavery. When he finds out that Ayase doesn't remember their first meeting, however, he gets so upset that he rapes Ayase and forces him to become his sex slave to pay off his debt until he remembers how they first met.
• Panzer World Galient: When Jordy and Asbeth arrive at White Valley, Jordy meets and befriends White Valley's leader's girl, Chururu. Shortly after Asbeth and Chururu's father explain to both they had already met when they were two-years-old, during an earlier visit of Jordy's "grandfather". Naturally, since Jordy and Chururu were toddlers back then, they had completely forgotten that.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Barry doesn't remember that he and Dawn met when they were younger. Granted, they're probably only ten or eleven...
  • Ash and Serena met in a summer camp held a few years before Ash started his journey. The meeting was pretty memorable for Serena and she fully remembers it in the present, but Ash seemed to think it was nothing special and completely forgot about it. Though Ash does remember when Serena shows him a handkerchief that he gave her back then.
  • Played for Laughs when Paul admits to have no idea who Dawn is when he sees her in Roark's Gym, despite meeting her twice over what is hinted to be a handful of days. She gets pretty pissed about it.
• Pokémon Adventures: Ruby and Sapphire meeting each other as little kids led to Ruby to becoming more delicate and feminine, and Sapphire wilder and tomboyish. When they met in series they both couldn't stand the other's new persona, nor did they remember meeting each other before. They do eventually remember the event that caused their personality shift and realize that they did meet before, thankfully.
• In Popcorn Avatar, Kurando has met Lisa before, way back when he was still in 3rd grade, when she was crying in the park after being bullied for her beautiful blonde hair. He remembers this again after a short bout of memory regression however.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure: Both Cures cross each other in the hall and ignore each other before properly meeting each other.
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star: Both Cures met briefly five years prior to the events of the series and forgot. They reunite in the first episode, and quickly remember meeting as kids, thus prompting the fairies Flappy and Choppy to find them and give them their Cure powers.
• The Quintessential Quintuplets: Five years before the present, during a trip to Kyoto, Fuutarou met one of the Nakano sisters and they took a photograph together. But due to his photograph having faded and Fuutarou sporting a delinquent look back then, neither of them recognize each other in the present. When Fuutarou realizes that one of the sisters was that girl, he (and therefore the reader) still don't know which of them it was (as the sisters are identical quintuplets). Things get even more complicated with the revelation that he interacted with more than one quintuplet, since he took the photo with Yotsuba (the fourth one), but at one point played cards with Ichika (the eldest one). And the grown-up Rena that he encounters in the present is Itsuki (the youngest one).
• Revolutionary Girl Utena:
  • It's revealed near the end that Utena had met Anthy before when she was just a kid, and that her desire to save her from the million swords of hate is the true reason why she desired to become a prince.
  • Utena also met Touga and Saionji when they found her hiding in a coffin after her parents' deaths (inspiring the latter to start seeking out something 'eternal'), but neither she or the boys ever realize this.
• Ride Your Wave has two examples:
  • Early in the film, Wasabi accidentally sprays himself and a passing Hinako while practicing with the firehose. She lends him her towel and asks for directions before going home. Even when she starts dating Minato and gets to know Wasabi as his friend, she doesn't realize that he was the firefighter from that incident until he brings it up.
  • More dramatically, Hinako was the one who saved Minato from drowning when they were children, but doesn't realize until she sees a picture and recognizes the turtle on his swimsuit. It's strongly implied that he did recognize her, though.
• The first Sailor Moon movie explained how Usagi and Mamoru (and Fiore) first met. A 10-year-old Mamoru was in the hospital after being in a car crash that his parents died in. Fiore is an alien disguised as a human who was ill because he couldn't survive on Earth at the time (though he adapts). 4-year-old Usagi is there to visit her mother who has just given birth to her younger brother Shingo, and she sneaks into Mamoru's room. Usagi and Mamoru talk for a bit, then Usagi gives Mamoru one of the roses she had originally brought to give to Ikuko-mama. Mamoru then gives that same rose to Fiore as he leaves Earth.
• Subverted in Saki. Hisa played against Mihoko once in middle school, and Mihoko was so surprised that she opened her right eye in surprise. As the game ended, Hisa told Mihoko that she found her right eye pretty. Hisa never showed up for the tournament the following day, went to a different high school from Mihoko, and when they faced each other again, Hisa was unable to recognize Mihoko. However, during the individuals, when Mihoko faces Hisa again and opens her Magical Eye, Hisa remembers the meeting, and afterward, the two become quite close.
• In the Saint Beast drama CDs, Rey reveals to Shin that he had met Luca long before the day he actually introduced himself, and felt guilty for hiding it. In their adolescence Luca found Rey crying and lost in a forest and led him out. After searching out his rescuer, Rey was too embarrassed to introduce himself until many years later when he received wings and felt he had something to bond over. Shin remarks that Luca probably knew all along and was too gracious to say anything.
• In Saint Seiya, Shaina reveals to Seiya that they met once shortly after he arrived to the sanctuary to begin his training. He chased a rabbit all the way to a training ground for female saints, where he saw Shaina without her mask. She almost attacked him, but when he noticed she had a nasty wound in her arm, he quickly bandaged it, causing her to fall in love with him. Obviously, this causes her turmoil to no end and it's revealed to be the reason why she's so bent on killing him.
• The Seven Deadly Sins: Jericho first met the immortal and ageless Ban when she was a little girl, and innocently asked him to marry her. Neither of them remember this.
• In She Becomes a Tree, when Chishiro introduces herself to her fellow Office Lady Kisaki and asks her out to lunch, Kisaki remembers Chishiro from when their boss introduced Chishiro to the rest of the company. In truth, they met each other much longer ago; when they were children, Kisaki used her tree body parts to retrieve Chishiro's shoes for her.
• In Sing "Yesterday" for Me, Haru met Rikuo when she was still in high school in a fleeting encounter where he dropped a ticket while running for the bus. Haru retained this memory for years, and when she met Rikuo once more was determined to have a relationship with him.
• In Skip Beat!, Ren and Kyouko actually met when they were young children, not when they were first introduce at the agency. Ren is actually Kyouko's long-lost childhood friend 'Corn,' which just makes it even more ironic that she starts the series off hating him. Ren knows, but Kyouko is still in the dark about their pasts.
• In The Summer You Were There, Kaori went to the same school as Shizuku, and heard rumors about Shizuku bullying Ruri, but it is initially believed that the two never met each other. The last chapter shows that Shizuku, who has always been somewhat taller than Kaori, helped her get a book and told her that she looked cuter without glasses. Kaori points out that she couldn't even call Shizuku an acquaintance, but that meeting, as well as Shizuku writing "Girls' Lovers Suicide," a web novel that resonated with Kaori, left a deep impression on Kaori.
• Exa and Sheila of Superior met once when they were younger. Unfortunately for their budding romance, this was right after Sheila had slaughtered Exa's home village (neither of them saw the other's face due to the smoke from the burning buildings). This event is what made Exa swear that he would kill the demon king despite otherwise adhering to a strict Thou Shalt Not Kill policy.
• In episode 2 of The Testament of Sister New Devil, the first thing Yuki does when introduced to Basara after he transfers to her and Mio's school is to give him The Glomp. In front of the entire class and Mio. She then reminds him of who she was, and he then vaguely remembers her. Mio then tries to force the two apart, and Basara is instantly hated by all the guys at the school because the two girls are considered to be untouchable idols, and yet both of them seemed to be fighting over him.
• In Tokyo Babylon, a child Subaru meets a teenager Seishirou as he cradles his kill , and they end up making a promise. Years later the teenaged Subaru only remembers this as a vague dream, and has little idea why Seishirou, now a young adult, has suddenly appeared in his life as a suitor. Unfortunately the memory isn't a very happy one, once it's revealed...
• The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, which is set in an Alternate Universe of the Haruhi Suzumiya series, changes Haruhi's first meeting with Kyon into this. Rather than Kyon Time Traveling to help Haruhi write a message to aliens, she instead just meets the younger version of him. It doesn't change the fact that he still introduces himself as John Smith though...
• Urusei Yatsura: Only You, the first Non-Serial Movie, revolves around an alien princess named Elle de Rosenbach seeking to claim Ataru Moroboshi as her husband, due to a Childhood Marriage Promise. Ataru doesn't even remember her at first, but is happy to go along with it once he learns she's beautiful.
• In Venus to Mamoru!, it gradually becomes clear that the Beatrice-user who saved Mamoru during a disaster when he was small, was Ayako's uncle — and what's more, she was there too. Neither one of them remembers at first due to having been quite young and traumatized to boot, but that event was the reason why Mamoru decided to become a Beatrice-user himself, which led to him joining the Beatrice Academy, where he, of course, met Ayako again...
• Chizuru from You and Me played at the park with Yuki once when they were younger. When they meet again at age seventeen Yuki doesn't remember Chizuru and believes him to be delusional. It turns out Chizuru was really friends with Yuuta, Yuki's identical twin brother. Yuuta doesn't remember Chizuru either. Subverted with Yuuki, as he does actually remember Chizuru because Chizuru once gave him a toy thinking he was Yuuki.
• Your Name: Taki doesn't remember the first time he met Mitsuha in person. Because that was three years ago in his timeline, before the body swapping started for him.
• Yui Kamio Lets Loose: Yui in Black remembers the Guard Corps assisting her against Honoka two years ago, or specifically she recalls only that some two girls came out of nowhere and soon nearly died.
• Yuri!!! on Ice has two examples.
  • Yuri bumped into his idol Victor after the Grand Prix Finals Yuri bombed at. A year later, months after Victor becomes his coach, Yuri assumes Victor must have forgotten about that meeting. However, the true example of this was after that at the closing banquet for the Grand Prix. And Yuri is the one who actually forgot. He got really drunk, danced with his fellow skaters (pole dance, break dance and tango), hit on Victor while begging at him to be his coach, in which heavily implied to be the event where the Russian fell in love with Yuri that would make all his touchy-feely acts towards him made sense throughout the series before Episode 7's The Big Damn Kiss and becoming an Official Couple. Unfortunately the next morning, Yuri didn't remember anything and it wasn't until nearly one year later that he learned anything had happened at all. By that banquet, Victor knew Yuri's existence beforehand even before the Nishigori triplets uploaded the video that showed Yuri mimicking his latest routine that he used as a ticket to take off-season, go to Japan in order to become Yuri's coach and shaping him up for the Grand Prix, fulfilling Yuri's drunken plea back at the banquet as well as his personal reasons to become closer and win Yuri's heart. About the first meeting back after the Grand Prix and before the banquet? Turns out that the moment Yuri turned down Victor's offer of commemorative photo, Victor started to steal glances at the Japanese. The audience only lead to believe that Victor forget the encounter at the first episode due of Yuri being an Unreliable Narrator with a bad case of anxiety, while at the Breather Episode nine episodes later we have the true context of the scene (and the story in general) by Victor's perspective.
  • Another example of this trope is Yurio and his Only Friend Otabek. Five years ago during the summer camp, Yurio made a strong impression on Otabek, the Russian was going through some difficult stuff at that time and didn't really pay much attention to the Kazakh, forgetting about him. During the pre-Grand Prix where both are qualified, Otabek seeks a way to approach the former and become friends with him.

Comic Books

• Batman: Tim Drake and Dick Grayson met on the night Dick's parents were murdered. While Dick completely forgot the meeting, Tim never did and it was a large part of why Tim was able to figure out Batman and Robin's secret identities. When Tim approached Dick years later to tell him Bruce needed help, Dick was furious and scandalized at that some random kid presumed to know anything about him and Bruce and only later learned that Tim was the toddler sitting on his knee in his treasured final picture of himself with his parents.
• Batman: One comic implies this occurred between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. A page shows Dr. Harleen Quinzel at Arkham Asylum meeting Poison Ivy and attempting to befriend her. Just when Harleen leaves, though, the Joker is being dragged by and he catches her eye. If not for that one glance, Harley could have been Ivy's psychiatrist, not the Joker's, and she would have never became Harley Quinn.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, a young Scrooge befriended a young Flintheart Glomgold and was betrayed by him. After humiliating Flintheart, Scrooge swears to never trust anyone again, while an angry Glomgold vows to be richer than Scrooge. However, "canonically", Scrooge meets Flintheart for the first time in "Second Riches Duck in the World", and they only know about each other from newspapers. Although this is somewhat justified on Scrooge's part since Flintheart never told Scrooge his name during their earlier meeting.
• The Invaders: A storyline revealed that back during World War II, Thor had battled against Captain America, Namor and the rest of the Invaders after having been manipulated by Adolf Hitler. When Thor realized his mistake and returned to Asgard, the heroes lost all memory of the day's events, explaining why Cap and Namor never mentioned this encounter when they met Thor again decades later.
• Justice League of America: Justice League (2018) reveals that Lex Luthor and Martian Manhunter were childhood friends, but that neither man remembered this due to their memories having been wiped.
• Roadqueen: Eternal Roadtrip to Love: It turns out Leo completely forgot her and Boots' fateful first meeting that sparked the start of the weekly races with the other Princess Andromeda girls. This serves as foreshadowing for the reveal that the entire events of the comic sparked from Leo and Vega's first meeting as children (which Leo, once again, completely forgot).
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Lanolin the Sheep has met Sonic many times before the events of the Urban Warfare story arc, but Sonic doesn't remember their previous encounters (their first actual meeting being in the second issue of the comic book series). Lanolin replies that the blue blur was quite busy at each instance, with the mission to invade Eggperial City being their first time working together.
  Lanolin: I've been looking forward to working with you for a long time, Sonic.
  Sonic: Zero offense, but I don't think we've met?
  Lanolin: It was brief, and you were busy...
  [...]
  Sonic: Awesome! Then it's a pleasure to meet you again—for the first time.
  Lanolin: Haha! The pleasure's all mine!
• Spider-Man:
  • In The Amazing Spider-Man (1963), when Mary Jane Watson revealed to Peter Parker that she knew he is Spider-Man, she also told him quite a bit of her life story, including that she had seen him raking leaves through the window of her aunt's house (May Parker and Anna Watson were neighbors) and thought he was cute even before he became Spider-Man.
  • Jessica Jones and Peter Parker went to high school together, which is revealed in her origin story, and when Peter unmasks in front of the New Avengers, she gets all excited because she used to have a huge crush on him. The funny thing is, this is the second time he's unmasked (he made a Deal with the Devil to mindwipe the whole world into forgetting his identity), and she didn't say anything the first time!
• Superman:
  • A few stories like Superman (1939) # 131 depict Clark Kent and Lois Lane meeting as young teens, sometimes with Clark becoming Superboy.
  • A few stories like Adventure Comics #275 a have young Clark meet young Bruce Wayne.
  • Superman first met Supergirl when his cousin's rocket landed on Earth in The Supergirl From Krypton (1959)... or so he thought. Since both characters had the ability to time-travel and were members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, they had already met back when he was a teenager Superboy, but his first memory of her was wiped out to protect the future.
  • In Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #36, Jimmy Olsen arrives in Metropolis for the first time, takes a job as a test subject for a scientist which ends up sending him to Krypton before the explosion. He spends the issue watching over baby Kal-El to give Jor-El and Lara time to complete the rocket. The time stream interferes with Jimmy's memory, meaning he has no idea this happened, but Superman remembers and befriends Jimmy because the teen saved his life.
  • In Superboy (1949) #80, Supergirl goes back in time to meet her teenager cousin and play with him. Both kids hit it off immediately, but Superboy wipes his memory out after Kara leaves so he does not reveal Supergirl's existence prematurely.
  • Action Comics #358 had Superboy in flashback having ended up in Argo City after being accidentally knocked unconscious and rendered amnesiac by a robotic resource scavenger for the city, he's later taken by an alien being intending to consume him and it erases everyone's memories of his time there to spare them the suffering. Superman only realizes something happened when she shows him a crystal she had from childhood but no idea where it came from because it was the crystal he'd carved just prior to being knocked out after planning to give it to his adoptive mother and had no idea what happened to it.
  • Superman first met and fought Darkseid as Superboy in The Great Darkness Saga, but his memories of the meeting were blocked until he got involved in the New Genesis-Apokolips War as an adult hero.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Megatron mentions to Rung that they've met before, and that said meeting was one of the most important moments of his life. They were both caught up in a Bar Brawl that led to Megatron being arrested and assaulted in custody, which would kickstart his Start of Darkness. When Rung notes that he doesn't remember any of that, Megatron sheepishly admits to not being surprised; Rung spent most of the fight unconscious. The actual reason Rung doesn't remember the meeting is that he really wasn't there. His time-traveling future self was.
• X-Men: In X-Men: The Hidden Years (an early-2000s book by John Byrne, filling in the reprints of the original X-Men book between issues #66-93), after another trip to the Savage Land, Cyclops, Beast and Jean Grey end up in Africa and meet a local African teenager named Ororo, whom the locals worship as a goddess for her weather-manipulation powers. They help each other, and the trio depart back to New York. However, their first on-panel interaction was in Giant Size X-Men #1 (1975), when the original X-Men team (among which, Beast, Cyclops and Jean Grey) was captured by Krakoa and Xavier had to hurriedly assemble a new team, which included Storm (Ororo).
• Young Avengers: Kate Bishop didn't remember meeting Noh-Varr before their sexual encounter, only after he reminded her of his name she remembered how they met before in opposing sides of a battle.

Comic Strips

• In The Phantom the hero and his love interest meet for the first time in the first story arc, until Lee Falk wrote the story of "The Childhood of the Phantom" and included a scene where they met briefly years before when they were both children.

Fan Works

• Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Germany did not remember he was Holy Rome until just before the beginning of the story. Since Germany is Holy Rome, Germany and Italy had met long before the World Wars. This also makes Germany Italy's first love. Japan was not pleased upon learning this.
• The Child of Love: In the sequel Rei met Takuma when she was a child. Takuma did not forget her, but Gendo wiped his existence from Rei's memory.
• Ghosts of Evangelion: Kyoko reveals Shinji and Asuka met when they were babies. Unfortunately, they forgot each other.
  Kyoko: We went to college together, as I understand it. She and I spent a bit of time together after you and Asuka were born, before Asuka and I left for Germany.
  Asuka: (laughing) So we'd met before? Me and the idiot, I mean.
  Kyoko: I actually remember that, too. I remember staring down at you, thinking you were the cutest thing ever, while Yui did the same with Shinji.
  Asuka: How about that, eh? The red string of fate bound us together even then. Kind of depressing, now that I think about it.
  Shinji: (laughter)
• In In Which Guzma Is Frustrated, meeting Lusamine had a huge impression on Guzma, but Lusamine herself doesn't remember him when they meet again years later. Lusamine only has a faint recollection of meeting Guzma as a boy.
• Two examples of this in the Charmed (1998) fanfic Once And Future Witches;
  • When the sisters meet the 1983 version of Leo, he reflects that so far he’s only briefly spoken with ten-year-old Piper while fixing the sink, leaving him naturally shocked to meet the thirty-five-year-old Piper who is married to his future self (and obviously doesn’t remember that particular meeting with Leo).
  • When seeking a particular artefact in 1993, the 1999 Prue, the 2007 Piper and Phoebe, and the 1993 Penny all run into the 1993 teenage version of Paige, who actually shoplifted the very item they were looking for just before they arrived. The meeting is so brief Grams doesn’t even see the need to erase 1993-Paige’s memory of it.
• Applies in a sense in The Confectionary Chronicles, as Hermione was friends with Helena Ravenclaw when Loki took her back in time to the founding of Hogwarts but neither Hermione or the Grey Lady recognise each other when Hermione starts Hogwarts in the present. However, this is justified as Hermione was in disguise when she was in the past, and obviously the adult Helena looks very different from the girl Hermione knew even without the fact that she's a ghost.
• The idea is at least hinted at in the Stargate SG-1 fic "Turning Point", which sees Daniel Jackson sent back in time so that he not only inspires Egeria to create the Tok'ra, but also provides the genetic material for the first batch of Tok'ra symbiotes. When he reaches into the pool containing the young Tok'ra, one of the symbiotes swims around his fingers, and after Daniel learns that Selmak was one of the first Tok'ra born, Daniel finds himself wondering if that particular Tok'ra would become Selmak later on, even as he tells himself that the odds of that are highly implausible.
• The Kirita Chronicles: Kirita and Akio meet on two occasions prior to the beginning of the Death Game, but only Akio remembers these meetings because they had more of an impact on him. Akio eventually tells Kirita about this during Chapter Nine, and she eventually remembers their previous meetings.
• Book Four of The Last Son combines this with Forgotten Friend, New Foe. At this point, Clark Kent has had already a few clashes with Emma Frost, and neither seemed to have recognized the other. Then it's revealed that Clark once saved Emma from a fire when they were pre-teens, and the two briefly struck a friendship, but seemingly drifted apart because Clark never wrote to her as he promised. As it turns out, Clark did write to her, but her father intercepted his letters due to being manipulated by Selene just to spite the Kryptonian.
• A Lonely Girl: In kindergarten, Trixie was friends with a boy in a pink hat until they began drifting apart when Trixie became popular. She never made the connection that the boy might be Timmy.
• Once More with Feeling: In chapter 9 a technician told Shinji that Asuka and he had already met when they were toddlers (something both of them had utterly forgotten about). Kyoko was visiting the Japanese Branch, and she and Yui left their kids in a play pen, and they... well, they fought. Shinji got a good laugh of it (thinking that some things never change), and so Asuka did when he told her.
• Once Upon a Time and Again: Snow and James knew each other when they were little kids, and they were actually best friends before Snow's father decided not to come back to court. It takes them a while to remember, but in the end they realize who each other is. Their parents did not forget, though.
• There's a two-for-one in the Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfiction Outcast, because Finland/ Tino has met both Sweden/ Berwald and the spirit of Ancient Scandinavia/ Torvald before. As a young child, Tino nearly froze to death while lost in a Lapland blizzard. He still has nightmares about the incident nearly a decade later. As the fic progresses Tino's dreams become more detailed, involving a mysterious figure saving him from the blizzard. When he falls and hits his head while exploring the cave where the tomb of Torvald's wife Astrid is hidden, his memories suddenly come back to him. Berwald was the one who saved him from the blizzard, dragging the half-frozen Tino to the very same cave for shelter. Their first meeting was also when Berwald was possessed by Torvald's vengeful ghost, which had haunted Astrid's tomb for hundred of years.
• In Rapture Falls, Delta actually first met Eleanor as a human, but he can't remember after his transformation into a Big Daddy. He met her while trying to get away from Rapture, delaying his own escape to take Eleanor (then a Little Sister) with him, which caused Ryan and Lamb to catch up to them. Delta/Johnny Topside then risked his own life to save Eleanor from drowning when Lamb tried to have her euthanized by throwing her out an airlock, which resulted in him being taken for the Big Daddy program.
• Seinen Kakumei Utena: Utena actually met both Touga and Saionji two years before the night of her parents' funeral, back then she was a spoiled rotten little girly girl, and the boys victims of horrifying abuses. Unbeknown to her, she subsequently got herself periodically stalked by a jealous and obsessed Touga for years afterwards.
• In Wine Red no Kokoro, it takes a while for Karen to associate Jack with her childhood friend.
• Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: As revealed on Chapter One, Cody has known Heather for several years already, before they first entered the Total Drama show; Heather finds out that they go to the same school, and even share some classes, but due to their different cliques, Heather never paid him any attention.

Film — Animation

• In Anastasia: Dimitri used to work as a servant in the Winter Palace when he was a boy, and saved an eight-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia from being captured in the Revolution. They meet again as adults when "Anya" has Trauma-Induced Amnesia and doesn't remember anything about her childhood, while Dimitri for his part remembers the meeting well but doesn't realize she's Anastasia. Anastasia/Anya later recalls a vague memory of "a boy who worked at the palace" saving her - though she doesn't know it was Dimitri — which tips him off about her true identity. She later regains all her memories properly, although by then Dimitri is devastated because a former kitchen boy could never be good enough for a Grand Duchess.
• In Frozen, what draws Kristoff to the rock trolls' place is when he sees a horse leaving a trail of ice due to eight-year-old Elsa freaking out over freezing Anna's head. This is Kristoff's actual first encounter with Anna. 13 years later, Kristoff runs into Anna at Wandering Oaken's Trading Post & Sauna and doesn't recognize her (though people do change a lot in 13 years). That earlier encounter is never brought up, not even when Kristoff brings Anna back to Grand Pabbie to analyze her frozen heart.
• In The Princess and the Frog, Tiana and Naveen meet minutes after he arrives in New Orleans. He tries to woo her, but she ignores him and he moves on, even saying "Eh...". He fails to recognize her when they meet again at the party, though.
• Ride Your Wave: It turns out that Hinako and Minato first met when Hinako saved him from drowning as a child. Minato remembers, but Hinako doesn't.
• Entirely justified in Sleeping Beauty: Aurora was a newborn baby while Philip was no older than 5, and this isn't a story that includes No Infantile Amnesia.
• In Spirited Away, Mysterious Protector Haku knew Chihiro's name even though he couldn't remember his. Chihiro kept having a feeling that she met Haku from before but couldn't remember when. It was only when they were flying through the air together that Chihiro remembered she fell into a river as a little girl, only to be saved by the spirit residing there. Chihiro recalling this memory to Haku caused him to remember his identity.

Film — Live-Action

• The prologue to the movie Adam And Steve features the two main characters hooking up in the 80s and having spectacularly bad drugged-out sex. They meet, sober and professional, 20 years later and don't realize it's the same guys till almost the end of the film.
• Brian Allen and Christina Roberts in Blow Dry. They knew each other as very young children because their fathers were business partners. But then the partnership broke up, Christina's parents divorced (and she went to live with her mother in Michigan), Brian's parents divorced and he moved in with his dad in York, and the two lost touch with each other for twenty years. Cue the events of the film...
• Coda (2019): Helen informs Henry that they had actually met fifteen years prior, and he gave her advice that turned her off from a music career.
• Dick Tracy, Detective: The mayor served on the same jury as the murder victims back when he was a humble grocer, but never realizes this while discussing the murders and threatening letters with the police.
• Down with Love: When Catcher Block professes his love for Barbara Novak, Barbara reveals she is in fact Nancy Brown, one of Catcher’s many former secretaries. Catcher had asked Nancy for a date, but Nancy declined, refusing to be another of Catcher’s flings. Aspiring to be different from the other women Catcher knew and to get him to fall in love with her, Nancy assumed a new identity and look and reinvented herself as Barbara.
• Goodbye Again: Years ago, before Kenneth became a famous author, he had a college fling with a girl named Julie. She is under the impression that it was a grand romance, that she was to wait for him, and that she betrayed him when she married Herbert. When they meet again, he has completely forgotten who she is.
• Iron Man: Yinsen tells Tony they met at a conference years earlier, which Tony doesn't remember. Justified, since, as Yinsen says, Tony was so drunk at the time it was a miracle he could stand- much less deliver a speech.
• Iron Man 3:
  • Thirteen years ago, Tony Stark helped Maya Hansen with the equations needed to perfect the Extremis formula and then slept with her. When they meet again, she is insulted to learn he has no memory of this.
  • Also thirteen years ago, Aldrich Killian asked Tony to hang out and discuss science with him, but got stood up. Tony completely dismissed him from his mind, but Killian never forgot and dedicated his life to revenge.
• Jojo Rabbit: Elsa, the Jewish girl that Jojo's mother is hiding in their house, was friends with his deceased sister Inge before the war started but he doesn't remember her.
• Scream 4: Officer Judy Hicks was Sidney Prescott's classmate in high school, and both were members of the drama club. Judy remembers Sidney perfectly, since she is rather famous in Woodsboro, but Sidney has no recollections of Judy at all.
• Star Wars:
  • Two of these occurred in A New Hope due to new information revealed in the prequel movies. First of all, C-3PO didn't know who Obi-Wan Kenobi was, but R2-D2 did, and he didn't remember them, although he clearly knew them both when he was younger, making his interactions with them in the prequels somewhat confusing. This was partially explained at the end of Revenge of the Sith, where Bail Organa orders Threepio's memory wiped, which erases his memories of the entire prequel trilogy. In Obi-Wan's case, it's possible he did recognize them and just didn't say anything. This would be consistent with his characterization in the first trilogy because he's an old Jedi Master familiar with the mysterious ways of the Force, and he was trying to shield Luke from the dark secret about his father.
  • Owen and Beru Lars didn't seem to remember C-3PO either, although he had worked for their family for years in the time between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Owen may not have been telling Luke the truth about that, however, much like he was lying to Luke about the fate of his father in order to keep him sheltered. (The hologram of Leia probably made him decide against mentioning that he knew where the droids had come from.) Of course, it's just as likely that they simply didn't recognize C-3PO; it had been over 20 years and the protocol droid didn't have his iconic gold finish when he left their service. Particularly when Threepio's droid model appears to be a common one, considering that exact duplicates of him appear both in A New Hope.and The Empire Strikes Back.

Literature

• 2666: It takes Hans a little while to remember Ingeborg.
• The Camp Half-Blood Series: In The Son of Neptune, Percy Jackson is introduced to Reyna Ramirez-Arellano's sister, Hylla. He is then informed that the two actually met many years ago; she was Circe's servant who attended to him when he got stranded at Aeaea in The Sea of Monsters. Reyna also knew Percy since she was the servant who attended to Annabeth Chase offscreen. The main reason why Percy doesn't recognize her is because Hylla was a meek girl back then, but now, she is the Queen of Amazon.
• Deryni: In King Kelson's Bride, Kelson is reminded (by Rothana) that he had not only met his cousin Araxie when they were children, he also played with her and they got along very well with each other. Though their marriage is arranged, Kelson and Araxie decide to use those happy memories to build upon when forging their relationship.
• Divergent: Being children of Abnegation leaders, Tris and Four unwittingly knew about each other's existence long before they are properly acquainted in Dauntless. It takes Tris until the second stage of the initiation test to realize that Four is the same Tobias Eaton who left Abnegation to escape his father two years ago, while Free Four reveals that Four recognizes Tris as Andrew Prior's daughter much earlier, but chooses not to tell her about it.
• The Elder Empire: Calder met Shera, Lucan, and Meia at his trial, when they were still being personally tutored by the Empire. By the time of the story proper, both sides have completely forgotten; the Guild tells Shera about this meeting when she takes the job but she still doesn't remember, and Calder never makes the connection.
• Years before Goblin Slayer first rescued Priestess from a horrible fate at the hands of goblins, it turns out that the two of them had met once before: Goblin Slayer had gotten injured defending a town from a goblin raid and was brought to the temple of the Earth Mother. Priestess, upon seeing him hurt, found the necessary desire to cast her very first Miracle instinctively.
• Jaine Austen Mysteries: In Killer Cruise, the book's victim, Graham Palmer III didn't recognize his new girlfriend Emily Pritchard as a woman he dated long ago, whom he had bailed on when her father offered him money to dump her. But she recognized him alright...
• Subverted in Super Powereds, it seemed for a long time that Vince had forgotten his meeting with Camille (who had had her hair dyed at the time, went by a nickname, and told him about a part of her power that she hid later), but he figured it out before she revealed who she was. Played Straight with Nick's two years spent with Alice, before his memory was erased.
• In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell actually met Thomas More years ago before they met in Henry's court, while More was studying at a castle and Cromwell was a serving boy there. When Cromwell brought some food to the students' room he tried to ask More what he was reading and More brushed him off. More has absolutely no recollection of this meeting whereas Cromwell does and somewhat resents More for it, on top of his other reasons to dislike More in the present.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • When Sansa is being escorted to dinner by Loras Tyrell, she excitedly recounts the story of their first meeting — he was jousting in a tournament she was watching and she found it significant that he gave her a red flower (compared to the white flowers he gave other girls in the crowd). However, she realizes by his reaction that not only was there no meaning behind the red flower, he has no memory of meeting her at all.
  • A Storm of Swords. Oberyn Martell tells Tyrion Lannister that they've actually met before, but it was just after Tyrion had been born so he obviously wouldn't remember it.
  • A Feast for Crows, while in Braavos, Sam encounters a young girl selling shellfish who recognizes that his black armor means he is a brother of the Night's Watch. When she declines to tell him her name, saying she once had one but now she is "no one", the reader instantly realizes that it's Arya.
• In Tik-Tok of Oz this is a possible byproduct of Continuity Snarl (which the Oz series is known for), or just adapting the play the book was based on a little too closely. Polychrome and Shaggy Man met in The Road to Oz and were major characters in the story, but show no signs of recognizing one another when they meet again in this book (only three books later in the series).
• Played for laughs in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. When Ford and Arthur are saved by the Heart of Gold Ford is taken aback when Arthur (a dour Englishman who has obviously never left Earth before) knows both Trillian and Zaphod. They'd met at a party some months before, where Zaphod had only one head and called himself Phil. (When asked about it, Zaphod doesn't recall ever being in the Sol System, much less on Earth, but remembers everything when Arthur specifies it down to which district of London it was in.)
• In Roadwork, reporter Dave Albert briefly meets protagonist Bart Dawes while Dave's conducting man-on-the-street interviews. Seventeen months later, when Bart's plan to blow himself and his home to smithereens on the evening news comes to its climax, Dave is the last news reporter to interview Bart. Neither of the men really remember their first meeting, but Dave gets a strange feeling he knows Bart from somewhere.

Live-Action TV

• 7 Yüz: The app introduced in "Karşılaşmalar" seeks to illuminate forgotten or unknown encounters between couples by mining public and private data. Gözde and Onur learn about the app through their friends Begum and Mehmet, who excitedly share that they first met at a wedding (and even danced together) before officially "meeting" years later. Unfortunately for Gödze, her results are far less romantic.
• In 30 Rock, Jenna learns Jayden, a comedian she grew to hate during their actual first meeting, will join her show, so she decides to invoke this trope by saying "the four most vicious words you can say to a person you've already met. 'Nice to meet you.'" Unfortunately for her, Jayden genuinely doesn't remember her and cheerfully greets her with those words first. Subverted: he remembers everything and is just as petty as she.
  Tracy: Hey, Dotcom, nice to meet you. [leaves]
  Dotcom: [to Grizz] Why would he say that to me?
• In the Alien Nation novel Day of Descent, a flashback story about the spaceship crash five years before the series, Matt and George had a brief meeting in the climax of the book. But they didn't speak, and neither of them was able to tell members of the other species apart at that point, so they remain unaware that they've met before.
• In Angel, the title character starts stalking Anne because Wolfram & Hart has gotten involved with the shelter she runs, and 'accidentally' bumps into her. The two have actually met before on the mother show for a brief moment, but neither recognise each other due to it being three years ago (even longer for Angel, since he spent centuries in a hell dimension where time runs faster) and their encounter lasted just a few seconds.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In "Conversations With Dead People", Buffy encounters a recently-risen vampire who knows her Secret Identity, as he had a crush on her in high school. They get distracted from killing each other over this, as it takes half an hour of him prodding her memory before Buffy remembers who he was (to his annoyance).
• In Community Jeff and Shirley realize that when they were children Shirley humiliated him in a game of foosball. Jeff moved away soon after and they did not meet again until they were adults. The humiliation turned Jeff into the Jerk with a Heart of Gold he is today and Shirley's Heel Realization made her a very passive person.
• In Cougar Town, whilst Jules is lamenting that she doesn't have a Meet Cute with Grayson, it is shown that they had a Forgotten First Meeting (although it remains forgotten) and Meet Cute when Jules was new in town and Grayson introduced her to red wine.
• In the American Dear John, Ralph has a bad day and needs cheering up. John and Kate get him to remember something happy from his youth. He recalls a camper he used to have and enjoyed very much, but his happiness disappears when he remembers that a bunch of drunks stole it and rolled it into a gully. At the end of the episode, Kirk comes by and talks about his past. He mentions the time he and his friends got drunk and happened upon a camper.
• Dharma & Greg begins with the two as children, walking with their mothers at the subway and seeing each other for the first time. Flash forward twenty years later and they pass each other again; Dharma concludes that she knows him from a past life and winds up following him to his office.
• Doctor Who:
  • Rose actually met the Tenth Doctor for the first time as he was about to regenerate, months before she would meet Nine. Since he stayed in the shadows and they only spoke briefly, she doesn't recognize his face when Nine regenerates into Ten.
  • "The Name of the Doctor" has Clara enter the Doctor's timestream and appear throughout his life to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, although, most of the time, she appears just as he's leaving or running somewhere, so he doesn't see her. However, she is present when the First Doctor first steals the TARDIS. In fact, she advises the Doctor to take a different TARDIS than the one he intended, explaining "The navigation system's knackered, but you'll have much more fun." Presumably, the other TARDIS would have taken him where he wanted, rather than where he needed to go.
    • Then, of course, the Doctor twice comes across a younger Clara when he finally notices these echoes and starts investigating them. Once again, Clara does not seem to recognize him as the weird man she chatted with on the playground.
  • A one-sided example in the 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor": the War Doctor meets the Moment, who has taken the form of Rose Tyler (due to the Doctor and Rose's future closeness). Because the time-streams are out of sync and she only appeared to his incarnation, the Doctor forgets the meeting forever (or possibly until the events happen to Eleventh and he's "allowed" to remember them from the perspective of his past incarnations - the series is always a bit vague on how this works). However, it is implied that the meeting subconsciously resonates with him, causing his relationship with Rose to be as close as it was in the first place.
  • "Listen":
    • Clara and the Doctor meet the young Danny Pink but the Doctor wipes his memory of the incident and puts him to sleep, dreaming of being a brave soldier. Due to poor communication skills on Clara's part, the Doctor creates another Stable Time Loop in doing this.
    • In an attempt to save the TARDIS while the Doctor is out cold, Clara plugs herself into the TARDIS's interface and it carries her to the Doctor's childhood. She was the "monster under his bed". It is left open to the audience's imagination whether or not the Doctor realizes it was her.
• It is revealed the second episode of Dog with a Blog that Bennett and Ellen unknowingly met when they bumped into each other while strolling their children at the park. The reason they didn't recognize each other is because back then Bennett had a long grey beard and Ellen had red hair.
• In one episode of Drake & Josh, the titular step-brothers discover that before their parents met, they met while in line for concessions at a baseball game where they got into a fight that they both blame the other for starting.
• In the Frasier episode "Crock Tales", which is a series of reverse order flashbacks, the final flashback, set during the first season, has a cameo by Kenny, the KACL station manager from the season 5 finale onwards, as a pizza delivery guy. Frasier, in the middle of an argument with Martin, barely acknowledges his existence.
• In Friends Ross finds out that Phoebe mugged him when they were kids, back when she was homeless.
  • Flashbacks also reveal that Rachel meets Chandler no less than three times: first as Ross's dorky roomate at Thanksgiving, then the next year as the guy Monica hated and then as Monica's friend in the bar. She remembers nothing when they meet in the Pilot though this is attributed to her teenage It's All About Me attitude.
• In Fringe Peter met Olivia as a kid, but seems to have amnesia about this ever happening even though he is Olivia's boyfriend now. They both forgot this meeting as a result of repressing traumatic memories from around this time: for Peter, being kidnapped by his parents from an alternate universe; for Olivia, being the subject of Mad Science experiments.
• In Full House, Michelle met a boy named Howie and was heartbroken when he had to leave, as his mother was just visiting. Several seasons later, the family is surprised when the two meet again but don't remember each other.
• Game of Thrones: When Jory Cassel talks talks with Jaime Lannister at King's landing, Jory tells him that they fought together during the Greyjoy rebellion. Jaime doesn't remember, but they do fondly remember Thoros of Myr wielding his Flaming Sword like crazy.
• Good Omens (2019):
  • Played with in season 2. It might be the case that Crowley doesn't remember his real first meeting with Aziraphale, when Crowley was still an angel.
  • On the other hand, it looks like Aziraphale does remember it pretty well, and it could be the reason why he wants to reinstate Crowley in his full angelic status so much at the end of the season when given opportunity. He probably remembers how utterly happy Crowley was as an angel.
• The Hexer:
  • Adela was a little girl that has been wounded and left in the wild to die following the Gwidon's attack on a caravan. Geralt found her and nursed back to health during his Trial of Mountains. She was raised as a witcher in another witcher school, and came to visit Kaer Morhen just before Geralt's graduation. Geralt was able to remember her because he has already undergone mutations when he met her. However, she lost memories of him in the process of becoming a witcher.
  • Geralt assumes this about Renfri, when meeting her adult self. She corrects him that short for few more scars, he himself didn't change that much and she instantly recognised him.
• In Il Ji-Mae, one of his love interests figures out who he was by a piece of jewelry the boy who saved her life carried. The other love interest also figures out who he was because he continued a story he never finished when they were children.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
  • The guys insist that they've never met the waiter at Gugino's (whom they harrassed repeatedly in "The Gang Dines Out") when he recognizes them in a later episode.
  • Dee realizes in "The Waitress Is Getting Married" that she and The Waitress went to high school together.
    Waitress: I sat right next to you in trig.
    Dee: Huh. Wow, you are very forgettable.
• Jessica Jones: Jessica doesn't learn until partway through the first season that she'd met Malcolm once, long before he moved in down the hall from her. She had beaten up a pair of muggers who were trying to rob Malcolm. But Jessica never got a chance to look at his face, because seconds after she subdued the muggers, Kilgrave appeared and put her under his control.
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Nico Saiba enters the story with some massive grudge against Emu Hojo, acting like if he did something unspeakably horrible to her. Emu doesn't understand it or remember ever meeting her. As it turns out, he defeated the then-twelve-years-old Nico in a tournament six years ago and as that was her first and only loss, she has devoted all those years to plan her revenge. He eventually remembers her, but she is still mad at him for much longer.
• Last of the Summer Wine: When the Prequel series First of the Summer Wine was broadcast, a letter to the Radio Times questioned how the Replacement Character Seymour could be in it when the parent series had clearly shown his first meeting with Compo and Clegg. Word of God from Roy Clarke was that the snobbish Seymour just didn't want to aknowledge they already knew each other, and they didn't recall him clearly enough to say otherwise.
• In Legends of Tomorrow, Ray Palmer was a student of Professor Martin Stein as a teen. Years later, when they are both superheroes and working together, Martin does not remember Ray. It makes sense as Martin is over seventy years old and has been teaching for over fifty years. He can't really be expected to remember someone he taught for only one semester.
• Lucifer: "City of Angels?" reveals that Chloe briefly met Amenadiel when she was still an officer. Neither remember this meeting when they are properly introduced to each other in "Wingman".
• An episode of Mad About You reveals that Paul and Jamie first met as kids at the Natural History Museum.
• Manner Of Death: Dr. Bunn and Tan actually met for the first time 8 years ago at university and not at the pub as first shown. Dr. Bunn shows no sign of remembering though.
• Mouse (2021): Ba-reum and Yo-han met as children. Ba-reum only remembers this after Yo-han's death.
• My Name Is Earl:
  • Randy goes to meet his childhood crush "Pinky", who it turns out was Earl's ex-wife Joy.
  • Also, Joy originally tricked Earl into marrying her, given that her parents kicked her out for being pregnant out of wedlock. At the end of the series, it's revealed that the baby's father, whom she had a one-night stand with at a Halloween party, was Earl. Both were in costume.
• The Odd Couple: In one of the several versions of how Felix and Oscar first met, it was when Oscar's father ran a speakeasy in 1920s Chicago and Felix's father was an optometrist who fitted Oscar's father with glasses. Their families briefly stayed at the same hotel, and the boys met.
• In season 2 of Penny Dreadful, Vanessa does not recognize Lily Frankenstein as Brona Croft, whom she met in Season 1. It helps that Lily has a completely different accent, fashion sense, and hairstyle/color. Vanessa also only met her briefly originally.
• Happens to whole civilizations in Star Trek.
  • In "Acquisition", the Star Trek: Enterprise crew is knocked unconscious, boarded, and nearly robbed by an alien race they've never seen. The Enterprise crew drives them off, never learning their name (the Ferengi), and centuries before the official first contact in the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
    • Of course, three Ferengi had also (via time travel) been the 1947 Roswell aliens in the "Little Green Men" episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
  • Through time travel, the Borg met humans in 2063 (Star Trek: First Contact) and again in 2153 (Star Trek: Enterprise) without being clearly identified. Again, the real first contact came much later during Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• The Vampire Diaries: Damon & Elena actually met the night of her parents death and not in the scene we see in 1.02.
• Invoked humorously in an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place. Max introduces Jerry and Theresa to his girlfriend's parents and accidentally gives them bad advice resulting in humilation. Justin promptly erases the memories of Max's girlfriend's parents giving Jerry and Theresa a second chance to make a good impression.
• In Smallville, Clark and Lex briefly met in the immediate aftermath of the Meteor Shower. Neither of them remember it because Clark was around three years old, and Lex was half dead and in-and-out of consciousness. Not so for either of their parents, for which the event was a defining moment in their lives, for different reasons.

Music

• This trope is central to Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight", the source of the page quote.

Theatre

• Used as a plot device in Anastasia. Dmitry encountered the young Anastasia when they were ten and eight, respectively, He has never forgotten it (in exceptional detail, no less). At first, neither does Anya, but then she does suddenly remember a specific detail: Dmitry bowing to her, thus proving her true identity.
• In Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, Patience and Archibald were best friends when they were children; they are adults and meet again. Romance Ensues.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate III: If you play as the Dark Urge while also choosing the Paladin class and proceed to break an oath, then late in the game, when you learn the reason Urge has their curse (they're a Bhaalspawn), the Oathbreaker Knight will admit to them that their "first" meeting was not that. The Oathbreaker and Dark Urge have met multiple times prior to the events of the game, as the Urge made repeated attempts to fight against their murderous affliction and be a good person, only to lose control. They don't remember this because of their amnesia, and that is also why they have been given another chance at Paladin powers.
• BioShock Infinite begins with the player character, Booker DeWitt in a rowboat with a man and a woman. They're wearing rain coats, which prevents them being properly seen, but their quirky dialogue and voice actors do not change when we meet them a second time; they're the Lutece twins, two important recurring characters, and neither Booker nor the player (usually) realised who they were till the end.
• The second BlazBlue reveals that as a student Ragna met Taokaka while she was still a kitten (although he might remember, she doesn't). In this case their relationship is strictly platonic, however.
• Dragon Quest V: Nera (and her sister Debora) first met the Hero as a child when she was helped onto her father's ship by the hero's father Pankraz. Nera only makes the connection if she was chosen as the bride via Party Chat in Littlehaven or after talking to the ship's captain.
• In Ensemble Stars!, Chiaki and Eichi met when they both spent time in the same hospital as kids. They forgot about this as they got older, though Eichi's use of First-Name Basis with Chiaki even before he was reminded of it indicates that some of the feeling remained regardless.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Done via retcon in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Palom and Leonora actually met during the ending sequence of the previous game. Leonora remembered, but Palom didn't.
  • A sequence in Final Fantasy VIII shows that either all or virtually all of the party members spent time in the same orphanage as children, and most of them don't remembered it - much less the fact that the person running said orphanage was Sorceress Edea, whose husband is Cid, headmaster of their mercenary training school. Irvine is the only one who remembers it all, due to not having used Guardian Forces until he joins the party - as it turns out, they can cause memory-loss with sustained use.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Ike and Soren had met years ago, and Ike did not remember the first time that he met Soren, although Soren remembered in vivid detail. It was not until near the end of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance that Soren bothered to remind Ike how they met, and it wasn't until Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn that Ike finally remembered it first-hand. Justified in that their first meeting was right before Ike saw Greil killing Elena under the influence of Lehran's Medallion aka the story's Fire Emblem, for which Lehran himself aka Sephiran gave him amnesia which wasn't cured until being in the tower, where Ike and Sephiran's memories come to the fore.
  • Fire Emblem Fates:
    • This turns out to be the basis of the supports between Azura and Arthur. This is because a teen Arthur saved a little Azura from being punished by Taking the Heat for her, but this happened before she was kidnapped into the Hoshido court; she remembers that someone helped her back then, but up until Arthur confronts her, she cannot remember who did it.
    • In the Birthright path, if the Avatar fights either Laslow, Selena or Odin, each one will point out that s/he has met them before, but the Avatar doesn't remember. The Hidden Truths DLC stage adds another dimension to this...
• In Granblue Fantasy, the Eternal Eahta/Okto forgot that the child he unknowingly inspired in the dojo was no other than Narmaya. In the first place, Okto's intention was to speak to the dojo master, and he just happens to pass by as Narmaya is training. Justified, as he never asked the child's name after teaching her one technique. Many years later, her name doesn't even ring a bell to Eahta, until they met face-to-face for the second time, where Narmaya properly introduces herself and mentions the past incident.
• Harvest Moon: Back to Nature and Friends of Mineral Town have the protagonist meeting a girl as a kid, who turns out to be whoever you marries in-game via The Reveal.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Played with in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Naminé is forced to gradually replace Sora's memories of Kairi with fake ones of herself, which makes him think that Naminé was an old friend he had forgotten about, when the truth is that they never met until the events of the game. Then again, Naminé is Kairi's nobody, so in a way she did know Sora from childhood, if only by proxy.
  • Kingdom Hearts III: Back in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Sora and Kairi as young children had met Aqua and Kairi had also met King Mickey. Lea as a teenager had met Ventus. By the time of this game, Sora and Kairi don't remember these encounters and Lea can barely remember Ventus. Aqua points out they were little kids at the time. King Mickey also did not realize the little girl he met was Kairi until Aqua pointed it out.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, when Link encounters Prince Sidon of the Zora at Inogo Bridge, the latter notes that the former's name sounds familiar but that he can't place it exactly. Upon Link's arrival in Zora's Domain, Sidon's father King Dorephan instantly recognizes Link from one hundred years earlier when Sidon was just a kid too young to distinctly remember the Hylian's time there. Sidon's recognition was likely also hampered not only by the fact that Link was reported killed in the fight against Calamity Ganon, but also because Link appears just as young as he did a century ago, which wouldn't be possible for a Hylian under normal circumstances. Link doesn't remember his first meetings with the Zora royalty either, but for different reasons.
• Played with in Mass Effect. In the first game, you can encounter and destroy a rogue VI on Luna that has apparently gained sentience. In Mass Effect 3, you find out the VI was actually in fact EDI, the Normandy SR2's on-board AI and your eventual squadmate, in the early stages of her development. She remembered Shepard, but didn't want to say anything in case it made things difficult between them. Thankfully, she doesn't hold a grudge about it.
• Persona 2: Innocent Sin groups together Tatsuya, Maya, Lisa and Eikichi. They were all childhood friends of a group called the Masked Circle that disbanded when the group believed that Maya was killed in a fire. The last member of the group is a Forgotten Friend, New Foe, Jun. Note that all the Love Interests for Tatsuya are from this group, including Jun.
• Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth retroactively does this for S.E.E.S. and the InvestigationTeam, who officially first meet in the previously released Persona 4: Arena. It's explained that the time travel involved in the labyrinth was an unforeseen event that would potentially cause a paradox should either team remember the adventure, so both of their memories had to be erased.
• Professor Layton and the Last Specter: The day that The Professor saved Emmy from going to jail caused enough of an impact on her that she trained to become his apprentice years later, but for the Professor, it was Tuesday. Apparently, she doesn't mind if he doesn't remember, she just happy to be going on an adventure with him.
• In Silent Hill 4: The Room, Walter Sullivan knew all of his victims, apparently save Henry, in some capacity before he became a Serial Killer, with many of them (e.g., Cynthia, Eileen) having had only brief, insignificant encounters with him that they forgot about. He didn't.
• In Third Super Robot Wars Z: Jigoku-hen, Heero relates that back before he was a proper assassin, he had a mission here to guard the Tiger of Helmajistan. Who was evidently the charismatic leader of a guerilla force some ten years ago. His name was Majid, the Tiger of Badakhshan. Setsuna's familiar with him too, since he was sent here once before to assassinate him. Prince Ali apparently didn't like the guy, and sent Setsuna and some other kids to assassinate him. Sousuke chimes him that he also was here to get rid of him. Hibiki Kamishiro is shocked at the odds that three separate child soldiers might end up in the same region as enemies.
• Deconstructed in To the Moon: The beta blockers Johnny is given by his mother after Joey dies leads him to suppress a large part of his childhood memories, causing him to forget why he wants to go to the moon and the first time he met River, this causes a great deal of resentment in River towards Johnny. As a result she futilely spent most of her life desperately trying to make him remember.

Visual Novels

• In CLANNAD, Kotomi and Tomoya met years ago when they were just children. She remembers, as Tomoya was her Only Friend, but he doesn't until right at the very end.
• In Kanon, it turns out Yuuichi knows all of the main girls except Shiori from childhood. He forgot about all of this because that was also the time when Ayu had her terrible accident, and he was so emotionally broken by it that he ended up with Trauma-Induced Amnesia.
• Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors plays with this trope a lot, with several characters having actually met each other before, but certain circumstances prevent them from recognizing each other (or in some cases, pretending to.) Snake, June and Santa were all part of the previous Nonary Game as children, of which Ace was the organizer whom they'd all encountered during the game, and Seven is a police investigator who crashed and disrupted the game to help rescue the children. However, Seven currently has amnesia and thus doesn't even recognize himself, let alone anyone else. Snake is blind and thus doesn't recognize the voices of any of his fellow players now that they've all grown up (he does recognize Ace, however, but keeps it to himself.) Ace has prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder that prevents him from being able to tell faces apart, so he only recogizes Snake, since he was the only blind kid in the previous game, but again, keeps it to himself. Santa and June, meanwhile, not only secretly recognize everyone, but they're actually the masterminds behind the current Nonary Game.
• In Shining Song Starnova, Mr. Producer and Natsuki first met at a concert seven years before the events of the game. While she never forgot the meeting and knew who he was immediately, he doesn't remember until he discovers an autographed picture of himself from that concert in her apartment (and even then, it takes him a day to connect the dots).
• In Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair, the ten teenagers who attend the Halloween party are all acquainted with one another to varying degrees, and some of them have been friends for years. One pair, however, namely, Kamen and Raiko, met four years before the start of the story, when Raiko saved Kamen from being falsely accused of shoplifting, but Raiko ended up mostly forgetting about Kamen, much to the latter's disappointment.
• A plot point of the eroge Snow Sakura, the protagonist Yuuji once meets a girl under a cherry blossom tree. Since he's forced to move to the place of childhood, he determines to find out who the girl is. There are two possibilities for the girl's identity: one is Misaki, his class mate, and another is Saki, his cousin.
• In Tsukihime, due to some Laser-Guided Amnesia, Shiki forgets about Kohaku and Hisui, and in the routes he does remember them, he cannot recall their names and also gets them confused due to the Twin Switch they accidentally pulled. Kohaku is not pleased, because she misunderstands and believes that Shiki thinks Hisui gave him her ribbon. Naturally, this means plan 'everyone has to die' commences as usual.
• This trope plays a large role in the 18+ Otome Game Under the Moon, in which it is paired with Laser-Guided Amnesia and Played for Drama. Prior to the game, possible love interests Leni and Seizh were exiled for competing over the affections of the heroine Ashe, but she has forgotten them (through no fault of her own). Unsurprisingly, the guys are bitter about it.
• The Driving Question of Yandere Chan (no, not that one) is when and where Mia and the protagonist allegedly first met. The answer is never revealed in any of the routes, and remains a Riddle for the Ages.
• Aquarium: By the present, Theo has forgotten he's met Aqua when they were kids, and she's can't bring it up due to her status and promise to Fubuki.

Web Animation

• Wonder Woman and Cheetah met as children in DC Super Hero Girls. Wonder Woman has forgotten, but not Cheetah. Or, in actuality, Wonder Woman remembers the girl but doesn't know that Barbara Minerva grew up to be Cheetah.
• HFIL reveals the first time Cell and Bojack met wasn't at The Stinger of Episode 9, but right after Cell self-destructed and blew up King Kai's planet, freeing Bojack. Cell, however, didn't remember this, between freaking out over how he thought he was going to die, and suddenly realizing he could teleport now.
• Hololive EN members Ina'nis and Sana have been friends in real life for years, with the former revealing in one stream that their first interaction as kids was this. Ina was one of many peers that Sana curbstomped in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl one day, with Sana having zero recollection of this.

Webcomics

• In Ava's Demon, Gil is reunited with his former boarding school roommate Gev. While Gil is elated to see him, Gev can't remember him at first and is obviously uninterested when he does.
  Gev: [looking away] Sorry, guess I forgot.
  Gil: Oh, heh! Well I suppose it HAS been a while and—
  Gev: [still looking away] Anyway, was there something you needed?
• In The Croaking Scra and Ky first meet on a cliff some miles out of town for some consecutive nights, talk, and even fly together. When they meet a month later at the Roost, a military academy for avians, Scra apparently doesn't remember Ky anymore.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, when Bob is badly injured and his life flashes before his eyes, he remembers in this series of strips that he and Jean met as children.
• In It's Walky!, Walky and Joyce first met when they were both abducted by the Aliens as children. They were mindwiped before being returned.
• Kevin & Kell does this with Rudy and Fiona, who find out after dating for some time that they were in the same preschool — and hated each other. Later on, it's revealed that Kell once chased Aby up a tree when they were both ten. Aby doesn't tell Kell this until 25 years later, after the two have been friends for some time.
• In Marry Me (Bobby Crosby), Guy actually met Stasia on a movie set some time before the comic's official start. He has no memory of this because he was delirious with a fever, and to her he was just some weird extra in a gorilla suit.
• Newman: When discussing how Kathryn and Darian first fell in love, it's revealed that Gwen had skipped out on the homecoming dance to do some delinquency. Robby aka Drudge Stryer, an recurring nuisance to her, tried to attack her again and Newman came to help her out. This comes as a surprise to Newman since he didn't even realize they went to the same school together.
• Too Much Information (2005): The latest addition to Ace's Unwanted Harem is a very tall Ainu girl who ran away from home because she was always being mocked for her size, determined to find the only boy who'd ever called her pretty — a young Gaijin boy she'd found lost back in Hokkaido, and helped to find a police-box. Cue the revelation that Ace had gotten lost during a trip to Hokkaido with his mom when he was a kid, and had been helped by a pretty redhead...

Web Video

• Atop the Fourth Wall sees this invoked during "The Clone Saga", where it's revealed thaty during his days as a villain, Dr. Linksano helped Linkara clone Spoony, then got some of Linkara's DNA and mindwipe him as part of a plot he never went through with.

Western Animation

• In season 4 of The Batman, "Riddler's Revenge" retconned that the season 2 episode "Riddled" was in fact not Batman's first run-in with the Riddler, as "Riddler's Revenge" contained a flashback that showed Bruce had a run-in with a a pre-costumed super villain Edward Nygma, who went after a former boss before "Riddled" and this meeting inspired Eddie to don the trademark costume.
• Despite being introduced in Ben 10: Alien Force, Ben 10: Omniverse shows the Plumbers' Helpers actually met Ben's group when they, along with Kevin, were taken to the Null Void as kids by the Rooters, who gave them alien DNA and made them an army of mutant children that ambushed that Ben, Gwen, and Max at one point. The reason why they didn't remember their first encounter is because their memories were erased by the Rooters.
• In Bluey, Bandit is certain that a girl he met on vacation as a child in The '80s was his now-wife, Chilli. While Chilli concedes that this might be true, as her family frequented the same vacation spot, she has no memory of the event and considers their first meeting to be the party in London where they were introduced properly.
• In the later seasons of BoJack Horseman, one episode shows Diane meeting BoJack months before their proper introduction in the first episode, during a Halloween party. BoJack is a little too distracted to pay her much mind though, and Mr. Peanutbutter tries to make Diane feel better by pointing out that he probably won't remember her at all anyway.
  • BoJack also realizes this about Princess Carolyn - the first time he remembers meeting her she said "It's nice to see you again!" She tells him that was the third time they met. The first time she was delivering a script and found him hungover and covered in tapioca pudding.
• In Central Park, the Season 1 finale "A Fish Called Snakehead", when Cole confronts Bitsy about Shampagne, Bitsy forgets who he is and mistakes him for a tiny reporter, despite the fact that it was him who found her dog when he got lost. Helen had to remind Bitsy who Cole was and she finally remembers.
• Dexter's Laboratory: Mandark's Origins Episode show him as meeting Dexter before introducing himself as his classmate, when Mandark took an interest in Dexter's scientific display. Dexter doesn't remember because the unisex pink clothes and long hair imposed by Mandark's Hippie Parents made Dexter think he was a girl—which Mandark fails to refute, as he was still going by his Embarrassing First Name "Susan". This ends up inspiring Mandark's interest in science and hatred for Dexter.
• Dora the Explorer: Implied. Dora shares how she met her animal friends in "Dora's First Trip"; they were their current ages during that time. But in "Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure" when traveling through time to when the animals were toddlers, Dora was among them.
• Final Space: In "Episode 4", Gary finally meets Quinn again after five years. But while Gary has been dreaming about her and sending her video messages (none of which she ever received) all that time, Quinn has completely forgotten about Gary and thus doesn't recognize him after he rescued her. Gary takes this as a sign that she has amnesia. Worse; she does know Avocato, KVN, and the various SAMES Gary named. Averted at the end of the episode, when Gary mentioning that he is John Goodspeed's son finally triggers Quinn's memories of their first meeting five years ago.
  • Another one related to Quinn happens in Season 3, in fact it's related to both versions of her. Kevin Van Newton is familiar with Quinn yet she has absolutely no recollection of them meeting before. Because in an interesting twist of this trope. Kevin met Nightfall instead of the current Quinn. So in a sense, they did indeed meet. It was just the other version of Quinn, or rather the Quinn she will be.
• In the Futurama episode "Lethal Inspection", we learn that Hermes was a MomCorp factory inspector who saved the newly-built Bender from being destroyed due to a defect. Hermes presumably didn't realize who Bender was for years, and Bender still has no idea.
• Hercules: The Animated Series: In "Hercules and the Aetolian Amphora", Hercules and Megara meet as teenagers, with the latter trying to manipulate him to get titular item. At the end of the episode, just as they admit their attraction to each other and are about to share a kiss, the two have their memories of the night erased by Lethe water and part ways in confusion. The interactive narrator goes on to say that Herc and Meg go on to live happily ever after, much to the confusion of one of the Muses, so he begrundingly starts explaining the plot of the film.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In "Rock Solid Friendship", it is revealed that Starlight Glimmer and Maud Pie had met several years ago. Maud gave Starlight the information needed to enslave a town back when she was a villain. Funnily enough, Starlight didn't remember this, but Maud did, despite being more focused on excavating rocks at the time for her graduate disseration. Pinkie Pie strongly insists that they don't let anyone know that little detail if asked.
  • In "Friendship University", the Flim-Flam brothers have no idea who Rarity is, since the last time they met was in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", a really long time ago, and they didn't really talk to each other.
• In Recess, Gus is introduced in the second episode as "The New Kid". Much later, the special All Growed Down revealed that he'd briefly attended kindergarten at Third Street Elementary, and met his future friends.
• Rugrats: In his youth during the second world war, Lou met his second wife Lulu performing as a singer who kept forgetting the words to her songs. The two of them interacted and Lou offered her something to eat, then left before she could thank him.
  Lulu: I never was able to thank that man.
  Lou: (smiling) You just did.
• The Simpsons: In "The Way We Weren't", Marge and Homer met when they were circa 10 years old at summer camp and shared their first kisses together. When they met again in high school neither recognized the other, in part because Marge had very different hair and Homer had an eye-patch and was going by an alias when they first met.
• Steven Universe:
  • A year before Steven introduces himself to Connie in "Bubble Buddies", he saw her leave behind a glow bracelet at a parade and kept it for her in a freezer. Connie doesn't recognize Steven until he explains all this, at which point she remembers he was the kid on the float with soap bubbles in his hair.
  • When Lapis Lazuli's backstory is revealed in "Same Old World", she's shown to have been poofed (i.e., injured and forced to retreat to her Gem) during a battle by a tall, muscular Gem with multi-colored hair. Said Gem is later introduced as the titular character of "Bismuth". However, when Lapis and Bismuth finally meet in "Reunited", they show no awareness of their previous encounter. Word of God confirms that our Bismuth is the one who poofed Lapis, but they don't recognize each other for differing reasons: Bismuth because she poofed a lot of Gems during the war, and Lapis because she was attacked from behind.
  • "Three Gems and a Baby" reveals that Garnet did once show Steven that she was a Fusion of Ruby and Sapphire, thinking that he was also a Fusion. Justified as he was only a baby at the time, so he wouldn't be able to remember it.
• An episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) revealed that the turtles had met Casey Jones when they were all kids, trying to teach him how to be strong. The turtles had disguised themselves, taking turns as to who would help him out, and Casey was using a different name (Arnold), so they never realized they'd met before.

Real Life

• At the end of the American Civil War, Generals Grant and Lee met at the Appomattox courthouse to discuss the terms of the Soutern surrender. At the start of the meeting, Grant was clearly uneasy about how to broach the subject and opens by reminding Lee that they met before while serving in the Mexcian-American War. Lee, depressed at having to surrender his army, merely replied that he didn't recollect this (Lee would've been at a much higher rank than Grant at the time), and asked if they could Dispense with the Pleasantries.

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