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When people say " Love Hurts", they also mean it in the physical sense! "Yusa Chiemi! That spin kick you gave me... Hit me in the right spot! Go out with me, please!" — Hirata, Jun'ai Tokkou Taichou
"... From the first time I met you on the battlefield, I saw a beautiful girl. But... after I fought you and realized your strength, I only saw the greatest warrior I had ever met. (...) K-Karla. What was I thinking! That was the absolute stupidest thing I could have said! What's wrong with me! Am I... in love? Wauuuugghhhhhh!" — Bartre, Fire Emblem 7.
They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, but if that first impression involves you insulting, smacking or punching anyone with an arrogant personality, then you'd best watch out. You may have just made yourself a cruel and brutal enemy...
... and if they don't become your enemy, they may become something even worse.
Yes, that's right. The snobbishly bishonen Student Council President, the hulking school bully, the stuck-up Libby — admire them, grovel before them, and they'll barely take any notice of you. Make a snide, cutting remark about their attitude or launch your foot into their face, and they'll be putty in your hands. It is not known why people with Jerkass tendencies tend to go gaga over the people who stand up to them — most likely it is a way of saving face. "I let that girl beat me up because I thought she was cute," is a far, far less embarrassing excuse than "I let that girl beat me like a red-headed step-child because her mad Kung Fu skillz far outstrip my own."
The hero or heroine who puts the bully into their place very rarely appreciates his or her amorous attentions. This is because bullies are usually villains, and villains tend to have a rather perverted and/or amoral approach to most aspects of their lives, including love. Bully Love tends to be a rather obsessive and one-sided affair, which can be played for comedy if the object of their affections is equally strong and aggressive (and if they're not, the whole thing can just come off as damn creepy). Some heroes find themselves completely flustered by a bully's attentions, especially if the bully is female and the hero is a male who has qualms about hitting women. An aggressive heroine with no such qualms against violence may likewise find it hard to launch into a bully who is less physically strong than she is — and even if he's a gigantic brute, the heroine may find herself feeling just a little bit guilty about tossing him into a wall if he's approaching her with hearts in his eyes and a bouquet of flowers in his arms.
Occasionally, the bully may try to reform in an effort to win the heart of his beloved. In series where Status Quo Is God, this oftentimes will not go very well. If the villain becomes pathetic enough in his or her endeavors, the hero/heroine may start to love them out of pity. This can lead to a Slap Slap Kiss type of situation wherein the protagonist and the bully enter into a period of bickering which may eventually bear fruit as a full-fledged romance, although most often it will just be milked as a source of comic relief.
In a number of situations, it is a form of Meet Cute - haloed in light, she's the first thing you see upon waking up from a bludgeoning - which she inflicted. What better way to meet the love of your life?
See also Hot Amazon, Well Excuse Me Princess. Compare Dating Catwoman.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- Hiei of Yu Yu Hakusho has this late in the series with Mukuro. She sets him against an old acquaintance who slices him into pieces; after he's healed from this, she fights and defeats him in a tournament. Finally when he annoys her too much, she punches through his stomach and throws him out... and he not only doesn't hold it against her, but he arranges a really, er, nice gift for her.
- Tenshi Na Konamaiki has the "bully falling in love with the girl who disciplines him" angle as part of its main plot, although this situation has a twist — the girl the bully falls in love with is not what she seems. Well, actually, she is. Kind of.
- Akane Tendō from Ranma ½ often became the object of boys' affections because of her Tsundere attitude.
- In the second movie, Nihao My Concubine, the boy-prince chooses Akane to be his bride (from the hundreds of other candidates available) after she climbs on his throne, smacks him in the face and gives him a What The Hell Hero speech for humiliating her and the other girls. (It is implied that the only woman who ever disciplined him before was his mother...)
- Similarly, Kunō's obsessive love for Akane and "the pigtailed girl" seems to grow the more they beat him into submission.
- In the manga, the "Hentai Horde", as fanon dubs it, actually comes back together and resumes its original purpose of ambushing Akane and trying to knock her out cold in order to claim the right to date her when Akane gives her status as Ranma's fiancée to her elder sister.
- The trope is actually codified into the law of the Chinese Amazons and thus effectively defines Shampoo's relationship with Ranma: ever since he defeated her while in his male form, she genuinely considers him her husband.
- Hell, Ranma and Akane's relationship could be considered to fall under this. Though Akane does initially greet him with the offer to be friends, due to mistaking him for another girl, once the explanations are over after their Naked First Impression, she starts insulting Ranma, who rises to the bait and zings her back by pointing out his female form is more heavily stacked then hers. Akane promptly bashes Ranma over the head with a table, knocking him/her out cold, and the rest is history.
- Pictured above: Domyouji Tsukasa, the leader of the snobbish clique in Hana Yori Dango, falls for Makino Tsukushi, the Plucky Girl, who isn't afraid to slam her foot into his face and undress him as a Jerkass. She's the first person outside of his family (the original one being his sister Tsubaki) to ever do so.
- In Naruto it has recently been revealed that the titular character loves Sakura Haruno , who basically does this all the time
- Military nut Giroro on Keroro Gunsou fell for Natsumi after she navigated his booby traps, dodged his missile fire, and smacked him out the window with her school bag. He declares his love just before he loses consciousness.
- Subverted by poor Makoto of Sailor Moon fame, whose horrid luck with love persisted despite her ability to wail on any and all bullies. She fared better in the live-action adaptation, but this trope was irrelevant in the relationship.
- In Blue Drop, Hagino tries to strangle Mari when they first meet in the dorms. It is needless to say that their relationship is a tad strained for a while after that, although they keep hanging out with each other.
- In Jun'ai Tokkou Taichou the school's most troublesome delinquent, Hirata, asks out the main character Chiemi after she punishes him him for causing trouble.
- Arguably, Ukyō from Samurai Seven only became more obsessed with Kirara after she refused to become part of his harem.
- One of the myriad reasons Hot Blooded Shizuma Kusanagi is attracted to The Hero Ryoko Mitsurugi in Real Bout High School is because she's the only one who can beat him in a fight.
- Patrick Colasawar fell for his coronel Kati Mannequin this way in Gundam 00. He was an incorrigible Casanova and Ace until Kati punched him for being late. Now, The Strategist can't get the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain off her back. And they end up Happily Married in the Grand Finale.
- Kurei only starts warming up and opening himself when Kurenai gave him a slap, her being the first woman to ever slap him on the face. Then... horrible shit happen.
- Nanjiroh Echizen was a popular tennis player and a Handsome Lech. Rinko Takeuchi was a law student and Type B Tsundere. She was the first girl who didn't tolerate his Handsome Lech traits, he groped and teased her for being a Pettanko... but after an incident where he rescued her from a Jerkass tennis coach, they got hitched up, married and had a son named Ryoma, the lead character in The Prince of Tennis.
- In the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, Mrs. Bradley tells Ed and Al that her first meeting with Bradley ended with her slapping him.
- Subverted and played straight in Kodomo No Omocha. The first girl (Mami) who called out the local Jerk Ass (Hayama) was almost drowned by him and his gang in the school pond. The second girl (Sana) fared quite better and the Jerk Ass slowly became a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold thanks to her.
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, this is probably to be expected, given the series' preferred method of making friends. Most obviously, Fate thoroughly owns Nanoha in their first meeting, and all Nanoha can think of afterward is how beautiful Fate's sad eyes are.
Comics
- In Bowling King, the bratty, rich Handsome Lech Jen Ni falls for Tz'zun for real (having only been superficially attracted to her before) after she violently refused his advances. "I know, she's playing hard to get!" This, of course, is him being a moron; Nobody else in the world would interpret a Groin Attack as anything but "no."
- In Preacher, Rev. Jesse Custer's parents met when his mother ran up to his Marine father, spat in his face, and called him a "baby-killer". Later she found him and apologized, explaining that she felt pressured into her actions by the hippies she traveled with.
Films
- Gone With The Wind has Rhett Butler falling head over heels in love with Scarlett after witnessing her not-so-ladylike behavior and being on the receiving end of her insults. Likewise, Scarlett probably fell in love with him because of his sexy boorishness and his refreshingly brutal frankness in a world where no one ever calls anything by its right name. (And just note how ga-ga she goes over him after he drunkenly grabs her and whisks her away upstairs to bed.)
Literature
- Older Than Steam example: Britomart and Artegall in The Faerie Queene, who first met in a brutal, bloody swordfight grudge match while the former was disguised as a man.
- When Luke Skywalker first met Mara Jade, she wanted to kill him more than anything. She later changed her mind and eventually married him. Talk about a false start.
- In fairness, her murderous intent was as a direct result of a compulsion Palpatine placed in her head, which she spends most of three sizeable novels resisting before giving into it in a most unusual way. When they meet, she's actually working for a smuggler with definite Rebel/New Republic sympathies.
Live Action TV
- In Clarissa Explains It All, Clarissa stands up to a bully to stop him from picking on her brother. Before she can even land the first blow, he starts serenading her. A later episode has her resolve this issue, but before the end he's crooning to her again.
- Jackie's sudden crush on Hyde after she breaks up with Kelso on That '70s Show. Textbook example — Hyde never actually changes his relationship to her, mostly consisting of unremitting cruel snark, even after they actually begin dating.
- In Stargate SG-1, when Daniel and Vala first meet, Vala shoots him with an energy wrist blaster and later beats him up (including whacking him in the groin with a fire extinguisher) and Daniel shoots her with a painful stun gun twice. However, in the final episode they have a Last Minute Hookup (although time travel undoes it).
- This is either a Shout Out or a blatant rip off of her introduction in Farscape - John Crichton becomes The Hero of his series in less than ten minutes - by being shot into a distant part of the universe, making a vicious enemy and is thrown into a cell, where he meets his Dream Girl, the lovely and deadly Aeryn Sun. Who immediately beats the crap out of him.
- One of the later season episodes of Red Dwarf has the crew looking for excuses to get into the prison sickbay. The Cat decides the best method is to provoke a fight with the biggest, baddest guy in the prison block — shoving him, stealing his food, and so on, culminating in calling him the Cat's "bitch". Given it's being cited here, the results are obvious.
- Referenced in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Crush":
Joyce: Honey, did you somehow, unintentionally, lead him on in any way? Uh, send him signals?
Buffy: Uh... I do beat him up a lot. For Spike, that's like third base.
Mythology
- In Greek Mythology and Epitome of the Bibliotheke, Achilles falls in love with Amazon queen Penthesilea at the precise moment that he kills her in battle and then orders a magnificent burial for her as an apology, which is very tragic and makes this Older Than Dirt.
- And also killed Thersites for making fun of him crying over the body. Or saying "She's still warm."
Theater
- In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Petrucchio finds Katherine's shrewishness, wit, and stubbornness not only impressively equal to his own but a sporting challenge to overcome.
- Beatrice and Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing get a double dose of this: They're equally matched masters of wit who save their best efforts for each other; their constant volleying of insults has lasted for years. This makes them dear friends at the start of the play — each one genuinely enjoys the wordplay and battle of wits — and by the end of the play they've realized that they're actually in love, and get engaged. None of this stops them from zinging each other.
Video Games
- In Skies of Arcadia, Handsome Lech Vigoro becomes obsessed with chasing Aika after she is part of giving him a violent smackdown and insults his manhood afterwards.
- As seen above, Bartre the Axefighter from Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken comes to feel this way about Karla, the Princess of Swords... the first fighter who completely beated him in a duel. If you get their supports, you'll see that they end up getting married and have a daughter, Fir. But if you've played the sixth game, Sword of Seals, you'll also know that poor Karla passed away of illness some years later.
- A client elf in Atelier Iris 3 falls in love with the short receptionist Phenyl after she beats him continuously. Following this scene, he is referred to as having newly-discovered "masochistic tendencies" in the character codex.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- Code Lyoko: Yumi and Ulrich first met as sparring partners in a martial arts class.
- This is how Mauricea expresses her affection for Todd on Wayside School. Her love, however, rapidly became onesided.
- When Van Helsing (in his younger years) from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy couldn't find the thing that was missing in his life, he meets a girl on the street and she knocks the crap out of him. Of course, this was the thing that he had been searching for.
- Sokka in Avatar The Last Airbender doesn't initially take Suki's Amazon Brigade seriously. After she shows him why he should, he swallows his pride and asks to be trained by them, impressing her.
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