- From All Hail King Julien, Uncle King Julien suddenly falling in love with Zora in "King Julien is Watching You." There's absolutely no foreshadowing for any of this, he just sees her, and suddenly gives up his evil desire to regain his kingdom to be with her. Keep in mind this was a guy who has tried to kill his titular nephew many times and two seasons earlier attempted to blow up Madagascar with a missile since he couldn't get his kingdom back; it just seems like a massive Ass Pull by the writers to kill two birds with one stone (removing Uncle Julien as an antagonist and making Mort single again) note before the Grand Finale.
- Barry and Katya in Archer get together in Season 3 because they're both cyborgs, overlooking Katya's love for Archer and the fact that Barry murdered her (It Makes Sense in Context). Their relationship is dysfunctional from the start and almost all of their scenes involve them arguing about something. In the Season 6 episode "Edie's Wedding", we learn that Katya apparently wised up to this and dumped Barry.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Sokka and Yue meet, and two days later, she's giving him a kiss on the lips as an expression of how she feels (while dumping him because of her Arranged Marriage).
- There’s very little build-up for the relationship between Zuko and Mai. The two share almost no screen time in Book 2, and Mai is only briefly mentioned to have a crush on Zuko. Then, at the very start of Book 3, they’re in an established romantic relationship. Presumably, the relationship developed somewhat off-screen, and Book 3 does devote some time to developing the relationship.
- Batman Beyond: Terry and Melanie. They met seconds after he got conveniently dumped by Dana, talked a little, kissed under the rain then they're a couple and Mel is unwilling to leave Gotham because of him. Maybe justified by the length of the episode. Also justified by her origins. She has days, weeks at most to get to know anyone, she hates her crime life, her family doesn't treat her well, and she can take out anyone who threatens her. She's clearly desperate and lonely enough to form a connection with someone. Anyone. So it makes sense that she would just rush into relationships. Just a couple of horny, lonely teenagers making a mistake. Taken to extremes in the 2016 comic, which are set several years after the series, yet Melanie is still in love with Terry to the point that she breaks into his new home to steal a photo of him and add it to her collection, despite not having talked with him in all that time.
- Ben 10:
- Gwen and Kevin in Ben 10: Alien Force: Despite the characters having zero interactions in the previous series, the ship is dropped on the viewer with absolutely no set-up in this installment's first episode. Kevin almost wrecking his precious car to tell Ben not to be rude to Gwen could be attributed to his Badass Decay, but "I'll follow you anywhere"? Fans struggled to accept this relationship throughout the show's first season, though many would warm up to it as it saw greater development throughout the rest of the show, as well as further sequel series Ultimate Alien and Omniverse. That being said, Omniverse going as far as to retcon earlier periods in the timeline to help make that reunion in the first episode of Alien Force more acceptable received mixed response.
- Taken to greater extremes in Ben 10: Omniverse for Ben and Kai. Their relationship is treated as this fantastic thing that's destined to happen despite the fact that they have barely ever interacted since they were kids, Kai is an abrasive person who clearly likes Ben's alien forms more than Ben himself, and several other characters that Ben has actual chemistry with are swatted aside to push her as his one and only. More time is spent building up the pairing as inevitable than showing why they should be together, to the point that one recurring character is a time-traveling superhero who actively pushes them to get together whenever he can. To be fair, he's their Kid from the Future... but since Ben 10 has always operated on multiverse theory, most fans (as evidenced by the wiki) and some of the series' own writers choose to view him as hailing from one of many alternate futures due to the myriad of continuity problems and plot contradictions it would result in otherwise.
- Brandy & Mr. Whiskers: In the episode "A Really Crushing Crush", Ed and Lola suddenly have a crush on each other, something which had never even been implied before.
- Capitol Critters: Max has only known Miko for a day and suddenly calls her his world and wanting to go to Tokyo with her. However, Jammet, Trixie, and even Miko herself tell him that they barely know each other and Trixie tells Max the real reason he wants to leave with them is so he can feel like part of a family again.
- Craig of the Creek: Some people feel this way about Craig and Wildernessa's development in "Puppy Love", noting Craig's feelings coming about as a result of a Love Revelation Epiphany as opposed to developing on their own over time. This becomes especially noticeable when comparing it to the development between Kelsey and Stacks as well as J.P. and Maney, who some note get more time to develop their relationships, despite being Deuteragonists, as opposed to Craig, who's The Protagonist. Not helped by the fact that "Craig to the Future", which briefly shows the two dating in a future scenario, was aired two days before "Puppy Love", resulting in fans bringing up the possibility that Craig got pressured into these feelings as a result of learning of that possible future.
- Danny and Sam from Danny Phantom were obviously planned to be the Official Couple from the beginning, with almost everyone remarking on it, if not being an outright Shipper on Deck, and innumerable S/he Is Not My Girlfriend/Boyfriend moments. The problem is that the writers were so busy making the couple inevitable they never bothered to actually show why they should be together. There was nothing more romantic to their relationship other than them being friends of opposite gender, and the whole thing came off more as a combination of awkward teenage hormones and defensiveness in the face of relentless teasing. Worse, Danny and Valerie got real tension and some rather sweet development before that ship was sunk, so it wasn't that the writers didn't know how to write a relationship, they apparently just didn't want to.
- Dinosaucers: It's never said why exactly Teryx has feelings for Ichy, as you could have made any of the other Dinosaucers the target of her affections and it wouldn't have changed anything. In the episode where the couple were to become official, Ichy was barely in it, Teryx didn't really come out and tell him how she felt, he didn't seem all that interested in her, and their relationship was barely ever brought up again. Her past relationship with Genghis Rex was brought up more often than her current one.
- Disenchantment: Some fans felt this way about the romance between Bean and Mora. The consensus among them was that while the whole thing may or may not have been Bean's dream, the two characters didn’t get enough interaction with each other to warrant Bean developing such strong romantic feelings for Mora. Possibly justified as Bean is a teenager, and teens are well-known for mistaking crushes for love. It was also the first time Bean opened up and allowed herself to experience romantic attraction and The First Cut Is the Deepest. The handling of the relationship in Part 5 certainly didn't help alleviate fan concerns, showing that the two of them don't understand each other or their interests very well, Bean becoming completely unresponsive and uncaring of her friends following Mora's death, and then leaving Dreamland without saying goodbye to Elfo in the finale so she could be with Mora. It says a lot that some fans wished that Mora had stayed dead after Bean killed her instead of being resuscitated!
- The Dragon Prince: A lot of fans and critics found Callum and Rayla's Relationship Upgrade in Season 3 very rushed, seeming to happen largely because it's what's supposed to happen between the male and female leads of a story like this. It's popularly suspected that the crew having no idea if it would be the show's final season played a role in this.
- Dragons: Riders of Berk: Mala, Queen of the Defenders of the Wing, and Dagur, Chief of the Berserkers (who had been blatantly, unambiguously obsessed with Hiccup for 7 straight seasons), meet for the first time in the show's eighth season. In the B-plot of one episode, they meet, argue, and make peace. The very next time they're seen together, they're engaged. Even in-universe, Hiccup and Astrid are stunned and confused by how... extremely close the two got so quickly.
- Fantastic Four: The Animated Series: Johnny Storm meets the Inhuman Medusa, drools over her for two and a half episodes, finds out she's married, and winds up drooling over her cousin, Crystal, for half of one. In the end, the Inhumans' city is sealed off from the rest of the world. Suddenly, Crystal, whom he's known all of a few hours, was the love of his life, and he spends every episode after this — literally every episode — pining for her. (He does get her back in the end, though.) The writing team seemingly realized how bad the whole deal was and spoofed it hilariously in a later episode where Crystal sends out her Big Friendly Dog Lockjaw to try bringing Johnny to a place where they can be reunited. They spend the whole episode going through several dimensions... and never find that spot.
- Futurama: The second direct-to-DVD film "The Beast With A Billion Backs'' has Fry and Colleen, a woman he met on the street one day and had casual sex with, followed by a relationship. Within the space of a few months, this relationship is apparently strong enough that Fry is conflicted about whether to move in with her and so devastated after walking away he feels the need to leave the universe entirely. This is as opposed to his long-standing attempts to romance Leela, something that gets pointed out at the very end of the film. Making this all the more egregious is that the previous film had the Fry-Leela romance as one of the main plot points, yet it doesn't even get a mention in the supposed follow-up until the last two minutes.
- Glitch Techs: In "BUDS" it's revealed that Zahra has an insecure crush on Five. It comes out of nowhere and it's never addressed again unless you count the clip show episode "Find the Glitch" as in no other episode is her crush on Five shown or addressed, returning to her friendly but sassy personality.
- HouseBroken: One of the main factors in Honey's dissatisfaction with her life is that she is essentially in an unfulfilling arranged marriage with Chief. The show never does a good job of explaining why she should stay with him, other than she loves her owner Jill and as a domesticated dog, she cannot safely leave her home.
- Inhumanoids: In the episode "Primal Passions" Digger rescues actress Stella Blaze from Tendril. They get married in the following episode.
- Inside Job (2021): Reagan in Part 2 with Ron. Goes from Slap-Slap-Kiss in Episode 1, to She Is Not My Girlfriend in Episode 2, to desperately trying to get a Relationship Upgrade in Episode 4, to
considering throwing away her entire career, friendship with her crew ''and'' the promise of uncovering the Robes' secrets to go run away with Ron in Episode 8. Part 2 is effectively a Romance Arc with the usual shadow government antics as the B Plot, but with so many cut corners for Reagan, it's distracting. - Jem: Rio and Jem/Jerrica can seem to only be a couple for the sake of having a main couple. Both of them get constantly jealous, overprotective, and violent, and are quick to accuse the other of infidelity, even though Rio doesn't even know Jem/Jerrica are the same person and has no problem going out with both at the same time.
- Justice League Unlimited:
- John Stewart and Vixen. Vixen had previously only made a handful of silent cameo appearances, but without any buildup or reference to it, she and John are already in a serious relationship by her first speaking role. The writers initially paired them up post-time skip just to provide an obstacle for John and Shayera getting back together, but it got pretty difficult for them once Vixen developed as a character and they began to like her (Word of God says being voiced by Gina Torres also helped).
- Poor Supergirl — she meets a guy in the future, has a few lines with him, and is suddenly so in love that she abandons all she knows and cares about by staying in the far future. Brainiac-5 is hit pretty hard by this too: he's barely spoken to her, has only known her for a few minutes and suddenly he's agreeing with Green Arrow's suggestion that he's fallen for Supergirl?
- Kaijudo:
- Nadia and Chavez have only two episodes depicting any sort of romance together, but they share a kiss come the first season finale. Bizarrely still, they have no romantic moments after that.
- Tiera and The Choten's relationship seems to exist solely to twist the knife in Alakshmi's back. She hadn't even been mentioned by him before this moment, though he could have blocked out her death from his mind.
- The Legend of Korra:
- Season 1 was only twelve episodes, with no others originally planned, and had to introduce and conclude a complicated plot about Fantastic Racism and a war against Well Intentioned Extremists. A romance plot would inevitably have been bereft of necessary screentime to begin with, but then the writers decided to tack on a love quadrangle seemingly just for the hell of it. The end result is that all the attractions and romances were rushed, forced, glossed over, told instead of shown, or quickly buried. The ambiguity of whether Mako and Asami actually broke up during the season, or whether or not Bolin was over Korra didn't help matters. This isn't the case in Season 2, where Korra and Mako's personalities clash, resulting in Mako breaking up with Korra. And by the end of the season, both accept that a romantic relationship between them won't work and end it for good. A Season 4 Breather Episode is partially devoted to mocking how poorly it went, with Mako's friends and relatives pointing out to him how badly he screwed things up as he tells the sordid story.
- Korra ending the series in a relationship with Asami is this to some. They spent the first two seasons being mere acquaintances at best and romantic rivals at worst. The third season would have them develop an actual friendship with one another but come the last few minutes of the series finale, the two of them head off to the spirit realm while holding hands, their status as Official Couple sealed with Word of God later on. However, a number of fans were caught off guard by this because their romantic interest in each other had not been explicitly established before the final scene, though considering when the show was produced, any build-up to their relationship needed to be confined to subtext by necessity. The comics would go on to expand upon their relationship however.
- Miraculous Ladybug:
- Seasons 2 and 3 were severe cases of "We need some Romantic False Leads, right here and now" without taking time to develop the reasons why our two main characters would be attracted to them. Adrien was interested in Kagami right in her introduction episode but not only is it heavily implied that his attraction to her has more to do with her resemblance to Ladybugnote, Adrien continued to flirt with and pine after Ladybug as Cat Noir, even after getting together with Kagami. Luka, the other rival, was shown to have gained Marinette's affections from the start, but he did not appear to be much different from any other boy who had a crush on Marinette/Ladybug before like Nathanael and Nino, and yet, she showed no interest in them. In fact, he displayed not much more personality traits other than being a mellow Nice Guy for most of the seasons. Add the fact he appeared only in a handful of episodes too, making one wonder why he would have attracted Marinette's attention to begin with. It doesn't help that both Luka and Kagami were essentially tossed aside within the first two episodes of Season 4 and have been used as little more than reminders that the Love Square is endgame. Thus causing both ships and the Love Square to become completely unbelievable in the process, with the latter teetering into Romantic Plot Tumor territory.
- Speaking of Kagami, she ends up hooking up with Félix in season 5 in an incredibly out-of-nowhere manner. To wit, they'd only interacted once before the episode they hook up (twice if you count her meeting him while they were both wielding Miraculouses in "Strikeback"), and in the episode itself Félix kidnaps and admits to stalking her, which gets Easily Forgiven by Kagami when he tells her they're similar and displays basic human kindness towards sentimonsters. The next time we see them, they've become a couple, apparently solely based on the fact they had a couple things in common.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: This is one of the reasons why Flash Sentry is so hated. Twilight, who's had no romantic interest in anyone before, bumps into him several times and starts crushing on him, despite knowing nothing about him, having no meaningful interactions and him being of a completely different species. On top of that, Twilight never mentions or even seems to think about Flash or his pony counterpart again.
- Legend of Everfree: Has this in Timber Spruce, with human Twilight falling for him the moment she sees him. This angered fans just as much as what happened with Flash, including all of Flash's supporters because they are ignoring Flash for a new guy instead of working with what they have already established.
- The Owl House: The Huntlow ship was met with this reaction by some viewers. Hunter and Willow fall in love in just two episodes and only have an handful of interactions afterwards.
- Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero: At the end of the series finale, Penn and Sashi end up sharing a kiss. While the two had a couple of Ship Tease moments throughout the show, they were few and far between, and both showed far more interest in other characters (Matilda and Pirate Maria for the former, Blaze for the latter) than each other. Given that the show was Screwed by the Network, it's possible that there were plans to develop the pairing at a more natural pace that never came to fruition.
- Samurai Jack: Jack and Ashi know each other for about a day or two (after Ashi was initially raised from birth to think Jack was The Antichrist) and have exactly *two* quick moments of awkward romantic tension before, after a battle, they passionately kiss out of nowhere. The relationship literally goes from "allies with a lot of respect and gratitude for each other" to "passionately in love" with the flip of a switch. It doesn't help that he's decades older than her (though not aging), which helped many fans to see them as more father/daughter than anything.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has Bow and Glimmer. For most of the show's run, both the show's writers and the voice actors described them as Like Brother and Sister, though a few episodes did imply that Glimmer might have a crush on him. The final season didn't do much to alter this supposed sibling-like dynamic, and so many fans were blindsided when the two ended up becoming a couple in the series finale. The general thought is that the cast and crew were being deliberately coy regarding the potential for a relationship between the two at best, or that it was a last-minute decision made so that they could complement Adora and Catra's romance at worst.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: At the end of the episode "The Great Snail Race", after Squidward's new snail Snelly chooses to go after Gary (who was in terrible condition and had just recovered from an earlier accident) over finishing a snail race, Gary and Snelly fall in love straight out of the blue.
- In Season 2 of Stōked, the first episode involved Reef and Lo pretending to be in a relationship as a subplot in an episode, including pretending to make out. At the end of the episode, the two decided that they enjoyed making out and made out for real, leading to the two of them sucking face uncontrollably in every episode their romance is involved in, derailing the previously sweet Lo into a Spoiled Brat Tsundere and the previously chauvinistic Reef into someone who spends hours thinking up lyrics to love songs and poems. The vast majority of fans, unsurprisingly, hated the coupling, especially since the writers had spent most of Season 1 teasing and building up to Reef/Fin, only to strangle Reef and Lo with the red string in the very first episode of Season 2. Their relationship tanks in the finale just as suddenly as it started, and Reef goes right back to being teased with Finn. Lo, meanwhile, claims to have started crushing on Brosef, which is even less believable than her falling for Reef (Reef and Lo are at least equally shallow, while Brosef is a Mellow Fellow, probably a stoner, and a total slob, traits very incompatible for a high-strung rich girl like Lo).
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In the final season, the soul-binding Blood Moon Star and Marco danced under early in the first season is revealed to be an In-Universe example of this trope, as the characters learn that it was a curse that has been forcing them to desire each other whether they wanted to or not. While the curse is lifted later that same episode, the fact it existed for most of the show's run casts an awkward light over every romantic relationship both characters have had, as they were all doomed to failure because of the Blood Moon's influence and could have prospered without the curse. It also put into question how many moments of bonding were actual examples of such or manufactured by Blood Moon. Because of this uncertainty, a segment of the fandom questions whether it actually made sense for them to have gotten together in the final episodes. On top of that, Marco's confession that he always had romantic feelings for Star feels confusing when none of his behavior even hinted that he viewed Star in such a manner before she revealed her crush on him at the end of Season 2. And all that is without getting into how fans have come to view the romance subplot in the show as a whole.
- An In-Universe example is present in Steven Universe: In "Open Book," Connie laments that her favorite book series fell prey to this trope. Subverted when Steven reluctantly admits at the end of the episode that he actually loved the ending and that the book wasn't an example of this trope; Connie was just so focused on the books' other themes that she misread all the obvious Ship Tease.
- Super Noobs: The romance between Tyler Bowman and Amy Anderson is considered by fans to be underdeveloped and half-baked. The aforementioned couple only got a couple of dates with one of them being forced and their relationship was only seldom mentioned in a few episodes. To make matters worse, Amy is relegated to being a Damsel in Distress, making her look like a cheap parody of superhero girlfriends like Lois Lane and Mary Jane Watson. Some fans thought that her relationship with Tyler would get more development if she became one of the Noobs. What makes this even more baffling is that neither Amy nor her relationship with Tyler is seen or mentioned by the time the season finale episode comes.
- This is usually general consensus when it comes to pretty much every romantic subplot in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012). Every single romance starts with one of the Turtles seeing a pretty girl, being in her vicinity for about 10 seconds, and then instantly falling in love and being fixated on her for the rest of the series regardless of how much they actually interact or if they even have chemistry. It's particularly glaring with Donnie/April, as you can pretty much guarantee that any focus Donnie gets in the first 2 1/2 seasons will be about his Stalker with a Crush tendencies towards April, with April being a Master of the Mixed Message whose feelings about Donnie tend to swing wildly back and forth between one episode to the next.
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Fifi and Hamton's entire reason for being together in the show relies purely on Pair the Spares, being the third 'odd-one-out' of their respective Power Trios. Their relationship started with Hamton nervously asking Fifi to the prom despite never showing interest in her before the episode, and "revealing" he secretly had a crush on her, which again came completely out of the blue. Also, after the prom episode, the pairing was only very seldom referenced again in the form of the occasional brief gag or vague reference. This, among other reasons, is why many people prefer pairing her up with Furrball or Calamity.
- Total Drama:
- On World Tour, Duncan and Gwen. Yes, this is half of the fanbase's OTP, but let's face it — Duncan had never shown any romantic interest in Gwen before (though she obviously had a thing for him that he didn't know about), and while his relationship with Courtney was certainly rocky, he was always depicted as head-over-heels for her, even taking her back after Season 2. In Season 3, he had no particular reason to want to break up with her, and when he came back to the show, hadn't seen her or Gwen in months. And less than five minutes after coming back, he's making out with Gwen behind Courtney's back, after literally the first conversation they've had in ten episodes.
- All three become contestants again in the fifth season Total Drama All-Stars. The problems between them resurface, with Gwen being defined solely as a boyfriend stealer, Gwen trying to make things right with Courtney only to accidentally hurt her numerous times, and Duncan still harboring feelings for Courtney. This all culminates in Gwen dumping Duncan because she feels he's still too interested in Courtney.
- One of the many reasons why Revenge of the Island contestants Mike and Zoey are so polarizing is because some have noted that their relationship happened too quickly. As soon as Zoey meets Mike in the first episode, he's head-over-heels in love with her with him even contemplating marriage at one point. The show doesn't give a good explanation as to what caused them to be attracted to each other nor any Character Development for them. This gets worse in Season 5 where they become spot-light stealers and are the only characters to receive anything resembling a happy ending in that season.
- Voltron: Legendary Defender:
- Shiro and Curtis, a bridge officer aboard the Atlas, also the one Official Couple to be together by the very end. While the two do exchange dialogue from time to time it's entirely in the context of mission commands, to the point the latter is never named directly except in subtitles. Nevertheless, the last shot of the show is of them getting married. Somewhat understandable since it is a last-minute Author's Saving Throw and Executive Meddling made it difficult to put gay content in the show.
- While it's generally agreed that Lance's feelings for Allura were well-written and established, her reciprocation comes a little out of left field for some (particularly her declaration that she'll "always love him"), especially as she had a previous love interest whom she chose over Lance and her feelings being overtly romantic weren't established until the final season.
- X-Men: Evolution: The Lance-Kitty Relationship. The two definitely had the potential to be a good pairing, mostly due to Lance's Character Development during the course of the series, but Kitty forgave him so quickly for trying to kill her and her parents in his first appearance — and did so before his Character Development. Said development also appeared to be motivated so he could get together with her and started by him saving her from a mess he caused.
- Young Justice (2010):
- Robin and Wonder Girl hooking up in the Season 2 finale, two characters had never been seen interacting with one another beforehand. Of course, the two of them were secondary characters throughout the season who were barely ever seen at all.
- Miss Martian and Lagoon Boy are at least justified by a Time Skip, but from the audience's perspective we go from "Miss Martian and Superboy in a successful relationship" (which admittedly had some real groan-worthy moments as well) to "Miss Martian locking lips with someone we've never seen before". It's eventually established that Miss Martian really didn't have romantic feelings for Lagoon Boy, he was just the rebound relationship after she broke up with Superboy.
- Kid Flash and Artemis were supposed to be in a love-hate relationship. The show did establish the hate. The two of them were petty and mean-spirited with each other literally from the moment they met. It's on the "love" part of "love-hate" that the show dropped the ball. It appears that they were trying to portray both characters as being Tsundere for each other: Artemis was most prone to sniping at Wally when he flirted with other female characters, for example. They're never shown interacting with each other in a way that portrays romantic interest, and when the latter half of Season 1 tries to convey some romantic interest between them it falls flat.
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