"Long before texting, the only way to profess your deepest feelings for a girl was to pen an epic love letter and coolly hand-deliver it into her locker."
— Adam Goldberg, The Goldbergs, "Goldbergs Feel Hard"
A student opens their school locker and out falls an envelope or note. Usually anonymous, often a Love Letter. Or a lot of love letters.
Frequently the locker is a shoe locker at a Japanese school, used when the student wants to change between street and Inside Shoes.
The easiest way to post such a letter is if there's no lock on the locker. In the likely case that there is one, options vary. If a locker door has vents, the sender can slip the note through them. If it doesn't, the sender either has to figure out the locker combination or somehow find a way to jimmy it open. Barring that, the sender can simply tape their letter to the outside of the locker.
In its most benign form, locker letters are just a way to show that the recipient has admirers, then how they deal with them. However, this is not always the case. Malicious notes could just as easily be hidden in a victim's locker.
May overlap with Love Letter Lunacy. Not related to Stuffed into a Locker (though overlap is possible), or using lockers as Improvised Armour.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
- Meme leaves a note and a plushie in Rentarou's shoe locker the day after their first face-to-face meeting.
- The anime's opening has Hakari, Karane, Shizuka, Nano, and Kusuri slip a love letter in Rentarou's locker, with each fitting their personalities (Hakari's has a photo of her in bra and panties, Nano's is written like an algebraic formula, Kusuri's is burned from an explosion...)
- Attack on Titan: Junior High: Jean receives an anonymous love letter in his locker and nearly loses his mind trying to find its author. Annie eventually confesses to writing it. He tries to hit on her, but she beats him up and clarifies that she wrote it... for a female Titan who was his real secret admirer. The revelation does make him go crazy.
- Case Closed: The Detective Boys get "official" jobs through notes dropped in Genta's shoe locker, though this element has steadily gone Out of Focus over the last 400 or so chapters.
- A Certain Scientific Railgun: In "Special Workshop," Saten finds a letter from Miho Jufuku in her shoe locker that says her strength and courage have inspired Miho to try to be more confident in the future.
- Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu: Sousuke receives a love letter in his shoe locker. Unfortunately, as a former Child Soldier, his reaction is to blow up the school's entry hall because he (quite erroneously) expects the locker to have been booby-trapped. The shreds that remain of the poor girl's letter read like a death threat, causing his second crazy paranoid act of spending the time of the date/"challenge" lying in wait with a sniper rifle.
- Futari wa Pretty Cure: Just after the opening credits of the first episode, several love letters spill out of Nagisa's locker. They're all from girls, much to her chagrin.
- I Am Here!: The plot by Aya to destroy the relationships between Teru, Hinata, and Hikage includes planting a fake note from Hikage in Teru's locker.
- I Belong to the Baddest Girl at School: Matsuri's first appearance is putting a fake love letter in Fuyuhiko's locker so that she can lure him out and fight him.
- Iris Zero: Toru gets a bullying note in his locker.
- Juujika no Rokunin: Uruma's reaction to receiving a letter in his locker is confusion as to who would want to send him a letter.
- Kamen no Maid Guy: Episode 3 has Naeka find a love letter in her locker. She spends the episode wondering if she should meet up with the sender. The sender turns out to be an obsessive female classmate named Saki and the two get trapped together in a room resembling a love suite, where it's heavily implied Saki has her way with her.
- Kiniro Mosaic: Youko receives what appears to be a love letter in her shoe locker. It turns out to be a practice letter written by Shinobu.
- Lucky Star: Kagami finds a love letter in her locker and worries about it. On account of this, Konata can't bring herself to admit it was an April Fools' Day joke.
- Machida-kun No Sekai: Nishino tries to confess his feelings to Inohara, only to accidentally put his letter in Machida's shoe locker. This results in Inohara and Machida mistakenly assuming Nishino is gay.
- Magical Girl Site: Reiko Maguchi has the mean-spirited hobby of looking through school lockers and tearing up any love letters found inside them.
- Mob Psycho 100: In "Idiots Only Event ~Kin~," Tenga leaves a misspelled love letter in Mob's locker as part of a trap.
- My Neighbor Seki: Yokoi being seen putting a note in Seki's locker fuels the rumor mill that they're dating. In truth, it's Not What It Looks Like. Her notes kept getting rejected by his note-passing "postal service," so she wanted to bypass the system to force him to deliver it.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: In "Moment, Heart, Together," Asuka opens her locker to see a pile of letters for her. However, despite loving all of the attention, she stomps on the letters since her eyes are only for Kaji.
- Nichijou: In chapter 180, Yuuko slips a fake love letter in Mio's shoe locker in an attempt to snap a funny photo of her reaction.
- The Pet Girl of Sakurasou: In Episode 13, Jin receives a partially completed marriage registration, courtesy of Misaki, in his locker.
- Sailor Moon: At the end of Episode 178, a whole cascade of (love-)letters fall out of Yaren-kun's shoe locker.
- School Rumble: Tenma's love confession to Karasuma gets so long that what she leaves in his locker amounts to a love scroll.
- Tadokoro-san: Even the Girls Want Sakurako, to the point that she finds her shoe locker full of chocolates on Valentine's Day, which in Japan is a day when girls give chocolate to boys.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: In "A Duel in Love," Dr. Crowler leaves a fake love letter from Alexis in Jaden's locker as part of a plan to lure him into a trap. Unfortunately for him, Jaden shares a locker with Syrus, who's the one who finds the letter. His involvement derails the evil plot entirely.
Comic Books
- Blue Monday: Victor writes a mushy letter to Clover asking her to the Valentine's Day dance, but sticks it in the wrong locker. It ends up in the hands of the incredibly homely Sally instead. It's later revealed that he did put it in the correct locker. Clover was so angered by Victor writing the letter in a way that bettered his chances of getting a date from the three main girls that she stuffed it into Sally's locker.
Comic Strips
- FoxTrot: In one of his more Big Brother Bully moments, Peter leaves fake love letters in Paige's locker that are supposedly from a Secret Admirer.
Fan Works
- In Outcast
, a Haruhi Suzumiya fanfic, Kyon receives a rather sinister message in his shoe locker in the form of a dead rat.
- In Poisoned, a Final Fantasy XV fanfic, Noctis and Prompto exchange lockers, and an assassin puts a poisoned chocolate intended for Noctis in Prompto's locker.
- In A Valentine for Jesper, a Six of Crows fanfic, Wylan leaves wordless secret admirer valentines in Jesper's locker.
- Zoo Coup Riot: During the fire drill, a guy slips an envelope through the vents in Sid's locker. It's not a love letter; it's an environmental extremist's diatribe against Sid's mother for being a zookeeper.
Film — Animation
- The Cat Returns: The Cat King's idea of thank-you gifts to Haru for saving Prince Lune's life includes leaving boxes in her school locker containing live mice.
Film — Live-Action
- K12: Ben slips a love letter into Cry Baby's locker.
- Scary Movie: Greg is left a threatening message on his locker consisting of the words "I know" written on a Polaroid of his Teeny Weenie.
- Secret Admirer centers around Michael receiving an anonymous love letter in his locker and the Love Letter Lunacy that ensues.
- To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You: On Valentine's Day, a bunch of valentines fall out when Peter opens his locker door, much to his girlfriend's concern.
- A Wrinkle in Time (2018): Alpha Bitch Veronica leaves cruel notes on Meg's locker.
Literature
- A Certain Magical Index: Touma finds a letter in his locker telling him to come to the roof, which he thinks is a love letter. It turns out that the letter was never a love letter at all, but an invitation by the Trollish High Priest.
- The Golden Feather: Elijah cramming Isaac's locker full of love letters gives away his crush.
- Haruhi Suzumiya:
- In The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, we see Yuki place a note in Itsuki's locker.
- Kyon finds a note telling him to meet the sender in a classroom after school. It's from an alien who wants to kill him to goad Haruhi into action.
- Hensuki: Are You Willing to Fall in Love with a Pervert, as Long as She's a Cutie? revolves around protagonist Keiki Kiryu trying to figure out who left an anonymous love letter in his locker. Unfortunately for him, this is made difficult by the letter including panties.
- How I Survived Middle School: P.S. I Really Like You is centered around anonymous love letters that Jenny keeps receiving in her locker.
- Lauren Thoman's I'll Stop the World has high school students using an unassigned locker as a Dead Drop for notes containing cash payments to an anonymous source of answer keys for upcoming tests. They include their own locker numbers for delivery. The supplier turns out to be the janitor who's raising money for his mother's medical bills.
- Intertwined: The Series: Evelyn is left a secret admirer letter in her locker.
- The Princess Diaries: In one sequel, Tina convinces Mia to sign up for the week-long Secret Santa. Mia immediately forgets that she did that, and so mistakenly thinks the flowers left on her locker each day are from a secret admirer.
- Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie: Lee receives a note on her locker telling her to kill herself.
- The Traitor Game begins with Michael finding the note in his locker.
Live-Action TV
- Community: When Jeff discovers he has a locker in "Digital Exploration of Interior Design," a hate letter falls out, kicking off his plotline for the episode.
- Family Matters: In the Very Special Episode "Fight the Good Fight," Laura finds her locker open with a racist note attached to it in response to her petition for a Black history course.
- Game On (2015): In "Toby's Valentine," Toby puts a valentine in the wrong girl's locker.
- The Goldbergs: In "Goldbergs Feel Hard," a talk with Barry about The "I Love You" Stigma results in Adam trying to get back a love letter he'd slipped into Dana's locker.
- High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: In "Valentine's Day," Big Red himself is the mail. He wants to do a singing telegram for his girlfriend Ashlyn, so he tries to hide inside her locker in order to surprise her. Unfortunately, he gets stuck, so by the time she opens it he falls out and sprays confetti everywhere.
- House of Anubis:
- In the second season, Amber and Fabian slip notes into Patricia and Alfie's lockers to ask them to meet in the Sibuna Clearing after school. This was done to keep it secret from Nina, who was against inviting Patricia and Alfie back due to the risk that they could get hurt.
- Played for Drama in season three. Denby invents a fake "love letter" that she then claims that someone was trying to give to Eddie in class, all as part of her effort to fuel Patricia's insecurities. When he ditches it in class, she stuffs it into his locker so that it looks as though he'd kept the note.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: In "Goldar's Vice-Versa," Bulk finds a note in his locker that reads "I have what you're looking for." He thinks that someone has information regarding his season-long obsession with finding the identities of the Power Rangers. Turns out it was just a Love Letter.
- Mr. Young: Adam writes a hate letter to Echo that ends up in Slab's locker by mistake.
- Ms. Marvel (2022): Near the end of the finale, Bruno slips a letter into Kamala's school locker.
- Radio Active: A series of miscommunications results in Kevin mistaking Ethan and George for gay after finding a love letter in his locker.
- Soy Luna: Ramiro tapes a heart-emblazoned envelope containing two concert tickets to Yam's locker at the Jam & Roller in an effort to win her back. Jazmín finds it, opens it, then decides it's not her business. She tapes it back up... to the locker below Yam's.
- Veronica Mars: Veronica is framed for running a fake ID business, which operates by high school students putting their name and cash in an envelope and depositing it in a "magic" locker that doesn't belong to anyone, and then a fake ID appears in their locker the next day.
Video Games
- Persona 4:
- One of the sidequests has the protagonist get a locker letter by accident (as the girl in question meant to put it in another locker). The quest is completed by confronting her about it and nudging her into telling her crush outright.
- If Yu gets top of his class on any of the tests over the course of the school year, other students may leave random rewards in his locker.
- Yandere Simulator: The player can put notes in shoe lockers to lure students. To be successful, the notes have to request a chat about the right topic(s) at a selected time and location.
Visual Novels
- Crimson Gray: Lizzie leaves notes and a chocolate in John's locker.
- Katawa Shoujo: Discussed at the beginning. As Hisao waits to meet someone who slipped a note into his math book during class, he notes that he prefers "the letter in the locker," but admits that the sender's method "shows a bit of initiative."
- Little Busters!: In Rin's route, Riki receives a very generic love letter in his shoe locker. It was written by the friends of Suginami, a shy girl he's never talked to, in an effort to force her to say something about her crush. He's flattered and polite but not interested.
- A Profile: In Miku's route, a love letter is left in Masayuki's shoe locker. The scenario is so cliché that Miou, Rizu, Kaine believe it is a prank. It's not; the letter is from Miku.
Web Animation
- ATTACK on MIKA: Iketa receives tons of love letters in his locker that include the implication that the sender watches him sleep.
Webcomics
- Avalon: Ceilidh receives two love letters in her locker.
- The first, at the beginning of the comic, was left in the wrong locker. Ryan had intended it for Phoebe.
- In Grade 12, she gets one from an actual secret admirer who asks to meet.
- Life of an Aspie: In Chapter 7, Susan receives a pink letter in her locker that she misinterprets as a lesbian love letter.
- Our World: Art receives a love letter in his locker from a Stalker with a Crush that mentions watching him sleep, asks him on a date, and tells him to leave his response in that same locker. It turns out to be from his runaway sister.
- Penny and Aggie: Aggie tries to get Duane a date with Penny by leaving a note and concert tickets in her locker from a secret admirer. Unfortunately, the vagueness in the description of said admirer makes the plan go awry.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Ex," Gumball apologizes to Penny for ignoring her by writing "I'm Sorry" on everything in her locker because he couldn't find a card specific to their situation. He wasn't able to find an apology balloon, either, so he scrawled his message on Alan and put him in the locker, too.
- Arthur: In "Love Notes for Muffy," Brain and Francine take revenge on Muffy for bribing the science fair judges by writing her a fake love note. She later tells them that she figured out that her Secret Admirer was school bully Rattles and left him a gentle rejection letter in his locker. Brain and Francine rush to fish the letter out of his locker before he finds it and retaliates against Muffy, only to learn there was no such letter. It was all a ploy by Muffy (with Rattles's assistance) to get them back for their meanness.
- Doug: The titular protagonist keeps getting secret love notes every time he opens his locker and assumes they are from his crush. They are actually from the school's Rich Bitch and not meant for him, but his best friend. (She had the wrong locker.)
- The Loud House: In "L Is for Love," Luna slips a love letter into her crush Sam's locker. It becomes a Queer Establishing Moment because Sam turns out to be a girl.
