Smitten Teenage Girl

Kyoko-kun, this isn't the time to
make hearts with your eyes!

"I don't want someone brave, gentle and strong. I want [Joffrey]!"

— Sansa Stark, Game of Thrones, "A Golden Crown"

She's a wholly average girl, with a crazy strong crush on a guy or girl that makes little to no sense.

Sure, he may be hot, and you could understand a woman finding him attractive. However, the intensity is just too much to make sense.

What Does She See in Him? is commonplace.

This doesn't mean the girl's feelings aren't genuine. After all, she is likely to be both fairly young and extremely naïve. Also, this doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that her initially shallow, child-like crush may develop into more sincere and deeper feelings, or start to fade away as she falls for someone else or develops other interests/priorities/etc. Also, it's rather common to see that the girl does have reasons beyond "he's cute" or "he's cool" (he may have done something really nice for her, for example), but we just didn't know about their common history, and we're told about them only later in the story.

At her best, she will be just a Girl Next Door who tends to go starry-eyed at the guy. At her worst, she may be a Stalker with a Crush and/or a Clingy Jealous Girl. Don't be surprised if the Smitten Teenage Girl gets over her crush and falls for the guy that was "always there for her". If she does get over her crush, expect him to be Put on a Bus.

Some Yanderes are or start as Smitten Teenage Girls. Compare/Contrast Precocious Crush.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Kaorin from Azumanga Daioh is a Les Yay version. She crushes hard on poor Sakaki, imagining her as ... well, something she's not. She definitely doesn't want to go with the person who's smitten with her...
• Aoi Kunieda of Beelzebub is the leader of the Red Tails, the strongest female gang in Kanto, a member of the four strongest delinquents in her school, is an expert with the sword, and is literally feared by all delinquents, male and female alike. But that all changed ever since she developed a teenage crush on our Hero Oga.
• Kyoko from Black Cat is this towards Train. Granted, she does have superpowers, and kind of sort of worked for the Big Bad (though she certainly doesn't act like it). She ends up falling in love at first sight with him when he saved her from some thugs. She proceeds to become his Stalker with a Crush, even crashing through the window of his apartment in the middle of the night while screaming his nickname ("KURO-SAMAAAA!!"). All of this, of course, is played for laughs, seeing as how Train would never return her feelings. She is never shown to get over it at the end, however.
• Bleach:
  • Mizuho falls in love with Ikkaku practically on sight. She has a thing for shaved heads. For the whole of Ikkaku's stay at her house, she becomes his number one fangirl. Anime filler turns her into a Stalker with a Crush.
  • Ultimately averted by Orihime Inoue, as her feelings for Ichigo Kurosaki not only did not fade away with time but they became stronger as well as one of her reasons to improve herself. It turns out Ichigo did like her back, and at the end of the series they're very Happily Married.
• The title character of Cardcaptor Sakura is ga-ga over her older brother's best friend. Give her a break, she's just 11-to-12 and he IS really nice. Of course, it turns out he's gay or at least bi, and in love with her older brother. She actually takes it well and encourages their relationship, then falls for her male rival.
• A rather sinister example in Death Note: Misa Amane has a massive (and unrequited) crush on Light Yagami, the Serial-Killer Killer that caught her parents' murderer. Unfortunately for her, since he's such a Manipulative Bastard, he gladly manipulates her into a great many Moral Event Horizons, though most of them fall on his shoulders in the fan's eyes.
• Chiho from The Devil is a Part-Timer! loves Maou, even after finding out that he's a demon overlord from another world responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents. It helps that she only ever heard of any of this second-hand (except for the being a demon part); in all of her experiences with him, he's been a genuinely nice guy.
• Juvia Loxar, from Fairy Tail gets like this over Gray Fullbuster. She's a little older than some of the girls on this page (17), but due to her lonely past she is very unsocialized when we first see her, and is very naive and immature as a result.
• In Final Fantasy: Unlimited, we have Lou Lupus, who falls madly in love with Kaze after he winds up saving her. He's enough of The Stoic to not really care when she attaches herself to his arm and doesn't let go, neither encouraging her nor discouraging her.
• Honoka Mitsui from The Irregular at Magic High School loves Tatsuya Shiba even when he knows nothing about him other than he is handsome and competent. For the most part, this is portrayed positively; but there are times when she wonders if she even has a chance with him. Similar behavior in a more veiled form is shown by Miyuki Shiba, which is quite disturbing since she is Tatsuya's sister ... Later we even find out that she only needed two weeks to fall in love with him, after which she sincerely ready to fulfill it any desire, up to demonstration of intimate places or making love. She just believes that if he saved her life, now she belongs to him.
• Parodied in the Kaguya-sama: Love Is War bonus chapter "Miyuki and His Girls", which has Shirogane as the lead in a generic harem series. Miko is cast as the kohai love interest who is in love with him for reasons that are never accurately explained.
  Narrator: Miko Iino likes Miyuki because she just does.
  Shirogane: C'mon, at least give her a reason!
• Hinata Kawamoto from March Comes in Like a Lion is smitten with Takahashi, a boy in the neighborhood she's known since elementary. She's barely able to manage a simple conversation around him.
• Chapter 52 of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid reveals that Tohru is sixteen years old by dragon standards, which goes a long way towards explaining her obsession with Kobayashi.
• My Dress-Up Darling: After Kitagawa realizes she has fallen in love with Gojo, she begins to develop into this, giddily thinking about what she could do with him when they are alone.
• Naruto: Deconstructed with Sakura. Yes, she loves Sasuke, but her feelings have brought her many problems, considering how she can't let go of her feelings despite knowing that he's too far gone. This also doubles as Love Makes You Dumb. On the other hand, given that Sasuke actually tries to kill her twice when they're enemies, it's rather bizarre that her crush survives into adulthood. They even become an Official Couple and have a daughter together.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Asuka Langley Soryu is smitten with the much older Ryōji Kaji. He's not interested in her, mostly because she's only fourteen. This being Evangelion, she does not take this well.
• One Piece: After befriending him, Boa Hancock falls in love with Monkey D. Luffy. Besides him being a Chaste Hero, she is also a fair bit older than him (he was 17 and her 29 pre-timeskip, and both 2 years older after). Furthermore, she acts very bashful and gooey around him, much like a smitten teenager despite being an adult. Tragically, this is justified due to her wrecked psychological state. She was kidnapped at no older than 12 and sold into slavery by the World Nobles along with her sisters and suffered for several years until they were let free by Fisher Tiger. The entire ordeal scarred her and her sisters mentally, with remembering the incidents sending them into trauma shock. As such, it's implied the trauma stunted her emotional and mental growth (we see evidence of it beforehand, given her behavior as a Bratty Teenage Daughter to her mother figure, former empress and current advisor). Interestingly enough, despite being a teenager/young adult, Luffy acts very much like a Cheerful Child, giving the pair an odd commonality of acting far younger than their actual age (if for very different reasons).
• Ringo in Penguindrum initially comes across as this, explaining away her relentless chasing of her symbol of affection (local Hot Teacher Tabuki) as "destiny". It later gets subverted when we learn she has much deeper issues and believes she's fulfilling the role of Replacement Goldfish for her dead big sister, Momoka, whom Tabuki once was in love with. As she gets more Character Development, Ringo later grows out of it, and Shouma (who's Tabuki's student) becomes her Second Love.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Kino Makoto, aka Sailor Jupiter, is well known for falling in love at the drop of a hat with any reasonably good-looking guy who crosses her path. Every time, she claims that her latest crush reminds her of the senpai who broke her heart at her previous school.
  • Hino Rei, aka Sailor Mars, acts this way in the 90s anime. This is in contrast to most other portrayals, including the manga, where she is a Celibate Hero.
• Slam Dunk:
  • Gender-flipped. While Sakuragi's crush is strong but fairly reasonable for his love-obsessed personality (Haruko's the only girl who looked past his delinquent persona and befriended him), the normally scary-faced Miyagi has been gaga over Ayako since they day he met her.
  • Haruko herself is one or Rukawa, though in a subversion she's perfectly aware of how her feelings are a Celeb Crush and rarely if ever aims for anything aside of liking him from afar.
• Space Patrol Luluco: Luluco falls in love with Nova despite knowing almost nothing about him. Deconstructed when it turns out that Nova was manipulating her feelings all along and that the love of a teenage girl's first crush is literally the most worthless thing in the universe.
• Spy X Family has an adult version with Fiona Frost, who outwardly behaves like an Ice Queen but her thoughts are basically an unending monologue on the theme of "Twilight I wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv you". Poor Anya can read those thoughts, and is understandably traumatized.
• Karina of Tiger & Bunny starts developing a very obvious crush on Kotetsu from episode 4 onward. The fact that he's a widowed single father that's over twice her age and completely oblivious to romantic advances does not deter her in the least◊. While still immature, this is unusual in that she's rejecting the usual expression of this trope: while being a teenage girl Karina's already been exposed to the ugly side of the entertainment industry and its focus on manufactured images. Instead of emulating her schoolmates' crushes on "cute or cool boys" she's interested in Kotetsu for his heart and dependability. (He probably reminds her of her father, who's an impressive person in a very understated way.)
• Wandering Son: Multiple:
  • Mako is prone to crushing on boys and men. Sadly she's Transgender and still living as a boy, so she keeps her feelings closeted. She has tried flirting with Oka but he either doesn't notice or is turned off.
  • Saori falls for Nitori even before she's out of elementary. Alas, it's unrequited and brings her much hardship. Nitori is her only love until she gives in to her long-time admirer Fumiya in high school.
• Yona from Yona of the Dawn is very much this during the first chapter toward Suwon. However, when he kills her father and tries to kill her and Hak, she experiences a serious Heroic BSoD that occasionally rears its head throughout the series. She later moves on from her broken heart to form a deeper Second Love with Hak.
• Chinatsu from YuruYuri is another lesbian version, smitten with her upperclassman Yui almost at first sight. Despite the constant glomping and blushing, Yui remains (seemingly) oblivious.

Comic Books

• Kimber from Jem and the Holograms (IDW) is the youngest Hologram member, at eighteen, and has a reputation for falling for girls a lot. Her bio even lists "Girls" as one of her likes. Currently, she's in a relationship with Stormer and says she's different from the others... Kimber fell for her after seeing her band online, then saw her in person and began flirting with her.
• Wonder Woman (1987): Vanessa Kapatelis ends up with a crush on another student which drives her closest friend a bit nuts with how obsessed Nessy has gotten. She gets over it when she realizes he's been playing her and another girl and helps the other girl play a prank on him.

Comic Strips

• The titular character in Luann, at least during her high school years. Utterly obsessed with Aaron Hill and his many Suspiciously Similar Substitutes. And if for any reason her crush didn't pan out, the guy would immediately get Put on a Bus, never to be seen again. They only exist to be her object of obsession, nothing more. Finally having a boyfriend helped her to outgrow this mindset, as she has been much less "boy-crazy" since breaking up with Quill during college.

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles:
  • In "The Cameo," Penny has long had a crush on teen heartthrob actor Lance. When she gets a chance to meet him, he turns out to be a self-absorbed jerk, but Penny's too dazzled by him to see it (Bolt recognizes Lance's flaws immediately and wonders what she sees in him). They end up having an unpleasant one night stand.
  • In "The Teacher," Penny quickly develops a teen crush on a young teacher that her classmates all find attractive. He refuses her when she makes a Love Confession to him.
• Sowilo Foxwell from the Sonic the Comic fic Coventina's Crown is described as an eighteen-year-old who falls in love with the nearest guy.
• At the end of some dates in The Many Dates of Danny Fenton, some of the girls that Danny has gone out with become interested in him. Katie Kaboom is a Deconstruction of one, since she acts sweet and smitten around Danny, when she is in her normal, non-monstrous form.
• In the Mob Psycho 100 fanfic Shigeko Kageyama AKA Mob Rei is this to Ritsu in the beginning. She originally has a crush on him because he's cute and a powerful esper. She grows to love him after he saves her life from Claw.

Film — Animation

• The Incredibles: In Violet's introductory scene, she admires her crush from afar, being Tony Rydinger, who is a popular Pretty Boy in her class.
• Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Ruby, the titular protagonist, has a crush on Connor. An non-judgmental, chill, nice guy whom she helps him as her math tutor. He also has feelings for her.
• In Turning Red, Mei develops a crush on Devon, a convenience store clerk.

Film — Live-Action

• The sixth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, plays up Hermione's feelings for Ron to the point where, instead of simply being angry at Ron like she was in the book, she is completely devastated when he starts going out with Lavender.
• The Hunger Games: The role Katniss Everdeen plays for the cameras. Of course, her true self is nothing like that.
• Michelle in Spider-Man: Homecoming may try to hide it with constant snark and heckling, but it's clear she's very much into Peter Parker. She even checks out his butt at the end of the film rather leeringly, and when questioned, she insists she's not obsessed with Peter. Just observant.

Literature

• Molly Carpenter has this towards Harry Dresden. It is strongly implied that the primary reason is that her mother can't stand him. Harry knows that she isn't seeing him as he truly is, and explicitly tells her that it isn't going to happen. The 'precocious crush' aspects of her feelings fade as she grows up and becomes less rebellious, though the feelings themselves grow and become less naive. Unfortunately, Harry is...well, love hurts.
• Tash Arranda in Galaxy of Fear denies that it's a crush, but she has a strong fascination with Luke Skywalker. She can function fine when he's elsewhere, but when he's around she wants to be near him, also displaying a kind of shyness she doesn't show around anyone else. Partly it's because he doesn't find her to be a Creepy Child but encourages her, partly it's because he knows about the Jedi, whom she idolizes. Partly it's because they are both Force-Sensitive, and to Tash, that sense of recognition feels tingly.
  It was a warm, electric tingle, as though she were on one end of a wire with Luke at the other. Together, they made a connection.
• Harry Potter:
  • Ginny Weasley towards Harry, starting about when she was ten years old and never actually ending, though she was convinced to hide it for a few years so that she could get to know him as a friend. She's luckier than others as her feelings became stronger and more sincere and are reciprocated by Harry in the end.
  • Half the female population of Hogwarts becomes this in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Gilderoy Lockhart arrives as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and many of them develop intense crushes. Harry and Ron find this exasperating.
• The Hunger Games: The role Katniss plays for the cameras. Of course, her true self is nothing like that.

Live Action TV

• Boy Meets World: When Cory's older brother Eric is a guest speaker in Mr. Feeny's class, Topanga gets a crush on him, which Cory mistakes for being on him. Eric lets her down gently, which seems to work. Possibly different as Topanga was preteen at the time.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy crushed on Angel. Later on, they evolved out of this, but in early seasons she was clearly Smitten. Her relationship with Parker had elements of this too. He was a jerk, but she probably wouldn't have been quite so devastated if she had been a little older and more seasoned romantically.
• Game of Thrones: Zigzagged with Sansa. She's infatuated with Joffrey for most of Season 1 but completely loses interest by the time he chops her father's head off. In Season 3, her crush on Loras (which is first seen in "The Wolf and the Lion") grows.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: Tally around Gerit, as he's the first man she met Tallya's attracted to (having grown up on a women-only commune). Thus, her feelings are very intense, though he's not much different than most guys.
• Sadie is this towards Big Man on Campus Owen Anthony in the first season of Naturally, Sadie. She is too shy to ever actually approach him, and her friends keep pointing out that the two of them have nothing in common and he barely knows that she exists.
• Our Miss Brooks: Although Harriet Conklin is usually Walter Denton's squeeze, and ordinarily quite levelheaded, she's been known to act this way on occasion.
  • In "Hello, Mr. Chips," Harriet has a crush on a visiting English headmaster.
  • In "Bones, Son of Cyrano" Harriet is enthused when she thinks Mr. Boynton has written her a love letter.
  • Similarly, in the radio episodes "Stretch has a Problem" and "The Grudge Match" Harriet is overjoyed to find out that Dumb Jock Stretch Snodgrass is in love with her.
• Kate from Robin Hood. The dodgy writing of series three made it a bit difficult to fully understand what the actress/writers/show-runners were going for, but it's suggested that Kate joins the outlaws because she has the hots for Robin, spends the rest of the season aggressively pursuing him, and hints on a couple of occasions that although she's smitten with the hero, she knows very little about the man.
• The first episode of The Wonder Years shows Winnie having this kind of relationship with Kevin, even though they're the same age. He regards her as an exasperating nuisance, especially as she has glasses, braces, and wears a baseball cap. Then the first day of junior high, she is transformed into a vision- wearing lime-green fishnet stockings!

Theater

• Cyrano de Bergerac: In Act I Scene IV, the Buffet–Girl, a teen, after seeing Cyrano's exploits, hears he has no money, so she offers him all her food free. Even when it’s the girl's last scene in the play, it's important, because this is the first clue about Cyrano’s issues. It’s obvious to Le Bret and the audience that she is smitten with Cyrano (and that Cyrano can indeed inspire love in a woman), but Cyrano somehow will not acknowledge it.
  The buffet-girl (coughing, behind her counter): Hum!
  (Cyrano and Le Bret turn. She comes timidly forward):
  Sir, my heart mislikes to know you fast. (Showing the buffet):
  See, all you need. Serve yourself!

Video Games

• Edelgard from Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a slightly downplayed example. While she styles herself an solemn and dignified princess, at the end of the day she is still 17 years old when the player first meets her. Due to her young age, her crush on the player regardless of gender very easily slips through the cracks of her Lady of War facade. After the 5-year time skip, the rest of the Black Eagles house notes that Edelgard was the most emotionally affected by your disappearance.
• The iDOLM@STER has Miki Hoshii and her crush on the Producer across the games and anime. Gets particularly intense in her alternate route in the first game.
• League of Legends:
  • Zoe, the Aspect of Twilight is an odd case since she's thousands of years old, but thanks to her absolute refusal to grow up physically or mentally to remain a Genki Girl in her preteens, she still counts in spirit. Having only just returned to the physical world after spending the last few millennia in abstract spirit realms, one of the more mundane things she's excited about meeting are boys, with her current sight on Ezreal, the Prodigal Explorer (who incidentally rejects her specifically because she's too old for him).
    Zoe: HEY, I'M ZOE! YOU'RE EZREAL! I KNOW THAT! I mean—uh, I found it out! I mean... ugh... kill me now.
  • Rell, the Iron Maiden is a more traditional example by way of actually being a teenager. A former Tyke Bomb spending her time both evading and crusading against her former captors, she doesn't have a lot of time to make friends, which clearly doesn't help when she ends up developing awkward schoolgirl crushes on several other champions regardless, especially really muscular and strong men and women.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has Paya. Having been raised like most Sheikah to be devoted to protecting Hyrule by helping the chosen Hero, she's understandably taken aback to find that said Hero, Link, is a kind and attractive young man around her age (physically, at least). Every subsequent interaction with him sees her easily flustered by his mere presence. And that's not even mentioning her reaction if Link talks to her without a shirt on.
• Tsuruhime from Sengoku Basara falls for Fuuma, a legendary ninja who never speaks and disappears every time she tries to confess. She doesn't even know his name, yet she keeps running after him despite him showing no interest whatsoever and being way out of her reach.
• In Amy Rose's first appearance in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, she was a Smitten Preteen Girl towards the titular hero. Later appearances made her part of Sonic's circle of friends, but have done nothing to curb her unreciprocated crush.

Visual Novels

• Tsukasa Shiramine of the second Fragment's Note acts like this purposefully in an attempt to spark a reaction out of Kyoichi.

Webcomics

• Paz of Gunnerkrigg Court develops a rather ferocious crush towards Matt at the start of year three. It's unreciprocated unfortunately, much to her dismay.

Web Video

• The Nostalgia Chick - who is older than the normal trope but still acts like a Psychopathic Womanchild - had a psychotic crush on Todd in the Shadows for about a year. Even she couldn't properly explain it.

Western Animation

• Bob's Burgers has Tina Belcher, whose teenage hormones lead her to fall in love with anything. Not anyone, anything.
• In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, "Adventures in Squirrelsitting", one-shot character Tammy gets a crush on Chip, based on him saving her from a fall (that would generally be no problem for a real squirrel, but nevermind that) and some impressive backlighting. She comes to realize that she doesn't need to prove anything to Chip in order to be special, though whether she actually gets over her crush is unknown.
• In Daria's first three seasons, an ongoing plot point is the title character's crush on Trent, her best friend's adult brother. The thing is, she knows that it would never work—Trent is a nice guy, but age aside, he comes off like an Erudite Stoner on his best days—yet Daria still can't quite shake her feelings for him.
• The main Jem character with the most love interests by far is Kimber. She has a new boyfriend or crush every few episodes. It bombs in her face when two of her old boyfriends want to both marry her.
• Throughout The Jetsons, Judy is this for no boy in particular. Often, the object of her affections will be some famous rock star, whom she inevitably meets and then forgets about by the next episode. Drama Queen that she is, Judy can switch from this trope to Woman Scorned with frightening speed.
• Susan and Mary Test from Johnny Test. Most of their inventions are supposed to help them get their good-looking neighbor Gil Nexdor. And then they test those inventions on Johnny. Also, it's implied that it's based solely on looks, as Gil is, to put it politely, sort of an airhead. He can't even remember that the twins exist.
• Kim Possible was smitten with Josh Mankey for the first two seasons of her show. He was then Put on a Bus. They didn't even show the two them breaking up.
• The Little Rascals has two examples with Darla, though she isn't a teenager. In "Rock & Roll Rascals", she wants an autograph from a rock singer. And in "The Zero Hero", she wins a date with an actor who plays a TV superhero.
• Looney Tunes: Pepé Le Pew's spiritual successor Fifi La Fume from Tiny Toon Adventures. Babs is also sometimes like this to Buster, but not nearly to Fifi's extent.
• In Phineas and Ferb, Jeremy is one of the few things that can distract Candace from trying to bust her brothers.
• Stōked: Emma has huge crush on Ty, which everyone but Ty himself takes notice of. For his part, Ty only knows her as a waitress who works for his family's hotel. It doesn't stop her from acting like they're already courting each other, to which her friends have to remind her that he's barely aware she exists.
• Totally Spies!: It's easier to count the number of times when Sam, Alex or Clover aren't this (especially Clover). If the plot doesn't involve one (or all of them) trying to impress a guy of the week, they're guaranteed to run into attractive men during their missions that results in them going gaga one way or another. Fortunately, it usually doesn't compromise their competency as spies, and they don't hesitate to beat up attractive male villains when push comes to shove.

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