Precocious Crush: Difference between revisions

'''Linus:''' I was afraid of that. I've always hoped that she'd wait until I grew up, and then marry me.

'''Charlie Brown:''' [[Fridge Logic|How would you support her?]]

 

Children [[Puppy Love|having "crushes" on one another]] isn't uncommon. To most children, loving someone just means ''liking'' them a lot—they have no notions of romantic or sexual love, and are, for the most part, [[Children Are Innocent|innocent.]] They may make a [[Childhood Marriage Promise]] with their best friend just because, and even pretend to get "married." Older kids generally have a basic idea of [[The Talk|the birds and the bees,]] but still have to deal with raging hormones and lots of confusion.

== Anime and Manga ==

* Shizuka Minamoto from ''[[Doraemon]]'' definitely counts here.

** Despite wishes to the contrary by some of the fanbase, it's not subverted by the fact she's [[Really 700 Years Old|over 700 years old]], because she spent about 690 of those years in [[Suspended Animation]].

** Played straight with Ryo-Ohki, who is shown to dream of being with Tenchi, picking carrots together.

** Then there's Rika Sasaki's huge crush on her adult teacher, Yoshiyuki Terada, which is a point of contention with fans since he apparently accepts and reciprocates it (though he tells her to wait until she's of age).

* Happens to Miroku (of course) and a young girl named Koharu in ''[[Inuyasha]]'', although we only see the second half of it.

* [[Cute Witch]] [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Schierke/Silke]] from ''[[Berserk]]''—Intelligent, talented, and crushing furiously on Guts, who's twice her age.

** And then there was Jill (during the Fairy Arc), who looks to be around Schierke's age, and was likewise crushing furiously on Guts. To the point where she persistently followed him around, trying to get him to agree to allow her to stay by his side. {{spoiler|In fact, he was pretty much her main reason for [[We Can Rule Together|not agreeing to become one of]] [[Dark Magical Girl|Roshinu's]] [[We Can Rule Together|faeries]] when given the chance - her hesitation was shown to be mainly because of her crush on him.}}

* Pinoko, from ''[[Black Jack]]''. Not only does she know things someone her age shouldn't, she's really the only person who can assist Black Jack in surgery, gets jealous when he pays any attention at all to other women (well, women, at least), and tends to get around just fine in areas Black Jack doesn't want her around.

** This is played with, because {{spoiler|Pinoko is actually 18 years old ''at least''. She was originally a sentient tumor (and possible parasitic twin) in the body of a teenage girl, and Black Jack extracted her from her sister's body and gave her an artificial bod of her own, shaped as a little girl. She went to live with him after her "twin sister" freaked out and rejected her,}}

** It's worth noting that Lelouch himself is 16/17 years (although everyone assumes the masked vigilante Zero is much older under the mask)), so the age difference is quite small, and both are [[Wise Beyond Their Years]], though Kaguya prefers to act younger than she is, most of the time. Nothing becomes of it, regardless.

*** {{spoiler|She's promised to Zero, not Lelouch, so the only thing Lelouch's death and Suzaku taking the name does is add [[Kissing Cousins]] to the mix.}}

* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Crayon Shin-chan]]'': Shin, who is in kindergarten, falls in love with college student Nanako Oohara; meanwhile his classmate Ai Suotome has a crush on him.

* In ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'', Henrietta seems to have quite a crush on her handler Jose. This is never really built on, but remains Henrietta's most notable character trait, and is contrasted with Elsa's {{spoiler|fatally}} disabling crush towards ''her'' handler.

* Nagi (13) in ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' has a crush on Hayate (16). He cares deeply for her, but not ''that'' way.

** Asuna also has a similar attraction to the mid-to-late-40s Eishun Konoe, the father of her best friend Konoka, and had a bit of a similar reaction the first time she saw Nagi {{spoiler|in a dream}}. Given that {{spoiler|they, also, adventured with her and had a hand in, basically, raising her,}} this ''may'' be feeling for them as parents (except Takamichi), misplaced due to amnesia.

** It has been recently revealed that, as a kid no older than 15, {{spoiler|Kurt Godel}} used to have a huge crush on {{spoiler|Negi's mother Queen Arika}}. {{spoiler|Now that he's in his 30's, he's still in love with her. Nodoka's Artifact says so.}}

** Nagi treats Evangeline's crush on him as this the first time its mentioned. When she points out [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|her age]] he turns it around that she's far too old for him and [[Squick|that it was still creepy]].

* [[Cute Bruiser|Eve]] (who is assumed to be around 11) from ''[[Black Cat (manga)|Black Cat]]'' has a crush on Sven (30 years old). To the point where she actually feels a [[Unknown Rival|rivalry]] towards Train, wanting to replace him as Sven's [[Heterosexual Life Partners|partner]].

* Tomoe Marguerite from ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' develops a crush on a teen-aged Shizuru as a pre-teen girl, even going so far as to sneak onto campus to get a look at her. Several years later when Tomoe is 15 and a student in Garderobe, it becomes ''very'' [[squick]]y when {{spoiler|she sexually manipulates an adult, captive Shizuru (who is now a staff member at the school Tomoe attends) and basically rapes her.}}.

* ''[[Nanaka 6/17]]'': Kuriko, a kindergartener, gets a crush on high-schooler Nenji because he saves her from some bullies and looks like her older brother, who is abroad.

* ''[[Hell Teacher Nube]]'''s fifth-grader [[Tsundere|Kyoko]] has a harmless, unrequited crush [[Hot for Student|on her 25 year-old teacher]], Nube, due to a combination of [[Rescue Romance]] from several years ago, and a [[Bodyguard Crush]] from a previous life (in which they ''were'' the same age.) However, both Kyoko and Nube have other love interests (Hiroshi, for Kyoko; {{spoiler|[[Betty and Veronica|Yukime and Ritsuko]] }}, for Nube, so it never goes any further than that (despite [[Gossipy Hens|Minki]]'s teasing.)

** To a degree, highschool-aged Yukime's crush on Nube counts too. She fell in love with Nube when she was 11-years-old (he was in his very early twenties) and [[Rescue Romance|he saved her from being shot to death]] by a [[Jerkass]] hunter who feared [[An Ice Person|her ice powers]]. {{spoiler|She actually ''does'' get together with him, tho.}}

** Going by the official timeline, Asuka's ''thirteen'' until the last few days of the series, and Kaji has been her guardian for some time before the series begins. Her crush may or may not be a more recent development.

** In the show's [[Geodesic Cast]], [[Official Couple|semi-official couple]] Misato and Kaji are the respective adult parallels of [[Official Couple|semi-official couple]] Asuka and Shinji.

** [[Jerkass]] guardians get love, too. As horrible as Gendou is to pretty much everyone, his ward Rei included ([[The Woobie|if not most of all]]), at the start of the series, Gendou seems to be the only character to whom Rei has developed any sort of emotional attachment. {{spoiler|As the series progresses, Rei's feelings gradually transfer from Gendou to his son Shinji, and [[Heroic Sacrifice|intensify enormously]] in the process. Which alters rather than alleviates the [[squick]]iness, since she's the clone of Gendou's wife / Shinji's mother, Yui.}}

* Mika from ''[[Gungrave]]'' (who is about fourteen) develops one for Grave, who's saved her on numerous occasions and is also not just her bodyguard, he's also her mother's former sweetheart. However, Grave's also undead and is way older than her (he was about 29-30 at time of death and reanimation stopped his aging but still). It doesn't go much further than that, as Grave specifically tells her that all he can do for her is to serve as her Guardian.

* In ''[[Black Butler]]'', Angelina aka Madame Red was revealed to have harbored a deep Precocious Crush on {{spoiler|Earl Vincent Phantomhive, Ciel's father}}. At the time, she was quite a bit younger than him. Unfortunately for her, he ended up {{spoiler|marrying her older sister Rachel, Ciel's mother. And some years later, ''both'' Vincent and Rachel got killed.}}.

** In the anime, Finny also has one on Angela.

** Interestingly, the anime studio saw potential in that (and even the manga's author, Nobuhiro Watsuki, admitted that they could have some sort of relationship), therefore [[Ship Tease|adding some more heartwarming scenes]] of the two of them interacting. {{spoiler|[[Sarcasm Mode|Thanks guys]], [[Tear Jerker|helped a lot]].}}

* Arguably, {{spoiler|Neliel}} from ''[[Bleach]]''. "Arguably" because {{spoiler|Neliel}} isn't exactly a little kid. {{spoiler|She's a full grown adult [[Action Girl]] who ended up stuck in a [[Sleep Mode Size]] after a serious injury.}} However, she still shows affection to Ichigo [[Adult Child|like a child does.]]

** Loly and Menoly are a straighter example. They look around 14 as much, and their crush {{spoiler|Aizen}} looks like he's in his 30's.

* In ''[[Durarara!!]]'', Shinra Kishitani has been harboring an intense and ''very'' vocal crush on his [[Headless Horseman|Dullahan]] housemate, Celty, for the last twenty years. He's only twenty-four. Do the math.

** His friend Shizuo Heiwajima, as a child, had a huge crush on a cute shopkeeper from his neighborhood. {{spoiler|She got seriously injured when Shizuo had a psychotic breakdown while trying to protect her from thugs, and several years after that, he still considers the terrible incident as his greatest failure.}}

* In ''[[Heartcatch Precure]]'', a young boy is revealed to have a crush on Yuri, and Tsubomi, Erika and Itsuki set out to help him reveal it. He's temporarily shot down (and turned into a Desertian) when Yuri says she considers him like a little brother, but when he recovers and she learns how he feels, he realizes he should start small and decides he'd be there to protect her {{spoiler|which he does - he's one of the few survivors when the world becomes [[Apocalypse Wow|a desert]] and is there to help the Precures out of their [[Darkest Hour]].}}

* Isami in ''[[Noein]]'' has a rather obvious crush on his teacher Ms. Yukie, which his friends tease him endlessly over. Several future timelines show him eventually getting into a real relationship with his childhood friend Ai.

 

== Comic Books ==

* Molly from [[Runaways]] had a crush on Wolverine, until she found out what a jerk he was (To be fair to Logan, she was [[Even Heroes Have Heroes|shrieking at an unbearable level]] and asking to touch his hair)

* ''[[Sin City]]'': John Hartigan, 60, saves Nancy Callahan, 11, from a pedophile. When he is set up as a scapegoat and sent to jail she confesses her love and promises to wait. {{spoiler|When he is released 8 years later he discovers that she kept her promise. While [[Jail Bait Wait|she is technically legal]], he still refuses to make a move on her because of the age difference and their history.}}

* In Jeff Smith's ''[[Shazam|Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil]]'', Billy Batson has a crush on beautiful reporter, Helen Fidelity (a blonde expy of Lois Lane). [[Loves My Alter Ego|Helen likes Captain Marvel]] (who is a separate personality in this version). This dynamic continues into the sequel series, ''Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam.''

 

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Bridge to Terabithia]]'' - Jesse has a crush on his music teacher, [[Zooey Deschanel|Ms. Edmunds]].

** Also seen in two other Disney live-action films, ''The Kid'' and ''Blank Check''. The latter has a [[Squick]]-ish moment in that {{spoiler|the young boy actually gets a brief on-the-mouth kiss from the adult woman at the end, who tells him to look her up when he's older.}}

* Teenage girl Megan has a crush on the at least thirty-something Preacher in ''[[Pale Rider]]''.

* Also in ''[[Jack (film)|Jack]]'' when the titular character gets a crush on his [[Jennifer Lopez|school teacher]]. Played with and justified since he suffers from a disorder that speeds up his aging four-fold (so he looks and appears 40 when he's actually 10 at heart), he sees it as OK because he looks like a grown-up (which eliminates girls his own actual age). The teacher understands this, but still turns him down, because he is ten years old at heart and it would still be wrong regardless of what he looks like.

* The Indian girl from ''[[Legends of the Fall]]'' started like this, and then [[She's All Grown Up|she won]].

* In ''Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros'' (''The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros''), 12-year-old Maxi, a boy from a family of petty criminals in the Manila slums, falls in love with a handsome rookie cop. They become friends and the cop, whose sexuality is left ambiguous, grows quite fond of Maxi, but nothing happens between them except the cop telling Maxi he's pretty and stroking his hair and Maxi stealing a quick peck on the cheek.

* The little penguin Arnold in ''[[Surf's Up]]'' has one for local lifeguard Lani, to the point where he routinely attempts to drown himself, just so she can rescue him.

* Neil in ''[[Mysterious Skin]]''. It's not so much a crush as it is an instant 'sledgehammer' of desire he feels upon seeing his baseball coach for the first time. And unlike most other examples of this trope, it does not go unrequited. Horrible, horrible, horrible events ensue.

* [[Disney]]'s ''[[Robin Hood (Disney film)|Robin Hood]]'' has Skippy's sister remarking how handsome Robin was. Robin never addresses it and it was only brought up in that one scene.

 

== Literature ==

* Played with in ''[[The Time Traveler's Wife]]'': the title character makes an awkward attempt to seduce her future husband when she is sixteen and he is visiting from the future. He refuses, telling her that he can't because he has a wonderful wife who he loves very much. She is crushed, even though she knows that she is (will be) that wife.

** A similar situation happens in ''[[The Cat Who Walks Through Walls]]'', except she joins a time-and-dimension-traveling agency and works for them until she ages up enough. From her crush's perspective, it was only a few days.

* In ''The Devil's Backbone'', one of the students has a wholesome crush on a teacher. The teacher's boyfriend, when he was a student, was engaged in [[Hot for Student|a less wholesome relationship]] with the principal.

** Of course, when they later have a daughter, she announces by age four who she's going to marry. Considering [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|what she is]], she probably will.

* Jean-Jacques Rousseau (yes, [[Rousseau Was Right|that]] one) had the stones to publicly admit to this in one of the most celebrated autobiographies of all time. Bonus points for deliberately misbehaving so his teacher would [[Fetish Fuel|spank]] him.

* There's a form of this in ''[[X Wing Series|Starfighers of Adumar]]'', where dueling champion Cheriss gets a crush on New Republic hero Wedge Antilles. Compared to [[Proud Warrior Race|Adumari]] pilots, he's [[Improbable Piloting Skills|practically a god]]. He considers her to be somewhat younger than what he'd call adult, although she ''is'' risking her life in blastsword duels. It's never stated how old she is; in a previous book Wedge treated sixteen-year-old [[Kid Appeal Character|Gavin Darklighter]] like an inexperienced adult, but he called Gavin "kid", and he never does that to Cheriss. He's embarrassed by the crush and tries to ignore it. She sees Wedge's [[Old Flame]] as competition of sorts, and when Wedge actually hooks up with his old lover again, Cheriss tries to commit suicide by honorable combat. Wedge talks her out of it while finally getting out his dislike for this [[Proud Warrior Race]] society.

* Similar to the above example, Glokta's backstory in ''[[The First Law]]'' makes mention of him, the dashing war hero, visiting the home of his subordinate and friend, Collem West. Little sister Ardee West was just a child at the time, but thought Glokta was the man of her dreams. When they meet again some ten years later, the child he vaguely recalls has grown up beautiful, he starts falling for her, and she...well...two years of torture make a man somewhat less dreamy, and she's more interested in Jezal than a girlhood crush. {{spoiler|Jezal kicks her to the curb in the end, though, and Glokta gets the girl. Kind of.}}

* Jesse has a crush on his music teacher in ''[[Bridge to Terabithia]]''.

* In Hilary McKay's third book in the popular ''[[Casson Family Series]]'', the implication in ''Permanent Rose'' is that Rose (who is only eight/nine at the time) has a crush on Tom Levin, who is at least twelve/thirteen at the time, but she isn't aware of it herself that she has a crush on him, whereas everyone else in her family is cognizant of it.

* In ''[[The Roman Mysteries]]'', Flavia, at the age of ten, has a crush on Publius Pollius Felix, who is in his thirties, married, has a daughter her age, {{spoiler|and is later found out to have slept with most of his slave-girls and a good deal of other women, causing his wife to try and poison herself. Eventually she sees him for what he really is and gets over him.}}

* While the age difference is not that huge, in the [[Wind on Fire]] series, eight-year-old Pinto has a crush on Mumpo, who is fifteen (legally able to be married in the world the two live in) and in love with her older sister Kestrel. {{spoiler|She gets him in the end after Kestrel "dies", though.}}

** Depending on how much you consider her a child (she is about 12, but the [[Medieval Fantasy]] setting makes this old enough to marry,) Sansa could be said to have one for [[Knight in Shining Armour|Ser Loras]] {{spoiler|and [[Ensemble Darkhorse|the Hound]]}}. Possibly, you could say she has a Precocious Crush on Ser Loras, (since she thinks of him in childish fairy-tale terms,) {{spoiler|but a more mature sort of attraction for the Hound, (who has made her his [[Morality Pet]], but simultaneously terrifies her and arouses her pity, leaving her very confused about her feelings for him).}}

* In [[Connie Willis]]'s ''[[Blackout]]'', the adolescent Colin explains to Polly that he hopes through some [[Time Travel]] tricks to end up her own age. {{spoiler|At the end of ''[[All Clear]]'', he's done it, not for the crush, but in a desperate attempt to save her and another time traveler from death.}}

* In ''[[Skulduggery Pleasant]]'': ''Dark Days'', Davina Marr mentions Valkyrie's crush on Skulduggery. Marr mocks Valkyrie's crush on her much, much older mentor and best friend again in ''Mortal Coil''. Valkyrie doesn't confirm it, but neither does she deny it.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* Kenan's sister Kyra was comically interested in Kel in ''[[Kenan and Kel]]''.

* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'': for one episode Marcia wanted to become "Mrs. Marcia Dentist", having a crush on her dentist at the time (and not even knowing his last name!).

** In another episode, Greg's grades start dropping, and his parents discover it's because he's in love with someone named Linda. Turns out Linda is his teacher.

* ''[[Glee]]'': Rachel spent an episode infatuated with Mr. Shuster. It didn't last past that one episode. Suzie Pepper, on the other hand...

* In many an episode of ''[[Frasier]]'', Frasier's 8-year-old son Frederick exhibits a huge crush on Daphne, much to [[Stalker with a Crush|Niles]]' chagrin.

* A neighbour's child in ''[[Mad Men]]'' develops a crush on Betty Draper.

** There's also the little girl with cancer who manages to get Chase to kiss her.

* In one episode of ''[[The Wonder Years]]'', Paul had a crush on Kevin's mom Norma.

* Sam of ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' was attracted to his piano teacher as a young teenager. In the episode "Catch A Falling Star", he leaps into an actor working on a production with her, and attempts to use the opportunity as a second chance for himself. In other episodes, he also mentions having had crushes on his kindergarten and first grade teachers.

* [[Punky Brewster]] was an established tomboy, up until season three (first syndicated season) when in a particular episode she developed a crush on a boy some seven years older than her.

* In the ''[[Married... with Children]]'' episode "Life's a Beach", the Bundys go to the beach and Bud makes a bet with Kelly, that he will "get a squeeze" before her. [[Casanova Wannabe|As usual, he's rebuffed by women]], but a little girl becomes enamored with him after he fixes her bucket, and calls him her boyfriend; thus he technically wins the bet.

* On ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'', Tommy got a crush on his music teacher Miss Frost, with the aliens not realizing how inappropriate a relationship between them would be.

{{quote|'''Tommy''': Well, I met this woman that I really like and I think she likes me, but she's a little older. Thirty-one.

'''Dick''': Wow, good job! }}

** Later on, Tommy, operating under the delusion that Miss Frost will soon return his affections, decides to gracefully break up with August and tell her that he'll be with Miss Frost now. August, who can barely contain her laughter, says that it's all right because she'll be with [[Val Kilmer]], but he [[Sarcasm Blind|misses the sarcasm]]. ([[Snap Back|Tommy and August are back together in the next episode.]])

 

== Music ==

* [[Rufus Wainwright]]'s "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ReFah2lCQ The Art Teacher]" is about a woman who fell in love with her art teacher, and has "never loved a man since then."

* Steve Wariner's "I'm Already Taken" uses three adaptations of the title phrase, the first relating to the narrator pursuing a woman who is "already taken" by another. By the time they get married in the third verse, their son says "mommy, will you marry me?" in an innocent context, and she repeats the title to him.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

** Granddad had one on Dorothy Dandridge. Still does.

* In ''[[Peanuts]]'', Linus' crush on his teacher Miss Othmar.

 

== Theater ==

* Teen example: In ''[[Grease]]'', Marty Maraschino has a crush on (and, it's implied, possibly a brief fling with) Vince Fontaine, the master of ceremonies and judge for the televised dance contest. She's about 17; he's old enough to be her father. In the film adaptation, she also has at least one, and possibly a series, of US Marine boyfriends; she clearly likes older men.

 

== Video Games ==

** In the sequel, Adell's younger sibling Taro ''really'' likes Rozalin—to the point that he asks to be [[Happiness in Slavery|to be her slave]]. She accepts, and [[Crowning Moment of Funny|the game titles his class "Rozy's slave".]]

* Latooni's crush on Ryusei seems to invoke this in ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'' at times, but the fact that she's only three years younger than him (14 and 17 respectively) means it may not be like that forever (see also Mai, age ''16'', but actually shorter than Latooni). Shine's crush on Rai, however, is played fairly straight.

** It may not be an actual crush. Put it this way: what would your reaction be to seeing someone of the opposite sex in his/her birthday suit? Sure the other males didn't react this way (Garr comes to mind) but the reaction can still actually be logical. Still inevitably hilarious if {{spoiler|Nina}} was in the party during the scene.

* A subversion from ''[[Fate/stay night]]''. Ilya ''looks'' like this at first, appearing to be perhaps ten and obviously displaying a good deal of affection for 18-year-old Shirou. However, she [[Artificial Human|turns out be]] slightly ''older'' than he is... and her idea of 'affection' is seriously messed up.

** Plus, her completely genuine affection {{spoiler|stems from Shirou's foster father being Ilya's biological father, though she has no intention of telling him that.}}

** On the other hand, he appears to know in ''Hollow Ataraxia'' at least about the way they're linked, though he still treats her as a little kid. Which is okay because she definitely acts like one. However, there's a genuine example of the trope in that Taiga used to have a huge crush on Kiritsugu which caused her to initially get along poorly with Shirou. Given that she's only twenty four now, he died five years ago and she had that crush for a pretty lengthy amount of time you can guess that the crush started when she was no older than middle school age.

** May, granddaughter of the local animal rancher in ''Back To Nature'' and ''Friends Of Mineral Town'' has her crush object, Pete - the player character.

* In ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn]]'', a later cutscene mentions that Rief's sister [[One-Scene Wonder|Nowell]] is off pursuing a crush on Piers, about whom the least we can assume is that he's older than her mother, if not [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|much more so]]. The [[Older Than They Look|youthful design]] of ''[[Golden Sun]]'' characters does mean that Nowell kind of pushes the "child" aspect of this trope, but it fits otherwise.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In [https://web.archive.org/web/20101213221853/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/443 this strip] of ''[[Loserz]]'', Ben's little brother on Jodie.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* In an episode of ''[[As Told by Ginger]],'' Ginger (12-ish) attempts to ask her teacher to the school dance with her. While handing in her test. In front of the class. ''Yikes.''

** Not to mention her obsession with Corey magazine (and the hotline) in earlier seasons, all full of boys who were at least in their teens. One example in the "Brother From The Same Planet" subplot, when Marge found out about Lisa's phone calls to the hotline, she revealed to Lisa that she was in the same situation in her childhood when she had a crush on Bobby Sherman:

{{quote|'''Marge Simpson''': Oh, honey, I know how you feel. When I was a girl, I had a crush on Bobby Sherman...

'''Marge Simpson''': [[Catch Phrase|Mmm...]] }}

** Bart also had a crush on new neighbor Laura Powers, who was in her mid teens. When he found out she was going out with Jimbo, one of the bullies who picks on him, he arranged a plan to break them up. It was successful—by the end of the episode, Laura had broken up with Jimbo and even told Bart that she would date him if he were older. The character was never seen again.

** In one episode, Chris has a crush on his substitute teacher.

{{quote|'''Peter:''' Our son... would like to plow you.}}

* In an episode of ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'', Mac (8) and Bloo (5) and some random imaginary friend and a pizza delivery guy develop a crush on Frankie (22). Mac and Bloo's 'feelings' for her are referenced a couple more times in later episodes.

* On ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', Ferb ([[Vague Age|"less than 15"]], probably about 10) has a crush on Vanessa Doofenshmirtz (16). She's dating someone else and doesn't seem to notice his crush, but he's saved her life and given her helpful advice, and [[Word of God]] actually supports the idea of them getting together "[[Jail Bait Wait|when the age thing won't matter as much]]."

* In ''[[A Kind of Magic]]'', Tom's crush on his teacher, Miss Tinker.

* In ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'', Susie is a 10 year old girl who clings to Johnny at every possible moment. He usually must go to great lengths to get rid of her.

** Though soon after the art style shift happened in the show, her implications of having a crush on him disappeared. Likely as it would be mildly creepy to have a girl infatuated with the town lecher.

* In ''[[Home Movies]]'', Jason develops a crush on the school nurse.

* Finn (13) of ''[[Adventure Time]]'' was crazy about Princess Bubblegum (18), and possibly Marceline ([[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|1000+]]), until he fell for Fire Princess (13).

* In ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'', Numbuh Four started to get a crush on his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Thompson. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, that turned out kind of weird later, when it turned out she was the Were-Dog Queen, cursed with lycanthropy by her jealous ex-husband. (He was able to break the curse in the end.)}}

** Likewise, Numbuh Two also had a crush on Numbuh Five's older sister, Cree, which created a lot of problems since Cree was an evil teenager and quite cruel towards him. Besides, it's heavily implied his crush on her was a case of {{spoiler|[[Loving a Shadow]]}}.

* In ''[[Birdz]]'', Eddie Storkowitz has one of these on his teacher, Miss Finch.

* In ''[[Gravity Falls]]'' Dipper (12) develops one on Wendy (15) which makes him something of a rival to Robbie.