The Best Animated TV Kisses

Love is a many-splendored, frequently animated thing. Though we don't tend to think of animated TV when we think of l'amour, romance can indeed be found on every sort of small-screen cartoon. Sardonic comedies aimed at adults, wacky gag-fests the whole family can enjoy, and elegant anime series all include the mushy stuff now and then. Many people's first experience with being swept away by a great love story comes from TV animation, in fact. Take a moment to think back, and you might just find yourself remembering a time when the prospect of Ash and Misty holding hands on "Pokemon" blew your little mind. 

As every romantic knows, there's nothing more satisfying than watching the couple you've been rooting for through countless episodes finally, blessedly, exhilaratingly kiss. And, as many cartoon nerds know, animation is uniquely able to capture how something feels, as well as how it looks. As a result, animation's greatest small-screen smooches pack a seriously potent punch. We're here to take a look at the very best animated TV kisses, one swoon-worthy smack at a time.

Before Ruby and Sapphire, Korra and Asami, or Adora and Catra, there was Princess Bubblegum and Marceline the Vampire Queen. Back in 2011, "Adventure Time" set a certain segment of the internet on fire with Season 3's "What Was Missing." Many fans interpreted the episode as alluding to a romantic past between Marceline and Bubblegum, especially Marceline's now-famous song "I'm Just Your Problem." Canon confirmation was a long way off, however — a fact made clear when the powers that be pulled an episode of an "Adventure Time" recap series that openly addressed the possibility of "Bubbline."

Though later episodes hinted at a connection between the pair, the series stopped short of portraying the pink scientist and the vampire rocker as having definitively more-than-friendly feelings for each other ... until "Come Along With Me," the "Adventure Time" finale. Finally, in the midst of the saga's complex climax, Marceline and Bubblegum kiss. It's a goofy, tender kiss — the kind of kiss that happens between people who know each other so well that there's no need for words any longer. In conversation with TVLine following the finale, executive producer Adam Muto credited one-time "Adventure Time" writer and storyboard artist Rebecca Sugar with laying the foundation for this memorable lip-lock. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Sugar went on to create "Steven Universe." That's right — one person is responsible for two smooches on this list.

Unlike most of the kisses celebrated on this list, the one Charlotte and BoJack share is anything but triumphant. In Season 2's "Escape from L.A.," BoJack travels to New Mexico to visit his old friend, Charlotte. His tendency to idealize her only intensifies after he meets her husband and children. Things crescendo when BoJack escorts eldest daughter Penny and her friends to the prom: After one of the teens exhibits signs of alcohol poisoning (from booze BoJack bought her), BoJack ditches her and her date at the ER, takes Penny home, and fends off the girl's naïve advances.

BoJack then finds Charlotte relaxing in the backyard. They talk like old friends do, then kiss — but Charlotte breaks it off. BoJack, nakedly desperate, reveals how deeply he romanticizes her — a woman, as Charlotte puts it, he knew "for five minutes, 30 years ago." Their kiss is a potent symbol of BoJack's most destructive quality: He believes some perfect, singular thing can fix him. Often, that "thing" is a woman, who he piles fantasies of peace, maturity, and joy onto. But as Charlotte points out, Los Angeles, which he thinks has corrupted him, isn't "the tar pit" she once called it — the tar pit is him. Only BoJack can fix BoJack, and that's a truth he will do anything to ignore. Kissing Charlotte crams an entire show's worth of dysfunction into one vividly needy moment.

Adora and Catra's relationship undergoes many shifts over the course of "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power." They begin as Horde soldiers who've been close since childhood. After Adora joins the Rebellion, they become fierce enemies. Once the war escalates to a point neither of them could have imagined, they're reunited in the fight against Horde Prime. Through magical disaster, contortions of the space-time continuum, and bouts of outright mind control, Catra and Adora never stop mattering to each other. Neither girl is always happy about this, with Catra being especially ashamed of her inability to let Adora go. But still, they keep caring, for a very simple fact: Catra and Adora are in love. 

When Horde Prime threatens to destroy Etheria forever in the "She-Ra" series finale, "Heart," Catra breaks the spell Adora's under by admitting she loves her. As they kiss, a luminous wave of energy engulfs them. Then She-Ra proceeds to save the day like never before: Everything corruptive is dissolved by her presence, ending the war that twisted Adora and Catra's feelings for each other into enmity. Their kiss is a homecoming, a relief, and a profoundly brave act of truth. They love each other, and they can no longer be made to believe that's a problem. In fact, it makes them powerful enough to destroy Horde Prime's hivemind, restore the blighted landscape, and turn a massive spaceship into a floating forest. Now that's what we call true love's kiss.

Yuri and Victor's romance unfolds within the high-octane world of competitive figure skating. Everything is under scrutiny here, from the minutiae of diet to Instagram photos. Yuri Katsuki might be one of the top skaters in the world, but he's still intensely affected by the extremity of life on the ice. As the pressure mounts before he's set to compete in Episode 7, "The Cup of China Free Skate," it seems like he might crumble. As he and Victor are both crushingly aware, it wouldn't be the first time.

But Yuri doesn't crumble — he dazzles. As he approaches the end of his performance, he even risks Victor's signature move, the quadruple flip. Flushed with victory, he and Victor rush towards each other. To everyone's surprise, Victor leaps, closes his eyes, and kisses Yuri with as much passion as Yuri just displayed on the ice. "That was the only thing I could think of," Victor says, eyes sparkling, "to surprise you more than you've surprised me." 

"Yuri on Ice" is a story about risk-taking. Yuri risks miserable defeat, Victor risks the loss of his own spectacular career, and both of them risk their hearts. Though failure does arrive in various forms over the course of the series' 12 episodes, so does victory, most potently in the form of this kiss. The love they've found in each other is worth taking a chance on everything else, even a quadruple flip.

A shocking 13 years passed between "Samurai Jack" Season 4 and Season 5. When the series returned in 2017, it did so with a timeslot on Adult Swim. While Season 5 is principally aimed at the grown-ups who first encountered the cartoon as children, this iteration of "Samurai Jack" doesn't prove its maturity through an upped violence factor alone. In examining love, loneliness, and growth through the relationship that blossoms between Jack and Ashi, Season 5 goes most prominently where it couldn't have gone before.

Ashi is initially out to kill Jack, having been raised in an Aku-worshipping cult. But with time, she comes to respect him, a feeling Jack reciprocates. Respect melts into attraction in Episode 8, "XCIX," which comes to a boiling point as Jack and Ashi battle a swarm of mechanical leeches. After a miserable death is abruptly averted, they pause to catch their breath. Then, via the smash cut to end all smash cuts, Jack and Ashi smooch like their lives depend on it, to the smooth sound of Dean Martin crooning "Everybody Loves Somebody." Watching these two find each other in the blighted landscape is a joy, and this fabulously over-the-top kiss is their crowning moment. Though their time together is brief, it lights up the screen — and the viewer's heart.

Though Utena and Anthy enjoy a much more lavishly animated kiss in 1999's "Adolescence of Utena," the one they share in the TV anime's second ending sequence carries the weight of their world. By this point in the series, it's become clear that nothing is exactly as it seems at Ohtori Academy. Anthy's smiling docility conceals complex anger, Utena's path to princeliness is a lot more twisted than it first appeared, and the duels that govern their lives might not have winners at all. This isn't a story where Utena saves Anthy from a vicious world, as it turns out — it's about the viciousness that threatens to consume them from within.

Then, like the sure thrust of Utena's sword through the rose on her opponent's lapel, the second ending debuts. A series of still shots appear in time to the beat: Utena and Anthy dressing for a duel, drawing closer to each other, and finally, losing themselves in a passionate kiss. This kiss is a war cry. Though things have never looked darker, their love will save the day. The final shot, depicting Utena dipping Anthy dramatically low, is a particularly flagrant act of defiance. At this highly metaphorical point of "Revolutionary Girl Utena," the fight is basically against the force of misogyny itself. But Utena and Anthy can't be driven apart, turned against each other, or forced to submit. This kiss captures all of that in two vibrantly rendered, utterly unforgettable frames.

Like many twerpy kids, Naota is obsessed with appearing grown-up. This manifests as an affectedly blasé attitude and a tendency to insist that "nothing amazing happens" in his hometown. Haruko, an alien lunatic with obscure aims and a sweet Vespa, puts the lie to this immediately by whacking him in the head with her Rickenbacker bass. This establishes an interdimensional portal in Naota's head, from which a TV-headed robot emerges by the end of Episode 1, "Fooly Cooly."

Clearly, "FLCL" is a surreal series, and Naota's coming-of-age is its tether to reality. To him, Haruko and all her craziness represent exactly the sort of adult he's afraid of becoming ... yet also the maturity he's still lightyears away from. After gaining the immense power of Atomsk — the enigmatic being Haruko wants for herself in the final episode, "FLCLimax" — Naota finally lets his surly guard down by planting a kiss on Haruko's lips. "I love you," he says shyly, before Atomsk emerges from his head. 

In letting himself be honest and vulnerable, he accepts that he might end up becoming a ridiculous adult like Haruko (who he's nevertheless developed a crush on), and that her grown-up world is still beyond him. It's his first moment of actual maturity. Before Haruko leaves his planet, she asks if he wants to come with her. Then she rescinds her offer, noting that he can't because he's "still a kid." For the very first time, Naota might be okay with that.