Puppy Love/Sandbox

Puppy Love is generally an unreasoning or extravagant passion or attraction between an inexperienced couple. As neither character really knows what love is, things tend to be rather awkward. This occurs mostly between children, and preteens. Because the couple hasn't reached puberty yet, there's no sexual component to the romance. Expect nothing more than hand holding and maybe a chaste kiss.

Anime & Manga

 * Takumi and Akira (both 12-13 years old) in Mai-HiME is another "becomes canon" case. This only applies to the anime, as in the manga,.
 * Sonic X has Official Couple Chris and Helen, and later, Tails and Cosmo.
 * Outlaw Star episode 20, "Cats and Girls and Spaceships," has Jim (11) have a short lived romance with a girl about the same age named Hanmyo. It ends in tragedy; serious Tear Jerker.
 * Naota and Ninamori in FLCL. It helps that out of all his possible love interests, she's probably the only one sincerely in love with him, as well as being the only one who's remotely sane.
 * Along with the three official main couples, Junjou Romantica periodically does stories for "Junjou Minimum" about Usagi and Hiroki when they were kids and living next door to each other. Despite the fact that the audience knows from the start the relationship is doomed, it's still adorable.
 * At the start of Cross Game, 11-year-old neighbors Wakaba and Koh are treated as all-but-girlfriend-and-boyfriend by their families, with Wakaba even kissing him on the cheek as a reward for favors. The only person more annoyed by this than the boys in their class is Wakaba's just-younger sister, Aoba. Too bad.
 * Hayao Miyazaki frequently makes use of this trope:
 * Future Boy Conan: Conan and Lana, both "around ten," according to one character.
 * Ponyo and Sosuke.
 * Shizuku and Seiji from Whisper of the Heart are only about 14 years old, and yet by the end profess their intent to marry once they're old enough.
 * Chihiro and Haku, though the former is ten years old while the latter is Really Seven Hundred Years Old, making this a May-December Romance and a Mayfly-December Romance.
 * Yahiko from Rurouni Kenshin and his love interest, Tsubame. Both are around the same age, with the former around 10 years old during his introduction in the series.
 * Esteban and Zia in The Mysterious Cities of Gold.
 * Obama-kun and Hilary-chan in Yatterman. Yes.Really.
 * Link and Zelda, in the manga adaptation of Four Swords Adventures; he brings her flowers, they hold hands, and it's painfully adorable.
 * Hanamaru Kindergarten has this between Yuu and Koume. They're both kindergarten students, and it's really quite adorable since it comes from Koume.
 * Haré×Guu in Haré+Guu. Likewise Haré×Mari and Haré×Rita. Yumi's interest in Haré is another matter entirely.
 * Nike (13) and Kukuri (12) in Mahoujin Guru Guru.
 * Baba Lamune (12) and Miruku (may be 12) in NG Knight Lamune 40.
 * Actually in sequel VS Knight Lamune 40,.
 * July and Suou from Darker Than Black.
 * Sara Crewe and her carriage driver, Peter, from Shokojo Sera. She's nine, and Peter is probably around the same age. Not only does he remain loyal to her after she loses her fortune, he also insists on addressing her as "Miss Sara", gives her a gift whenever she can (including a rose and an apple), helps her out of tight corners several times, and gets a bad attack of the blushes whenever she expresses her gratitude to him.
 * Hiro and Kisa from Fruits Basket

Comics

 * Sophia and Carl in The Walking Dead.
 * In PS238 it's Tyler, who's completely normal, and Julie, a.k.a. "84" (the eighty-fourth Flying Brick). He compliments her by saying she'll be a great hero and she responds with a near-bonecrushing hug -- both of them have had problems with self-esteem and standing out, so why not?
 * Reinforced later on when she gives him.
 * And further still in the trip to Argos, where in order to bring him along she names him her consort, not exactly knowing what it means.
 * Franklin Richards and Katie Power, the youngest Power Pack sister.
 * Ariella Kent and Klarion the Witch Boy.
 * In the early strips of Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin and Susie Derkins, despite all of their fighting. They are 6. See her first and second mentions. Calvin even breaks the fourth wall at some point after some verbal sparring to admit, "It's shameless the way we flirt."
 * Heart and Dean of Heart of the City are pretty much the comic's Official Couple, as far as it has one.
 * Peanuts: Before either of the above there was Charlie Brown's unrequited love for the little red-haired girl.
 * And Sally for Linus, Lucy for Schroeder, Peppermint Patty and Marcie for Charlie Brown, Linus for his teacher, Linus for the girl who keeps changing her name...
 * Marcie is crushing on both of them, Peppermint Patty is crushing on Charlie Brown and doesn't appear to have noticed Marcie's crush on her, and Charlie Brown can't figure out why both of them keep calling him, having awkward conversations, and hanging up...

Film -- Animation

 * Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli really loves this trope. To whit, there's:
 * Laputa: Castle in the Sky: Pazu and Sheeta -- both approximately 13-14-ish (although somewhat in their later teens if you watch Disney's dub).
 * Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea: Sosuke and Ponyo -- both five.
 * And they sail a Toy Boat.
 * Spirited Away: Haku and Chihiro -- as a shape-shifting water spirit, Haku's age is unknown, but Chihiro is explicitly ten.
 * Whisper of the Heart: Shizuku and Seiji are at least in junior high, but that still seems pretty young to be talking marriage.
 * Jonny Quest The 80's animated series had two movies Jonny's Golden Quest and Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects both of which featured Race's daughter Jesse. She and Jonny appear to be about 10 to 12 years old. She kisses him in both movies.
 * Return To Never Land Peter and Jane, as she appears to be younger than her mother, Wendy, was when she came to Never Land.

Film -- Live Action
""Mom, it's not a play date.""
 * Hook: Peter's reason for leaving Never Land and wanting to grow up was when he saw Wendy's granddaughter, Moira. His physical age was revealed to be 12 at the time, and she appears to be the same age.
 * I Could Never Be Your Woman The movie's main plot involves Michelle Pfeifer's character dating a much younger man, while the sub-plot revolves around her daughter being involved in this trope.
 * Independence Day Patrcia Whitmore, the President's daughter, and Dylan Dubrow, Steven Hiller (Will Smith's character)'s stepson, though it's kept very chaste.
 * The Karate Kid, the 2010 remake. Dre Parker and Mei Ying are both about twelve. It's cute for the most part, though some reviewers found the speed with which they get to kissing each other on the lips disturbing.
 * Knowing Caleb and Abby.
 * Little Manhattan This is the entire plot. Cutest. Romantic comedy. Ever.

"Daniel: Aren't you a bit too young to be in love?
 * A Little Romance is all about this.
 * Love Actually Eleven-year-old Sam and his Love Interest Joanna. Lampshaded:

Sam: No?"


 * Forrest Gump Jenny and Forrest as children.
 * Mean Girls Cady (Lindsay Lohan) reveals in her narration that before meeting Aaron, her crush in the film, that she only had one other crush in her life, a boy named Nfume, when her family was in Africa. A flashback briefly shows her telling him she likes him. She then says it didn't work out.
 * Spy Kids 2 Juni and the President's daughter.
 * When I Turned Nine Done here and in several other Korean romantic-comedy or drama films.
 * Guest From the Future Alisa and Kolya.

Literature

 * AA Milne. Christopher Robin and Anne in a few works of his, for example "Buttercup Days" in Now We Are Six.
 * Note that, like C. R. Milne, Anne was a real person; Now We Are Six is dedicated "To Anne Darlington, Now She Is Seven And Because She Is So Speshul". In fact, when Christopher married Lesley de Selincourt at the age of 28, his parents disapproved at least partly because she wasn't Anne. One True Pairing indeed.
 * Below the Root mentions this -- very obliquely -- as a fact of life in Green-sky. In the overpopulated underground city, of course, it's taboo.
 * Brave New World It's thought of as odd if children don't explore sexuality with one another. Arguably justified because it's obvious Huxley intended the work as a dystopia and a satire, but still.
 * Truth in Television (or Literature, whatever) as most child psychologists will tell you that things like playing doctor are perfectly normal and to be expected. A child who has no interest in such is often considered out of the ordinary. The only real difference between Real Life and Brave New World is that the state facilitates this sexual exchange in the novel while playing doctor is usually done in secret IRL.
 * The Fudge series by Judy Blume entry, Fudge-A-Mania. Fudge and Mitzi. Earlier, the third and previous book, Superfudge featured sixth grade Peter at the movies with a girl named Joanna, in which they end up holding hands and his friend tease him about it afterwards, but he and Joanna aren't mentioned as continuing it afterwards.
 * Harry Potter: The first book qualifies, given that Harry, Ron, and Hermione, as well as every other character in their year introduced is 10 or 11 years old. The second book also qualifies. Additionally, in every book in the series, there are new first years admitted to Hogwarts.
 * Stephen King's novel IT is the king of this trope. During the 1950's section of the story, the six main male characters (all 11 years old at this time) all have crushes of varying degrees on Bev Marsh (also 11 years old). For most of the book it seems pretty typical for a coming of age story... until Bev decides that they all need to lose their virginities, and has sex with each of the boys one after another.
 * To make things particularly Squicky, the book describes these events with some amount of detail. Remember, these are child characters at the time.
 * Let the Right One In 12-year-old Oskar and eternally 12-year-old vampire Eli, sharing kisses and secrets and eventually.
 * The Little Vampire series by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg has Tony and Anna. He likes her, and she certainly likes him, but Anna is a 150 years old vampire, and Tony neither wants to become a vampire, nor does he want to get involved in a Mayfly-December Romance. The Movie solves this problem when.
 * Petaybee In the earlier books Diego and Bunny qualify, though by the later ones they have probably grown too old to fit.
 * Peter Pan and it various adaptations qualify, as Wendy's age and Peter's physical age vary depending on the version, as does Tiger Lily's.
 * Redwall Word of God about Matthias is that he was thirteen during the time period of the book, and Cornflower was about the same age. (Which makes the bit where Redtooth and Cluny grin at each other and make comments about her being a "pretty mousemaid" insanely Squicky.) By the end of the book, they're married, and they have a baby by the same time next year. However, they're mice, and in the later books the animals are described as ageing in ill-defined "seasons" (it's not really mentioned in the first book, it seems to be assumed that they age in years, but Continuity Drift is rife anyway), so if one wants to reduce the squick one can say they could have been the equivalent of seventeen by the time they had the baby.
 * Young Wizards Roshaun and Dairine have a little bit of this given that Dairine is 11 when she meets Roshaun, and Roshaun is... well from another planet where time reckoning is different. Helped by the fact that Dairine has experienced a lot in her life and is more mature then your average 11 year old (the same can be said for Roshaun)... then again, she's not mature at all.
 * Due to the... admittedly wonky timeline of the books, Kit and Nita are only eleven and twelve when they meet, respectively, and though they're older, shipping speculation by fans for the two started early on.
 * The Xanth series. Ted and Monica by Piers Anthony had people playing matchmaker for them since they were three.
 * Some of his other books took this trope to a truly disturbing level.
 * In the Just William books, 11-year-old William has a couple of occasional love interests, including Dorinda and Joan. Some readers ship him with Violet-Elizabeth Bott even though she is his nemesis.

Live Action TV

 * Hannah Montana Lily and Oliver, while there was plenty of normal shipping for them, and they did become a couple, one episode revealed that they had known each other since kindergarten and that they had held hands one day, though Lily insisted it was just because she had wanted to borrow Oliver's crayons.
 * iCarly Carly/Freddie in the earliest episodes. The 3 kids are just barely starting puberty, whilst it's probably Freddie still hadn't considering how massive the change was when he did, his change from pre-puberty to teen is startling and dramatic.
 * That 70s Show A flashback revealed that Eric started crushing on Donna as soon as they met, when they were about five or six. Also, in the same episode, Jackie and Kelso are shown to have been playing doctor around the same age. Kelso considers this their first date because he got farther with her at that time, then on their actual first date.

Music
""They came home, but not too late / For Anne Marie was seven, Jean Pierre was eight.""
 * Anne Marie and Jean Pierre by the Smothers Brothers tells the story of two young lovers in France who decided to run away and get married. After they get hungry and darkness falls:

Video Games

 * Final Fantasy
 * Final Fantasy VII Young Cloud and young Tifa in the past. Also, Denzel and either Moogle Girl or Marlene in the compilation.
 * Final Fantasy VIII.
 * Fire Emblem Crops up from time to time, but gets taken to extremes in Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones, where you have Amelia, who looks about 10, but may be anywhere from 10-14. She has three possible romantic supports, each with another young-looking boy, though Ewan looks the younges of the three, and as such, woos her with poetry in their A support. Ross gives her his (dead) mother's necklace, and She and Franz (who looks the oldest) make a promise to each other that's strikingly similar to a marriage vow. Make of that what you will.
 * Folklore We have Cecilia and Herve, who are very close to each other, even as young children.
 * From League of Legends 8-year old pyromancer Annie likes depressed child mummy Amumu. They're even getting matching Prom Queen and Prom King skins. (Well, nearly. Annie is getting a Prom Queen skin. Amumu is getting an Almost Prom King skin.)
 * There's a quest in which The Hero does together with Bianca in Dragon Quest V during their childhood days. While there's no obviously romantic thing going on from hunting a ghost, the arc ends with both promise to go adventure together again some day, and since she's possibly and heavily suggested to be his wife, the developers of the original game probably had this thing on their minds from the beginning.

Web Comics

 * Drowtales has Ariel×Faen. And had a bit of implied Ariel×Yaefin. Both of which started when the characters in question were ten.
 * Not only implied but it has been explicitly stated that Ariel had it going with both of them at one point. It was also stated that such behavior is not only normal but encouraged in Drow society. Which also included parents training their kids. Of course that was before the politically correct Retcon.
 * Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi has the pretty early-showing pairing of Blossom and Dexter, apparently as fourth graders. Surprisingly, it works.
 * Sandra and Woo has a (no longer just implied) toy ship involving the first title character and her best friend, Cloud, and it even includes a side plot where Sandra's best friend Larisa shows an interest in Cloud, thus making Sandra jealous.
 * The now dead comic Life on Forbez subverts this with the Normadites, who are married at birth. The two Normadites in the story, Bane and Romana, are still children, and despite being married, do not get along.

Web Original

 * Erikas New Perfume: Erika and Tim have themselves a little relationship despite each being 11. And for that matter, Erika very much not acting her age.

Western Animation

 * Adventures of the Gummi Bears Cavin and Calla is actually canon. They have a mutual fondness for each other anyway.
 * The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Sheen and Libby are implied to be dating (to some extent) during the last season.
 * ''Batman: Gotham Knights / The New Batman Adventures had Tim Drake's Robin and a one shot character named Annie in the episode "Growing Pains." It might have worked out if.
 * Chowder Panini takes her attraction to Chowder to frankly unhealthy levels.
 * Code Lyoko has Hiroki Ishiyama pursuing Milly Solovief; they are around 11 and 12 respectively. The other kids at least are teenagers; Jérémie and Aelita thread the line but both are Teen Genius (and ).
 * Codename: Kids Next Door has Numbah Four/Numbah Three, which is Canon.
 * The Flintstones: Pebbles and Bam-Bam, neither of whom can even speak yet. Thing is, according to one of the spin-off movies, they did get Happily Married. When they grew up, obviously. Another movie deals with a pregnant Pebbles about to give birth, and they have twins.
 * And they are all but Dating in the Spin-off series where they're teenagers (and their respective fathers were cops).
 * Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Mac and Goo. Hilarious given that it was the other characters who assumed a relationship while Mac had no idea what they were talking about, and Goo probably never even realized that someone thought they were a couple.
 * Gormiti the Lords of Nature Return Jessica's best friend Gina has an all-too-obvious crush on Lucas. Now, if only the normally sharp Lucas would take a clue...
 * Hey Arnold! has plenty of pre-teen UST, especially between the Mad Love-ing Helga and Arnold. There are even whole episodes where it gets damn STEAMY. Arnold's ambiguous perspective on the whole relationship was given greater clarification when Word of God later claimed he had always been in love with Helga since the beginning (it would have been revealed in the unproduced second Hey Arnold! movie).
 * Despite the fact they are only nine, all of the characters are played older. The sixth graders are played as though they're seniors in high school.
 * Helga's love/obsession with Arnold aside, there's quite a few others, and the writers didn't exactly pair the characters up (some episodes would give a character scenes with someone, while other episodes might give them scenes with someone else)- understandable, given that the characters are all (except Harold) nine, and, with a few notable exceptions, don't really think that way yet - the only other characters who had consistent Ship Teases only with each other throughout the entire show besides Helga and Arnold were Phoebe and Gerald, whose scenes were much more subtle.
 * There are lots on a less constant basis, though: Rhonda/Harold, Harold/Patty, Curly/Rhonda (which was a running thing for Curly... not always reciprocated by Rhonda), etc.
 * Home Movies Brendon and Jason each imagine they'll be married to Melissa in the future, but they're all merely friends with each other. Meanwhile, Brendon had a one-sided crush on Cynthia who hangs out with the band, Melissa has one on goalie Cho, and Jason has one on new girl Penny. None of these work out.
 * Justice League In the episode "Kid's Stuff", Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and Green Lanturn were reverted back to kids. And Wonder Woman is clearly seen nursing a crush on Batman, which she also did as an adult-but she was much more blatant about it as a kid.
 * Hilariously, the only one who doesn't get it is Superman, prompting GL to say "Man, for somebody with, like, fifty different kinds of vision, you are so blind"
 * Ka Blam!! Henry and June (see above picture) could be considered canon. Here are some examples:
 * In the episode, "Won't Stick to Most Dental Work!", after Henry returns to the show after he quit, he and June do a Meadow Run and hug. A second later, they let go, with Henry saying, "Let's not get gross, here.", and June said "Right." What does she do? She jumps right back into his arms.
 * In episode 29, June kisses Henry. How the fans complained when Nicktoons didn't re-run it!
 * In 'Your Logo Here!" Henry is playing a rock song on his guitar to get Ed the Educational Otter into a trap, when we see June looking at Henry, she has a loving look on her face.
 * The episode "The Ka Blair! Witch Project" had a scene where the duo high five, and then Henry starts giggling after (they touched hands, after all).
 * In "Great For Paper Training!", Henry looks rather intrested when he sees June without her sweater on.
 * King of the Hill Bobby has numerous relationships throughout the series, most prominently Connie, as does Joseph.
 * The Monster Allergy comics hinted that the 12-year-old main characters, Zick and Elena, have crushes on each other.
 * Phineas and Ferb Isabella has a rather obvious crush on Phineas, but it seems that Phineas is somehow completely unaware of it (in "Out to Launch", for example, she invites him to a dance with her...and then he invites Ferb so they can all go together, to Isabella's obvious disappointment). Fans of the show still believe he eventually will notice it, though.
 * One episode has Phineas looking for an adorable alien with a cute meter. Isabella keeps hinting that maybe she should leave because she might throw off the readings but Phineas says that's not possible..
 * When asked one of the creators said that even if Phineas and Isabella never get together on the show, they would start dating sometime in high school. A time-travel episode upped this by revealing that Isabella will marry one of the brothers, though it isn't guaranteed to be Phineas.
 * The episode titled "That Sinking Feeling" featured Baljeet and his childhood friend from India, Mishti, as well as more Phineas and Isabella Ship Tease. Bonus points for the episode being set on a cruise ship.
 * The episode "Isabella and the Temple of Sap" gives us Ginger, one of the Fireside Girls, and her quite vocal crush on Baljeet.
 * The Christmas Episode, meanwhile, gives him romance with a girl named Wendy, while he has also expressed interest in Isabella in at least one episode. Seriously, he's quite the Kidanova for someone so nerdy.
 * It should be noted, though, that Phineas and Ferb is only a partial case, as while the characters involved are ostensibly 10 years old, Word of God has said to not hold them to those ages too heavily, saying that canonically, they are intended to be "under 15".
 * Re Boot Enzo and AndrAIa in the second season. If you doubt this, understand that AndrAIa is a game sprite, and couldn't leave the game with him in her introductory episode. So she made a complete copy of herself and hid her on him, so she'd at least get to be with him on some level.
 * This is all out confirmed in the fourth season when she (as an adult) admits that when she met him, it was love at first sight for her.
 * Recess has TJ and Spinelli, which even had some Ship Tease in the form of Spinelli's mom claiming that the girl once had a crush on TJ. Then there's that episode where they gave each other their First Kiss in front of everyone as an experiment of sorts. One episode was essentially a Star-Crossed Lovers plot between Gus and Corn Chip Girl, due to the Interservice Rivalry between the former's Army man father and the latter's Navy man dad.
 * Rugrats
 * ...And the Rugrats Newspaper strip, as well as the episode "Angelica's Cousin" (where Angelica poses as a much nicer, Swedish version of herself to "fool" the babies), hinted that Angelica was in love with Chuckie and vice versa. The AGU episode "Project Chuckie" likewise reignited hope that Chuckie and Angelica would find it's way into that series, the episode provided new flashbacks that revealed Angelica "helping" Chuckie to overcome anxieties as they grew up together. She encourages Chuckie to join her own group, but he rejects them when they speak ill of his friends. A few extra moments following this episode kept the option viable until the series was cancelled.
 * All Grown Up It's revealed near the end of the series that Kimi had a crush on Tommy when they were eight, and there seem to be hints that she's not quite over it... Lil has also hinted she likes Chuckie a few times.
 * The Secret Saturdays There is a girl named Wadi that's been in two episodes and appears to have a thing for Zak Saturday, his parents seem to think he has something for her too, something puberty related. The two are about the same age but the chemistry is there, bigtime.
 * A bit lampshaded too, Wadi says Zak was cute, cue the fanfiction...
 * The Simpsons Bart and Lisa, despite being 10 and 7 years old respectively, have both had quite a few relationships over the show's run.
 * Tale Spin Kit and Molly, similar to the Ozy And Milli example above.
 * Timmy Time the Wallace and Gromit spin-off. Timmy the lamb and Mittens the kitten.
 * Transformers Animated fandom has a fair following for Sari×Bumblebee. He may be the size of a small car, but she practically made it official through a declaration of love (of sorts) in the opening pilot movie, and the "Human Error" two-parter shows Bumblebee to be of about the same mental age as her (and as of season 3 she looks older than her mental age, too). It may look like Interspecies Romance or Cargo Ship at first, but...
 * WITCH Irma's brother Christopher and Cornelia's sister Lillian have a bit of cute chemistry in the episode "W for Witch". Lillian is annoyed with Christopher at first (and Christopher calls her a "dopey witch"), but Christopher shares his trick-or-treating strategy with her and she becomes extremely eager to go trick-or-treating with him.
 * WITCH Irma's brother Christopher and Cornelia's sister Lillian have a bit of cute chemistry in the episode "W for Witch". Lillian is annoyed with Christopher at first (and Christopher calls her a "dopey witch"), but Christopher shares his trick-or-treating strategy with her and she becomes extremely eager to go trick-or-treating with him.

Other

 * The chilean series of daily planners Pascualina and its spin off Artilugia has had this as part of their ongoing plots. In the Artilugia series, the heroine, Aldonza della Calabaza, managed to get engaged with her crush Bruno when they were about six years old, and when she came back after a year out of the town and saw him with other (prettier) girl, she became so scared that he stopped loving her that she created the Secret Identity of "Artilugia", just to conquest his heart again. All of this, at the apparent age of nine-ten years old. Since then, she regularly goes on several more image and identity changes, just to see if he can fall in love again with her, even falling in Loves My Alter Ego dilemmas. The funny thing is that Bruno indeed still loves Aldonza because of her unique personality, and before catching on the Secret Identity Identity thing he also fell in love with every one of her strambotic self-reimagenings, even asking to his father if someone can be in love with two people at the same time.