Are there any examples of a romantic relationship between a human and a consenting sentient animal or animal-like creature (anthro) in popular media? I know it's considered taboo even if they're sentient so it makes sense that there wouldn't be a lot of examples, but I can't seem to even think of one.

DeltaFlame said:
Are there any examples of a romantic relationship between a human and a consenting sentient animal or animal-like creature (anthro) in popular media? I know it's considered taboo even if they're sentient so it makes sense that there wouldn't be a lot of examples, but I can't seem to even think of one.

Beauty and the Beast.

if you are referring to reality, I draw attention to your use of the word anthro when asking for something about reality... by our standards, all animals are ferals, there is no such thing as an anthropomorphic animal, because there is no such thing as a human-like (key word, gorillas and monkeys and etc. are still feral) animals.

If you want examples, you may want to go back to the past and try to find out. In recent culture, no one would try to sanely talk about intimate relationships between human and animal and not show bias against it. It's the same logic with other taboo topics, if you try to rationalize it then "you're just as bad as they are"... a toxic logic, but it still happens in the world where the ignorant reign.

As for personally, I have no idea. I only know of myths involving this stuff and otherwise derogatory references. There ain't gonna be a lot of legitimate examples because people made / will make fun of it.

And if the context is out of reality, like myths and whatnot, I repeat the first sentence of my second paragraph: you may want to go back to the past and try to find out. Stuff like that would be outdated in comparison to more recent trends.

Also, for a pretty short time in Wolf Children (which did have a little bit of backlash for it too, but I imagine somewhere Beauty and the Beast would also have that too).

There was an episode of Supernatural where there was this dude who was a witch who had a familiar which was black girl in her human form, but could transform into a Doberman Pinscher. In the series it's forbidden for a witch to have relations with their familiar, but the two get romantically involved anyways.

If I remember correctly Dean even makes a passing joke about the possibility of them fucking when she's in her dog form.

Also I remember there was like some sort of one-off movie on Cartoon Network where the mom of the main character fucked a KAIJU and so the resulting kid is half Kaiju and half human and the whole show is about him fulfilling his destiny and shit. They also make a few allusions toward how they copulated considering the dad is a FUCKING KAIJU and is like the size of a fucking 10 story building and the mom is just a normal human.

Looked it up and the movie is called "Firebreather".

Love across species is my favourite kind. It's quite rare to see relationships between humans and species with little to no human physical features in the media. I can't think of one right now either. I think anthros such as the Beast doesn't count. Especially since he's almost completely human psychologically.

DeltaFlame said:
Are there any examples of a romantic relationship between a human and a consenting sentient animal or animal-like creature (anthro) in popular media?

Angels With Scaly Wings has human/dragon relations. Granted, I wouldn't call it popular media.

But it's a relatively common theme in niche media, especially in science fiction and fantasy. I could think of hundreds of examples. Mostly in books and comics. Not so much in movies or TV series.

And some of it is post-transformation stuff, such as Jack L. Chalker's Well World series, where humans get randomly transformed into one of thousands of possible species. Lot of interspecies romance (and sex) ensues, but that doesn't quite count for this theme if they used to be humans, right?

You could take a look at the interspecies romance and half-human hybrids on TVTropes, but it only lists popular stuff. And most of them aren't animals.

bee movie

Genjar beat me to the TV Tropes link.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/InterspeciesRomance/LiveActionTV

My Girlfriend Is A Nine Tailed Fox = too human
anything with werewolves = always human when they get it on
Doctor Who seems to have one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/DoctorWhoS29E3Gridlock
Not sure: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TokusouSentaiDekaranger
Supernatural = a lot more than the Doberman mentioned, but it is probably all human-y

If you broaden it to kemonomimi you get a lot more in anime, like Dog Days or Monster Musume:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LittleBitBeastly
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CuteMonsterGirl
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/DailyLifeWithMonsterGirl

The growth of the "furry" trend, the fragmentation of popular media with more niches filled, the Internet, and the use of cheap CG, even by amateurs, could all help anthros bust out of comics/manga. Straight up bestiality will be more elusive.

Popular media reflects the changing times. For example, TV shows have had to adjust to the fact that almost everyone has a smart phone with at least some charge and probably an Internet connection. Maybe the best way to ensure anthros find a place in media is to create them using genetic engineering, and force them upon the world. If there were 10,000+ anthros in the world doing a variety of different things (ie. not sitting in a single internment camp) then that will be reflected in popular media. But biology is a lot more work than kicking back and jerking it to a playlist of a few episodes of Supernatural and other scattered weak nods.

Genjar said:
Not so much in movies or TV series.

Now that I think about it, that can probably be blamed on the Howard the Duck movie. The duck/human romance was so widely ridiculed that Hollywood has steered clear of that subject ever since.

Off the top of the top of my head:

Beauty and the beast
avatar
Maleficence
the Muppets
Alvin and the chipmunks
Planet of the Apes (new ONE)

Extra: Emma Watson has expressed her 'liking' for Aslan and The Beast saying:
"Sometimes animals in films are hot. I don’t know what to say.”

CuteCoughDeath said:
avatar
Maleficence
the Muppets
Alvin and the chipmunks
Planet of the Apes (new ONE)

These sound like stretches, but I haven't seen all of them. If we accepted Dances With Smurfs (Avatar), we could throw Star Trek on the list.

If it counts for anything, Lesbian Bear Storm had a sort of confusing relationship between a human girl and a bear, though the bear swapped between human / humanish form and tiny bear form.

Yes, it is actually called Lesbian Bear Storm (Yurikuma Arashi).

Clawdragons said:
Yes, it is actually called Lesbian Bear Storm (Yurikuma Arashi).

Google Translate says it's called "Lily Bear Storm". The japanese word "yuri" translates to "lily", not "lesbian".

BlueDingo said:
Google Translate says it's called "Lily Bear Storm". The japanese word "yuri" translates to "lily", not "lesbian".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_(genre)

A literal translation is not necessarily called for, and if I were you I'd be wary of relying on Google translate for this sort of application.

Clawdragons said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_(genre)

A literal translation is not necessarily called for, and if I were you I'd be wary of relying on Google translate for this sort of application.

okay

Ratte said:
okay

Yuri literally means lily. It is also the word used for the genre involving romance between women.

Considering the show is about literal lesbian bears frequently having sex with each other, and not flowers, I would say that "lesbian" is a better translation in this context than the literal "lily".

Bah. Why does everything have to turn into a dumb argument recently?

Clawdragons said:
Yuri literally means lily. It is also the word used for the genre involving romance between women.

Considering the show is about literal lesbian bears frequently having sex with each other, and not flowers, I would say that "lesbian" is a better translation in this context than the literal "lily".

Bah. Why does everything have to turn into a dumb argument recently?

because wordplay isn't like the backbone of japanese humor or anything--

Ratte said:
because wordplay isn't like the backbone of japanese humor or anything--

This get all my gold nuggets.

one would think furries might be more open to the idea of interspecies relationships/mating. but then said person would likely be proven quite wrong once the topic was brought into the realm of irl as humans are very against any form of interspecies relationship. especially if it's human x other species.

then theres the matter of bestiality when it comes to human x feral. despite how that kind of activity is probably a regularly occurring one in nature (how else would we get crossbreeds and entirely new species? i doubt they just magically, spontaneously appear.)

as for beauty and the beast, does beast really count? i mean, wasn't he still human, only made beast due to a spell revolving around the rose he guarded?

compared to irl, the world of furries seems like it would be about as pro-interspecies as you could possibly get. i mean, with furries it's probably FAR less common to see 2 of the same species together (even if you go as far as sub-species) then 2 of the same species.

BlueDingo said:
Google Translate says it's called "Lily Bear Storm". The japanese word "yuri" translates to "lily", not "lesbian".

Google Translate: bad source for translations since...since it was first made.

a literal translation does not always work. an intelligent translation from someone with good knowledge of both languages in question however would be FAR better.

heck, i still have at least 1 dragon ball super episode i downloaded where the fansub group providing the translated subs asked people to please stop using google translate at the beginning of the video. i think it had to do with the resulting crap translations driving people away from watching subbed episodes or something.

humans...all alone in the world and refusing any companionship outside their own kind. how sad

i wonder what the first reaction would be if another humanoid, sentient, species appeared on earth: acceptance or extermination? well, attempted extermination anyway.

Mutisija said:
bee movie

ya like jazz

King Kong (not exactly romantic but still)
Wolf Children
Ted
Family Guy (Brian & human women)

Nothing I could name off here...